Birth Matters Podcast, Ep 105 - Body Confidence Reclaimed in 2nd Birth

Melissa had her first baby as a teen but second baby 15 years later with a different partner and with an early pregnancy loss in between. Each journey was very different, and she shares in today’s episode how and why she made quite different choices for her most recent birthing process. This included switching from obstetrical care to hospital midwifery care to, ultimately, have an unmedicated birth in a freestanding birthing center in Washington state. She shares feeling instant love for her firstborn, like she’d never known. She then details experiencing grief stemming from her previous early pregnancy loss during her 3rd pregnancy and shares how that loss created anxiety and hesitation to bond with baby during pregnancy. But then Melissa shares a reclamation of confidence in her body through birthing her second son. Melissa also shares a bit about how easy breastfeeding was with her first son, yet how much more challenging both breastfeeding and pumping was her second time around.

And, just a quick content warning, though you probably already picked up on it in the description: pregnancy loss will be mentioned and detailed in this story.

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Episode Topics:

  • 1st son, Landen, born in 2006 - textbook induction on due date with epidural, very clinical

  • Cytotec administered, she was already having contractions

  • Pitocin in morning at 3-4 cm and AROM (breaking the waters)

  • Got epidural, foregone conclusion, very numb

  • Born at 2:03pm

  • Got an episiotomy

  • Instantly in love with her son, bonding in pregnancy, loving being pregnant

  • Grieving not being pregnant

  • Not wanting to be separated from Landen in the hospital

  • Slow recovery in postpartum (partner went back to work only 1-2 days later)

  • Fast forward to years later, different partner, they decide to have a baby together after being married for 4 years

  • Having IUD removed by female OB/GYN

  • OB encourages her that her body would remember birthing before and she encourages her she’s not too old at all

  • Gets pregnant on the first try

  • Very sick over the holidays before she could go to the OB to confirm pregnancy

  • At OB appointment, they recommend scheduling an appointment for a closer look at radiology

  • Ends up having a missed miscarriage – baby stopped developing around 6 weeks

  • At the time, felt local and rational, grief came later in her next pregnancy

  • Was given several options – to do a D&C, misoprostol at home, or just wait. She chose miso at home

  • Lost more blood than she expected and felt faint at one point

  • Was quite sore and tired for a few days

  • Monitoring HcG levels

  • Getting pregnant again in May with Conrad

  • Had seen The Business of Being Born, which sparked interest in midwifery care

  • Went for a while to the hospital midwives

  • Learned he had a velamentous cord insertion and they wanted to do a lot closer monitoring as a result

  • Her husband encourages her to call a freestanding birthing center she had investigated in the previous pregnancy - The Birth House, Around the Circle Midwifery

  • She wanted to feel a little more in the driver’s seat this time around

  • 1st couple of appts telehealth, then around halfway through in-person (due to Covid)

  • Comparing/contrasting hospital midwives to birthing center midwives – longer appointments, feeling much more heard

  • Anxieties switch to from fear about loss to fear about giving birth without pain meds  – Ina May’s Guide was one of the audiobooks she listened to, Babies Are Not Pizzas, Evidence Based Birth, Expecting Better, Giving Birth Like a Feminist (book), Birth Without Fear. 

  • Took 2 weeks off from work before her due date

  • Taking advantage of paid family leave through state (90% of pay) and FMLA

  • Seeing Webster-certified chiropractor starting around 34 weeks - Dr. Andrea Shaw

  • Nesting, making freezer meals, envisioning how she wanted birth to go

  • Opted out of cervical exams

  • Due date comes and goes, getting anxiety about risking out of birthing center

  • Had a big fear of cesarean due to being older and taking longer to heal

  • Despite wanting to go into labor, didn’t want to try any natural techniques, just wanted to allow her body to do its thing on its own

  • Going to hospital for NST (non-stress test)

  • Next evening, feels something like swollen ligaments along bikini line before going to bed

  • Next morning around 5:15am, wakes up in labor – water breaks soon thereafter

  • Puts on Depends, doesn’t wake her husband

  • Turns on fireplace and sits to wait for contractions and/or snow

  • About an hour later, contractions start but are very weak

  • Eating yogurt and later a banana

  • Around 8am things are starting to pick up and she wakes her husband

  • Called birthing center to check in, gets a midwife she had only met once

  • Was interested in using a rebozo (a long scarf considered sacred in Mexican culture)

  • Didn’t hire a doula, was counting on her inner resources and her husband’s support

  • Tried getting in shower and contractions get stronger, really felt the peak. Shower didn’t help

  • Lying down super uncomfortable

  • ~10am, suddenly things really picked up fast and it’s harder to cope

  • ~10:30 Alex convinces her to call midwives, she speaks to Carol-Ann

  • They head in, but it takes a long time for her to just get her shoes and coat on and get out the door because the contractions are double peaking and super intense

  • Got there 11:30 or 12ish, around 7-8 cm dilated

  • Mentioning having used evening primrose oil vaginally

  • Trying to fill tub, too slow and she starts having urge to push

  • Got in tub but didn’t like it, wasn’t sre she was fully dilated

  • Gets out and they check, she’s fully dilated

  • Pushing takes longer, around 1.5-2 hrs

  • Mostly on hands and knees, on edge of bed

  • Feeling very mentally present, not in “laborland”

  • Feeling the ring of fire

  • Baby’s arm in slightly awkward position, changing positions a bit, moving to back and then back again to hands and knees

  • Comparing the two births – feeling transformed by love in first 

  • Breastfeeding – easy with first, challenges with second, including with pumping

  • Paid family leave made a night and day difference

  • Washington just passed at the beginning of March a bill for certain types of midwives to prescribe birth control

Interview Transcript

Lisa: Hi, Melissa. How are you doing today? 

Melissa: I'm great, Lisa. Thank you. 

Introducing Melissa 

Lisa: So glad to have you here to share with us. Melissa is not one of my students, she is actually one of our podcast listeners. She doesn't live in the New York area, and like most of the guests I have on this show. You're in Washington, right? 

Take a moment to introduce yourself, would you?

Melissa: Sure. My name's Melissa, I live actually just outside of Olympia, Washington, the Capital city, in a town called Tumwater. I live here with my husband. I have a 16 year old son and my second is just turning a year old. I'm a state employee, I'm actually a night custodian. I work on Capitol campus and I work at night and then my husband works during the day.

That's really been nice for having a baby. That's really worked out great for us.

Lisa: Tag team is really nice. My husband and I were blessed to be able to tag team as well and to never have to do daycare. I know not everybody has that luxury, but it's really nice when you can do that, even though it becomes, you know, passing ships in the night with your husband or your partner. But we somehow found a way to make it work, and we were really grateful for that. So I'm happy to hear that you guys can do that as well.

Melissa: It is challenging because all week we're passing each other and then it's not until weekends where we're like, oh, hi!

Lisa: Yeah, you have to really carve out some quality time to spend together to reconnect, so you don't drift apart. 

Can you share just a little bit about how you found the podcast and I think you said you listened to every episode, which just of course delights my heart. I'm so grateful to hear that when I hear that people are listening and getting something out of it, but could you just share a little bit about that?

The Podcast

Melissa: Yeah. Because I'm a night custodian, I can listen to audiobooks and podcasts through my entire eight hour shift. And when I decided that I wanted to have an unmedicated physiological birth, in order to ease my nerves about it I wanted to learn about it. And so I was searching for books because I use audible, so I was searching for books and I type birth in and your podcasts came up and I have never even listened to a podcast before. So I'm like, well, I'll give this a shot and I started it and I didn't stop until I finished. So I think you just had your first two seasons. 

Lisa: Yeah. 72 episodes. 

Melissa: I think I started with the oldest and then just listened every night until I finished the end of them.

And I just really enjoyed listening to other people's stories, and I actually really enjoyed listening to them, even though it was New York specific, I found it really interesting listening to people have to call an Uber, that's not something I would have to think about.

Cause you know, I don't live in New York. I found that very interesting, even though there's a lot of different things, still a lot of similar things that I would be considering in my own birth. So yeah. I really enjoyed it and really connected with it. 

Lisa: I think you had mentioned to me that, the commentary, some things that you appreciated about the kind of childbirth ed commentary based on topics that came up in the stories.

Melissa: Yeah. I really enjoyed, with your guests, you always ask the questions that I would be wondering to myself. I always appreciated that you would pause on a subject or revisit a subject at the end of the podcast and talk more about it. Because I was really starting from scratch on what I needed to know about giving birth.

And so, when you would touch on these subjects, I was really learning a lot and soaking it all in because I obviously had no idea what to expect. My first birth, I was induced with an epidural, I didn't really feel like I was in the driver's seat, I felt like a passenger, just kind of seeing how things would go. With this one, I was wanting to be in the driver's seat with it, and I didn't know what to expect. Just having every little piece of knowledge that I could get or wisdom that I could get from you and other women. It was so invaluable to me. 

Lisa: Thank you for sharing that. 

First Birth Story

Lisa: So let's start with your first birth quite a few years ago. If you want to just kind of give us a little context about why you made the decisions with this most recent birth that you did, by giving us that context of the first birth and that journey.

Melissa: So my first son, he's just turned 16 this January. So he was born in 2006, which feels like yesterday, but also feels like a lifetime ago. 

I was living just outside of Austin and Landen was born in Round Rock, Texas. I'm not exactly sure, you know, what kind of birth options were actually available because I only, I just assumed that I would be going with an obstetrician. Which is what I did, and he was great. He was an old, very clinical, traditional, exactly what you would expect from an obstetrician who’d been practicing for decades.

I mean, I was only 19 going on 20 when I had Landen. And so he could have been grandpa, like he had been doing it for decades. But he was a very nice man, he did everything like you would expect, the very clinical by the book obstetrician they do.

