I'm here to help you take the guesswork out of childbirth so you can make the choices that are right for you and your baby. Quick note, this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not replace your medical advice. Check out our full disclaimer at the bottom of the screen. of the show notes.

Taylor: Hi, Trish. I'm excited to talk to you too. It's, it's been great being in your class and your course and in your groups and just having this experience to talk to you one to one is a treat.

Trish: Yes. I love, I'm just going to say this at the beginning. So for those of you guys who don't know, we have a mom, I've been calling it our mama hive, like our mama membership, where it's postpartum and pregnancy. And I love. How active you are and how you're answering and sharing. And I just think it's beautiful.

So thank you so much. Yes, I love it. It's a great

Taylor: resource for me. So thank you.

She really is. She is. She's so funny too, because I am just not that stage of life where I can, I just didn't grow up in a technical state, but she has. So if we're looking for a link, she has it in like a nanosecond. I don't know how she does it. But anyway, we're not talking about that. So Taylor, I would love for us to talk about who you are, what brought you to Labor Nurse Mama and just your journey, because I feel like we were saying before we started recording, I think.

I had Grayson at 42. And even nine years ago, there wasn't a lot of women talking about having babies older, starting, of course he was baby number seven for me. So a little different, but go ahead and just tell everyone, your journey. Sure.

Taylor: I was just thinking about this post that I shared on X.

Flew of comments on the bottom being like, cause I said my age and everything to contextualize my experience. Then I had all these people saying I'm like 10 years younger than you. And I would be well more prepared than this. Like clearly you're waiting till the last minute to get all these things checked off your list.

I'm like, I wasn't trying to criticize or, say anything about me being better. Because I'm older than younger people, but I just really wanted to hold myself accountable and contextualize my experience. And that was when I found Labor Nurse Mama because I was like, birth course, I need to check this off stat.

And I did the free course what do you call it, the f Fearless birth experience, FB Fearless Birth Experience. Yes. And that was great. And I signed up for the VIP, and then I was like. I think this is my home for what I need. And Dennis and I sat down and did the whole course probably a little too late, but like we should have done it earlier, but we didn't do it before we ended up in the hospital.

And I have to say, like all the information that we absorbed crammed for was so helpful at the hospital. And it was funny though, because can I just go straight into the birth control? For sure. So I I was very I just didn't want to get induced. So my doctor had asked for me to get induced and my doctor is a high risk OB.

And, along the way, she was pretty open to a lot of my requests. She answered my questions, although she is Hard nosed, she almost reminds me of a German or something. She's very specific about her wants and her requests. But my dad was a doctor, so I know about bedside manner versus like skill sets and her skill sets are very strong.

Only this is her experience with older moms and what the research says and stuff like that. So we went into the hospital and we asked the nurse, who was very lovely. She just spent an hour with us going over my whole birth plan and answering all my questions and everything. But she said, if you don't feel comfortable being induced, then that's up to you.

You can leave if you want to. And I said since I'm, I forget, what is the test that they do to give you a score to see how your labor is coming along?

Trish: You're talking about for getting induced, like your bishop score?

Taylor: Bishop score,

Trish: yes.

Taylor: So

Taylor: said, let's, do the, find out what my bishop score is, find out where I'm at.

She was probably like, how do you know that? Yeah, exactly. So I had come all prepared to defend my decision not to be induced. And I probably forgot it all by now, but we'll work through that. And and I think I was like a two, a two or three tops and I was a centimeter. Yeah, a centimeter dilated.

And I just didn't feel ready. And so we were gonna work toward work up to talking to the doctor to convince her that I was going to leave and come back when I was a little bit closer to labor. And so she had me hooked up to the monitor. Person. I forget why she hooked me up to the monitor. Yeah. Yeah. So she did.

I realized there was like a beeping sound coming from the monitor and they're all like flipping me around and trying to hook me up to stuff. And so I really wasn't paying attention because I was preparing to talk to the doctor and fight with her about it. But in my confused state Dennis was asking questions as well.

We got the information that the heart, there was a deceleration of the heartbeat. And it lasted for three minutes and scary. Yes. And I was, I thought maybe it was a mistake because whenever I did the NSTs leading up to that, cause I did them twice a week, like the NSTs and the. The BPP Bpps,

Trish: let me interject just for a second.

