Birth Journeys: Birth Stories and Birth Education for Moms & Pregnant Individuals
Are you looking for a podcast to help you feel confident in your birth experience?
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: Birth Stories and Birth Education for Moms & Pregnant Individuals
One Way or a Mother Episode 1: A New Podcast from Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC
One Way or a Mother is a new narrative podcast from Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC, host of The Informed Pregnancy Podcast. Each season is an intimate story of one woman, one pregnancy, and all of the preparations, emotions, and personal history leading up to the birth. Episodes feature the expectant mother along with her family, doctors, and birth work team.
In season one of OWAM, we meet Arianna who is pregnant with her second baby after a traumatic first birth experience. Follow along over 10 episodes as we hear her tell her story. She’s a mother of one who is seeking new resources and using learned life lessons to create a different, more positive birth experience for baby number two. Episodes feature Arianna and her inner circle including her mother, husband, doula, doctor, and other birth professionals who supported her process.
One Way or a Mother is an Informed Pregnancy Media original series. Season one is presented by Mahmee.
Expert care, every stage.
Meet your team of doulas, nurses, lactation consultants, and more. One team caring for the whole you. Covered by most insurance plans. Check your eligibility today at mahmee.com.
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One Way or a Mother is an Informed Pregnancy Media original series. Season one is presented by @joinmahmee.
Curves ahead: Episodes 1-3 are now live wherever you listen!
🚘 #OWAM Episode 1: Filmmaker Arianna welcomes us into her world and details her dreams for the birth of her second child after a traumatic first delivery.
🚘 #OWAM Episode 2: Husband Zach joins Arianna in telling their origin story including pandemic panic and loaded decisions about their first birth plan.
🚘 #OWAM Episode 3: Arianna discus
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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!
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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 and welcome back to the Birth Journeys Podcast. I'm your host, kelly Hoff, labor nurse, prenatal coach and fellow mom walking this journey with you. Today's episode is really special. I'm sharing a feed drop from the brand new podcast One Way or a Mother, hosted by Dr Elliot Berlin DC. If his name sounds familiar, it's because he joined us back in Season 3, episode 10 for a powerful conversation on balancing knowledge and intuition in birth. He's the host of the Informed Pregnancy Podcast and now the creator of this incredibly moving new series.
Speaker 1:One Way or a Mother takes us on an immersive journey through one family's real-time pregnancy and birth experience across an entire season. One family's real-time pregnancy and birth experience across an entire season. This first episode introduces us to Ariana and Zach, a couple navigating the emotional aftermath of an unexpected C-section as they prepare for their second birth with hope, honesty and a desire to do things differently this time. If you've ever felt pressured to do birthright or found yourself processing disappointment or trauma after birth, this episode is for you. It's deeply relatable and beautifully produced. What I love most is how it mirrors so many of the conversations we have right here on this podcast about birth vision, healing, informed choices and rewriting your story. I'm so excited to share it with you. So whether you're pregnant, postpartum or just passionate about improving birth experiences, this is a must listen. Let's dive into episode one of One Way or a Mother with Dr Elliot Berlin right here on the Birth Journeys podcast.
Speaker 2:We're a week away, or maybe not, maybe it's today, anywhere from today or two weeks from now, I think, because the last birth was the opposite of what the goal was. There's a lot of pressure on this one, a lot of anticipation, but ultimately, as long as baby comes out healthy and Ariana's healthy, and we have him and he's home, I think it's going to relieve a lot of pressure and anxiety and everything else will fall into place.
Speaker 3:That's Zach. He and his wife Ariana are expecting their second baby. Their particular story is one of a pregnancy path often traveled but seldom discussed. They've invited us along for the ride and given us front row seats. I'm pregnancy-focused chiropractor, Dr Elliot Berlin, and you're listening to One Way or a Mother, a serial podcast where we take an entire season and explore one intricate, deeply personal and circuitous pathway to motherhood.
Speaker 3:Not everyone has a formal birth plan, or even much of a plan at all for how they give birth, but those who do, whether in writing or not, have a vision of their birth, the setting, their providers and a host of other details that are important to them. A birth that doesn't go according to plan can generate feelings of fear, sadness, guilt and failure, even when the mom and baby are completely healthy. I've witnessed this experience many times with my patients. Sometimes, for example, it's a woman who wants an epidural but isn't able to get one in time, or one who chooses cesarean birth, but labor starts suddenly and moves quickly, resulting in an unexpected vaginal delivery. But most commonly I see it happen with unexpected cesarean birth, and it's particularly impactful for women who are planning little or no intervention and didn't contemplate at all the possibility of a c-section. If you or someone close to you has had this experience, then you're going to relate to Ariana and Zach Lassery.