He had suggested that I come in and be induced on my due date, and I thought that was a great idea. I was like, all right, yeah, let's do that. That was the plan, I was going to come in and be induced on my due date. I was meant to come in that evening, or the evening before, and the plan was that I would come and they would start, I think they started Cytotec that evening. And when I got there, I remember that they could tell that I was having contractions at the time, but I didn't know that I was having contractions. Like, oh, look, you're having contractions. Oh, surprise. So we did the cervical softeners, what we were using. And then, I had that overnight and then in the morning they came and they checked me. When I went in that night I was about a centimeter dilated, and if I remember it by the time they checked me in the morning I was closer to three or four. 

I was managing pretty fine from what I can recall. I was able to sleep through the night and everything. And when they came and checked me in the morning, they decided to start the Pitocin and break my waters, I was like, sure, let's do that, that's going to move things along.

And I don't know if it was the Pitocin or my water being broken, or a combination of the two, but as soon as that happened, I was like, give me the epidural. I knew going into that I was going to have an epidural because my mindset was, why wouldn't I, why wouldn't you have an epidural? 

Lisa: Very common mindset, sure. 

Melissa: Why would I not have it? And so I did. I was in a bed the whole time, and I think Landen was born at 2:03 PM. 

And I remember once I had the epidural and it worked really well if I didn't, I couldn't even feel my own legs. I couldn't, I was totally numb, I couldn't feel anything, I couldn't even feel a sensation to push, nothing. I remember when it was time to push, other people had to move my legs for me, I couldn't even do that. They had to put them up in the stirrups and I believe that I didn't push for very long, I recall it being, it felt like minutes, like when it was finally time to come in and push.

I was given an episiotomy, I believe it was just a matter of practice for this obstetrician that he just did it, I don't remember if I was asked about it or not, I just remember that it had been done and Landen, I think it's just a couple of pushes and Landen was born and he was wrapped in a towel and placed on my chest pretty quickly.

I think they cut his cord right away. I don't remember any delayed cord clamping or cord cutting or anything like that. Yeah, he came right to my chest, I don't remember even, I don't remember delivering the placenta. I was so, I think that with him I was so, and I still had the epidural and I couldn't feel anything, I basically didn't know at all what was going on down there, especially once he was in my arms, you know, I was consumed with love.

I couldn't believe how much I loved him when he was handed to me. I just couldn't, I'd never felt that, you know, that's the kind of love that you couldn't explain to me beforehand what that was going to feel like. And I was really bonded to Landen while I was pregnant with him. I actually really loved being pregnant.

I didn't have very many symptoms, a little bit of nausea and heartburn, but I really loved being pregnant with Landen so much that when he was actually born, I kind of grieved not being pregnant anymore because I loved it so much. But, yeah, he was born and I was so in love with him, I was still so in love with him once he was put in my arms. 

And I think I stayed in the hospital a couple of days with him. I have a really like vivid memory of the nurses wanting me to get up and go to the bathroom. And I was like, no, I don't need to go to the bathroom. 

I remember Landen's paternal grandmother was coming to the hospital to see him, and they're like, well, you should get up and try to use the bathroom. And I stood up and I was like, all right, fine. I don't have to go, but if you say so I'll go to the bathroom and I stood up, and as soon as I stood up, I had peed all over myself. Apparently, which I didn't know at the time, your bladder goes into a little bit of shock, about all this space all of a sudden, so your brain is not getting the signal, but she explained to me at the time, but I just remember, you know, I'm 19 or 20 and my son's grandmother's coming to see him, and I just, I literally peed all over the floor. So that was a funny thing. But I kept Landen in the room with me the whole time. I didn't want him to go away. I didn't want him to go to the nursery. I wanted him right there with me. He only left for a couple of things, but otherwise I had him with me in the room the whole time. And I actually had a pretty good experience at this hospital. 

I remember I thought the food was great, I thought the nurses were great, nobody felt really like, you know, overbearing in any kind of way.

I felt really taken care of, overall had a pretty good experience with Landen's birth in the hospital. So, I went home with Landen; Landen's father, he went to work probably a day or two after Landen was born. And so I recovered at home with him, just mostly him and I saw my obstetrician once at my six week appointment, and I remember feeling like it took a long time to feel better again. And one way that I can earmark a little bit about how long it took was that I remember going to my six week appointment with my obstetrician and I was still in a lot of pain and discomfort, and I was running out of the pain medication I had been prescribed, and I remember asking him, you know, I'm about to run out of pain medication, I'm still really uncomfortable in a lot of discomfort and he had said, you'll be fine in a couple of days. And I remember being like, you're crazy. I'm not going to be fine. Ultimately he was right.

I was feeling fine in a couple of days, but that's how I know it took at least six weeks. It was probably around the seven week mark when I was finally like feeling better. But, I do remember that, yeah, I was like I need more pain medication and the doctor being like, no, you'll be fine. And I was like, I'm not going to be, I feel miserable still, but I was fine, but it was probably about seven weeks before I was not so uncomfortable anymore.

And I think that was probably just healing from the episiotomy that he gave me, is my best guess. I think my body was probably a little beat up from laboring on my back, even though with the epidural I couldn't feel anything, but I am sure that I would assume that maybe that had something to do with how long it took me to feel better.

Lisa: It can, because when you're numbed, then your body can't tell you when you need to move out of a certain position, you lose those pain signals, so that sometimes it can bring about more backache or different aches, afterwards.

Well, so where do you want to go from there?  You want to speed forward a few years? 

Speed Forward a Few Years

Melissa: I never thought Landen would be my only baby. I always wanted him to have siblings, but it just worked out that he would be 15 years older than Conrad, who is my second baby. Me and my husband had been married for, I need to think about this, five years or four years, I think when we decided we were ready to have kids together. 

Lisa: This is a different partner, right? 

Melissa: He's Landen's stepfather and he's been in Landen's life since he was four. We'd actually been, we took a long time to get married and then a long time to decide we were ready to have a baby together. Actually, I think I was ready for a long time, like I said, I wanted Landen to have siblings.

I have five brothers and sisters myself, and we're all very close in age, so I was all in for Landen to have lots of siblings, but my husband, he kept waiting till, he took a little bit more time to come around to feeling like he was ready, even though he knew he wanted kids, and he was always like waiting for the perfect time.

Ready for the Second Baby

Melissa: So about four years after we were married, we decided that we were ready to have a baby. And I'd been, I'd had an IUD in for about, I think 10 years at that time. So, I had specifically picked out an obstetrician, when I knew I was ready to have my IUD out and I wanted to make sure that I picked out an OB GYN that I really liked because I had knew that I wanted a woman doctor, so I knew from the time that she would take out my IUD to the time that I had the baby, that she would be my care provider. And I wanted to make sure that I really picked out somebody that I liked. And so I did, I sought out an OB GYN that I really liked, and I had scheduled an appointment to have my IUD taken out.

And, I went and, you know, in meeting her and having that taken out, I remember expressing a little bit of fear about my age, which is silly now that I know as much as I know, but having had Landen at 19 going on 20, and now I'm 34 going on 35. I was like, I'm getting so much, I'm so old, how am I going to recover? Will I be okay? Can I do this? And she was very, she kind of laughed a little bit at me being worried about it. She was like, you're still young, you're a perfect candidate for having a baby. And she actually made me feel really good about that I would be just fine having a baby.

And she assured me that it didn't matter that if I had a baby a year ago or 15 years ago, that my body would know exactly what to do, no matter how long it had been. So she was really great and comforting and in that moment in assuring me that I was a perfect candidate for having a baby. So I felt really good after that. 

So when I had my IUD out, and I really didn't know what to expect of my cycles because, but through the time that I had my IUD, and this was one with, I know some IUD don't use hormones and some do, and this was a hormonal IUD.

And so my cycles would go from either being non-existent to being very light and sporadic. And so once I had it out, I didn't know at all what to expect with my cycles. She did advise me to let my body have a normal cycle, and then try, which is what my husband and I did. 

A Missed Miscarriage

Melissa: And it's our first try, I ended up pregnant and I was very excited about that. I can't say I was surprised that I got pregnant as quick as I did, because I was shocked when I got pregnant with Landen and I was like, well, that was way easier than I thought. So I wasn't, I was expecting it to be easy because it had been easy for me in the past. So we found out, and this was probably in November, around November. 

And of course I let my husband know, and we decided that we will wait until after our first appointment to confirm the pregnancy before we told anybody, which it was going to be January before that was scheduled, because of the holidays and everything. 

So we had several weeks to wait before I would go and have that pregnancy confirmed. Because I knew pretty early on that I was pregnant because I was, we were trying, so it was very early, so it was going to be several weeks before I would go and get that confirmed and dated and stuff.

And so, I remember through the holidays, that Thanksgiving and that Christmas, I was just so nauseous, which was different from my pregnancy with Landen.

I didn't want to eat anything, I was exhausted and I was nauseous. I think probably around Christmas, I do remember that nausea easing up andI was trying to convince my husband at the time that we should tell his parents, because it was going to be their first time grandparents.

We should tell them for Christmas and surprise them. And, he was the one who was like, no, we should wait. Just wait until after the appointment. It was probably, it was a good thing that we decided to wait because when I went in for my appointment in January, I was expecting to be I think 10 or 11 weeks along, and I knew that because I knew exactly, I knew my dates exactly because I had been trying to get pregnant. And I had gone to that appointment by myself because I expected it to be a very like routine appointment, where I was just going to go in, we were going to confirm the pregnancy and then go home and let my husband know everything was, you know, this is what we did.

It wasn't that exciting. But we went in and they pulled out, they had like, the ultrasound in the room, which is not as quite as extensive as like the ones down in radiology, but she was looking and she was questioning how far along I thought I was, and I kept telling her, I was insisting, I was 10 or 11 weeks.