Taylor: And everything had been fine throughout the whole pregnancy, and the only thing that was funny was whenever we did these NSTs, There, it's like the machine was faulty and it was hard to get his heartbeat sometimes it would fall down But it would go right back up.

And so it was like because I have an anterior or I had an anterior placenta Maybe it was just hard to get his heart. Sometimes. Maybe it was tracing you as well. Yes, exactly So that's what I thought it was perhaps that had happened in the hospital And so she explained that to me and she, like the look of terror on everyone's face, like they were all very good about, doing their job, but I felt.

Induce me. I'm all yours from now on. So that was the turning point of almost leaving and how scary that would have been if I had left and that happened. And I didn't know, and who knows if it had happened before and I didn't know. So yeah, that was like a big wake up call. And so then at that point, it was really just about stabilizing the baby.

So they wanted to monitor him for five or six hours at least before starting the induction process. So that's what we did. And the doctor was very clear that if that happened again, I would be taken to the OR for a C section for sure. So I really didn't want that to happen either. So I just tried to stay calm and yeah, have faith that everything would work out.

Trish: And how did it go with your doctor navigating that? Was she like I told you so this is what we needed to do.

Taylor: She was fine when she showed up She wasn't I even told the nurse. I was like, please tell her to go easy on me I'm you know, I'm freaking out now, but I didn't mean to you know challenge her opinion I just I didn't understand the risk to me in particular

Trish: I understand well that the thing about this about fetal decelerations is people And like you said, it's probably happened and baby has passed NSTs and BPPs.

It went

Taylor: really well because I knew what to ask for and we had gone over the birth plan, but I knew what to expect. So I really wanted to do the bulb and all those things without they didn't want to distress the baby anymore. So she was on board. She was all those things of not doing anything that was.

irreversible. Going slowly and seeing how he took to it. And that was, the bulb was what was the game changer. And I wasn't expecting that, but I was surprised at how much it induced all the labor things. And I threw up and I was in a lot of the contractions were uncomfortable. So your body was really ready.

Yeah. Even though it didn't appear to be, I don't remember what happened with the Cervidil. I think that just softened the cervix that's

Taylor: Yeah. So that was just several hours of waiting around. And then I used the positionings of things. I had the peanut ball and. I was walking around and eating and snacking. And your labor bat signal. Yes, all of that. So that was and plus the hospital was great. So everyone was wonderful, which made me feel comfortable, but I brought a lot of stuff.

I had a huge Jeep wagon full of stuff and everyone's you brought so much, you're moving in. I'm like, I'm coming prepared. I've been a part of the labor

Trish: nurse mama, so I will tell you, I had the funniest. experience one time I had delivered my patient and I came back and they were like, we're giving you a patient, but we're literally waiting for her labor, her postpartum room to be ready.

So we're walking with two tables and dad is pulling. this play yard full of things. I was like, and she had our tub room. We had one tub room. So she had wanted to labor in the tub. And same thing. She had her own birth ball, her own peanut ball, all the things filling this big thing.

So that's what I was picturing when you were saying that.

Taylor: Yeah. Luckily we had gotten this off of our registry. So it was like this nice big wagon. That's

Trish: really a brilliant idea. I should put that on my hospital checklist. You should. Absolutely. Because it can be really hard for dad to move all the things to postpartum as well.

So I'm sure that made it easier. Yes, it did. It did. I'm going to be like, thanks to Taylor. I'll send the link to you and then you can

Like I was just like basically naked most of the time. Anyway, I just got comfortable, which was awesome. And Dennis, which it means.

Trish: That's probably why all the things did go so smoothly and labor started because you had that oxytocin flow in. Yes. Yeah, I did.

Taylor: I think it, I don't know. I think the highest is like 20, but I think I got to 12 and I was, that was when labor really started.

But the induction process, I don't really consider that a part of how long I labored. Is that usually what people include?

Trish: Most people do include it, but really until you start making like active cervical change is when labor really started. That's how I feel.

So then he took a nap and when he woke up, the doctor was like, we're ready to go. So get started. And then once the pushing happened, it was like 10 minutes, yeah. So that's amazing to me. I feel like labor was. I don't know, maybe like an hour, but the real pushing only took 10 minutes.

Trish: And did you get an epidural?

You didn't, did you?

Taylor: Oh, you

Trish: did. I couldn't remember if you did or not.