Speaker 4:I did a lot of drugs, had a lot of sex, found myself in really strange places. I mean I should have died several times.
Speaker 3:That's Ariana, or that was Ariana. Since college, she found love and settled down somewhat. Today she's a filmmaker who writes, produces, edits and owns her own production company. A couple of years ago, she and Zach had their first baby, but things didn't go exactly according to plan. Now pregnant again and planning a better birth experience, she finds herself processing the generational and other traumas that led to her own birth, the birth of her first child and everything in between. Stay with us and everything in between. Stay with us.
Speaker 3:Hey, it's Dr Elliot Berlin and I hope you're enjoying this episode of One Way or a Mother. If you love real, raw and inspiring stories about the many different paths to parenthood, take a moment right now to follow One Way or a Mother on your podcast app. We've got an incredible season ahead and even more amazing stories coming in future seasons. And if you're looking for even more great content on pregnancy and birth, check out our Informed Pregnancy podcast. That's where we dive deep into expert insights, real birth stories and the topics that matter most to growing families. Plus, we have incredible guests like Hilary Duff, mandy Moore, kat Von D and Claire Holt sharing their personal birth experiences.
Speaker 3:For even more Informed Pregnancy, plus hosts dozens of documentaries and streaming video content focused on pregnancy, birth and parenting. You can watch on the Informed Pregnancy apps for Apple, android and Roku, or stream online anytime at informedpregnancytv. So, after this episode, follow One Way or a Mother and check out the Informed Pregnancy podcast and Informed Pregnancy Plus. Now back to the show. Mariana Lassery welcome to the show. Ariana Lastry welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 4:Hi thanks.
Speaker 3:Okay. So what the audience really needs to know here is this You're the perfect person for this. You're very easy to talk to. You have, thankfully, a very dramatic story where this would be boring. Yes, I mean if your birth was just like oh, piece of cake True. You have a great sense of humor and this is important. You don't really have a TMI button, meaning you're super open, so it's a little bit of a looser podcast, this one with no TMI. All right, let's start at the beginning. Where are you from originally?
Speaker 4:Manhattan Beach, California.
Speaker 3:How was that growing up in the beachville?
Speaker 4:Amazing. It's so wonderful. Being a kid near the beach Didn't realize it was paradise until you know you're out of it. And then you come back and you jog and there's a sunset and you're eating a bagel and Jamba juice and you're out of it. And then you come back and you jog and there's a sunset and you're eating a bagel and Jamba juice and you're like, oh wow, I am from paradise. Awesome, why did I go all the way to New York to have to learn that? But I don't know. I did.
Speaker 3:If we're going really to the beginning, do you know much about your own birth?
Speaker 4:when you were born, yeah, my mom loves to share that story. So I was born at Cedars, where I birthed Wilder and where I will birth this next baby. So it's all come in full circle. She had a hospital birth but she was very determined to have me naturally and she loves to say how she was like. She was so super fierce in defending her own right to have a natural birth. But she told me about how she had these really supportive nurses but they said you better get that baby out before the doctor comes back, otherwise the doctor's going to intervene. So my mom talks about just hauling butt to get me out of there and she did it naturally and she's super proud of the story.
Speaker 5:I started contracting at home in the morning, Like it woke me up. The contractions woke me up.
Speaker 3:That's Alex Ariana's mom. I asked her to join us to share her experience in her own words.
Speaker 5:So probably between 5 and 6 am, and I'm like, oh, something's happening, but it's not time yet. I want some breakfast. This is one thing that I forget things when you're pregnant, like you're not supposed to eat when you go into labor. But I was hungry so her dad made me, you know, english muffin and an egg and all that stuff. So I went and contractions were getting a little heavy and I ate my breakfast and great, now I'm going to take a shower because I don't want to go to the hospital dirty. So I went in the shower. All of a sudden it's like these big contractions are happening Next thing. You know, I'm on all fours and I'm throwing up. There goes the breakfast. I'm like, oh, this is more serious than I thought. So then we started timing them and they were getting to be. I think they were like five minutes apart or something. So maybe we should make our way to the hospital.
Speaker 5:And once we were there, got into the room and for two hours I did not dilate, I was only at six centimeters. And she's like you're not progressing at all. Nothing was happening. Are you sure we shouldn't break your water? Because my water hadn't broken. And I said, nope, hour and a half, nothing. I'm still at six.
