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Today I’m welcoming a former student from the 'Your Body, Your Birth' and 'Induction Course,' who shares her two contrasting birth stories. Kelsey shares the highs and lows of her two pregnancies, including handling a rare umbilical cord diagnosis, advocating for a later induction, and how her first birth taught her valuable lessons for her second. From overcoming postpartum depression to preparing her support system, Kelsey's journey is a testament to the power of preparation and resilience. Tune in to hear how she navigated the rollercoaster of emotions and experiences to find joy and empowerment in her births!

Helpful Timestamps:

• 02:38 Challenges During Pregnancy
• 07:50 Induction and Birth Story
• 13:34 Postpartum Struggles and Overcoming Challenges
• 20:09 Preparing for the Second Pregnancy
• 24:56 The Second Birth Story Begins
• 26:52 Intense Contractions and Doula Support
• 29:48 Hospital Arrival and Birth
• 38:34 Post-Birth Complications
• 44:08 Postpartum Reflections and Sibling Bonding

About your host:

🩺🤰🏻Lo Mansfield, MSN, RNC-OB, CLC is a registered nurse, mama of 4, and a birth, baby, and motherhood enthusiast. She is both the host of the Lo & Behold podcast and the founder of The Labor Mama.

For more education, support and “me too” from Lo, please visit her website and check out her online courses and digital guides for birth, breastfeeding, and postpartum/newborns. You can also follow @thelabormama and @loandbehold_thepodcast on Instagram and join her email list here.

For more pregnancy, birth, postpartum and motherhood conversation each week, be sure to subscribe to The Lo & Behold podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you prefer to listen!

👉🏼 A request: If this episode meant something to you, would you consider a 5 star rating and leaving us a review? Yes, we read them, and yes, they help keep L & B going! ♥️

Connect with Lo more on: INSTAGRAM | TIK TOK | PINTEREST | FACEBOOK 

Disclaimer

Opinions shared by guests of this show are their own, and do not always reflect those of The Labor Mama platform. Additionally, the information you hear on this podcast or that you receive via any linked resources should not be considered medical advice. Please see our full disclaimer here.

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Produced and Edited by Vaden Podcast Services

Motherhood is all consuming.

Having babies, nursing, feeling the fear of loving someone that much, and there's this baby on your chest, and boom, your entire life has changed.

It's a privilege of being your child's safest space and watching your heart walk around outside of your body.

The truth is.

I can be having the best time being a mom one minute, and then the next, I'm questioning all my life choices.

I'm Lo Mansfield, your host of the Lo and Behold podcast, mama of four Littles, former labor and postpartum RN, CLC, and your new best friend in the messy middle space of all the choices you are making in pregnancy, birth, and motherhood.

If there is one thing I know after years of delivering babies at the bedside and then having, and now raising those four of my own, it is that there is no such thing as a best way to do any of this.

And we're leaning into that truth here with the mix of real life and what the textbook says, expert Insights and practical applications.

Each week we're making our way towards stories that we participate in, stories that we are honest about, and stories that are ours.

This is the lo and behold podcast.

I have got a birth story for you today.

For today's episode.

I had brought on Kelsey.

She was actually with my students in your body, your birth, and she also was inside of my induction course as well.

you will find in her two stories that she was really able to utilize both because her two stories are not super similar and they did kind of progress and go differently.

Really starting inside of her pregnancies and then throughout the birth and the postpartum.

So I love when you guys come on and you can share stories that are really different.

'cause I love hearing like what you pulled from one story to the other, what wisdom you brought forward, what you wanted to change, what you didn't wanna change.

And Kelsey's stories today are a great example of that.

So let's get into

those two stories with her.

Hey Kelsey, thank you so much for being

here with me today.

Why don't you go ahead and give us kind of more personal introduction of you, your family, your life, and then we'll just get into your birth stories.

All right.

I'm so excited to be here.

Thanks for having me on.

Yes.

So like you said, my name is Kelsey.

I originally grew up in California, but within the last 10 months or so, within the last year, we moved to Seattle and I live here with my son, my two, almost two and a half year old, and my two week old.

So we are just adjusting to our brand new life here.

Lots of big changes in last year, but I'm so happy to be here.

I love having the really fresh perspective on here.

I had a student alo come, come on and share, and right after her birth I said, do you wanna come on now?

And she said.

Not yet.

Like give me some time to process because I think there's the people who are like, yes, it's right here and I wanna share all of it before I forget, or whatever.

And then there's the people who are like, no, I need a little bit of space or time and, and then, you know, I'd love to share.

So it gets really fun to have that really fresh perspective.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we're gonna share both of those stories, like we talked about before.

Why don't you just kind of get into the beginning of that first one and even getting pregnant or sighting you wanna have kids or however that looked like for you guys.

So my husband and I got married in 2019, and we decided to wait a couple years to get pregnant, but I always knew that we always knew that we wanted kids.

And at the beginning of 2022, I was like, okay, it's prep time.

So I met with a nutritionist.

I started tracking my cycle.

I was taking my temperature every morning.

And then by July when we finally decided, okay, it's go time, I'd had like six months of data collected.

So we actually got pregnant really quickly.

Partially due to luck, of course.

