Birth Matters Podcast, Ep 106 - 3 Transformative Births, Pt 1: Traumatic Induction to Cesarean

Today’s story is the 1st episode of a 2-parter. In it, the founder of Be Her Village, a baby registry that provides a way to give the gift of support instead of far less important baby gear, shares her first of 3 babies’ birth stories. Kaitlin’s 3 births couldn’t be more different from each other. In this episode, Kaitlin shares planning for a birthing center birth with midwives that shifted to a hospital induction and, ultimately, an unplanned cesarean. She shares how it was traumatic not because of the mode of birth, but largely because of the way she was treated. This first story lays the foundation for both why she made different choices for births 2 and 3, which will be shared in the next episode, and why she started Be Her Village as a way to help folks access the support they need for a great birth and postpartum period. Sneak peek into the next episode: she has a transformative, healing 2nd vaginal birth after cesarean (or VBAC) in a hospital with an OB and doula, and with her third a much faster labor and birth at home.

Resources:

Sponsor links:

*Disclosure: Links on this page to products are affiliate links; I will receive a small commission on any products you purchase at no additional cost to you.

Episode Topics:

  • Fear of epidural in first pregnancy

  • Took childbirth education class

  • Hired midwives, planned birthing center birth

  • 41 week appt BP high and fluid low, told she had to go straight to hospital

  • Very emotional to in a moment lose her vision and power

  • Discussing listening to your intuition andn how she suppressed some of the negative things she was hearing about changes at the birthing center

  • Start Cytotec, didn’t do anything so doubles the dose

  • Her body responds very strongly to this so she nevers needs pitocin

  • Gets the epidural

  • She gets out of bed, goes to bathroom and tolerates the sensations so much better

  • Midwife came back for a bit, lovely when she was there but wasn’t there as much as she would have liked

  • Around 2 or 3am, got epidural, sleeps a bit

  • Every time she wakes up staff are in room and they look worried

  • Fetal distress on monitor – both tachycardia and bradycardia

  • She knows now he was asynclitic

  • They say doc will come in 45 min and assess

  • She tells them she just wants a healthy baby, so they say they’re going to do a cesarean

  • Had a cesarean – as good as it can get even though it wasn’t what she envisioned

  • Anesthesiologist put her to sleep for a good portion of the cesarean

  • Discussing doula support as something that could have helped her make the mental shift

Interview Transcript

Lisa: Hi Kaitlin. How are you doing? 

Kaitlin: Hi, Lisa. I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me. 

Lisa: I'm so excited to have you. So Kaitlin is a fellow birth worker and she's doing some really important work, with a company called Be Her Village.

She founded it, and we'll talk about that a little more later. But, would you please just take a moment to introduce yourself to help the listeners get to know you. 

Kaitlin: Absolutely. Hi everybody. Thank you for listening to my story. I love sharing my birth stories because they really, it really explains who I am and why I'm in this work.

I was a public school teacher. I was teaching kids with autism. I loved it. It was the path I was set on and in New York City actually, and I, and then I became a mother and I had my very first interaction with the healthcare system and I sort of found myself totally caught off guard by what that experience felt like.

I ended up having a c-section with my first, I wasn't prepared for expecting, wanting certainly. And then I went on to have a VBAC, a very empowering VBAC, not because of how the baby was born, but because of sort of every other detail around that experience. And then with my third, I went on to have a home birth, which was something I was against, like as a whole idea, I was against the idea of home birth until my story unfolded. And then I found myself having a baby in my room on purpose. and in the middle of all of these experiences, I also became a birth worker. I became a doula, after I had my second baby because I found that in 23 months time, In the same location, same partner, same everything.

I had two wildly different birth experiences, and I felt called to find out why that was, why was I treated so awfully the first time? And why was I treated really differently the second time? And I felt like my doula, my doula and my preparation really was a big part of that. And so I found called into doula work and built out a doula team.

And now, as Lisa, you just said, I run a company called Be Her Village, which is a gift registry to help parents be able to access and afford doulas. Because one of the frustrations that I had as I was running my doula team is I could see how impactful the work was. It was so impactful on me as somebody who was giving birth.