And she's like, maybe you're not as far along as you think you are, but we're going to send you down to radiology and have them take a better look. I think I didn't go straight down there, I think she said radiology was going to contact me and set up an appointment. I went home to wait basically for the radiology department to call, to have me come in.

And I think my appointment was on like a Friday and so, and they did call, but they set up the appointment for that Monday. And so I had to wait until the weekend, but I knew, when she sent me home that something wasn't right. Because I knew my dates. I knew that if she didn't think that I was as far along that I knew I was, that probably something wasn't right. 

So I did go home and tell my husband that I didn't think something was right. I think she, maybe she had mentioned, are you sure you're not like six or seven weeks? And I'm like, no, I'm definitely like 10 or 11 weeks for sure.

But she didn't give me much anything more than that. So I do remember being a little bit frustrated over the weekend being like, I know that something's not right. And I wish she would have just told me. And this was, it wasn't the obstetrician. This was like a nurse or something who had done it or maybe, because the obstetricians practice, it was like an obstetrician and midwife practice together.

So it wasn't my obstetrician who I had seen that day. So I do remember being frustrated and like I know that something's going on and I wish instead of being left with hope that I, there was even though I knew that something was wrong,I still had that hope that maybe there wasn't, because nobody said that there's something going on.

So I did, that Monday I went to the radiology and they confirmed that basically the pregnancy had stopped developing at about week six or seven, and they called it a missed miscarriage, which was a term I never heard before. I assumed that if you were having a miscarriage that you would know that you were having a miscarriage.

I didn't realize that your body can hold onto a pregnancy and you would think you were pregnant even though really weren't. I didn't. So I had no idea that was something that could happen. I knew miscarriages happen and I knew that they were common. I think that was what caught me the most off guard that I felt like I had been betrayed.

My body tricked me this whole time, this whole time I thought, because in my mind and do the math, and I'm like, that puts me back in like November or the beginning of December when the pregnancy stopped developing. I'm 11 weeks in, I'm still, I'm holding onto this pregnancy and I'm going through all the symptoms of a pregnancy, but it's not going anywhere. 

And at the time I was actually very, quite logical about the way that I thought about it. I wasn't super upset or emotional. My sister experienced a late term loss or she was probably halfway through her pregnancy and learned that her daughter wouldn't survive after she was born.

And so she had a late term loss, so I was replaying, you know, I'm telling myself, this happens all the time and this has nothing like some women go through losses that are much harder than this. I'll be just going to try again, this isn't, you know, this will be fine.

It's not that big of a deal. So in the moment I wasn't, it didn't impact me as much as it did down the road. I think down the road is when it affected my pregnancy with Conrad, and that I had a lot of anxiety about it and kept thinking that, I kept waiting for like, feeling like it would be okay, before I really believed that I was going to end up with a baby at the end of it. So even though in the moment I was very logical, it did impact my later pregnancy, just had a lot of anxiety about it and it might have impacted how much I bonded with the baby a little bit.

I think at least comparatively with Landen, I was so bonded and connected, but I think I was just always waiting for the other shoe to drop with Conrad. 

I was like, well, wait...

Lisa: Yeah, that's understandable. 

Melissa: Yeah. So then, after I decided to do it, I was given the option, I could do a DNC or I could take, I think Misoprostol at home or I could wait and let my body do what it needed to do on its own. Those were the options that I was getting. And I decided that I would take Misoprostol at home. I didn't want to do the DNC and I didn't want to wait because I had already been feeling so sick. I felt like I've been sick for this long, I'm ready to like not feel, have these pregnancy symptoms for no reason anymore. 

And also, because I was still working, I work full time, I wanted to have a little bit of control about when it would happen, instead of being surprised by it happening.So I was actually, it was lucky that I was coming into like a holiday weekend.

And so I had this long weekend ahead of me that I could go through the miscarriage and not have to go straight back to work. So that's what I did. I think it was on Saturday. I started the process and I remember it was rather, it seemed rather quick. It was just a matter of hours.

And I do remember losing more blood than I was expecting to lose, like, I thought I was going to faint at one point because I lost so much blood. I was expecting it, I guess would be more like I'm having a period, having my normal menstrual cycle, and it was much more than that, which I don't know if that was explained to me and I just didn't take it seriously, or if it was missed in communication, but I was expecting it to be like having a menstrual cycle and then I didn't realize it would be a little bit harder than that. And so at one point I have had to call my husband, be like, I need you to bring me a cup of fruit or something, because I'm feeling like I'm going to pass out.

I had that knowledge because I've donated blood in the past. And one of the things they do is they have you have a snack or something so that you don't get lightheaded. And I remember thinking, like, it's a good thing that I had had this knowledge from donating blood, because otherwise I wouldn't have known, I would've probably just passed out here in the bathroom, so that was another thing I remember thinking. I wish they would have explained this a little better to me, because I would have been more prepared for this. 

Lisa: It's important.

Melissa: I had that miscarriage and it passed just fine on its own. And I was actually quite sore the next couple of days, which I wasn't expecting, again. So I think I started on a Saturday. And then I didn't go back to work until Tuesday. Because I think it was a holiday that Monday, but still when I went back to work on that Tuesday, I was still really sore. I didn't realize how much cramping I would have in my uterus for a couple of days, even after.

And I was very tired, which I wasn't prepared for. I was surprised on going back to work Tuesday that I was still quite tired and still recovering from that. I just wasn't prepared for it to be as challenging as it was, I was just naive about the whole process, I guess. But, yeah, you know, it was maybe only a couple of days later that I was feeling just fine.

They did track my HCG levels again, until they got back down to the threshold they were looking for, and then that just let them know that there was nothing left behind, and that everything had passed on its own without needing any medical intervention. And then once my levels were back to normal, I was cleared to basically try again. 

Trying Again

Melissa: And it wasn't until May now, before we did conceive again. It was eight months from the time that we started, which really isn't that long, but it felt like a lifetime. I really wanted a summer baby because my older boy is a winter baby and really wanted a summer baby.

And I remember that mark had come and gone and I'm like, well, now it's having another winter baby, but that's fine, not really an issue, but I do remember like, ah, there goes my summer baby. 

Lisa: We don't always get to choose, do we?

Melissa: No, I think I'm probably destined for, yeah, it's my destiny to have all the holidays crammed into one. That's like all the birthdays, all the holidays, all just crammed into this one part of the year. So it felt like a really long time, but it was really only eight months from the time that I had my IUD out until I conceived Conrad, my second baby. 

And I think that having that desire for a summer baby, made it feel like even longer, because I was like every day that ticked away, I knew that that was going away. So it made it feel like I'm still not still not pregnant. I really wanted that summer baby, but yeah. It took eight months and then we finally conceived Conrad. 

Lisa: All right. So then how was that pregnancy and how did you make some different choices

Melissa: I went back again, I went back to the obstetrician and actually when I, I should actually backtrack. When I first was pregnant with the baby that I miscarried, I had called a birth center just to feel them out. I'm like, well, if this is an option for me,when do I come see you?

Like, do I come see you right now? Or do I confirm the pregnancy and come in? And they were like, oh, you can come at anytime is fine. But then I had ended up losing that pregnancy and didn't pursue it any more than that, then just a call to inquire about them. So when I was pregnant again, I went to the obstetrician and at the women's health clinic where the obstetrician is I learned that they also had midwives as an option.

And so even though I really loved my obstetrician, I'm like, well, maybe I should try midwives. My first son was born in 2006 and in 2009 I had seen The Business of Being Born. And even though at the time, I wasn't sure if or when I would have other kids, I do remember thinking that is exactly all those things that I'm seeing that they're talking about is exactly what happened to me. I was told exactly the same things. The only difference is that my birth was successful, the cascading interventions didn't turn into a cesarean section for me, so it did plant a seed.

So when I heard that the obstetrician practice had midwives, I was like, Oh, well, maybe I should try the midwives. And so I had signed up instead of seeing the obstetrician as much as I loved her, I'd signed up to see her midwife team instead. And they were great, I thought they were great at the time. I saw them until I was about, I think 24 weeks along, but in the back of my head I kept thinking about this birth center that I contacted that it's right down the road. But I kept thinking that I wanted to make sure that this pregnancy was okay before I, you know, bothered them with their time.

I kept on wanting to make sure, so it's like, I better wait until I get out of that 12 week mark. And then it's like, well, maybe I should wait until the NIPT testing comes back and maybe I should wait until my anatomy scan and make sure that the anatomy scan that everything is fine.

 And then at my anatomy scan, I found out that he had a Velamentous cord insertion which I had never heard before. And they kind of made me worried about it. They're like you should come in every month or I believe they wanted me to come once a month for growth scans.

 They told me, it could impact his ability to grow and that could cause some hazards in giving birth. And so they just wanted to check on it regularly. So then I had some nerves about that. And it was probably about, I was about 24 weeks along when my husband actually was like, what about that birth center?

 You were really interested in it, you should call them. And then I'm like, well, I don't know about, you know, the insurance and it might be a hassle and he's like, you should just call them. And so I was like, alright, fine. So I did call and I found out that they took my insurance and this is a freestanding birth center in Olympia. It's called the Birth House and it's run by Around the Circle Midwifery. So I found out that they took my insurance and that they would actually do all the work of transferring me and then they set up an appointment for me right away. And it was actually quite easy to transfer over.

And I was like, all right, well, I guess we'll do this. And part of the drive was, at that time, so this was, I think around June of 2020, or I would have been, maybe it was a little bit later, but it was in the late summer of 2020 and so there was going to be COVID restrictions in the hospital.

So it was a combination of wanting to avoid a lot of the restrictions or anxieties that were happening in the hospital setting, and as well as just wanting to try something different than what I had with Landen, I wanted to kind of feel a little more in like the driver's seat with Conrad's birth.