And then also I think just knowing like the exact day I ovulated and everything.

So that was July, 2022.

That part was easy.

And then the pregnancy was not so easy.

I get very sick in both my pregnancies, but the first time really.

Took me by surprise.

I was vomiting multiple times a day, starting from five weeks until about 18 weeks the first time around.

And.

So it at least I was expecting some nausea, but it's still like, yeah, the constant vomiting took me by surprise.

And then at the 20 week anatomy scan is when we got some not so great news that kind of flipped the whole pregnancy on its head.

Everything with baby looked good overall, but the maternal fetal medicine doctor that FM came in and said.

Hey, I hate giving this diagnosis, but your baby has something rare called an umbilical vein varix, which essentially means that there's like a bubble in the baby's umbilical cord on the inside.

So when it inserted into the baby's belly button, there was a bubble in that vein that, as she put it, leads to a higher risk of stillbirth.

And that, just hearing that word was like really scary in the moment.

My husband and I tried to stay really calm, but then we went home and cried our eyes out and looked up everything.

Yeah.

And she had warned us in advance like, don't Google this, but of course you Google it and you see all these horrible things.

But as we talked more with our doctors about it, it just meant that we were gonna need a lot more monitoring.

And I guess I should explain that.

The, the bubble could lead to clotting because the blood doesn't flow as smoothly through it.

Right.

We would have appointments pretty frequently from the 20 week scan until 32 weeks, I think, like every three weeks.

We were getting gross scans.

We had to have a fetal echo where they check on the baby's heart.

That was like an in-depth one hour scan.

So it was just, there was a lot.

And then starting at 32 weeks, we had two to three appointments a week with a biophysical profile and an NST.

And then one of the things that actually like impacted me the most when we got that diagnosis is the MFM said, you're gonna be induced between 37 and 39 weeks.

And I had always dreamed of having an unmedicated, completely like spontaneous, natural birth.

So this was like a really big.

Shock and something that I grieved a lot, just grieving the last loss of a normal pregnancy and the loss of the delivery that I had always wanted.

But eventually, like as we got further into the pregnancy, all of his scans were coming back pretty good.

We did get sent to labor and delivery a few times 'cause he kept failing his NST, which was I think just stubbornness now, knowing his personality.

Yeah.

But we were able to keep going and I was able to advocate throughout that process, Hey, I wanna go as late as possible.

I want the 39 week induction.

He is showing like that he's doing well.

During that time, I actually took your class low, your body, your birth, and I also took the induction class, so mm-hmm.

I felt really prepared to just advocate, and asked that we, we wait.

And so eventually they did agree to the 39 week and then we went into our induction day and that kind of leads into

the birth story.

Yeah.

Yeah, let's get into it.

I mean, I think you set us up really well.

I all of the, the bpps and the NST and all of that, just in case people aren't familiar with that.

The NST is when you go in and we put the monitors on and basically it's like heart rate contraction, kind of what you might be thinking of when someone's going in and getting baby checked on the BPP is adding in an ultrasound and the NC, it becomes a lot more, and so I'm just.

It's not like a quick 20 minute in and out.

Like I'm sitting here thinking you were in there two to three times a week, multiple weeks in a row, and you talked about mourning the loss of a normal pregnancy.

And I think that's such a significant part about pregnancies like this, is that you have stepped outside of the bound of normal and normal pregnancy feels.

Hard enough as it is.

Right.

And you added a lot more appointments, a lot more hours, a lot more time away from like work practically speaking and things like that.

So just, yeah, what I imagine you were ready to meet the baby because all of that was so much in your brain and heart, and then also battling the like, I don't really wanna be induced.

So just such a juggle there as you kinda walk into your induction.

Yeah,

and like you said, it's, it's not a 20 minute scan, like the Bpps usually ended up being close to an hour, and yeah, we'd have to wait and be like, oh, has he had the normal amount of practice breaths yet?

Has he done the average kicks and that whole time.

I know in the back of my mind that if he fails this and we have to get sent to labor and delivery mm-hmm.

He fails again.

This baby might need to come out right now because failing it means that he's not doing well inside me.

Right.

And they, they kept repeating that he is safer outside of my body than inside.

Once he's like fully cooked and if, if they see any signs of turbulence.

So it was, it was a stressful pregnancy.

Turbulence.

Turbulence.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well let's get into the, the induction.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it was a lovely induction.

I'll, I'll just say that from the very beginning I had been very nervous, because I've heard all these horror stories of mm-hmm

your

body's not ready, it's gonna take a very long time.

And when we first came in, it was a Monday at about 7:00 PM and they said.

You're at a zero.

Like you're gonna be starting from scratch here, and we're gonna start you with Cervidil.

We'll give you the dose.

I don't know what the right terminology is.

They'll start me on cervidil tonight and then we're probably gonna need to do that.

Three to four more times.

They like prepped me from the beginning.

So every 12 hours they had said that they would give more to try and get my to ripen my cervix.

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, oh great, I'm gonna be here for days.

Like this is gonna take a really long time.

But by 5:40 AM the next morning, Aiden, who is my almost two and a half year old, decided he was gonna break my water and get things going on his own.

Nice.