And it was equally as impactful for my clients who we were helping and watching have these incredible transformations, a well-supported transformation. And it was frustrating to understand that not everybody could have that, cuz not everybody had thousands of dollars to pay for dual care out of pocket.

So we started thinking about how we could solve that problem using the baby shower. So yeah, so I'm so excited to dive into all of it. Maternal healthcare and advocacy and really, stepping into the motherhood transition with intention and with connection to yourself and your voice and your power is one of my favorite things about myself and my own story, and I'm really excited to be able to share it with all of you. 

Lisa: I'm getting so many chills as you're sharing all of that because it is, it just resonates so much. Of course. As I've done this work for so long as well, one of the resounding themes we hear from people on the other side of birth is, I underestimated the amount of support I would need. and so that's why I'm so on board and so excited about the work Be Her Village and you are doing, because it is such a need.

And the trick is just helping people understand before the other side of birth— 

Kaitlin: Yes. 

Lisa: How valuable that is. So I'm happy to spread the word with you. 

Kaitlin: I love that and I really appreciate that, Lisa, underestimating the amount of support you need is, it's like, if there was a title for my first birth story, that is it.

I just, I completely underestimated just how difficult it was going to be without a supportive team and. And I struggle sometimes in telling this story cuz I don't wanna scare people. I don't wanna say like, if you don't do this, it's gonna be terrible. That's not true. You can have a wonderfully, supportive and beautiful transformation, with a good amount of luck or, or with the right team beside you.

But it's not the way it is for all of us and it's not the way it is for most of us. So there's this delicate balance we have to find of Explaining what maternal healthcare in our country actually looks like. And in New York City certainly. and surrounding areas, what it actually looks like.

Without scaring people. And that's a hard thing to do because it's so hard. You want this, like, beautiful, like, hey, a lot of us when we're pregnant, it's like we're trying to take in only positive energy and positive stories. And it's like, that's cool, but that can really make you disconnected from the reality and get blindsided.

Which is what happened to me, I think. My first story was just feeling blindsided by the reality of the healthcare system and how awful it can be in certain situations. 

First Pregnancy and Preparations

Lisa: Well, thank you. So is that a good point to launch into your first pregnancy and how you, the different ways you prepared and yeah. Anything you wanna share about that? 

Kaitlin: Absolutely. So somebody asked me on another podcast why I sought out a birth center birth and why I sought out midwifery care and why I was looking for something different and I couldn't put my finger on it until I remembered that my biggest fear of birth.

Was getting an epidural. It was not the idea of pushing a baby outta my body. It was, I think that's a common fear people have is like, what is it gonna feel like the sensation of pushing a human out of that small area? Right. but my fear was not that at all. My fear was getting an epidural. I was afraid of what that would feel like, and that was actually my motivating factor to have an alternative type of birth.

It was how can I prepare myself so that I have other tools? so I took childbirth education, a pain free childbirth education, sort of a model of education offering. And I hired midwives and I planned an out of hospital birth and I thought I was doing all the right things and I thought that because I was doing that I was going to be protected.

I had this, mainly the midwife part, and I really like, again, sort of tread carefully here because midwives as a group, as a whole, everybody go get a midwife, right? Like I'm gonna tell you the story about how I got midwives and it kind of went sideways and it didn't work out. And yet you should definitely still go get a midwife.

But, go get a midwife with your eyes open and ask questions. And don't let that be like this idea of they will forever protect me. You, it doesn't matter who you have on your team. You still need to be somebody who is constantly advocating for yourself and speaking up and connecting with your truth in whatever moment you're in.

And that was something I didn't necessarily do. So I prepared by going to a local birth center and, using the midwives there. And what I didn't know at the time was that the way that the laws are set up in New York, midwives cannot own at the time. Now it's different. They couldn't own a birth center, which essentially means they were not autonomous, they weren't able to make their own decisions for the care that they were providing.

I didn't know any of that. So I was going to the orientation, I was going to my visits and all I was seeing was midwives. And I was having conversations with midwives about my care, and I just sort of had this idea that they would keep me safe and everything would be great. and safe, not necessarily medically safe.