I decided at 24 weeks to make the switch over and my first couple of appointments were tele-health. And then when I got I think after 30 weeks is when I started doing like in-person. And I think that was purely because of COVID at the time. But I noticed right away there was a noticeable difference in the kind of care I was getting, even though I was seeing midwives and the hospital setting, they still followed a very like clinical way of doing things. Like, I still felt like every appointment, my age and my weight was being brought up. That was like a common, it felt like at the time like, this is all we talk about.

It's like, I know I'm old and I'm heavy and my BMI is high. I got it. But it was like, they wanted, you know, because of my age and my weight, it's like extra tests. I had to do the gestational diabetes or they wanted me to do gestational diabetes twice. I can't remember. I actually, I think I did do gestational diabetes, one early on in one at this standard.

And then of course they wanted the extra scans. But when I switched over to the Around the Circle Midwifery, which is run by four midwives, it was all centered around me, like, I felt like I had more of a control if there were tests or things that could be done, always felt really optional, they always framed as something that I could do if I wanted to and answered any questions about it that I might have. But I always felt like I had more control. I felt like with in the hospital setting, there's still felt like a lot of fear-mongering, which is, I felt it really because I was having so much anxiety about the pregnancy being viable, that any little thing they took or they said, that kind of where they were talking about, you know, high risks or this or that or that, I took it really seriously because I was anxious from having the miscarriage.

And so when I switched over to the other midwife team out of the hospital, all of a sudden I'm being told that the velamentous cord insertion is just a variation of normal and it's nothing to be concerned about, that I'm perfectly healthy, age and weight. We didn't weigh, but maybe towards the end of the pregnancy, I think maybe I got weighed once or twice, but if they would ask me if I want to be weighed, that kind of thing, you know, they always ask before they do any kind of exam.

And then also they just would ask me how I was doing, how am I feeling? And oh, and my appointments were like an hour long instead of 10 or 15 minutes, which, so I really felt like I could trust them. Yeah, and so that anxiety about my pregnancy really eased up once I switched to the midwifery model of care.

Lisa: That's huge. 

Learning About Unmedicated Birth

Melissa: It was, it was huge for me. I really felt like I could relax about my pregnancy once I switched over. But then my anxiety switched from being about my pregnancy being a viable, to now I'm like, okay, now I'm committed to doing an unmedicated birth. I don't know what I'm doing. And so to ease the anxieties about having an unmedicated birth, I need to learn about how to give birth, because I don't know what I'm doing. And so I dove into listening to books and your podcast every night. I have a job that I can listen my full eight hours to audio books.

And so I think I listened to something like 12 books total in the last half of my pregnancy. 

Lisa: Did you have any favorites? 

Favorite Books

Melissa: The one that actually was my favorite was Ina May's Guide to Childbirth which I remember before I listened to, I think, I heard about it for the first time probably on your podcast.

I knew who Ina May Gaskin was because I had seen The Business of Being Born, so I heard her name. And so then I kept hearing it, this reoccurring recommendation on your podcast for her guide, the childbirth book. And at first I was like, this is so way too crunchy for me. 

Lisa: That's how I felt too when I first read it.

Melissa: It's like, this is way too crunchy for me, but I'll give it a try.

And I just loved it. I really did. By the time I finished her book, all my fears about childbirth went away. All of them. When I finished that book, I was like my body knows what to do, I just have to trust it to do what it needs to do. So that one was huge.

I also really enjoyed Rebecca Dekker's, Babies are Not Pizza. That really helped me to understand what's going on the clinical side and the culture there and why decisions in that setting might be made versus the midwifery model. So I did, I really loved her.

And I think I heard about Evidence-Based Birth on your podcast and that was a huge resource for me in making decisions and understanding options, and why we might come to the decisions we do about the medical advice we would get. 

And then another one was Emily Oster's, Expecting Better. Hers was really good too, about just making decisions in pregnancy and just understanding, again understanding, why I might be given this advice versus this advice. And I really felt like that helped me to feel confident in decisions I was making. A combination of those three books really gave me confidence in making certain decisions.

Lisa: Great. Thank you. 

Trauma Informed Care 

Lisa: One thing you said just a few minutes ago that I just wanted to amplify for listeners, I'm not going to get how you worded it just right, but when you were talking about the difference in the hospital midwives care, and the ones at the birthing center, the freestanding birthing center, you said something along the lines of, I believe that the midwives in the birthing center setting would tell you before they would do anything to your body or something like that or ask you permission.

Something along those lines? And I just want to point out for listeners that is called Trauma Informed Care and all care providers should be trained in Trauma Informed Care and always should ask before they ever touch your body and tell you what they're about to do and ask for your permission.

That is not standard in most of our clinical settings. And there's just a lack of training and knowledge about Trauma Informed Care. And it is so important given the statistics of how many people are trauma or abuse survivors, or assault, you know, all of those things. And so I just wanted to amplify that beautiful aspect of the midwifery model of care that is more common with home birth midwives and with a birthing center midwives, because it's really important.

And not that there aren't trauma informed care providers in hospital settings, but there are certainly fewer of them, in my experience. 

Melissa: Definitely. It really just always made me feel like I had final say in anything that was happening to me, and that was really invaluable. And I also made me feel that like they trust not only do I have a trust in them, but it also in a way made me feel like they trusted me, trusted what I was telling them.

That was important too. 

Lisa: That's huge. We all deserve dignity and respect in life in general, and including here in this journey through pregnancy and birth. And that's what this midwifery model of care is really, really, focused on much at the time. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. So go ahead. 

 You had finished sharing about some resources, you know, addressing the anxiety that you were having about now how switching to this birth setting for an unmedicated birth, finding these ways to build your confidence.

Giving Birth Like a Feminist by Milli Hill

Melissa: Right. Yeah. I think those were the three really big ones. Another couple of good ones that I listened to was Giving Birth like a Feminist, by Milli Hill I think was a really good one. She actually lives over in England.

And so what was interesting about hers was that she kind of highlighted that birth justice was kind of a missed opportunity in the Me too movement. And so that was an interesting take and I agreed with her. I thought that the Me too movement would have been a great way to encompass our birth rights also.

And so hers was a really interesting and powerful read. And it was also interesting to hear that, even over in England, that they face some of the same challenges in their care that we do, which was news to me. So I thought, you know I wanted to, it's easy to believe that this is just our problem, but it's actually it's a world problem of the birth injustices for women.

And then the other one was Birth Without Fear by January Harshe. Hers was really good, too. 

Thank you for sharing all those, I will be sure to link to all of it.

The books and then of course your podcasts and hearing women tell their birth stories was also huge.

I think that hearing other people's birth stories, in combination with Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, was the most important part for easing my anxiety. Just every night listening to somebody's story about giving birth, the good, the bad and the ugly, like all of it was so good to hear.

Because otherwise I think all the birth stories that I would hear were always like the scary things about birth or the way it went wrong. And you don't often hear about the way things go right. Or even in the face of challenges that we can still, we can still come out the other end with a really positive experience.

And I didn't know that, I didn't hear those words until I started hearing other women's birth stories. And now I wish we talked about it more with each other, with our moms, with our grandmas, with our sisters, with our friends. I wish we normalized it.

I wish we took the fear out of giving birth. I think that would make a huge difference, no matter what way you choose to give birth. I think that normalizing it and taking the fear out of it is an important thing to do. So, yeah, so hearing other women's birth stories was key in easing all of my anxieties.

And I went from being very anxious about getting birth to just being really excited to try it and to go for it.

So I think by the time that I was due, I was ready to go. I was ready. I didn't have any fear anymore. 

Lisa: That's amazing. I love it. I love that you were so proactive in seeking out those ways to reduce your anxiety and build that confidence. Really, really beautiful. 

Birth Story

Lisa: So then feel free to jump into your birth story. If you're ready.

Melissa: Yeah, definitely. 

Yeah, so I worked until I was about 37 weeks along. And, and then, I think I was just over 37, or 37 and a half. My team of midwives, they were super great about getting me out on medical leave, and I'm not even sure exactly what the paperwork said, but anyways, I got medical leave before my actual maternity leave, our bonding time, started.

I think I could potentially have up to six weeks, but I think I took two weeks before my due date and then my medical leave was going until the baby was born. And then, once the baby was born, then my bonding time would start, which Washington state is one of the few states that has paid family medical leave.

Lisa: There's so few. 

Melissa: Yeah, it's actually, and that was a factor in when we decided to have kids too. So we, Washington state residents, we started paying into it in 2019 and it became available to use as of 2020. We use it, it goes through the same employment security that unemployment does.

So we pay like, it's a similar thing where we pay tax into it. And then when we need to use it, we would call employment security and it gets paid back to us. We get 12 weeks of paid bonding time, and that's both for mothers and fathers. And, there's other circumstances, like if you've had a C-section, I think you get 16 weeks of paid time off, paid bonding time.

And then, I could have had up to six weeks on medical leave, that was also through the paid family medical leave act. And it pays, I think it's 90% of your income is what you get with Washington's paid family leave. Just after 37 and a half weeks I took medical leave off. And I was ready to keep staying pregnant because I was like, I get the longer I'm pregnant, the longer my paid leave is. I wasn't in any hurry to kick him out because I was getting paid medical leave before bonding leave.

Webster Certified Chiropractor

Melissa: So I was like, all right, you just stick in there. And I spent weeks just making, like freezer meals. I spent all my time doing that. I think at 34 weeks I did start seeing a Webster certified chiropractor. I think that was another thing I learned on your podcast. I'd never even heard of a Webster certified chiropractor before listening to you.

But I did start seeing her and that was at 34 weeks and the idea that I wanted the baby to be in an optimal position, to be as successful as possible. And also I wanted to be able to finish out my last four weeks of work because my work entails carrying a backpack bag and going up and down a lot of stairs.