And I, I still don't know if that was really just him or if it was the CIL causing like some contractions and getting things going, but the water broke on its own.

And it kind of kickstarted everything into pretty fast gear.

They did check me one more time after it broke to see I, I guess I had asked to adv, I advocated to hold off another interventions to just see how my body progressed.

Mm-hmm.

And after a couple of hours.

They checked me and they're like, you're at a one like this hasn't actually moved along.

But I was having pretty intense contractions ever since the water had broken.

So they started pushing for Pitocin pretty quickly and I continued to push back like, let's just see what my body does, but by about.

One in the afternoon.

So five 40 to one, like the contractions were really painful.

And according to them, I wasn't really making any progress.

So I agreed to let them start Pitocin.

And I got the epidural pretty soon after that because I was like, these are painful enough.

I don't want to experience it with Pitocin too.

And then after they, after they got the epidural, they checked me again.

They're like, oh, you're at an eight now.

So I don't really know what happened between you're on a one and you're at an eight.

Yeah.

And we need to start all these interventions, but I was grateful that I was that far along.

Mm-hmm.

And they put me into the throne position, to help me just kind of get baby down.

And at five 10.

They said, okay, you're complete.

You can start pushing.

And by five 40, so less than 30 minutes of pushing later mm-hmm.

Baby was out and it was gorgeous.

And not at all the, the long period.

That I had been expecting.

Yeah.

I did ask when I was pushing for a mirror, actually my husband reminded me like, Hey, do you want a mirror?

Because he had known my birth plan in advance.

So they brought one in and I was able to like use that to watch my progress as baby was coming out.

And then.

Right before the final push, my OB says, Kelsey, do you wanna deliver him yourself?

And I was like, hell yeah, I do.

So I bent over and I was able to pull out his shoulders myself, like once I had done the final push and pull him onto my chest.

And it was just so, so special, like mm-hmm.

Being able to do that, was beautiful.

And I, I wrote in my journal that day, and I had recently looked back on this.

I'd said, I did so many things I thought I wouldn't and that I would feel so bad about, but it all worked out and I have my beautiful baby boy in the end.

And like that's, that's the feeling that I still carry to this day.

It wasn't the birth that I had envisioned, but it was perfect for us.

And it was really only 12 hours from 5:40 AM to 5:40 PM of labor.

Yeah, which is relatively fast for an induction.

So I was, I was just really happy with the whole experience.

Yeah, I mean, I love hearing the book.

I'm gonna say like quote unquote positive birth or induction stories like you kind of said when you started, because I think we hear the negative ones a lot more, but inductions can go well and they do go well, and it's just important to be able to hold both and know that like as we're teaching each other, encouraging or sharing, like if someone else is walking into an induction, maybe one they don't want, they need to know that they also can go well and that they can be hopeful and kind of navigate that line in between.

It can be tough and they also can go really well.

Yeah.

Just kind of setting expectations more fully, I think, for people.

And I think birth,

birth education is a huge part of that too.

And just knowing what, what you can expect and then how you can navigate the different options that they're throwing at you, especially in an induction when there, it's gonna be more interventions, knowing, okay, this is what Pitocin does, or My water broke, here's what I, how long they'll normally.

In retrospect, maybe I would've advocated for more time since I did go mm-hmm.

From one to eight so fast.

I don't know at what point that changed.

Yeah.

And if the Pitocin was really needed, and then maybe I wouldn't have gotten, gotten the epidural if I didn't have.

Like if I'd gotten checked before, like there's just a lot of what ifs, but it all was, was beautiful and great.

Mm-hmm.

So, yeah.

But it did lead me to making a lot of changes for my second birth, which we can get into.

Yeah.

Is there anything you wanna share about that first postpartum or feeding baby or recovery?

And then, and then we can jump from there to getting ready for another baby.

Why don't you do the postpartum stuff?

Absolutely.

So I am like a huge proponent in knowing what you're getting into and all the different possibilities.

So I ended up getting postpartum depression with my first baby.

And we had known signs of baby blues and things like that, but I could tell pretty early on that the feelings I was having was much more than just regular baby blues.

So Aiden, my, my first was.

Challenging as a newborn.

He, we had had the, like all the stress from the pregnancy.

I think I carried that in with me into the postpartum experience.

But then Aiden also, we soon found out, had gerd, so reflux but with pain.

He also had a dairy allergy, which might have been causing some of the reflux.

He.

Had symptoms of colic and would just cry all day long, and the feeling of overwhelm that I had was so powerful and like I just threw myself into figuring out what was going on with him.

But I didn't ever stop to give myself any kind of break like it was.

A hundred percent I need to help my baby.

And no time for, hey, I need to take a step back and have some space to just go sit in a room without a baby crying.

Knowing that, being able to think through everything that I needed for me and for my baby, and asked for more help.

I had been hesitant to have my mom help us hesitant to like.

Ask for a meal train or whatever.

So we were just trying to balance it all, all by ourselves, and it was impossible.

So within a couple weeks, I started therapy and when that wasn't making a big enough impact, my therapist suggested that I start Zoloft.

So I did that.

A little bit later, later.

I think I was four months postpartum when I started that, but eventually between those things, asking for more help and then also just maybe getting bigger and starting to outgrow some of the, the harder things.