Speaker 5:Within 40 minutes after that I fully dilated and I really wanted to start pushing. And then they had to go, hunt the doctor down because she was already thinking it was going to take a lot longer. Found her, she came and she's like oh my gosh, you, you know, you're 10 centimeters, but my water's broken. And so it's like but don't push, don't put. I really wanted to start pushing, but then they took a hand monitor and trying to hear the heartbeat. There we can't hear the heartbeat, oh my god. Then they started panicking and I'm thinking you can't hear the heartbeat, probably because the baby's in the birth canal.
Speaker 5:So they wheeled me into an or, and now I was not. So I was looking at her dad and I'm like don't you know, don't let it happen, do something. Like please advocate for me here. We get in there and she says I'm going to get forceps just in case. And I had this wonderful nurse and she looked at me and she said okay, I know how you want to do this, so before she comes back, you got to push her out. This nurse was amazing. She took my hands and she looked me in the eyes and she goes come on, let's go. And I did it. Wow, pushed that little sucker out.
Speaker 3:Now we know how Ariana came into this world An unmedicated birth at the hospital under threats of unwanted intervention. During her childhood and adolescence, Ariana was raised primarily by her mom, Alex, in Manhattan Beach, California, after Alex and Ariana's dad divorced. While Ariana strikes me as serene and mellow, she was a rebellious teenager who experimented a lot during her younger years.
Speaker 4:I wasn't always so mellow. Definitely not as a teenager.
Speaker 3:Really what happened as a teenager I?
Speaker 4:think I was a teen from hell, especially for my mom. I had a lot of daddy issues and loved to experiment, was rebellious. I'm naturally anti-authority, so the whole thing was just a bit of a mess, but somehow I made it to college.
Speaker 3:Oh, you made it through.
Speaker 4:I made it through. We're all alive, it's fine.
Speaker 3:Is your dad not in your life at all.
Speaker 4:No, he's not. I welcome it if he'd like to be. I see him maybe once a year at my grandma's birthdays or for different family events that are on that side, but no, no.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 3:So is that still something that comes up for you Like in terms of issues?
Speaker 4:Not really. I did think about that for the birth, for Wilder's birth, my first birth. It was a question when I transferred to midwife care which was hey, do you have any lingering trauma that might come up when you're giving birth, when you're in this really vulnerable state? And I thought about that and it never. Really it doesn't trigger me any longer. It was so long ago and I think I dealt with the brunt of it through my other relationships and then also going into the relationship with my husband. All that stuff got worked out. I was really insecure, a terror, we had fights, it was all kinds of stuff that got worked through. But now when I see him I'm not triggered at all. I only have love for him. If he wanted to have a relationship I'd be open to it, but it's really it's not my call, it's a two-way street.
Speaker 3:So do you see any of him in you?
Speaker 4:I do see some of him as just facial expressions and sometimes voices that will come from me, or I see in my son and it's wild to see but it's not a bad thing, but I do see it in. When I can get a temper, I definitely that's when he comes out. So I do feel like I have tempered my temper because it reminds me of him.
Speaker 3:You grew up in Manhattan Beach and then, after nine years old, were you still in Manhattan Beach. Yes, so all through high school, all through high school and then you went from Manhattan to Manhattan.
Speaker 4:I did New.
Speaker 3:York City, here we come.
Speaker 4:Here we come.
Speaker 3:What brought you to New York?
Speaker 4:I fell in love with musical theater randomly. I I loved theater since a young age, maybe eight. I wanted to be an actor. I was obsessed with it, thought it was so cool, went to acting camp in the summers at the Santa Monica Playhouse, was just enamored with the whole thing. My mom worked in the industry. She worked at Paramount Studios when I was growing up and then owned her own production company. So I grew up around the law and thought it was just the most amazing thing and what I saw was actors. So that's naturally what I gravitated toward. And then I found out that I liked to sing too. And then I think it was my junior senior year I was like I want to be in musical theater and it was a new obsession. So that's what really brought me to want to try out to be at NYU. And I only wanted to go to NYU and no other college.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Very specific, saying how there's so many colleges to go to.
Speaker 4:Very specific. I said NYU or bust.
Speaker 3:Why NYU? Was there somebody you knew that went there?
Speaker 4:You know, they asked me this in my interview, which I didn't even know there was going to be an interview when I went to my audition and I said I fell in love with your website.
Speaker 3:So this important what we put on that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so that was my reason and I, I don't know. I just had a calling. I have no idea why. I think it was just to me. The end, all be all. For whatever reason, I couldn't find a better alternative for myself.
Speaker 3:But he had a better website than NYU.
Speaker 4:No, it looked really pretty because of Washington Square Park, just gorgeous.
Speaker 3:Did you?