And I was like, I'll have a couple of weeks left and I need to be able to finish out these last couple of weeks. Yeah. Dr. Andrea Shaw and Olivia, and she was fantastic. I love her. I would see her, I'll see her again if I ever get the chance. 

So I saw her from 34 weeks all the way until I went into labor. That was really good. It was also, because we're in the middle of COVID, it was kind of nice to have a person to see outside of the house. So that was a nice little bit of that too. 

Lisa: That alone is therapeutic.

Melissa: Yeah, so I saw her and I was actually feeling really great.

And, the last couple of weeks I was making my freezer meals and just kind of like nesting and getting things ready. And that was really nice. I just kind of, I guess in a way, meditated a lot about like the birth and thinking about it and envisioning what it would look like and how I wanted it to go.

There was a full moon coming up at the end of January, my estimated due date I think it was February 5th and there was a full moon, a week early before his birthday. And so there's a full moon and there's a slight chance of snow and it's my best friend's birthday. And so maybe he'll be born on this full moon and it'll snow and it'll be on her birthday.

No Cervical Exams 

Melissa: But that day came and went and he was not born on that full moon and it didn't snow. I wasn't having any cervical exams. I didn't want to be misled one way or the other. I didn't want to like nothing to be going on and then to think, well, then it's not going to happen anytime soon or something to be going on, like to be a centimeter dilated.

And I've been one centimeter dilated for weeks, but then maybe secretly internally thinking, oh, now it might happen because I'm a centimeter dilated. So I didn't want to give myself hopes or one way or the other. I just, I didn't want to do cervical exams. I didn't do any. 

Due Date Anxiety 

Melissa: But then once my estimated due date came and went I did start to get a little bit of anxiety because I was worried about being whisked into the back to the hospital, which I just didn't want to go.

I just didn't want to do that. I had an overwhelming fear, I guess, of having a cesarean section a little bit, because I was worried about how long it would take my body to heal. And I'm like, I'm older, it's going to take me longer to heal. So I was really trying to do everything I could to reduce any harm to my body.

Yeah, that's why I was so afraid about being whisked out to the hospital, because I didn't want to, I wanted this little harm to my body as possible. And so when my due date came and went, I'm having a little bit of anxiety about that, but I wasn't interested in doing any of that, like at home kick start labor kind of things.

I still wanted to like, just let it happen. I still wanted to wait for spontaneous labor. I guess probably because I just wanted to see how I wanted my body to do it. I wanted to see that my body could do it. And so I'm waiting for spontaneous labor and not doing anything to try to speed it along, or you know, check to see if it was happening.

And I didn't want any of that. I just sat back and I waited and it, yeah, it only got started to get to me after I went over my due date. Because I was worried, one of the midwives, her name was Carolyn. She assured me, she was like, I've never had anybody risked out because they went over 42 weeks.

She's like, I've never had that happen. She's like we do, we will risk you out if you did. But she's like, I've never had that happen. She's like, I promise the baby will come. There was a lot of people with birthdays in our family at that time. So we're guessing maybe he'll be on this person's birthday or that person's birthday.

My dad's birthday was February 14th and I'm like, maybe it'll be the 14th, but I'll have to go nine days late. So I'm like, well, maybe he'll stay in there till the 14th, but nine days late was like a number that I was scared of in my head, because my mom was nine days late with me and I was over 11 pounds.

And so I'm like, oh, but what if he's huge? 

I say he, but we actually decided not to know what the gender of the baby was. We wanted to keep us surprised. So we didn't know at all what we were having. And I could tell that the baby was bigger than Landen, he was taking up my entire torso so I could not breathe. He was, it felt so big. The baby wasn't sitting low in my pelvis. I wasn't waddling or having trouble walking or anything like that. But he was so high up in my rib cage, I felt like I couldn't breathe at all. And so I could tell that the baby was bigger than the last baby.

And he sat in the same position the whole time. He didn't actually move a lot. He sat in the same position and I couldn't get, there was no relief because he just stayed in this one position the whole time. And I think at one point one of the midwives asked me how big he was relative to my last baby.

I was like, oh, he's this baby's bigger, definitely. She's like, yeah, I think so. I think so too. 

That was the other thing, every day that ticked by I knew the baby's getting bigger. I knew he was going to be quite a big baby. And then I think, I had gone over 41 weeks, which I kept reminding myself that was very normal to be at 41 weeks.

And I, of course the midwives were reminding me too. And I saw my favorite, she was the midwife that I saw most frequently and had a real connection with her name was Michelle. And she was like I'm the midwife on call the next couple of days, so, you know, if anything happens, it'll be me. And so secretly I'm like, all right, that's great. But we did set up a plan for the next week, to do a non-stress test because I would be coming up on 42 weeks. It was like a Monday I was supposed to go in to do a non-stress test because that following Friday I would be at 42 weeks.

And so, we did schedule all those appointments because I would have to go up to the hospital care team to do those kinds of things. And so we set that up, which again, I'm having a little bit anxiety and like, oh, I don't want to go in and do this. I'm worried that the baby's just not going to come on time.

 And then, I think, it was not that night after my appointment, but the next day, the evening of the next day, I'm still not having any kind of symptoms or signs. I never had Braxton Hicks, I had no symptoms or any reason to think that I was going into labor.

Basically the same as I had been. I just couldn't breathe. I wasn't sleeping very well. Our bedroom is down a flight of stairs and our only bathroom is up a flight and a half of stairs. So every night I'm going up a flight and a half of stairs to pee every couple of hours, you know, but, I otherwise had no signs or symptoms that I was going to be in labor anytime soon.

In Labor

Melissa: I think the night of the 10th, I did have this weird, it's almost hard to describe like right in my pelvis, right along where my bikini line is, this feeling of the ligaments or something in there were like swollen. And I mentioned it to my husband. I feel like my ligaments in my pelvis are swollen or something.

It's really weird. It wasn't painful, but it was just this weird feeling right along my bikini line at it's hard to really describe what it was. But I had that feeling before I went to bed. 

And then I went to bed and I basically woke up the next morning in labor. I woke up, I thought I had to pee and climbed out of bed and my water broke.

And, I knew it without a doubt, I knew it was my water break. And it surprised the heck out of me, because I had heard, I kept hearing that it's uncommon for your water to break first. I still don't believe that's true, I think it's more common than we think it is. 

Lisa: I do too. Every time I hear 10 to 20%, I'm like, I am quite sure that it's a higher percentage among my clients. And I'm like, what is the research on? Do we do reliable research on this? Because I don't know. 

Melissa: Yeah. I often wonder about where the research, where that number comes from, because I feel like every birth story I've since listened to, it seems at least half, your water breaking before contractions start or at the beginning of the end.

But I do remember being disappointed that my water broke first, because I had heard that having your waters intact acted as like a cushion for your contractions. And I did have a vivid memory of when my waters were broken in once with my first son that, that's when everything became unbearable for me, and I got the epidural. I remember my water's being broken and it being painful, and then hearing that your water is intact acts as a cushion, I was hoping they would stay intact so that I could manage my pain level easier, but that wasn't the case. I woke up and my water broke all over the place.

I had heard somewhere, I'm not sure whether it was on your podcast or in the books that I read, to keep Depends on hand. And so I did have some Depends in my nightstand and I just put them right on and I went upstairs. It was like five o'clock, 5:15 in the morning, my husband was asleep and I didn't wake him up because I knew of the value of being rested.

And so I left him, I let him be. And I went upstairs and I think I showered off and put back on clean depends and I wasn't having any contractions, but I was definitely leaking water everywhere. And it was supposed to snow that day, and so I would just go out into the living room and open the curtains. It was winter. And so I turned on the gas fireplace. I opened the curtains and I was like, well, I guess I'll just sit here and wait for the snow or the contractions, whichever comes first. And I just kind of got comfy and kind of waited for things to get started. And it was probably like an hour before contractions actually started. And at first I was, I think that was a contraction and then it was like 15 minutes later, the same feeling came again. I'm like, okay, that's definitely a contraction. It's very light, was almost like butterflies in my stomach kind of light feeling of contraction.

I'm like, okay, this is definitely a contraction. And I did remember as soon as I got up, I ate a yogurt because I wasn't hungry, but after listening to so many women's birth stories, I'm like, I better eat something while I still want to. So I had a cup of yogurt when I first got up and then I think when the contractions started an hour later, I'm like I better have a banana or something. So I ate a banana and then I thought, well, I should probably pack my lunch. And so I started working on packing. I made myself some chicken bacon club wraps to pack up and bring with us to eat after the baby was born.

So I just kind of puttered around and started checking things off my list and making sure I had things in order. It was probably about eight o'clock when I could tell that things were kind of picking up a little bit. The contractions were getting a little bit stronger and I thought, well, I should probably wake up Alex now, so that if things pick up quickly, I don't wake him up and I'm frantic. So I did go down and wake him up, because at the time we both work evening shifts and so we were late sleepers. And so I trying to let him sleep as long as I could, so eight o'clock I think I'll probably now is a good time to wake him up. So I did. I went down there and I just kind of said something along the lines, like, there's no rush, but my water broke, and I just wanted to let you know so that you can get up and kind of get your day started because I'm in labor.

And so he was just, I think he was just like, oh, great, awesome. I think that because I came at him and I was just like, no rush, no problem, but maybe you should get out of bed. And so he did just that he wasn't frantic in any way either. So he kind of just got up and started doing his normal morning type of things.

I don't think at that point, contractions still weren't very painful, they were coming and I could tell, I was where I could feel them coming in and going, it was instead of like, I could tell that they were coming in and like kind of peaking and going away.

But, I think about eight o'clock that's when I could really tell that there was like a pattern about them. Yeah. 

Lisa: Did your midwives, given this was not your first time to give birth, did your midwives give you any sort of different advice than what you would have expected the first time based on all the birth stories you heard and everything as to when to call them or when to come to the birthing center?