We, we started thriving more and I'd say about six months is when I felt like, okay, I, I've got things more under control now.

Mm-hmm.

Was there anything going on with feeding as well during all of that?

I know sometimes breastfeeding at different, yeah, postpartum depression, anxiety can kind of hand in hand exacerbate each other it, if that makes sense too.

It did.

So I exclusively breastfed for a whole year.

Okay.

And I was super proud of that, but mm-hmm.

It was not an easy journey because I think the reflux and the dairy allergy were the two biggest factors.

Yeah.

But whenever baby would feed, I'd be worried, is he eating too much?

Is he not getting enough because he just spit up however many ounces.

I also had to personally cut dairy out of my diet for that whole year, which was very challenging, not fun.

Yeah, but it was, it's just the stress of not knowing what your baby needs and how you can help and.

If he was having a really bad day, I would be hard on myself.

Like, did I have a slip?

Did my chai latte this morning accidentally have milk in it?

When I ordered it from the coffee shop, did that salmon that I got from the, the corner store, like, did that have any dairy in the salad?

Like there was just so many questions.

Mm-hmm.

But we, we pushed through, I ended up going to more of an exclusively pumping.

A few months in rather than just nursing all the time, because I was able to track more how much he was getting.

Mm-hmm.

He always gained weight appropriately, but it was.

More reassuring to me to see how many ounces went into that bottle and then mm-hmm.

Estimate how many ounces came out of him because it was, it was projectile reflux.

Like he would Okay.

Spit up two feet in the air and you just see this huge quantity of milk on the floor and go.

Was that the whole feed, was that none of the feed?

I don't know.

Yeah.

Definitely.

So he, he put us through the ringer for sure.

Yeah.

And he still does, he's a, a

little boy thinking about like him projectile vomiting because, including me, like you see these reels or YouTube videos and it's a baby kind of like spitting up, right?

And you're, you're seeing kind of normal spit up and maybe they're happy, spitter, blah, blah, blah.

And then you don't really get education when you're like, but my kid is like launching, spit up across the room.

Where's the video on that?

Is that normal?

Because that's just not typically what you see portrayed in education.

It's more that like normal type of spit up and that is a little extra.

He was being a little extra, so a little extra.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

We went to the ER when he was nine days old because we called the pediatrician.

We're like, he's, he's vomiting like it is spewing outta their mouth.

The concern there is pyloric stenosis.

Mm-hmm.

Which there's like a blockage in baby, so he had to go get checked out.

Thankfully, he didn't have that, but even at the time, we were actually a little bit disappointed that he didn't have that.

Mm-hmm.

Because that can be corrected, whereas all these other things is more of a long term, so.

Mm-hmm.

He.

He wanted to make sure that we did not get too confident in parent.

Got it.

He wanted to keep us on our They're at humbling us.

Yeah.

Yes, exactly.

They're really good at that.

Although, I will say when you were saying around six months, and we can use this to get into the next story that you said around six months that you felt you were starting to feel like, okay, I'm getting this.

I'm figuring it out.

That, is that also the point where you thought like, okay, when are we gonna have another baby?

Or was that later or, oh no.

When did you feel ready for that?

Because it sounds like he was a little bit tough the first year and you was a big learning curve, and so obviously you did choose to have another one and they're, they're pretty close together, so Yeah.

How'd you get to that place?

I'd say that it wasn't until well after a year, like about a year that we said okay.

Okay.

We can see ourselves doing this again.

Six months mm-hmm.

Is when I started to really enjoy motherhood.

Okay.

The first six months I was in pure survival mode.

Yeah.

From six to 12 months.

It was fun, but I was still overwhelmed.

I didn't know how we would possibly do it again.

And then I think it was about 12 months when my husband said, I think we can do this again.

If we don't do it soon, we'll probably chicken out and not do it at all.

Yeah.

I think we both had some trauma from that first year, so I said, okay, give me six months.

I just stopped breastfeeding, like, yeah, gimme six months just for myself, and then we can, we can do this again.

So we found out, I guess, should I go into the, the next part?

Yeah, please go ahead.

So we, we decided to start trying in September of 2024.

We moved to Seattle two weeks earlier, and we're just like, okay, let's, let's see what happens.

And it happened again.

We got pregnant on the first try.

We were very fortunate, but.

We just kind of like it flipped everything on its head.

We were in a brand new state, a brand new home.

Just a lot of transitions and now I'm pregnant again and I was hoping that maybe I wouldn't get as sick this time, but that was not the case.

I was very sick for 20 weeks this time around.

And, but at, at the 20 week anatomy scan this time I was.

Feeling really nervous, wondering what would happen.

But baby was perfectly healthy and it was such a huge relief and also like unknown territory for us to not have these constant scans and.

Interventions and people like just constantly poking and prodding me.

I ended up going with an OB that, many people recommended, and they said that she acts a lot like a midwife, which is true.

We would sit down, she'd have 30 minute plus appointments with us, answer all of our questions.

We never felt like we were being rushed.

And I asked her pretty early on, like, what does, what are the policies for an induction around here?

Or like, just how, how does everything work?

And she said, honestly, we won't even think about induction until at least 41 weeks.

And that was just so crazy for me.