Taylor: Yeah. This is the part that I was really surprised about because I had no idea it would immobilize me to that extent. And I know it's different for some people and different countries, like they do it differently, Yeah. Yeah. But I was not expecting to be like a paraplegic from the waist.

Yeah.

Trish: You shouldn't have been. That's not right. I asked the

Taylor: guy and I still have the bill sitting here. I'm like, I'm not paying this crazy bill to this guy. My doctor, my hospital bill was less than his bill. But I told him, I said, can I have a mild epidural? And he's no, it doesn't really work that way.

Trish: a good epidural, you should still, your legs will feel very heavy, but you should still be able to move them around yourself. And I, that a lot of women really hate their epidural when it's too heavy like that. So that was just him covering his ass. Oh my God. It was ridiculous.

Taylor: I just, I didn't want to stress at the time. So I just went with it. But Dennis had to, put up my leg in one stirrup and the, they put up the other leg in the other stirrup. And the only thing that So

Trish: you should have needed some help lifting those up, but you still should have been able to move them and feel them.

And Dennis was like really afraid of me being in a lot of pain and for there being any distress at that point. And. So he also was encouraging me to get it because he wanted, what they were saying was it would put me in a state of, let's say, immobilizing me, but maybe the intention was not to be that drastic, but that my body would.

Yeah, like it would only do what it would, like what it was made to do involuntarily basically. And I wouldn't fight it through the pain or something like that. That was the rationale they gave me. And so I was like. Which is interesting. Yeah. I just, I didn't want to end up Was this an older guy, the anesthesiologist?

Trish: My only concern about that for you is that you were already vomiting. Nitrous oxide can make some people very nauseated, which, That in itself is hard to concentrate and keep your mindset when you feel that sick. So when you were saying that, I was thinking Charity said she was throwing up just from dilating.

So that would have been a concern. The good thing about it is if it makes you sick, it's out of your system really quick. So it's not I don't want to scare you from trying it because it's literally out of your system when you take the mask off. So that's the thing I love about it, but women either hate it or love it.

Taylor: right. Gotcha. I didn't see, and nobody asked me about it even though it was on the birth plan, but I just didn't want to miss my opportunity for the epidural. So once I asked, they said, Now's the time because he's got a few people ahead of you.

Um, everything worked out. I just wanted to avoid the OR. I didn't want to get a c section. So that was good. So I can be grateful for that. Everything. And you did it. Yes. You did that. Everything went smoothly after that. I just was a little bit upset about how intense the epidural was. That's it pretty much.

And. I'm pushing for 10 minutes is pretty damn cool. Good. Like that's good. Exactly. So that was the easy part, but Dennis makes fun of me. He's like, when you were pushing your eyeballs seemed to like. pop out. And I was like, because I didn't know what I was doing because you can't feel anything.

So you're

difficult because you can't feel the pressure to push down. So my guess is your nurse was really good and she waited.

Taylor: Yes. She was really good. She just put me in some positions and it was like in two positions I was complete after being stuck at five centimeters for a long time. So that whatever she did, one was like the side.

Elevated. Exaggerated sideline. Yeah. There was like a, an elevated thing with my one, my leg or whatever. That worked really well. And she was so quirky, but I loved her cause she just knew what she was doing. Quirky is fun. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So I was happy with how it ended up and what was interesting was.

And she looked at it and showed me. It was nice and red, but she also said there are some signs of premature aging here. And the umbilical cord was very thin and she didn't really explain what that could mean, but I looked it up and it looks like oxygen could be restricted and nutrients.

And so maybe that was what caused his heart rate to decelerate.

Trish: It really depends because all placentas towards 40 weeks and after will start having what's called calcifications. But the result of that is a baby who is not getting oxygenated, but your baby was showing that it was passing the NSTs and BPPs.

Taylor: yes. And it was funny because we were laughing the other day.

It was almost like a magic trick because he just popped out and

Trish: then there was, I met, there are a lot of women listening to you right now going, please let me have that magic trick. Yeah. And

Taylor: he looked clean. He looked like he had a bath. before he was birthed because he didn't have any myrnics on him.

How many weeks were you when you were induced? It was 39 plus, I guess a day or two.

Trish: And did you know, I don't remember if you were IVF or not. You weren't, right? He was a natural conception. We didn't have IVF

Taylor: before.