I figured they would do that and they did, but more so like they would preserve my vision for what I wanted this birth to look like. And what I didn't realize until later was that. They were working for OBs and not just OBs doctors, but OBs that were faceless and nameless. I still don't know who was on the other end of the phone when these decisions were being made, about my care.

Being Told to go to the Hospital

So essentially my experience was I was going to this birth center. I was having what I thought was true midwifery care, right? Seeing midwives, it was all very gentle and sweet and kind, which is why you go get a midwife. And then I hit 41 weeks and I was sent to go get, just sort of a routine, 41 week scan, check on the water, check on me, check on the baby, and.

At that appointment, my water was a little low and my blood pressure was a little high. And it was also July 6th. It was like the hottest day. We were in the middle of July 6th of what year? 2012. It was like you could go back into the almanac. It was like a hundred degrees that whole week. The day the baby was born, it was over a hundred degrees.

It was a really hot time. And I just remember that Con Ed was like having blackouts and brownouts and I was like, oh my goodness, I need electricity to have this baby. So I remember coming out of that sonogram place in New York City and my phone rang and it was my midwife, and she said, okay, it's time to have the baby go to the hospital.

And for me that was like such an abrupt departure from what I had signed up for. And. The care that I wanted to receive and the co-decision making that I expected. And I don't know that I necessarily even had the intellectual ability to understand what was so upsetting in that moment, but I do remember bursting into tears.

There was just something so that moment, if I could pinpoint the moment where my power was lost, it was in that phone call where I was just told that this is the end of the pregnancy. I was told that we're going to the hospital, it's time to have this baby. There wasn't a reason given besides my time is up.

There wasn't a conversation about options. There wasn't any laying out of what was to expect at the hospital. And I found myself on the streets of Brooklyn by myself standing on the sidewalk. My husband was at work and just hysterical, crying and it was just this sort of awful way to kick off what should be a joyous event.

The birth of my baby, the stepping into motherhood. So that was just the beginning of what happened to me. And so I ended up, my family met me at the hospital and this is, this all sounds ridiculous by the way. I just wanna like, qualify this, that I am now somebody who advocates for women and has helped hundreds of women, like, and families in their transition. And I feel ridiculous saying what happened to me in my story cuz I was so not connected to my power. 

Reservations in Retrospect

Lisa: Can I ask a quick question before you go on? 

Kaitlin: Sure. 

Lisa: I hope it doesn't derail your thought process there. 

Kaitlin: No, no, that's okay.

Lisa: I was just curious if, birthing center had given you, the midwives, had given you a list of things that would risk you out of giving birth there.

Kaitlin: Yes. 

Lisa: If you remember, a time and they– 

Kaitlin: I don't know that it was a list, but I do remember at orientation, they told us many reasons why we would be transferred, which perhaps should have been my first, like, oh, okay, you, you can only take me if I'm like in this very narrow, window of normal.

I also remember, at around 37 weeks pregnant, just having this like pit in my stomach about the birth center and the midwives. Part of it was because I was in a class, a childbirth class with other couples that were using the same midwives and birth center.

They were telling me about all these changes, staff changes, different, like all these like political things that were happening within the birth center and with the doctors that I didn't know about, they were not letting me know about. And there was this like inkling of doubt that started in my belly, but I was in this mindset of like, Keep part of it was, the childbirth education I received was very, keep all the negative thoughts out, train your mind to be very hyper positive.

And so I mistook that as needing to quell my own negative thoughts, my own instincts and intuitions, and make them and ignore them in like a desire to be ultra positive. And I have always talked to women about that. Like, it's one thing to like not listen to horror stories about pregnancy from every person that encounters you and wants to tell you about their neighbor and their daughter-in-law.

That's, had a horrible experience. But it's a totally separate thing to have those seeds of doubt sort of growing in yourself and to ignore them to try to be positive, you should always listen to them. Those are beautiful tools to guide us where we should be. So I had that and I ignored it.

And I also wanna mention one of the things that the midwives did do is they recommended that we get doulas. The childbirth educator and the midwives. Everyone recommended a doula. And I didn't get one because I had this vision for my birth of being very intimate and very private, and I couldn't imagine there being an additional person that I didn't know.