Having had the experience of doctors telling me that 37 to 39 was gonna be the average.

Yeah.

So it was, it was a big relief and everything was just really calm this time around, but I didn't wanna take anything for granted.

So I decided to just build my village this time early on, using a lot of the lessons I'd learned the first time.

So I ended up hiring a birth doula who was great and gave me a lot of advice and support during pregnancy.

And then of course during the birth that we can get into.

We hired a night nurse this time around to come three to four nights a week.

I found a new therapist once we moved to Seattle.

I was just like, I am not going to be the shell of the human that I was the first time.

I'm going to have more knowledge, more support, and just have that village of people so that I can feel confident, throughout the pregnancy, birth and postpartum experience.

Mm-hmm.

So.

All of that prep work really paid off and I was able to actually enjoy this pregnancy and not feel the same levels of stress that I did the first time.

My therapist helped me talk through all my concerns, so I didn't have as much fear going into that anatomy scan going into the.

The postpartum, experience.

So, yeah.

For those listening, I highly recommend just thinking through everything you might want and trying to establish those resources early on instead of scrambling last minute of, I don't know what I'm doing here, please someone help me.

Yeah.

We hear that a lot, I think, with lactation, but it really does apply in a lot of ways because lactation, it's like, I'm always saying, find an lc that's in your network or whatever before.

'cause you do not wanna be looking for them when you're five days postpartum and you don't know who's in your network or they're busy, or of course they're used to accepting patients I'm sure very quickly.

But to have the numbers and know who to call so that when or if you need them, it's just Right there is, it's like a gift to yourself honestly, like you're saying.

Yeah.

The other thing, it's so valuable.

Along those lines.

The other thing that I did was get a prescription for Zoloft before.

Mm-hmm.

I, I needed it like before birth, before any of it, and it's just waiting for me at CVS.

I don't feel like I need it in this case, but she wrote it for me months ago and it is just there whenever I need it, which.

Is a huge relief.

'cause the first time around asking for that help and being like, I need to find a psychiatrist or a doctor to write me a prescription was so overwhelming and such a big hurdle to me actually getting the, the resource that I needed.

Yeah.

So had you come off it like after the first year or something with your first son and then I'm assuming you weren't on it in your pregnancy it sounds like, and then Yes.

I was not on to you.

I came off it at about nine months postpartum.

I fake

Okay.

With my first, so I was on it from four to nine months and I was like, okay, I'm feeling good.

Things are better.

I feel more in control.

I'm ready to wean off.

So I did that with the help of my psychiatrist.

Okay.

All right.

If there's nothing else about this pregnancy, why don't we do the birth?

Yeah.

So birth was two weeks ago.

So like we talked about at the beginning, right?

Fresh, and.

I went far past when I thought I would go into labor.

I listened to your, your episode low about your first birth story, and I was also convinced that 39 weeks was gonna be my date and for no reason.

Reason, right?

Like why no.

Yeah.

But 39 weeks came and went and I was getting super impatient.

Like every night I'd go to bed, I'd give my toddler a huge hug.

And then I'd wake up the next morning positively livid that I was still not having this baby.

So 39 weeks and five days I had an OB appointment and she, I asked her to check me because I was curious and just hoping that I had made some kind of progress towards getting this baby out.

And she said that I was two and a half centimeters dilated and.

Face, I think.

And I was like, okay, what are your thoughts on a membrane sweep?

And so she said that.

She normally sees success around three centimeters dilated, that that can kickstart labor.

And I said, well, two and a half kind of rounds up to three, so let's try it because I am done.

That's right.

I do not wanna have this baby inside me anymore.

And so she, she agreed and she did the membrane sleep and it wasn't painful.

I know a lot of people say it is, but in case it makes anybody out there who's afraid of it feel better.

I, I did not find it painful at all.

And as she did it, she said, oh, I, I feel you contracting.

And I was like, oh, mm-hmm.

You do.

I don't, I don't feel anything.

But it kind of got me a little bit excited that maybe my body was already working on something or she just kickstarted something.

But my husband and I went out to dinner after that appointment.

We got chocolate cake for dessert at a different little shop and just had like a lovely date night that ended up being our last one for a while because we went to bed at 9:00 PM and at 11:00 PM I woke up feeling feeling intense contractions, like things were definitely happening and I was nervous.

About whether it was the membrane sweep just causing irritation or if I was in actual labor.

So I messaged my birth doulas, and I had two of them that would switch off depending on who was available and they.

Suggested that I try these things to see if it either stalled out the contractions or made them more intense.

So first was to drink 32 ounces of water with electrolytes.

Second was to do five 32nd inversions, so go upside down on the couch.

Mm-hmm.

And then three was to go sit on the toilet for 15 minutes, I think.

Sit backwards on the toilet.

And I was like, sure, whatever.

Let's do it.

So I got up and I, I did those things and even walking around the house to fill my water and stuff, the contractions were kind of taking my breath away.

Like they were, they were already very intense.

I started timing them out and they were five minutes apart, lasting for about one minute.

I was like, oh, okay.

These are coming quickly.

They're intense.

We'll see what happens.

And by the time I had finished all three of my tasks from the doulas, they were now four minutes apart, lasting over one minute.