Speaker 4:pursue singing separate from acting or was it a combination musical theater only? The audition was a combination musical theater only and I didn't get into that program. I got into the experimental theater program, which also was very voice heavy, dance heavy, body movement heavy, which I realized was a better fit for me in the end, like all my all our teachers did a lot of experimenting and drugs in their youth and perhaps not in their youth and they had been around the block multiple times. They had awesome approaches to acting and moving your body and experiencing the world and it was really just an incredible experience. Yeah, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Speaker 3:What is the definition of experimental theater?
Speaker 4:Man, your guess is as good as mine. It's everything and anything from downtown theater to, for example, you could do a senior project at the end if you chose to, and you could make something. Something you could make experimental theater. And one of our graduates made a sport, so circle rules football. He made up a sport. Other people put on full-on productions, from like gender-bunding streetcar to just getting naked on stage and painting yourselves Anything really.
Speaker 3:It does sound quite experimental.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:Getting back to that original question, you didn't pursue singing as a singer or dance as a dancer.
Speaker 4:It was all one big experiment, it was all one big thing and that that led me to ultimately, after school, realized that I just liked making art and being a part of making art, and that was it. It didn't matter in what capacity, way, shape, form, I liked creating it, I liked helping other people create it. Yeah, making other people's visions come to fruition, coming up with my own visions, if I had something to say at any given point, so that's just. It's really the nature of experimental theater is very collaborative.
Speaker 3:So you're an artist that likes to work in a puzzle.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, that's great yes.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I just read that on the NYU website. So you're about seven months into your pregnancy second pregnancy and we're just talking a little bit about your very interesting background growing up in Manhattan Beach Paradise, becoming the daughter of a single mom at nine years old and testing your mom's limits through high school and then going off to NYU to study experimental theater because they had a pretty website.
Speaker 3:Yep Sums it up, but then it sounded like at the end you were saying like yes, I like that, but I almost like you were saying you like to help other people create their art.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yes, I mean, unless I have something that I'm really passionate about that I want to take a lead on, but I'll help anyone do anything. It's just a joyous thing to do is create art with people and come up with an immediate community, and it's almost like growing a family and then you know, then that process ends and you start over again. It's just, it's very fun.
Speaker 3:Very intense. Did your wildness of maturation ever become an almost problem for you?
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, totally yeah. I mean, I should have died several times, I think.
Speaker 3:From what.
Speaker 4:From just my escapades, I would say the situations I got into. I did a lot of drugs, had a lot of sex, found myself in really strange places, places with, I would say, if you've ever seen the show Euphoria.
Speaker 3:It didn't quite go as far as this last season, but it was pretty close, Based on a real story. You're saying so as a teenager. Ariana was recklessly adventurous, but she lived to tell the tale. Lucky for us, she isn't shy about sharing the juicy details. You're going to want to hear this. We'll be right back. Welcome back to One Way or a Mother. Ariana's teen years before motherhood were filled with sex, drugs and rock and roll. Life was spinning dangerously out of control, so how did you bring yourself out of that?
Speaker 4:Going to college and meeting new people and meeting new friends. I just entered a new phase and meeting new people and meeting new friends I just entered a new phase and becoming intellectually curious and artistically curious and having somewhere to channel that energy all the time was really helpful and feeling like I had a community to share that with instead of having to seek it out outside of school. So it was school, so that, I think, really helped a lot.
Speaker 3:Just sounds like you had a tremendous amount like inside you bursting to come out.
Speaker 4:Yes, definitely For sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, almost like childbirth Okay.
Speaker 4:I was trying to think of a joke, but you got to it first.
Speaker 3:Do you?
Speaker 4:have any regrets? Okay, I was trying to think of a joke, but she got to it first. Do you have any regrets? I have one regret and it's from I think it's from high school. Yeah, it's from like early high school. My girlfriend asked me to go to a party and I was too afraid to go, and I regret that. And that's the one regret. I have Not what I was expecting. No, I know it's because I made the decision out of fear and I think that also got me into trouble. I think that's may have. What caused the mayhem was. I said no to that because I was afraid, so then I started saying yes to everything and that's how I got into my escapades. But no, I don't regret any of it.
Speaker 3:Then you leave New York.
Speaker 4:Yes, after five years of being there, I, yes, came home. My parents were living in Long Beach at the time, my mom and stepfather. I called them my parents, and I was there for six months and helped them move out of their house and then I was out to find a job. I reached out to all these contacts. I reached out to people I knew through my mom, people I knew through growing up, and they were like don't you dare be asking me for a job, you better just start making stuff. Blah, blah, blah. And I was like I need to make money to afford to live here and do that stuff. So it was a pickle. So I ended up working in the service industry for, I think, a year.