It felt like this outsider that I would be inviting an outsider in. And unfortunately that was a huge mistake. I just, my birth, nobody could know, what the medical indications would've been, what, whether I would've ended up with a c-section or vaginal birth or whatever. But for me, the part of my first birth that was hard and traumatizing was not the C-section.

The C-section was a ticket out of a really traumatizing situation where people were just treating me with disdain and neglect and it was pretty awful. And. I feel like I know for sure that a doula would've shifted that power dynamic, that somebody whispering in my ear that I have options and that I have a say in what's going on would've really changed things.

Immediately Induced

So, yes, so I went, so the ridiculous story that I, I wanna share is that I went to the hospital and there was, there's this idea, right? It's like you're told. You have to be induced cuz the water's low. and any time a medical provider tells you need to do something, it feels really scary.

I've been on this doula side of things for so long and I know I can walk people through these decisions, but like, I also have this lived experience. It is in my cells, this experience of sitting there going, okay, just tell me what I need to do. You just love your baby so much and you, there's maternal fierceness comes up so early on.

It's an incredible thing what women will sacrifice before their babies are even born. And that's what it felt like. It felt like, I'm gonna sacrifice the birth center birth, I'm gonna sacrifice this and that, and we're just gonna do what the baby needs. And you trust so deeply in your team to tell you the things that you actually need to do.

And it's, it was that dynamic for me that really prevented me from being like, wait, what? So when they told me that they were going to induce me with Cytotec, in the c-section recovery room of the hospital, I didn't even, like, I didn't even question it cuz my midwife who I trusted walked me in there and got me set up and left and said, call me when you think you need an epidural.

And it's like, wait a second. I got set up in the c-section recovery room. By the way, I have talked to so many people in the birth stories. I've never heard of anybody else being induced in the c-section recovery room, not unless there's nowhere else to be.

There was nowhere else to be, but I, it also was just so not urgent.

Lisa: They very easily could have been like, come back in the morning.

Kaitlin: It just, right. Yes. I didn't know any of that, but it was the most absurd thing because I was. In this room with probably 20 other women who were in semi-conscious states, moaning post-surgery, post DNC after losing babies. It was like, it was not the energy you wanna invite into a birthing space.

Lisa: Wow. 

Labor Intensifies Quickly

Kaitlin: And then I was getting pounded with Cytotec. The first two doses didn't do anything, so they gave me a double dose. And Cytotec is a cervical ripener for anyone who doesn't know it's a cervical ripener, it's the first thing they do before they give you Pitocin, to just sort of prep your cervix so it can get nice and cushy and a little bit thinned out so that the Pitocin is actually able to be productive.

I never even got to Pitocin, once they gave me that double dose of Cytotec, my body apparently, I didn't know this at the time, but you'll see in my next two stories, my body is very fast in labor and very efficient. So I went from talking and eating a sandwich to essentially being in transition to like every three minutes.

Incredibly intense and powerful, deep uterine contractions. And it was wonderful in that it's working. Hey, look at this. It's working right? I'm sure the medical providers, oh, actually nurse Wendy, who I have absolutely no positive feelings towards Nurse Wendy, was the one nurse in charge of all of these post-op patients, which quite honestly, knowing what I know now, was probably not a safe ratio, but she definitely was not supposed to be in charge of also a laboring woman who's under the care of Cytotec.

And like, it was just, it's wild. So she had me on my back. I had the blood pressure cuff. I had the monitor for the baby's heart rate. Heart rate. I had the contraction monitor, and I had also the two,the blowy up things that they put around your legs to prevent clots. Even though I was not an epidural, I should have been able to move around, but I was not allowed to get up from the bed, quote unquote not allowed.

And, and I remember oh, and she also made me keep the pulse ox on, which again, not on an epidural, no, there was no need for more than half of those things. But I felt and was essentially strapped down and trapped in the bed. And when I was moving to try and work with my body and work with these really intense contractions, I was told that she's not able to see them on the monitor.