And the doulas were like, we're on our way.

This, like, things are happening.

So I went upstairs and I started to get dressed up.

Up until this point, I didn't wanna wake anybody up because I didn't know what was actually happening.

But once I went back into the room, my husband noticed and he got up and he starts getting things ready and goes down.

My mom had been staying with us to be our, our childcare for our toddler if and when I went into labor.

So he woke her up, she comes up into our room to stay there near the the baby.

And we're just like, okay, it's go time.

Let's wait for the doula to come.

And at this point, it's now like 1 30, 1 15 and my husband put a tens unit on my back, which was incredible, like by far the best pain relief I had.

And, I would, I would turn it up whenever I'd have a contraction.

We kept waiting and timing, and now at one 30 I was contracting every three minutes.

The contractions were lasting like a minute and 10 seconds.

And it had been two and a half hours that they were getting closer and closer together.

Mm-hmm.

So we called the doula and she's like, okay, scratch the original plan.

I'm not gonna come to your house anymore.

We'll just go meet at the hospital at this point.

So when all was said and done, we finally got checked into our room at the hospital by two 30 and triage had confirmed that I was five centimeters dilated.

Now, I was a little bit disappointed with that.

I was kind of thinking that the intensity meant that I was further along.

But they said like, you're a second time mom.

You had a pretty quick birth the first time, especially given that it was an induction.

You're here at the right time, believe us.

Yeah.

And I was like, okay, fine.

So they started checking my blood pressure and I had to sign a couple pieces of paper and when all was said and done.

They let me get into the birthing tub and I gave birth at UUW Northwest here in Seattle, and they have these gorgeous, huge birthing tubs that are big enough for like four people.

Mm-hmm.

And my doula while I had been.

Doing all the check-in things.

She put up this like starry night projector that would change colors and she had string lights.

Yeah.

And she played my birth playlist and it was just gorgeous and so serene.

So I got in the tub.

My husband got in with me, like I said, they're huge tubs and he was able to squeeze my hips during each contraction.

And he kept reminding me to relax my body.

Like he had done a lot of preparation too, which I'm so grateful for.

And contractions just kept, kept getting more intense and I, I'd been breathing through them.

I'm now moaning through them.

As the intensity like strengthened, I turned to my husband and I said, I need you to yell at me with this next contraction.

He's like, what do you mean?

I'm like, just tell me I can do this because I'm losing hope here.

And so he like tried his best, but he is not a yeller.

He is a gentle giant.

But he, he kept doing his thing and it wasn't long after that that I turned to my doula and said, can I get checked?

Can you ask the nurses to check me because I'm feeling pushy and I wanna know like where I am.

I was also really hoping that at this point I was in transition because yeah, I was having that second thought of, I don't know if I can keep going, especially if it's gonna be a really long time.

So I got out of the tub, they checked me and the nurse said, you're about seven or eight centimeters dilated.

And again, I really felt like it should be more than that, especially because I'm now feeling this urge to push.

But like I, I felt that disappointment and my doula says, look, you can trust your body here.

Like, let's not push quite yet.

But if you feel like you're ready, like let's start getting ready to push.

So I'm gonna go have you sit back on the toilet again, the dilation station and see if that can kick things along, and then we'll get you back in bed.

I was like, you're telling me that I can push even though I'm not at a 10?

She's like, just trust your body.

Yeah.

So I did.

I sat on the toilet for a little bit.

I did not push on the toilet, but once I went back onto the bed after three contractions on the toilet, I felt the fetal ejection reflex, like my body was just getting this baby out right now.

I don't know if it was the moaning that I was doing, but like the change in my voice.

But all of a sudden there were 10 people in the room.

The nurse literally grabbed an OB as she walked out of the, she was doing a C-section.

She had like, just finished.

They grabbed her, pulled her in, and one push later and baby Ethan was on the bed.

I had pushed in all fours and he just popped right out immediately.

My husband nearly missed it.

He had asked, he was like, give me two minutes.

I'm gonna change out of my wet bathing suit.

He had just barely gotten back when this baby popped out, it was so intense and so fast, but.

The, I will say that the crown of fire or the ring of fire, that was more intense than I'd expected it to be.

Yeah.

But everything else, up until that point, I, I didn't really think of as pain.

Like I had felt intensity in every contraction, but it wasn't until that ring of fire that I was like, oh, this burns.

And then they out.

Like its' done.

Yeah.

So short.

It's very short.

But yeah, he came right out and.

I was able to pull him to my chest.

He literally landed headfirst on the bed.

I was hoping someone might be able to catch him, but they didn't.

Whoops.

I think they weren't quite expecting him to come out as fast as he did.

Yeah.

But I, I pulled him up and I turned around, and it was just so great and I was, it felt like a redemption from my first time.

Yeah.

Like, I, I finally was able to get the birth that I had hoped for and also.

In my first birth, I felt so much fear once those contractions hit like I teds up and I didn't allow my body to relax and kind of like flow with, with the waves.

But this time like I was so.

Focus on just breathing and moaning through them.

That I felt really powerful coming out of that, that second birth and being like, wow, I, I did it.

I actually was able to do it and let go of all those fears that I had held in my first, my first experience through this.

