In this episode, Liz and Kevin open up about their journey through pregnancy, sharing their firsthand experience with white coat hypertension and the challenges it brought. They discuss the pressures they faced around induction, their decision to delay an induction in hopes of an unmedicated birth, and the lessons they learned along the way. They also talk a bit about breastfeeding and how identifying and correcting a tongue tie their son had helped resolve issues they had early on. Liz and Kevin offer encouragement and practical advice for others navigating similar choices, highlighting the importance of informed decision-making and self-advocacy in the birthing and early parenthood journey.
Resources:
Why *Accurate* Blood Pressure Monitoring in Pregnancy & Postpartum Is More Important Than Ever (Birth Matters blog post)
Mama Glow doula training
Nurture; A Modern Guide to Pregnancy, Birth, Early Motherhood―and Trusting Yourself and Your Body by Erica Chidi*
Anna Raczka (Sage Birthing Services) - birth and postpartum doula
Dr. Scott Siegel - tongue tie revisions
Sponsor links:
Free “Pack for Your Best Birth” Packing List (with free mini-course option)
East River Doula Collective (find a doula, attend our free “Meet the Doulas” event)
Birth Matters NYC Childbirth Education Classes (Astoria, Queens and virtual)
*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:
Introduction of guests Liz and Kevin, their background, and life as new parents in Brooklyn
Transition into parenthood and changes in the first three months postpartum
Importance of sleep and its impact on well-being
Discussion of accurate blood pressure monitoring during pregnancy and its significance
Liz’s personal experience with blood pressure, anxiety, and white coat hypertension
Preparation for birth: research, doula training, prenatal yoga, acupuncture, chiropractic care
Mental health during pregnancy and the decision to go off and back on antidepressants
Hiring and working with a doula, qualities sought, and support received
Decision-making around gestational hypertension diagnosis and induction recommendations
Navigating conflicting medical advice and the emotional impact on both partners
Frequent hospital visits for non-stress tests and strategies for self-advocacy
Detailed birth story: labor at home, coping techniques, water breaking, hospital delivery
Immediate postpartum experiences, feelings of relief, and bonding with baby
Breastfeeding challenges, tongue tie diagnosis and release, and feeding solutions
Early parenthood challenges: sleep deprivation, triple feeding, and unexpected home issues
Reflections and advice for expectant and new parents: trusting instincts, mental health, choosing birth setting, and normalizing infant sleep and contact napping
Babywearing experiences and finding supportive carriers for a growing baby
Encouragement for self-advocacy and openness about white coat hypertension and medical protocols
Interview Transcript
Lisa (0s): You are listening to the Birth Matters podcast, episode one twenty nine.
Liz (4s): Every time I went to a medical setting, my blood pressure was high, but at home it was completely normal. So that's when I started questioning. I was like, what is going on? A bunch of people in my family are in medicine, so I started talking with people about it. My sister's an ER doctor. My mom's a nurse, my aunt is an ob, and my sister's like, it's probably White Coat Hypertension. And I'd never heard of that. So I was like, oh. So my anxiety is what could potentially be causing the high blood pressure.
Lisa (41s): Hey there, and welcome to the Birth Matters Show. I'm your host, Lisa Graves Taylor, founder of Birth Matters NYC, and director of East River Doula Collective. I'm a childbirth educator, birth doula and lactation counselor, and I've been passionately supporting growing families since 2009. This show is here to lessen your overwhelm on the journey into parenthood by equipping and encouraging you with current best evidence, info, and soulful interviews with parents and birth pros.
Please keep in mind the information on this show is not intended as medical advice or to diagnose or treat any medical conditions. Have you subscribed to the show yet? Please be sure to do that wherever you're listening to this or over at Birth Matters show.com so you don't miss out on anything. In this episode, Liz and Kevin open up about their journey through pregnancy sharing their firsthand experience with white coat hypertension and the challenges it brought. They discuss the pressures they faced around induction, their decision to delay an induction in hopes of an unmedicated birth and the lessons they learned along the way.
They also talk a bit about breastfeeding and how identifying and correcting a tongue tie their son had helped resolve issues they had early on. Liz and Kevin offer encouragement and practical advice for others navigating similar choices, highlighting the importance of informed decision making and self-advocacy in the birthing and early parenthood journey. Before we jump into today's story, just a quick word from our sponsor. Birth Matters NYC's all in one childbirth series are filling up really quickly for the summer.
We will be posting fall dates really soon, so stay tuned for that. You can always check at Birth Matters nyc.com. And also remember, even if a series is sold out for in-person, there's always an option to tune in virtually and it's still very interactive. Do you have your free pack for your best birth list yet? This is a great way to start some practical preparation for the big day and really start envisioning your ideal birth. All you have to do is go to Birth Matters online.com/pack to grab it.
You'll also have the opportunity to take a free online mini course that will help you more thoroughly prep for a positively transformative birth. Again, that's Birth Matters online.com/pack. Okay, now let's hear from Liz and Kevin today.
I am so happy to have with me former students of mine, Liz and Kevin. Welcome.
Liz (3m 17s): Hey. Hi.