And I have to lay still and lay back. And I couldn't get up to use the bathroom. I was made to use a bedpan. I was throwing up. And shaking. I was going into really into transition level contractions, and I remember when I was throwing up, she was like, oh, that's good. That means you're dilating. Which, like, which, yes, that is what it means. Yes, it's a sign. But like, read the room, Wendy,

Lisa: Absolutely. Read the room. Oh my goodness.

Kaitlin: So I felt like a trapped animal. I felt like I couldn't, and I was, I couldn't get up. I was having these intense contractions when a half hour and an hour before I was talking to you like this. Right. 

We were laughing and joking and I was just, everything that I had prepared for all of the tools, the midwife, all the childbirth education, I couldn't even connect with it. It felt so, so, so far away because I was in full blown crisis. I know when we go into crisis, we don't have those tools accessible to us.

That's part of why doula care is so important, cuz it, it is like that bridge is that reminder. And I remember my husband looking at me at that point and my mother were next to me with these big, wide deer eyes. Of like, we don't know what to do with you. We don't know what we're allowed to do. And this is where, again, my own doula support that I provide is really based on this moment of like, I was scared to have a doula because I felt like it would be less intimate.

And here I am totally abandoned by my team with essentially an adversarial nurse that's actively not only not caring for me, but like doing harm to me. And my family had no idea what to do. They've never been through this before. And I remember looking at my husband who knew all of my wishes and was so supportive of the birth center, birth and natural birth.

Asking for Epidural

He wouldn't, he's just happy to like, support me in whatever I do. Thank God for him. And I looked at him and I said, I want an epidural, which was like the thing I had wanted to avoid my whole pregnancy, my whole life, quite frankly. And he looked at me and he was like, are you sure? Cuz this is like, and as a doula, I'm sure doulas who are listening to this can relate.

There's this moment of like, do we honor? Do we listen? Do we validate? Do we hear right? Does she really want that or is she just crying out because she's eight centimeters? It's a hard thing to parse out sometimes. And I'm so grateful that he listened to me. I looked at him and I said, honey, everything has gone out the window.

I want the epidural. Like, it was this feeling in me of just everything I wanted this, like, I had this vision for my birth right? Like to be on the ball and to be moving with my body and feeling confident. And like I say this like sort of sarcastically, but like opening, like the flower that I am, like I had this like crunchy granola, wonderful, peaceful version of my birth that was in my head, and we were way past that.

So like, I'm not gonna take the suffering that they weren't inflicting on me without also the tools to reduce that. Sure. and I remember, so I remember, so Nurse Wendy, helpful Nurse Wendy, went and got the residents and they checked me. And I have to tell you, like now as a doula, I help people figure out, should we be checked?

What's the risk? What's this, what's the path forward? And I was like, I don't care what I do, whatever you want, just get me the freaking epidural, and I remember Nurse Wendy looked at me and said the strangest thing. She goes, are you sure you wanna get an epidural? That would mean you'd have to go to your own L&D room.

And I was like, 

Lisa: What the what? 

Kaitlin: Yeah. I would've gotten the epidural like two hours ago if I knew that was one of the options. Right? Like what kinda, I don't know where her— 

Lisa: That is so backwards. 

Kaitlin: It was the strangest thing. This is where I'm like, the C-section was an exit from this horror of, yeah, of what was happening in this hospital. So I went, I passed. I was four to five centimeters after like an hour or two contracting. I never needed Pitocin. I was off on my own and I went to my own room, the nurse in the L&D  room. So you got like a new nurse assigned to you, which was horrific.

She was not happy to see me. And I'm not knocking nurses, I'm knocking like these specific nurses. Just nurses could be great ones and they could be wonderful. But, and in the nurses who I'm like talking about in their defense, they, I'm sure were understaffed. Overworked. And the culture of the hospital, and quite frankly, the whole system is, there's bigger problems.

And I don't mean to blame the individual nurses or even the midwife who abandoned me. There's so much more at play than just these individual women. But it's hard also not to harbor a little bit of anger towards their roles. 

Lisa: Right. Sure. 