Speaker 3:Did that afford you what you needed to get your own place?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yes, and also then I got to work on projects and start doing film and TV and stuff. But on my own time.
Speaker 3:After about a year of waiting tables, Ariana was able to get her own place and even find some time to make art. Enter best friend Zach from NYU.
Speaker 4:My now husband, who was my best friend at the time. He came out to LA. We're sitting by my parents' pool and he said if you could do anything every single day, what would you do? And I said I would write and I would do yoga. And he said okay, cool, I think you can do that. And I said okay. So we made a pact. We sat down and wrote each other this promise. He said I will write and direct something. And I said and I will help you make it. And we both signed it and within a year, we had made our first short film together.
Speaker 2:We were very close friends in college. She introduced me to the world of music festivals and mushrooms and things, so she was very influential in that way. In my life we've always remained very close and then at one point for the first time we were both single at the same time and I guess there was underlying tension that I didn't realize was there and then it just blossomed no, it was not love at first sight.
Speaker 4:I walked in I thought, oh man, there are no cute guys here. He walked in he was like, oh, that girl's really cute talking about my friend. So they dated. Yeah, they dated for years actually. So I knew I liked him. I think we were sitting in an apartment somewhere, it's just like a couple weeks after had met and I remember staring at him and he was just quietly like sitting in the corner and I was like man, he's so thoughtful and weird. I think I love him and I called my best friend at the time and I was like I love him, but he likes my friend, my friend likes him. What do I do? And she just told me to bury it. She said bury it. I said what do I do? And she just told me to bury it.
Speaker 3:She said bury it. I said okay, so I did for four or five years. Yeah, that's crazy because, like we know what happens when you bury stuff, because it always teenager yeah, definitely weird and thoughtful.
Speaker 4:yeah, that was just what drew me to him. So after that we were just really good friends and best friend eventually best friends and he came to visit me in LA after I moved and whenever I was in New York I would hang out with him and we just went from there. And eventually, in 2014, he came to visit and we were out dancing one night and we had our first kiss and I smelled his beard and told him on the dance floor that I smell my babies on you.
Speaker 2:Yes, she did one time, not one time, multiple times say that she could smell her babies on my beard. You know, we started dating and it was pretty clear after a year that we were likely going in it as long as we could keep it together. We were going in it for the long haul. I remember I had dinner with my aunt and Ariana and a couple other people and after the dinner we were only been dating for actually, I don't even think we were dating at the time, we were just friends. And my aunt asked me why we weren't dating yet and I said I don't know, we're just friends. And she said yeah, because the moment you date her you're going to marry her and I was like oh, okay, if you say so.
Speaker 2:it turned out she was correct. I always felt very comfortable with her, like I had known her forever to me and I was always dating other people when we were friends. So it never really crossed my mind that I guess that's not true. It did, but I tried to not have it cross my mind. I would say I always knew we were going to be very close and then when we were both single and started dating, it became clear that I couldn't. I couldn't live without her.
Speaker 4:Three years later we were engaged, and then, eight months after that, we were married.
Speaker 3:After love and marriage, Ariana and Zach pursued the proverbial baby carriage.
Speaker 4:Growing up in his family was really fun. He's one of five and his family's awesome and he loves having a ton of siblings and his parents are still together and they're great, so he had a wonderful experience with that and so I think he always wanted a lot of kids and I with that, and so I think he always wanted a lot of kids and I my my dad's side of the family was huge and so I always liked that energy and I always wanted to continue that and I didn't get the opportunity to grow up with siblings so I thought how fun would it be if we created that for ourselves. But the whole like okay, this mental shift of we're going to, we're really ready to start a family now, we both mentally shifted and it immediately happened.
Speaker 3:The journey continues in One Way or Another. Episode 2.
Speaker 4:I had so much pain in my body in my legs and glutes and back area the entire time, it was just excruciating. It would keep me up at night.
Speaker 6:It would wake me up at night so I was used to being woken up by my body in pain and having to sort of like manage it and try to go back to sleep, so I didn't think anything of it. Thank you. Was the sound engineer at Pacifica Studios. Nikola Terebovich was the audio engineer, story editing and sound mixing by Mallory Edson. Theme music composed by Guillermo Silva. Juliette Lamar was a contributing editor. Special thanks to Ariana Zach and their family and the providers for sharing their birth story. One Way or a Mother is an original production by Berlin LLC and the Informed Pregnancy Project. All rights reserved. Thanks for tuning in.