Melissa: So, yeah, I did have some instruction. One thing, I think it was Carolyn and she, I had actually asked her about when I should come, at what point, and she was like, you know, if you want to come in and get seen, and if it's too early, you can always leave and come back, it's no big deal. But if you want to just come in and have your mind at ease about things, that's totally fine. I was GBS negative, so I didn't have to worry about that, but if I had been, I could've come in and start antibiotics and left and then come back.

Like I wouldn't have to sit there and stay if I had been GBS positive, I think that's coming to mind because this had happened all in the same conversation while we were waiting for the GBS results still. 

But, so yeah, she did reassure me that, just to call them and then if I felt like I wanted to come in and I could, and if not, if I still felt fine, then I wouldn't need to, the birth center is only about 10 minutes away from my house, and so it wasn't very far to get there, quick trip to get over there when I felt like it was necessary. 

So it was about eight o'clock. I gently woke him up and I had also been thinking that I need to call the birth center, but I was trying to be polite and I figured I'd wait until business hours. And then that way I could call the front desk instead of paging them, which I don't know why, I'm sure it wouldn't have mattered to them either way, but I was being polite and I figured I'd wait for the birth center to open and call the front desk. And when I pulled out my sheet with that, or actually I had it posted on the fridge about the things to look for that were like emergency type of things, that was also encompassed like the pre-eclampsia symptoms and things like that, hypertension.

But anyways, so I had all these things and then it was like when to call, and I realized when I took a second to look at the sheet, it also said when your water breaks call to let us know, and I was like, oh, well, I guess I maybe should have called them sooner.

But, I waited until eight and I called them. The midwife that I had talked to, I think I had only met her, there's four total, and this one particular one I just happened to have only met her one time. I think, because I was scheduling on the same time and days. I was seeing two quite frequently and I had only met this one, like one time.

But I think she must have just glanced at my records or something because she was like, well, this isn't your first time, so you'll know when it's time to go and when it is, just head on over and otherwise just check back in with us in 12 hours. I wasn't going to argue with her because I'm polite of course. But in my head I'm thinking, but I don't really know what time to go is going to be, because my first birth was controlled and I wasn't the one in control and I had such a strong epidural, I literally couldn't feel a thing. So in my head I'm like, well, I won't really know when time to go is, but hopefully I will, but I guess I'll just call her back when it's been 12 hours since my water broke. So in my head, I had this 12 hour number about when I was going to call her back.

And I should say that,one of them had mentioned, it may have been Carolyn, she had mentioned when she had asked about my first son's birth and I had told her, you know, I went in that evening and he was born by two the next day she had said, oh, so pretty fast. And I didn't think of that. I didn't have a frame of reference on fast or not, but she was like, oh, so pretty fast.

 And so she had mentioned that, you know, maybe this one would be similar because our bodies have a sort of memory about giving birth. And that if this birth only took, you know, happened fairly quickly for a first time induction that it's possible that Conrad's could go quicker. But even though despite being told that I, you know, when I called and she was like, call me back at the 12 hour mark, I still had okay, well, I guess, I'll just call back at the 12 hour mark and or otherwise, hopefully I'll know, because I think in my mind before going into labor, I had figured that my water breaking would be a good indicator of being ready to go, and then of course that got thrown out the window when I woke up to my water breaking.

And so I was like, well, okay. I guess I'll just call her around. And I think,right when I decided to call or, shortly before I called her, I was starting to notice more discomfort in my contractions. I was having to kind of find ways to get comfortable now.

And I had heard about a Rebozo on your podcast, so I did have a Rebozo andI like the sounds of that, and I kind of coached my husband on how to help me. And I had decided to not get a doula, for two reasons, one, when I initially got pregnant, I didn't know how COVID is going to impact having a doula. And so I didn't consider, I wasn't sure that would be an option for me. It turned out that in the birth center, doula would have been an option, I would have been able to have a doula . And then the other thing was that by the time I started considering it, I wasn't financially prepared to have, I was like, oh, well, it's kind of out of my budget.

And I should have, if I wanted to have a doula, I should have thought about this sooner. And so I was really going to be relying a lot on my husband to help me through giving birth. 

 And the other reason is I tend to kind of go internal, I don't typically seek a lot of external help when I'm dealing with challenges.

And so I kind of knew that about myself too, that I would be probably more internal than externally needing help and support. So I was really counting on my husband. So I did like the sound of a Rebozo because I thought that was a nice tool that he could help me in finding comfort with.

And I kind of coached him on a few ways that we could use that. But, I still wasn't in so much discomfort that I felt like I needed help at that point,you know, eight o'clock or maybe 8:30 or so. But I had been kind of tracking my contractions on my phone, and I did get to a point where I was kind of done toting my phone around.

And then I thought, well, maybe I should try getting in the shower to get a little more comfortable. And so I did try to take a shower and I think it was when I was in the shower that things really started to pick up.

And that was, okay, things are really going now. My contractions were getting strong enough that I had to stop and get through each one and I could tell that they were like peaking, and I would kind of tense up as they would peak and then it would come back down.

I can't remember if the shower ended up offering me much comfort because I think I remember thinking, well, maybe I should try just going to lay down because this isn't being very helpful. But, I was getting enough break in between, I was like, well I think probably I should try to lay down and relax a little bit before anything gets too crazy because I might have in my head, I'm like 12 hours, I have still several hours to go, so I better try to get comfortable. And, I think I went downstairs and I tried to lay down and I realized that laying down wasn't comfortable at all. I was like, okay, laying down is going to happen, that was so uncomfortable. And I think by this point it was probably getting close to nine or 9:30 ish. I think my husband came in a couple of times to like, see how I was doing it. And I was still doing pretty okay. I was still getting a lot of time in between contractions and my contractions were only lasting like 30 or 45 seconds long, but they were definitely stronger.

I could tell that I was progressing. But I wasn't having any trouble like coping yet at that point. I didn't really feel like I needed much help. So he would come in and kind of check in what I was doing and see if I needed anything. And I just encouraged him to make sure that he would be ready to go whenever and that I would let them know if I needed any help, but I otherwise felt pretty all right.

And then it was probably about 10, all of a sudden things picked up really fast. All of a sudden I went from being able to manage my contractors to they were, I was struggling to manage them. And so then when my husband was coming in to try to help me, I think we briefly tried the Rebozo, but we just couldn't get in sync, him and I like, the things he was doing was like not helping, At one point I told him, I think I was like, the problem is I just am not getting a break to breathe. And in retrospect I think I was having contractions that were double peaking. I went from having very easy to manage, all of a sudden I was having like double peaking contractions and with the gap in between being very short in between contractions. And I had said, I was like, I'm just not getting a chance to breathe. And he's the one who was like, doesn't that mean it's time to go in or call somebody? 

Lisa: Probably, especially with the second time.

Melissa: Yeah. I still had that, well, it hasn't been 12 hours, for some reason that 12 hour comment really stuck with me. I'm like, I still have so much time to go. It was not even close to 12 hours, which is silly because I had another midwife who's like, just come in and it'll be fine if you don't, if you're not ready, you're not ready.

So I think it was probably sometime between 10:30 and 11, I called back and I think Carolee is the one I spoke to and she was like, well, it definitely sounds like you're in active labor and you should just come on in and we'll just see how it’s going.

And so I was like, okay, great. So I was kind of happy to have gotten that feedback. I don't know why I was very like, oh, I was really laissez faire about what was going on. Like, you know, nothing really is going on, and I didn't really articulate what my questions were very well, I feel like, but anyways. 

So getting that feedback from Carolee I was like, all right great, well, we're going to go in. And then at that point, I had already had Alex, my husband, load our bags and stuff into the car because I had learned via your podcast to have my bags packed and ready to go.

So we were all, I had everything packed, ready to go. 

I had packed our lunch earlier in the morning while I was up by myself, our lunch was packed and we had it all ready to go. So all that was left was for me to get out the door. But at that point my contractions were coming so fast and were double peaking.

It took me a half hour just to slip shoes on and put a coat on and get into the car, because I was getting only seconds in between my contractions. And it had finally started to snow, so I did need to have socks and shoes on; it was cold out there and coat and all that.

Heading to the Birthing Center

So it was probably after 11, by the time we finally got out the door and into the car and on our way to the birth center and I told my husband, you know, drive with a purpose, but, you know, be gentle because this isn't comfortable.

And I think when I got in the car, I did get a little bit of a longer break than what I was getting when I was in my house, things kind of slowed down a little bit, which was nice. The drive actually to the birth center wasn't that hard for me, I was actually getting a little bit more relief on the drive.

I think I had, even in the 10 minute drive, I think I still had three or four contractions in that 10 minute drive. And I still had it in my mind that we were just going to go get checked and see how things were going. We pulled up to the birth center and I told my husband to leave everything in the car, because I didn't know yet if we were going to be staying. So I'm like, no, don't worry about unpacking everything. I don't even know if we're going to stay or not. And I think it was, we probably got to the birth center at 11:30 or 12ish. I had no concept of time, but as soon as I abandoned my phone, I had lost track of everything. 

Lisa: You're in labor land now. 

Melissa: I wanted not to tell people when I was in labor, I wanted it to be like, I had hopes of, you know, going, having the baby, resting and then telling everyone. So we had got to the birth center, I got out with, walked in and put my husband to leave everything. Oh, I should back up and say that I was also using, even though I wasn't doing anything to try to speed labor along, but I did hear from both, for Rebecca Dekker with Evidence based Birth and Ina May Gaskin that using evening primrose oil to soften your cervix was a good thing to try to do.

And because one of my primary focuses in this birth was to reduce harm to myself, I really wanted to recover quickly. I really wanted to have the best chances of having little harm done to me or the baby and have a quick recovery, because again, I'm like I'm old and it took me forever to heal. 

Lisa: And avoid an episiotomy maybe this time?