Trish: The only reason I'm asking is that maybe you were farther along than you thought.

Taylor: Yeah.

Trish: I was in the beginning too, because I ovulated early.

Maybe. Yeah. So I bet you that could be why there was some calcification.

Taylor: Yeah, that's true. Good point. But yeah, I just thought it was funny because we both made the same comment, how like the actual labor was relatively easy. Obviously there was an epidural, but he just popped out and then we were like, wow, it's so surreal.

Next baby don't cough or sneeze. Go to the hospital. Yeah. Next baby we're thinking about cause we have a an embryo. boy in cryo with the fertility clinic. So I know they don't usually like you to wait that long when you're at my age to implant. So I might just go for it. I don't know what the recommended timeframe is.

I'm not sure either, but

Trish: this is exciting.

Trish: And baby was born. How old is baby now? He's seven

Taylor: weeks.

Trish: So I, I don't know why it feels like it's been longer. Yeah. So you delivered after Ashley, I was thinking you delivered before.

I don't know that we've had so many babies in the last two months. I can't keep up with them all.

Taylor: They're so cute. Whenever the, all the ladies share the pictures. I love it.

Trish: I know. I love it too. I love get I've told the ladies, let them in the postpartum chat. Let them hang. Help each other.

And so we snoop in there and make sure, everything's going good. But I love the conversations and the way you guys encourage each other. Postpartum is no joke. It's hard.

Taylor: Yeah.

Trish: And you know what? I was

Taylor: actually blessed with that part, which, I don't want to minimize it for other women, but I think because of my age, that was also a concern of that my body would not be as resilient.

Trish: Okay. Let's say two things though. And I'm going to say this to all age women, cause I had Grayson at 42, but I also took really good care of my body.

And I was active and I would say the same for you. So whether you're 21 or 47, if you're not caring for the body you're in and you're not remaining active, pregnancy and postpartum can be difficult, period. But the more that you like honor that body and take care of your body. So I would say just because no one's going to be seeing you, you're very healthy and I think you also take care of your body.

I think I was really, I think I walked. The fifth day. I took a walk around the neighborhood and stuff on the fifth day. I've lost my weight, all the weight. Did

Trish: you have any tearing or any hemorrhoids? Those two little bandits can cause some issues.

Taylor: Yeah, there definitely was a tear, but I don't, I didn't feel it or anything.

And did they have to repair it or no? There was a

Trish: stitch, but I didn't notice anything. I personally think that hemorrhoids are worse than the tear because I've had both. And hemorrhoids are like, ay, they're so terrible. And it makes, it, it makes getting up and down, walking, all of it difficult.

So you probably didn't have hemorrhoids either. I guess not.

And obviously you do have a transition and you have to accept and embrace all of those changes. But if you do take care of your body, not just by being in the gym, but with your diet, I think for me, I really focused on my diet. The last year and a half, two years even, because I used to be much more active and I was in the best shape of my life.

whenever that was, like in 22 was about the last I was in the gym and my body fat was 14 and a half percent. And that's what I had to change. I had to start improving my diet with fats to get more fertile. So I left the gym at that point and really just focused on my diet and walking. And so when people say, you're so healthy, I think I primed my body before, but then I really just focused on diet.

Trish: Try to get pregnant kind of the last. That's how I got pregnant at 42, by the way, is because I really changed my diet.

Okay. And, but not to get pregnant, I had two losses. And because of that, my weight had gone up and down and I've never really struggled with my weight, but I just didn't feel super healthy. And so I had taken a travel assignment. I was in California and I was working with this girl who, ate very healthy.

We started going to Pilates together. And then my ex husband came to visit and left behind a little something extra. And I was pregnant. And but afterwards, I talked to my nutritionist and she's Oh yeah, that's probably why exactly why. So absolutely. It makes a, yeah, it makes a huge difference.

Taylor: I agree.

And all the other blood works that change just based on altering your diet and lifestyle, cleaning things out of your house.

So you nailed both of those. And it's the same answer for everyone. Take care of your body. And I don't say deny yourself all the things, if you're having cravings, okay. But moderation. Think in moderation.

Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. I, ice cream was definitely a staple, but good ice cream, like clean ice cream that's not full of junk.