It's really cool to listen to you talk about the difference between the two and fear because.

I talked about this in an episode about like pain-free birth and the fear tension pain cycle and all that.

And I think sometimes people start to think, oh, that's kind of woo woo.

Like you're getting a little silly about what does or doesn't hurt or what doesn't, doesn't, isn't connected, I guess.

But I think it's cool to hear stories when you can say no.

I like, I know I was more scared and it did feel differently, or like I was more anxious and it did feel differently and that's not, I. To say you're not allowed to be scared or whatever, but just that you could feel and kind of see the difference in the way your body and your mind and your heart were kind of processing what was going on and am I safe and am I okay?

And, and it does, I, I mean, it does change how it feels and it, and not just if it's painful or not.

Like I didn't have pain-free burst either.

Yeah.

And it sounds like yes, you felt some pain as well.

But it can change, like your ability to say it was intense.

Yeah, but not to say like I felt like I was dying, like to kind of navigate that difference.

I do think like fear and anxiety, it is really impactful in that and it's part of this conversation.

So I like hearing someone who really felt the difference in two stories.

It's cool

for sure.

And I mean, the first time I had never felt a contraction before.

Yeah.

So once it started I panicked and was like, this already hurts.

It's gonna hurt more.

Like, and now they're talking about Pitocin that's gonna like, right.

Kill me.

Like I, I so quickly spiraled into just give me that epidural.

But this time as I went through my pregnancy, I did a lot more prep work.

Of watching on YouTube, unmedicated births and seeing how people like breathe through it and move through it.

I had also done one of the tricks that you suggest of holding ice in your hand for a minute and breathing through it.

So I was just more mentally prepared going into it.

Mm-hmm.

And so once it started, it didn't feel like absolute panic at first.

It was like, okay, we're just, we're gonna see how far we can get through this process.

And the other thing that I will note, and I don't know that this, how much this affected it, but my first birth, my water broke at the very beginning.

Mm-hmm.

And that kind is what kick started with this birth.

My water didn't break until Ethan was born.

Like as he came out is when, I had my, my rupture.

So.

I've heard some people say that having your bag of waters intact makes it less painful.

Yeah.

So I, I don't know if that's true, but in my case, like it felt, the contractions felt different both mentally from the preparation I had done.

But I think also physically having that extra protection and insulation from the bag of waters instead of having baby, like just pushing right down and causing all this extra pressure, I think played a role in it too.

Yeah, it's always made sense in my head, and then I think of.

The millions of moms who would be like, no, labor hurt really bad, and my bag of water wasn't broke.

You know?

So it's like, it makes sense to me.

My bag of water with all my kids broke right at the end.

So again, like I never had that, the, the opposite again, I love that you can kind of juxtapose your two experiences.

So I only have the one thing of like, this is how it felt for me, and the bag of water was always intact.

So I'm sure that there are lots of moms who would agree with you and I can just hear the moms who are like, no.

That bag of water doesn't make it easier.

So it's personal, but you can compare your two, which is really cool.

Yeah.

Okay.

I know you are just barely into postpartum, but anything that feels like really relevant or has come up so far in these couple of weeks?

You guys have all been together.

Yeah.

Well I think this, this kind of goes back to the birth story, but it's also affected me more postpartum.

But my third stage of labor delivering the placenta Yeah.

Was problematic this time.

Right.

So I, once baby came out, I was able to hold him.

I turned around and I got on my back so that they could do all their evaluation stuff.

And about 30 minutes after baby had been born, the doctor says, Hey, we've been doing Pitocin to get the placenta out, to active management, but it's not coming.

Like there's no signs that your placenta is trying to deliver itself.

So we're gonna start doing some more things to get this moving, including more fundal massages.

And they started very gently tugging on the umbilical cord.

And I was like, just do whatever.

I don't care.

I have my baby.

Let's, yeah, it's fine.

Another 15 minutes went by and the placenta had still not delivered.

And at this point they were starting to get visibly nervous.

My doula later told me that I had started hemorrhaging a little bit.

Like there was just more and more blood coming out as that my con my uterus was contracting, but the plus percentage just wasn't delivering.

And so.

They eventually said, Hey, we're gonna need to manually extract this.

Like, you, you have a retained placenta.

The entire thing is lodged in there.

This is gonna hurt, is what they mm-hmm.

They directly told me.

And so they said, we can give you nitrous gas or we can give you some fentanyl, in, in your iv.

And I looked at my doula and was like, I just had an unmedicated labor.

I've been trying to avoid any extra interventions.

What are your suggestions?

And she was like, get the drugs.

Yeah.

Your baby is out.

This is gonna hurt.

Get the drugs.

Yep.

So I was like, okay, fine.

So we, we did the fentanyl.

They said that it'd feel like I had had a glass of wine.

I don't think I felt very different.

But all of a sudden she gloves up and just reaches her entire arm inside me up to like her elbow and just starts rooting around and I could see her arm like swooping back and forth.

And I also got, I had a second degree tear.

And they couldn't give me lidocaine until the placenta was out because there was so much blood.

So that whole time I'm feeling her tugging on my open wounds.

It was not a great experience.

I don't wanna like scare anybody, but I had never heard.

I mean, it's real.