Kaitlin: So, like be human. Like can you just be human? Like, just treat me nice. It costs nothing. It costs you nothing to be nice. In fact,

Lisa: It helps their soul

Kaitlin: It helps their soul. It helps the whole situation because absolutely. How do you calm an anxious, panicked person? You are nice to them. It's trauma-informed care. There was no trauma informed care and I was like, actively being traumatized.

So it was like, especially, it was quite an interesting experience. But I remember, before I was to get in the bed to get in like the epidural and also just the bed seemed to be like the standard. They just expected me to always be in a bed, which is weird, but it was standard in that hospital and in many hospitals.

I went into the bathroom to use the bathroom before I got in the bed and I remember having more contractions there. I was having bloody show, which was really cool. And all of a sudden I was like, do I need the epidural? I was handling them. I was vertical. I was peeing and pushing and not pushing, but like I was able to like release my pelvic floor.

I was on the toilet, my husband was with me. I was able to rock and breathe all of a sudden just changing my position and being able to labor upright. It was unbelievable how different it was. But I was sort of so far down this, I didn't say I don't want the epidural. I just, they made me get back in the bed.

Epidural Administered

They said I was laboring there as long as they could and they made me get back in the bed. And again, my power was not there. Unfortunately, I was a very obedient patient and so I got back in the bed and my midwife showed up. Hello. Nice to see you. And she helped me get through the epidural as they administered the epidural.

And I remember like, it's definitely a hospital issue because this anesthesiologist was horrific, just the way she spoke to me, the epidural was one of my most like fear points at going into this. And I remember she said to me, you're gonna feel pressure. You're gonna feel a pinch and like a little pressure.

And instead, I felt a needle go into my spine, which I'm so sorry for anyone listening, but I felt the whole thing and I jumped because it was awful. And she goes, stop moving. So she was yelling at me and I'm like, it hurts. And she said, is it pressure or pain? Like really like dismissive and patronizing and it was just every single staff member that I came into contact with.

It was awful. And I got through it. My midwife was wonderful when she was there, but again, this birth center was going through so many staff changes and right after I had this baby, they actually lost privileges or no longer had privileges at this hospital. There was a big shift there, so at the time I think there were only two midwives who had privileges at this hospital, so I think it was a matter of like, we're gonna conserve energy, we're gonna but it just wasn't necessarily what I signed up for as the patient.

I had a really different understanding than what I have now as a birth worker and understanding like what goes on within a midwifery practice and trying to conserve your energy. So she was lovely when she was there. She was comforting. And again, I felt like, oh, I probably could have managed more of these contractions with somebody talking me through them telling me to just, you know, stand.

I use the language used in my doula work, stay on top of the wave and just imagine it, it's like, oh my God, okay, I can do this. It's incredible. It's just incredible to me how sitting upright and somebody saying nice things to me actually changed my sensation of pain.

Lisa: Absolutely. 

Kaitlin: It's unbelievable. Powerful. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Concerns About Baby’s Heart Rate

Kaitlin: Yes. So, here we are now. It's probably two or 3:00 AM. I have gotten through the Cytotec. My contractions are never stopping. They're doing great and I've got the epidural and I'm finally sleeping a little bit. But every time I open my eyes, everybody in the room is still there, lights are on and everybody looks really worried and I'm like, I'm kind of ignoring them because I figure they'll wake me up if there's really a problem. Right. But it went on for quite a bit. And my mom especially, like, I would look at my mom and just, she doesn't have a poker face, so she's just nervous about what she's seeing.

So I finally asked them, I asked the midwife, what is going on?

And she said, The baby's heart rate is doing some erratic things and essentially it's going tachycardic, which is high up. It was going up into the 200s and then coming back down. Yeah. You have that base, Lisa. Yeah. I just got really big. 

Lisa: Yeah. It’s not a safe place for a baby's heart rate to be. It's as concerning as dropping into the eighties. That's the scale. There's a huge, normal range for a baby's heart rate. That 110 to 160 beats per minute. Yeah.

Kaitlin: Yes. So 200 was not a good place to be. and then it would drop down to 100. And so he was essentially just struggling in retrospect, I think. Well, I know that he ended up being asynclitic, which is where his head was like just tilted a little bit.