Melissa: Right, exactly. Or a bad tear. My first son was eight pounds and ? Ounces. So I knew I was at least expecting an eight pound baby and I was pretty sure this baby was going to be bigger. 

Lisa: Especially going later in your pregnancy. 

Melissa: Right. So the last two weeks of my pregnancy I was using evening primrose oil, I was inserting it vaginally, and so when I got to the birth center and I had my first cervical exam when I got there and getting on my back again, laying down was really excruciating for me, I did not like laying down.

But she did do a cervical exam, but my cervix was so soft, she had a hard time finding it. She's like, so she determined I was already seven or eight centimeters dilated by the time I got there. And they asked if I wanted the tub, which the tub was an option. They also had nitrous oxide.

I wasn't very interested in nitrous oxide because I was worried it would make me feel like I'd lost some kind of control, I have no idea because I didn't try it obviously, but that's what I was worried about. So I wasn't really that interested in the nitrous oxide, but I did want to try the tub and the tub was filling, and I remember thinking that they needed to figure out some way to fill these tubs faster. I was like, this is taking so long. And before the tub was full, I started to have the urge to push. I was getting sick. I kept saying I'm feeling pushy, I'm feeling pushy, is the tub full yet? 

So, yeah, the urge to push happened while I was waiting for the tub to fill.

And that was another thing that, luckily I was prepared for,that fetal ejection response was just something I had learned in all my reading and listening. And having, now that I've experienced it, like this idea of being asked to stop doing that just seems so silly. 

Like, I couldn't imagine if somebody had told me to stop doing that, that I would have had no control over, over that at all, it was a pretty remarkable thing to have that, it was the craziest thing to have your body just being like, well, it works, but since I had just been checked and I was like a seven or eight, I was kind of like tensing up on them.

The tub was finally full and I got in the tub, but I ended up not liking the tub at all. I just couldn't get comfortable. And then the other problem was that every time I had an urge to push, I was getting really tense because the last time I was checked, I was only seven or eight centimeters dilated.

So I was afraid that I wasn't fully dilated, and in the tub the midwives were having a hard time checking to see if I was fully dilated. 

So I couldn't confidently, I kept tensing up because I didn't know if I was fully dilated or not. I wasn't in the tub for very long before I got back out, and then she checked and I was fully dilated. It was pretty quick from the time that I got there to the time that I was fully dilated, and the pushing phase with my first was so quick, I guess I must've assumed that it would have been quick with this one, but it actually, pushing took me probably an hour and a half, maybe even two hours of pushing which I wasn't expecting at all.

Because with Landen it was like two or three pushes then he was out or that's how I remember it at least. And, so I did a lot of, mostly I was on my hands and knees. I really liked being on the edge of the bed, in retrospect and everything seemed to be happening so fast. I wonder if I would have liked the birthing stool, because at one point my arms and my legs were so tired from holding myself up.

So, I'm probably, if I had a doula, I think maybe that would have been something that would have been like, Hey, maybe you would like this. Because I was getting so tired, by the end of it, of holding my own weight up. 

Lisa: Yeah, that's a long time to be on your hands and knees. 

Melissa: Yeah, and I did try a couple of times to move to my side and my back, but it just felt excruciating to be on my side or my back, I just couldn't get comfortable that way.

And so, yeah, I was probably pushing for an hour and a half or two hours. And I kept on thinking like, when am I going to go to labor land? I kept hearing all the women talking about labor land, but I am here and I am present and I am not in labor land. I want to be in labor land, but I am very present in this moment. 

Lisa: Aside from not looking at the clock, losing the sense of timing. But yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Some people feel more present than others.

Melissa: Yeah. And I remember thinking I should, I wish I was in this labor land, I'm not in labor land, I am here and I'm doing this, and there's no getting out of it. There were a couple moments where I was like, what was I thinking? You know, there's no getting out of it now, now I'm too far in. I'm here. 

But those thoughts were fleeting. I think that may have been like transition possibly, when I was like what was I thinking? But quickly, you're like, well I'm here and I'm doing this, and so those thoughts are not helpful. I remember feeling the baby moving, like I remember feeling him turning into position. And if it hadn't been for the midwife telling me, because she must've seen me like tense up or jump or move or react to him moving a little bit. And she was the one who was like, he's just moving, he's just moving into position, and her telling me that that's what was going on was really helpful.

And it was just amazing. I couldn't believe that I could feel him moving and it was just an amazing thing, it's not something you think about until it happens and then just an incredible thing to feel. And the ring of fire was really real, I had a, I think a mental barrier there with fully committing to pushing him out.

I think that was a part of what was taking time was I had a lot of a mental barrier there with just committing, I guess. And, I ended up, I think I pushed, got his head out first and he was a bit stuck, I think. She had to kind of reach in and move his arm. His arm was in a weird position.

So she had to kind of sweep his arm back over to his side. And at some point I had ended up on my back when I pushed his head out, I think because I was getting too weak in my arms to hold myself up. So I had ended up on my back and I pushed his head out and the midwife, Michelle, needed me to get onto, back onto my hands and knees because of the way I think baby was stuck. And, she had, she was telling me she needed me to flip back over, and I remember when I had flipped onto my back to push, it felt like I could barely do that, and I needed to flip back over onto my hands and knees, then she was telling me I needed to flip back over. And I was saying that I wasn't sure if I could. And she said, well, you know, we're going to help you. And I think I said, I don't think I can. And then I remember she looked me right in the eyes, it's like, you need to move over on it. She was very clear with me, like this isn't a choice, you have to move onto your hands and knees. 

And so then I did it. It was like, there's, you know, when you're told, when somebody is very clear with, you know, you have to get onto you, I need you to flip over, so we can get the baby out. And, so I did, I flipped over and I was just a couple more pushes, and then he finally found his way out.

And I was very relieved, I was just so relieved that he was out and I was so exhausted and they wanted me to flip back over again so that they could hand me the baby. And I was like, there's no way, I'm going to be able to flip back over again. I was so tired, I'm like, I kept looking, but I did, I flipped back over, and found out that he was a boy and I was thrilled. 

And I should say my husband, the whole time, obviously he was there holding my hands. Then he was right there beside me the whole time. None of the coping mechanisms I thought I would use or like, I didn't use any of them or like any of them.Everything happened so fast that I didn't even get a chance for some of them.

Lisa: It was about eight and a half hours ish, something in that from the time your water broke? 

Melissa: My water broke at 5:15 and then he was born at 1:53 PM. So it was about eight and a half hours from the time that I woke up and my water broke. It was eight and a half hours from the time that it broke until the time that he was born. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I was in labor the whole time obviously, but the time that it was like active labor felt very quick.

Like it, it went from being nothing going on to all of a sudden everything happening as how it felt. 

Lisa: Maybe around five hours in, I think you said in the 10 o'clock hour is when it really suddenly shifted. 

Melissa: Yep, exactly. 

Lisa: And you had brought up when you sent me your written birth story, you brought up something about the tens unit. Did you end up using that? 

Melissa: Yeah. So I did, I did get a tens unit with the intention of using it, but then I, it never even crossed my mind to grab it. I had even, I checked with my midwives, I had one myself and there was even one at the birth center that they had. I believe that I heard about the tens unit on your show, the Rebozo I didn't get to use that. And then the other thing that I thought I would like was the tub and I ended up really hating the tub. 

Lisa: You never know. It's just good to have the toolkit, you know, have these things at the ready, just in case, because you never know what's going to be the golden coping thing. 

Melissa: Yeah, definitely. And then I delivered the placenta and that was easy. I did have just a small, external tear on my labia. Then she just put like a stitch in just to be safe, but otherwise I didn't suffer any tearing. Conrad was nine pounds, ten ounces. So he was bigger than Landen and I was at the birth center for a couple of hours after he was born. My pulse was still really high, I think I was dehydrated, and so they wanted to make sure I was hydrated and that my pulse went back to normal. So I was probably there, I don't think we left until 6:30 or 7 that evening after he was born, then we went home. I had envisioned being in labor during a snowstorm and it was snowing, but I didn't get to, like I thought I'd be looking out the window, watching the snow fall.

I didn't see any snow falling. I didn't see snow again until we walked outside and everything was covered in snow. I had envisioned like this nice, serene environment, but I didn't see any of the snow, not until we left. 

Lisa: Yeah. Did you find that you are closing your eyes a lot in labor or just not looking out the window? 

Melissa: I think I was, my eyes were closed a lot, I did make a lot of eye contact with my husband. He held my hands a lot, and he was right there with me, but, yeah, I'd say I did go internal quite often. And I think that probably like the midwives, Michelle, I say midwives, it was Michelle, and then she had a birth assistant with her. And so I would be, sometimes I'd be like, ow, ow and she'd be like, you know what's ow? But I'm saying it to myself, but I'm not saying it to her. So I was having a hard time vocalizing a lot of what was going on inside my head.

I probably, for the whole process from start to finish, I did a lot of like, processing it inside and not being very good at communicating around me to the people around me, what was going on.

But Michelle and her birth assistant, were really good at asking, trying to sort out, they worked through it, they worked out through like, ow, what's ow? Everything? 

They did a good job of like sorting out whether it was like a bad ow or just figured it out. 

Lisa: Just a coping vocalization. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, going back to the pushing and when the midwife had you flip on your back and then had you flip back onto the hands and knees that reminded me of, the Gaskin maneuver, and I kind of wonder if that's, did they ever mention shoulder dystocia that the shoulder was stuck at all?

Melissa: Only that, she said that she had to reach it and move his arm out of the way. but I don't think that she specifically had said that to me, but I do remember hearing that in Ina May Gaskin's book. And in retrospect, I think that's probably what's going on because he was so big, he was just struggling to make his way out of the birth canal.

And so I do think that's probably why she had me flipped back over and needed me back over because I think when I was on my back, he wasn't budging. 