It happens.

So, yeah.

Yeah,

it, I hadn't.

Prepared for this.

Yeah.

I had prepared for the birth, but not the post, like the, the third stage of labor.

I knew what was supposed to happen in my first pregnancy.

It, it just came out.

But all of that made it really difficult for me to have like a golden hour with my baby.

Mm-hmm.

Because I'm in pain.

I like, even though with the fentanyl.

Like it's reducing the pain.

This, the lack of stitches and lidocaine and stuff going on where I had torn plus the pressure inside me.

It was pretty brutal.

And so I didn't wanna like have my baby latched on while I'm kind of squirming and in, in this discomfort.

So that part wasn't as beautiful.

And I think even now mentally, I separate my birth experience from the third stage.

I don't want it to like impact.

The actual birth of my baby.

'cause that was so perfect.

But it, it wasn't something that I was expecting.

And so to answer your question, postpartum, I feel like I've been a lot more tender this time around than I was the first time.

I've had more cramping in my sides and just feeling like this dinner plate size scab that people talk about from your placenta detaching.

Is like extra tender this, this time around.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know if it's extra big or if it's just in my head, but I've felt much more fragile moving around.

So I've been trying to take it physically easy, and, and just allow my body to recover from that experience.

And in the end they did.

They were able to manually extract it in one whole piece.

There wasn't anything left over.

And they, they think that a part of the reason is it was all the way up at the top.

So fundal, I think is, is the term or fundus, was that the fundus?

Yep.

And so when my uterus was contracting, it just wasn't accessing that tippy top where the placenta happened to be.

And that's why they needed to, to manually go in and get it out.

So that was the less great part about my birth, but it has affected me more postpartum and just needing to be a little bit more, yeah.

Well, thank you for sharing all of that.

I'm just sitting here and I'm

like, it's been 45 minutes.

Do you just wanna go hold your baby?

She's not holding her baby while she's talking to me, so I'm like, this has been too long.

You're only two weeks postpartum.

You need to go hold your baby.

He's, he's sleeping on dad right now, so He is.

He's good.

He's happy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is there anything else?

I know again, it's only been two weeks, but like anything else you can think of, I know you said you're feeling great right now in terms of mental health, which is amazing.

Anything else that's come up or sibling introducing the siblings, anything like that?

Yeah.

I, I'd wanna give some hope to anyone nervous about going from one to two.

I know everyone has their own experience of like, it's gonna be extra hard.

How am I gonna manage everything?

What's the sibling gonna do?

And in my case, it is pretty fresh.

We're, we're coming up on three weeks soon.

But it has been so much better than every fear that I had concocted in my head.

His big brother absolutely loves him.

We've had no issues with jealousy.

He was pretty independent before.

And so I think the fact that he's not like always attached to me has made it really easy.

'cause he doesn't mind that baby is attached to me.

With, and then just like.

Again, the mental preparation.

I knew going into it how hard things can be when you're sleep deprived and you're trying to nurse and you're doing all these things.

So I just felt like it was much less overwhelming this time.

I was more comfortable, like with nursing positions, I could just get baby latched pretty easily.

I knew like, Hey, some babies fight, sleep.

Sometimes you're just gonna get through it.

It's okay if they're crying as you're rocking them.

Like, you'll, you'll get, you'll get through it and the baby will sleep and everything will be all right.

And like my mantra is just, it keeps getting better.

I, I can look at my toddler and think we went through hell and back in his first year and now he is talking and chatting and showing his baby brother his trucks.

And it's just so special to watch these kids go by.

So even though I personally find the newborn stage to be really hard, I'm really trying to soak it in and know that every day is gonna get a little bit easier.

So,

yeah.

Yeah, that's, that's my advice.

That second time or third, fourth, whatever wisdom that you pull forward, it just changes the story every time.

Yeah.

There's a piece that can't be bought.

I don't think it can be found in a course, which maybe I'm not supposed to say that since I have my own, but like the own wisdom that hard fought for wisdom that you get is just.

It's something you have to find and get and then you get to bring it with you in the next one.

And I do, I think it just like changes everything.

So yeah, I'm super proud of you.

Thank you for your time today too.

Again, I just, you look great.

You look delighted to be here and I know that having a two, almost three week old is a lot, so thank you for that.

Okay.

One fun question.

Maybe I can guess the answer, but you can surprise me too.

What's just something in life right now that is.

Just bringing you tons of joy.

It's probably the baby and the boys, but if it's something else, that's great too.

I feel like the easy answer is saying like having a sweet baby boy.

But I think honestly, it's watching my older boy just love on his baby brother and seeing that connection already grow, and I'm just, I'm so proud of him.

Every time he interacts, we have like, we haven't had any issues of jealousy and I'm sure that they will come as we have new challenges, but just right now.

I, I'm just so proud of him and it, it really makes me emotional to, to watch their, their sweet little bond grow.

It's the best thing.

I love it.

It's okay.

Well, thank you so much, Kelsey, for your time.

It was a joy to hear the whole thing and not just, you know, dms and messages.

So it's fun for me too.

Thank you so much.

I

love the podcast.

I'm excited to keep listening.

Thanks,

Fred.

Good luck.

Thanks.

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