But yeah you want to, I think I really tapered back off a lot of that stuff. Once I was like, okay, my blood sugars are a little bit higher than I want them to be. I didn't get diagnosed with gestational diabetes, but I subtract my own blood sugars and made sure that I was in the healthy range. So I just backed off of a lot of carbs rice and potatoes and white flour and stuff like that.

So

Trish: healthy. So before we wrap this up, I want to ask you as a mom who waited later to have children, like what your life now. Do you miss anything? Is it hard? Are you just like in heaven? We're

Taylor: in heaven. We, I think that's the silver lining of fighting so hard to get to this point and waiting so long is that you really do appreciate even the worst moments and the hardest moments.

Cause you're just, you're bought in, this is not something that you take for granted. So every day we're just so grateful for him. And when he's, Being all fussy and crying. Like we're just grateful. And obviously we have our moments. And so I'll be like, Dennis, I need you. And he'll be like, Taylor, he needs your boob.

So do focus on getting healthy yourself first and. Add in obviously finding the right person to settle down with and starting to, yeah, that's really important. Absolutely. Cause that's a lot of the work that I do is helping people find the right person to settle down with. And I was married and divorced as well.

Avoid having to learn the hard way and make sure that they figure out what they need in order to be healthy and happy

Trish: Yeah, because I think especially us as women we compromise in that area and lie to ourselves and it doesn't get better. So make the right choices. That's what I love. So I was married before too, and that was a nightmare, but my husband now we've been married for four years, but we got married.

I am five years older than him. He never has been married or had kids. And then he meets me and I have seven. Yeah, quite the change. I know. I was telling the girls on the morning was with Trish this morning, That I think for him, I'm speaking for him, but I know so one of the hardest things because he was single forever, is that in his house where he puts stuff, it stayed there.

Yeah, but it's just me against him and I win because I'm here all day and he leaves to go to work. But Taylor, I'm so glad that you came and I'm so glad that you're a part of our community. And I know you just hinted a little bit about what you're doing, but tell everyone where they can find you because I know I've had a lot more single moms and single women that are thinking about having babies.

So I'd love to connect them with you. Yeah,

So I had to switch gears. And so now I do end up working with a lot of older women like myself, who they look up to me and they want to emulate certain things or learn the things that I learned. So they. Find me so that they can hopefully achieve the same things on their terms. And I also work with, younger people too, who just want to find the right partner.

And I call my system, the vetting system. So find me on Instagram and you can learn all about the vetting system. I think, and what's your username? It's at Taylor Burroughs. So my married name is Damori and we got married just in, in April. So everything is under my former name, which is We'll put it in

Trish: the show notes so you guys can find her.

And that doesn't always, that's not always what you need to do, and as Steve and I were just talking about that when you're right with the right partner and you're like. I, the Bible says equally yoked. Yes. And I didn't understand that when I was younger, but it is so true. But it's not just your beliefs it's your intelligence level, your ability to communicate.

It's how you, your outlook on life, all of that. And Steve and I have our differences, but they work. Yeah. They work together. Exactly. And that's so important. So what you're doing is amazing and you know I'm all about the online business world, so I love it.

Taylor: Yeah. I don't know if we have time, but I did want to encourage the single women.

And she did. She ended up meeting her guy. Who's two years younger. And they have two babies now. And she actually sent a bunch of her baby's clothes to me. And she's Oh, that's amazing. So we've been using a lot of her hand me downs and it's just full circle, but there is hope if you want to go that route, if you don't.

Is that how you found your husband?

Trish: Through

Taylor: your, through your system. That's how it was being created at the same time. And then once everything got clarified, I was able to ink it basically. So now being able to do it is so important to me. Like just to help people prevent the problems. Cause as a retired marriage therapist, I used to treat the problems, but I much prefer preventing them.

Trish: and I love that you're doing it the way you do it because really traditional therapy and counseling like it needs to be like on crack because it's way too slow to get help. Exactly. Like I think back, I was in therapy so much during my marriage and I know that there's value to sitting back and letting the person discover what they need to discover.

But sometimes you just need someone to tell you where you're at and to get the hell out of it. Yes. Yeah. That's what I love. Yeah. Have you seen, it's, oh goodness, it's Jonah Hill's it's his therapist and it's a Netflix documentary. I haven't. It's so good. I want to see it. It's on my list. It's so good.

Thank you so much. This was great. That

I will see you guys again next Friday. Bye for now.