And that's why she had to really look me in the eyes and be very clear that she needed me to flip over. And it wasn't a choice in that we were going to find a way to get me back onto my hands and knees again, whether everyone needed to flip me or whether I was going to do it myself, I was going to end up, I had to, there wasn't a choice about it. 

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. And that's something that a lot of OBs aren't trained in, the Gaskin maneuver, and so I'm really grateful that you were with a provider who knew that and knew a technique to help the baby to be able to exit through the pelvis and through the vagina. 

Melissa: Most definitely I couldn't have imagined, the way it felt to be on my back and on my side, it makes me often think back to birthing or being on my back the whole time with Landen. I just couldn't, it's just an interesting idea that it was obviously not what my body wanted.

And so I wonder, I do wonder like having an epidural and being on my back the whole time,it's just kind of interesting to realize how much my body didn't like that, especially with big babies. I guess it's amazing to me that Landen was born with no major complications.

Like, I feel almost lucky because if I had been in that situation with Conrad, I'm not sure because of how big he was that birthing on my back would have been successful at all. 

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. It could easily have moved to a cesarean, so yay that you were with those midwives. 

The Placenta

Melissa: She did ask me if I wanted to, they asked Alex if he wanted to cut the cord and he's like, no, no, no. There were a couple of times that they would ask me if I wanted to reach down and feel what was going on, but I didn't want any of that. I was like too focused on my mission, and so I couldn't get through any of that.

And then she did ask if I wanted to see my placenta when it was a few hours after he was born and she brought it out and she was very excited to show me. And it was really cool because it was that velamentous cord insertion, which, what's interesting is if you think about a cord, an electrical cord, it's got like multiple wires inside of it, and then it's got like the casing on the outside of it. And so, you can imagine that that would be an umbilical cord and those are the blood vessels inside. But with a velamentous cord insertion, it's attached to the side and it's almost like the outer casing has been removed.

And so the wires are splayed or the blood vessels are kind of splayed and attached that way. And so it was really cool to kind of see, and also Michelle and her birth assistant enjoyed having an opportunity to take a look at it too. So that was really cool. She showed me the side that was attached to the uterus and the side that was facing the baby and all that.

So that was really cool. 

Lisa: You happen to get any pictures, did you? 

Melissa: I didn't take, I wish I had, I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I should have. It was really cool. The placenta was way bigger than I thought it would be. For some reason, I don't know why I didn't expect it to be so big, but placentas are large.

They're really a full organ, which it's one thing to hear about it, it's totally another thing to actually see it with your own eyes. 

So that was really cool. I enjoyed that. 

Lisa: Yeah, and that's not for everyone. Some people are like, no, thank you. I don't want to see that. And you can, you don't have to decide that in advance, but some care providers might offer for you to see it. And for those of us who enjoy seeing biology, it's kind of cool. 

Differences Between the Two Births

Lisa: Nice. So, how did these two births compare? I know you shared something with me that I thought was really beautiful, but, could you share with listeners the difference for you or it could be multiple differences, or kind of the theme the way you would think about Landen's and then Conrad's births.

Melissa: With Landen I would describe the labor and delivery as being easy and the recovery being really quite challenging. But with Landen I really learned my capacity to love, with him, I really didn't know that I could love so deeply and love another person so much and so instantly.

And so I really learned how to love somebody with Landen. And then with Conrad the labor and delivery was more challenging, but my recovery was pretty swift. In a matter of a week or two before I was really feeling much better, compared to six or seven weeks. But with Conrad, I learned to love my body again, and I learned to trust my body again, that had kind of been taken from me, that trust in my body, in that missed miscarriage and having an unmedicated physiological birth and letting my body take charge, really, take the lead and trusting what it was doing. And I did, I really learned to believe in my body, believe that it's powerful and have trust in it again.

I think that's the two main differences. Also, because I didn't know the gender of the baby and then I combined with so much anxiety about the pregnancy being viable, I didn't bond with the baby and pregnancy like I did with Landen.

And I also think that I didn't have that instant bond like I did with Landen, which was humbling to experience, I guess, because even though you hear about different bonding times, I think that even, with different babies with your own babies, you can have a experience a different time when you bond with them.

Like with Landen it was so instantaneous, where with Conrad it was probably a couple of days before I really was like, I know you and I love you. And I, not that, you know what I mean, not that I didn't love him, but I really, after a couple of days really started to bond with him. So I do think, like I said, a combination of maybe not knowing the gender, being anxious, and then of course, there was just the processing, the giving birth itself were all things that I was doing, after he was born, which was a little, maybe different than, with Landen. 

Lisa: Nice. Thank you so much for sharing that. Well, is there anything that you haven't gotten to share yet that you were hoping to share or any final tips or insights for our listeners?

Melissa: Sure. 

About Breastfeeding

Melissa: I've probably got a couple of things. I breastfed both babies. With Landen it was so easy in fact, and I was very young and very naive, I think. I remember when I would hear people talk about breastfeeding being painful or difficult. I remember thinking, well, then you must be doing something wrong because it's quite easy.

I didn't have any challenges. And with Conrad, he wasn't nearly as good as Landen. And I really, what I realized is that I wasn't giving Landen the credit that he deserved for being such an easy baby. I was taking all the credit for how easy our breastfeeding journey was because then when I had Conrad, he really had to learn how to latch, and I also didn't have to pump and go back to work with Landen, I stayed at home with him, and I did have to pump and go back to work with Conrad and pumping is another challenge that I didn't realize would be such a challenge. 

I'd say that nursing the baby is more enjoyable and I think that pumping is not enjoyable.

Lisa: Most of us don't enjoy that.

Melissa: I also struggled a lot with clogged ducts, and I think that's related to pumping where when I was nursing, I never had issues with the clogged ducts. 

And then it's also a little bit of just, you know, pumping at work as a whole thing, which in the state of Washington, I don't know if it's a national thing, but at least in the state of Washington employers have to allow you to pump. They have to provide you a space to pump. And so even with all that, it's still like a weird adjustment, I'm just, by my personality, I'm a hard worker and having to stop and take a break and to stop and pump and do that it's a challenge for me to make that a priority.

Lisa: I remember feeling like that, too. 

Melissa: I don't like feeling like a weak link in the chain, I guess, is probably what it is. And just understanding that it didn't make me a weak link in the chain and that it's just I just had to work it into my normal day and it was just learning how to do that. 

Lisa: Oh, thanks for sharing all of that, that's, first of all it's really encouraging, I'm so glad to have you sharing on the podcast. One example of it came easily with my first, breastfeeding did, because that is all too uncommon to hear that. And you know, at least statistically speaking, we think that 90% of us have some challenges in the early weeks.

So I was, it's not really nice to find the 10%, you know, just not to find someone who's like, no, it was actually really easy. My mom said it was really easy for her. But also interesting your perspective and different experiences from one child to the next. 

Melissa: Yeah. Conrad had like a really shallow latch. He didn't have any tongue, we had, I hadn't checked for like tongue tie stuff and that wasn't the issue. He just was maybe over-eager or something, it was really quite painful every time he would latch. It was like, Oh, my goodness. What are you doing wrong here, dude, this is not working out.

And I think on one of my follow-ups with my midwife, which I had several of, which was different than Landen. With Landen I only saw my obstetrician once after six weeks, but I saw my midwives several times right after Conrad was born. And she explained to me that what was happening is, he was basically latching, and then when the baby would suck the nipple in, it goes up across the tongue, which is kind of like sandpaper on your nipple in a way. And so that kind of causes like cracks and just abrasion on the, it's just hard on the nipple compared to a baby goes in with a big wide mouth and it takes in a good mouthful, instead he's taking in a little bit and then sucking it across his tongue and it was just so painful and yeah, I definitely didn't give Landen the credit he deserves for our easy breastfeeding journey, for sure. 

Lisa: It's different. 

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.The other thing I would just probably like to mention is more about some of the paid family leave and stuff that we have going on in Washington has been, it was a night and day difference for me.

And I think, probably for Conrad, just my husband's ability to also get paid time off with me and for me to have paid time off, and that we got a full 12 weeks. This was my husband's first baby, and so he really got a good crash course on learning to take care of the baby, and he and Conrad have an excellent relationship. He's a great father and I trust him a lot. With Landen I didn't trust anybody with the baby, including Landen's own father, because he went straight back to work. I did all his care. But with my husband and I having that time off together, and both learning how to take care of Conrad and both having trust in each other, it just made a huge difference in how I felt and how he felt. It's a game changer, basically, being able to have that paid leave. And then, the other thing that Washington just passed in the beginning of March, which I thought would be fun to mention is that,I can't remember the name of the bill right now, but they passed the bill in like the first week of March, that midwives, I think licensed midwives and certified practicing midwives or practitioner midwives, are allowed to give contraceptive care.So now in Washington state you can get that kind of that care through your other midwives also. 

So that's kind of a monumentous here in Washington too. I feel lucky to be in Washington and have, and also my insurance, or most insurances in the state of Washington are going to cover most types of birth. That's including a home birth, a birth center birth, or a hospital birth. And I don't know if many people realize and, at least I didn't realize, that we have so many options here in Washington that they're so available to us. It's good to know what your options are and that you have many of them, so...

Lisa: Great. Thank you for sharing that. 

I'll have to maybe either follow up with you, or do a little online poking around to find links that I can include in the show notes for that information, in case people want to learn more about that in Washington. 

Well, thank you, Melissa. It has been so wonderful to hear all the juicy details about your journeys through pregnancy and birth and hear those differences and the different choices you made this most recent time around.

So thank you, thank you. 

Melissa: Yeah. Thank you too. And again, your podcast was so valuable to me and I imagined the many women and I hope that we just keep this, keep this going. I hope that we continue, culturally, to embrace talking about and normalizing birth and talking about the positive things that come from it.