So it was making it hard for him to enter into the pelvis. I think, especially based on my next two births, that once the epidural hit my body probably opened really fast and he probably dropped and there was just a lot of distress on his end. But my experience of it in that moment without knowing any of that, I was a school teacher at this point.

It's hard to remember. I was, I knew nothing about any of this. I looked at her and she said, I'm going to call the OB and they'll come in about 40 to 45 minutes and we'll assess then. And I looked at her and I'm really careful to qualify this, that this is not a thing I would ever say to anybody else.

But in my context, I looked at her and I said, I really need to have a healthy baby. I just want a healthy baby. And what I meant by that is every wish I have had for myself has already been thrown out the window, like all of them. So at the very least, give me a healthy baby at the end of this. Like, don't mess with that.

So I thought, don't make me have gone through all of this and then not have a healthy baby. Right? Like, it's not fair to, for anyone else to say to a mother, at least you have a healthy baby. It's like, no. I deserve to also be whole and cared for in this.

C-Section

But I looked at her and I said that, and she looked at me and said, okay, we're gonna do a c-section. And it was the first time in the entire birthing experience that I felt heard. It was the first time I felt listened to, and it was the way I was getting out of this impossible situation. And so for that reason, I'm always so careful to say that the c-section was not what was traumatizing for me.

It wasn't the c-section. It was scary. There are things that happened afterwards, so I'm happy to expand on that. But like, it was powerful to finally say, I want this. And to have them say, okay, you've got it. and that was it. Then I went in and I had a c-section, and my experience with the C-section was as good as it can get with a C-section.

The baby came out. I felt really detached from the whole experience, which I still mourn. Ooh. I'm getting a little choked up just thinking about it. There was like this, there was this incredible disconnect between I'm pregnant, and then I'm in the hospital in this really strange, timeless environment, right?

There's like no real light and there's just, there's all these new experiences and then all of a sudden I'm like going home with the baby. And there was just this disconnect of like, that's my baby. I didn't see him come out. I didn't feel him come out. I didn't experience him coming out. It's just like, you're one way and then you're the other way.

And there's this, there's a loss there and people. Again, this is like, I'm allowed to say, I didn't feel like I gave birth. It's not okay for someone else to say you didn't give birth, you had a C-section. But like, I did not feel like I gave birth. I didn't, and honestly, it's because I didn't, it's because I went in and I was numbed and I came out with a baby that they say is mine.

But like, it was a really disorienting experience. and it really disrupts the sort of like primal, all of the cardinal movements that the baby does. There's cardinal movements that the mother does, and we didn't get any of those. And I still, to this day, I mourn that.

Whew. I'm getting so emotional, Lisa. I didn't expect this. 

Lisa: That's understandable. Absolutely. And I'm curious do you think it would be a good idea for folks when they're pregnant to not only envision their ideal birth, but also really think about adapting and adjusting if and when. It doesn't go a hundred percent according to plan and including having birth preferences or a birth plan and just like emotionally kind of visualizing doing some breath work around a belly birth, because sometimes it's absolutely necessary.

Kaitlin: Absolutely. I really, I'm a big fan of like, You don't have to put a lot of energy into that because we are, when we're preparing, we are manifesting, we're putting our energy where we want it to be, but we have to make sure to balance that so we don't find ourselves caught off guard. So talk about what a hospital transfer looks like to people who are planning a home birth.

I talk about what a c-section might look like for people who are planning a vaginal birth. I talk about what it might look like to get to the hospital fully dilated for people who are adamant they're getting an epidural. because we need to plan for the things we can't necessarily control.

And yes, it's a balance that we all find for ourselves, we don't wanna create that reality. Right, But we wanna not be caught off guard because it, I was absolutely off guard and it was really hard. And there are things that I would have advocated for, my arms were strapped down, and I was shaking.

Lisa: Yeah. I can't believe they still do that sometimes. 

Kaitlin: It's unbelievable. I was shaking so hard from all the adrenaline. I was shaking before I got my epidural. So, and then the epidural definitely didn't help it. And then during the C-section, I was shaking so hard, and I remember asking slash begging after the baby was born, they were taking their time sewing me up.

And again, my, I have a beautiful scar. I'm very, I'm actually really proud of my scar now. And it doesn't hurt. It's never caused me any issues. I love it. It's a, it took a little while, but it's a point of pride I had. That's the proof of my birth that I didn't really feel like I experienced. 

Medication Administered Without Consent

But I remember asking, I didn't remember this until recently. I asked the anesthesiologist to let me unstrap my arms cuz they were just aching, the muscles were aching from the position I was in and the constant, shaking, the involuntary shaking and the anesthesiologist without talking to me or my husband was holding the baby right next to us, just put meds into my IV that made me go unconscious. That was their answer to me feeling stressed, was to insert anti-anxiety meds and knock me out. So I just got really sleepy and fell asleep. And my husband is looking at the doctor going, is she okay? Like, she's in the middle of surgery and all of a sudden she's not conscious anymore.

And there was, again, no conversation, no consent, no like, sure I can undo one arm. Just be sure you keep it up by your head. Like there was just, there could have been. Everything could have been different, but the thing that I think bothers me the most about that first birth is that none of the things that needed to be different cost any money.

It wouldn't have cost money to have a conversation. They were, their time was being spent there. It wouldn't have cost money for them to let me get up and use the bathroom. It wouldn't have cost money or anything else for anyone to just be kind to me or loop me into my care or treat me with respect.

It just, there was no financial reason that I needed to be treated like that. Like sometimes you try to understand things as part of a larger system. Right. We all, as community members, whatever communities we're part of, we do need to sacrifice some of our own things for the greater good.

Desire for Change

And there's just nothing I can pinpoint here that my sacrifices needed to be made for anyone's greater good, except maybe the bottom line of a hospital who has extremely burnt out staff and a terrible culture towards maternal healthcare. So, that first birth is sort of rough to review and it's, I'm sure it's hard to listen to, and I'm sorry for anyone who's like trying to say in that positive space, but it is really important to understand that birth, to understand like what I have personally lived through and why I will not stop until we make care accessible.

And I don't know, I don't know that like I can be the answer or any one of us can fix this enormous system that has such issues, but we can get more people doulas. We can talk on a podcast and illuminate why some of those reasons we're not getting doulas are, maybe need to be revisited.

So like, this is, yeah, this is the mission I'm on. There are little things we can do that shift our experience hugely. And we don't need to fix everything. We just need to make sure we could be upright. Yeah. We just need to make sure that we understand our choices. We just need somebody whispering about how great we are and how beautiful we're doing and how we're so capable.

Like those things make a huge difference. And how we experience our births.

Lisa: Absolutely. And another thought along those lines, in terms of doula support is when a birth goes to an unplanned cesarean and knowing that it's almost never such an emergency that you don't have a few moments to breathe, to talk with someone. doulas are there to help you make that emotional shift and give you anticipatory information or guidance that can just help you feel more calm going into it. and hopefully, to the degree that it's possible in the moment, kind of make that emotional transition and feel a little bit more peaceful with it.

Kaitlin: Yeah, that's exactly it. There's, and that's like where it's so important too to understand that like, Doulas are not just for natural birth. They're not just for people who don't wanna use an epidural or wanna have a home birth or a water birth. If anything, it's like, it's for the people who are planning on engaging in this medical system.

You need a doula more than anybody needs a doula. Because you, you're having an epidural, you're planning on that. Great. You need someone who's advocating for you when that epidural doesn't work correctly or when it stalls your labor or when you need to help move the baby down.

There's like positioning, there's all sorts of things. I would argue the more medical care you're desiring or expecting to use, the more you need that support as you navigate it. Agreed. And that, and there's so many uncontrollables in labor and in birth and in parenting quite frankly. And it's the thing I keep coming back to and it's a learning I'm still in the middle of, so I'm not like guru on this, but it's about coming back to yourself and it's those few moments of mourning the birth you thought you were gonna have as you enter into the new birth. It can have such an impact later on in your unfolding postpartum to have those few moments to gather your thoughts and gather your questions and make a shift into this new place. I love that.