Lisa (3m 18s): Would you just take a moment to introduce yourselves a little bit, help us get to know you?
Liz (3m 24s): Yeah. I'm Liz. Kevin and I live in Sunset Park. We have a three month old or a little over three months. I gave birth on January 4th, 2025. And for work, I'm a software engineer at Etsy.
Kevin (3m 38s): I am Kevin, I'm also in tech as a PM product manager.
Lisa (3m 43s): Great. For those who don't live in New York, Sunset Park is in Brooklyn. A lot of people don't, might not know that. Yeah. And if they don't live in New York and so at the time that we're recording this, that means you're around three months out from birth. Yeah. Having given
Liz (3m 54s): Birth, yeah. About three months. And it's definitely changed a lot I feel like from the beginning to now. Just like I how I feel like post pregnancy and everything.
Lisa (4m 2s): Yeah. Yeah. That three a month mark, often people feel like there's this level of little bit of coming outta the clouds a bit that coming outta that fourth trimester. Different for everybody of course. But
Liz (4m 13s): We didn't do any sort of sleep training or anything. But he's been sleeping quite well through the nights now. So I think just feeling not sleep deprived all the time, like honestly getting hours of sleep makes me feel like I can run a marathon.
Lisa (4m 25s): Right. It's amazing the difference. Sleep can make bigger blocks of sleep. Yeah. Wonderful. So just to give listeners a little context, I had written a blog post which I will link in the show notes for this episode. I had heard this NPR Science Friday segment about how to be sure you're getting an accurate blood pressure reading. And as I listened to it I was like, oh my gosh, this is an important thing for me to highlight for my clients because blood pressure is being so closely monitored because there is a higher risk in pregnancy of developing hypertension and preeclampsia and also because we're seeing increases in those things.
In the past five years since COVID hit, for whatever reason, I have been just mentioning a couple things in the birth class about this, but I was like, wow, once I learned some of the stuff from that Science Friday segment, I was like whoa, I gotta write a blog post and spread the word with more information that I hope will be helpful for growing families. And so then you saw that right Liz? And you responded that you emailed me and you were like, I have a story about that and I'm so glad you're talking about this.
Liz (5m 38s): I was just so happy you were sharing it with other people. Because honestly for me, like in my pregnancy, like I knew the things that I should think about, I shouldn't say be nervous about, but yeah, I don't know. I was very anxious during my pregnancy and blood pressure was not on my radar. Like I've never had a high blood pressure reading in my whole life. Like it just wasn't something I even thought about. Like blood pressure cuff was just like whatever put it on doesn't matter. And I think I was just surprised. So I think just informing people and educating them about how closely that's monitored, especially towards the end of your pregnancy, was just really important.
Lisa (6m 8s): So that's a big reason that Liz wanted to share today. But in a broader sense, do you wanna just give us a little context about how your pregnancy went? What were the different ways that you prepared for giving birth and becoming a parent for either both of you?
Liz (6m 23s): Yeah, I can start then Kevin can add in too. So I would say the way that I prepare for things like what I have, 'cause it was a totally new kind of terrain for me. Didn't really know anything about pregnancy. I've always been interested in the birth world and I'd even like dabbled with, oh maybe I wanna do a doula training and all of that. So I just feel like I went full in and just feel like I did a ton of research. I actually ended up doing a doula training more for myself because it was something I always wanted to do and I was like, this seems like a good time to learn about this world. So I did that for Mama. Yeah, I did that through Mama Glow knowing the intention that I wouldn't be a doula for a while with a newborn.
But on top of that I feel like I just did a lot of body prep. Like I think my focus was on the body. I was like okay, I'm gonna do prenatal yoga, acupuncture, chiropractic, that kind of stuff. So I felt very physically pretty good. But I think something that I wasn't super taken care of was like my mental health. Like I think I just had a lot of anxiety and stuff around pregnancy. I think that was neglected. We can get into that later on. But yeah, I think that was my prep was just a lot of like education around birth and all of that. What about you Kevin?
Kevin (7m 24s): Yeah, I think it was just following your lead in a lot of ways because I think you were trying to be very prepared and then trying to get all the resources. And I think it was just trying to support you in what would make you feel whole and ready. And I think just trying to be supportive of what you needed and make sure you had the time and space for doing your doula lessons or doing the yogas and things like that. Yeah, I think that was my main thing. I went into it just fully expecting it being crazy but also just thinking like it's gonna be fine.
We're a team. We'll tackle it, figure it
Lisa (8m 1s): Out. I liked your wording of I wanted you to be whole. That's beautiful. Loving partner. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that Kevin. So then, so you said you did prenatal yoga and acupuncture and
Liz (8m 13s): Yeah, acupuncture, like chiropractic and then I didn't actually read that much. I read I think two books I read like Nurture, which is kind of like
Lisa (8m 20s): Yeah, I love that one.
Liz (8m 21s): Yeah. Which has everything in it. It has these postures to help with comfort food, like all these different things, what to expect in Labor. That was just really a nice thing to just read a couple pages every night. And then I also read, you know, Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth. Yeah. Which was more just like pos, it was about positive birth stories. Oh And that was mostly like I think like birth center or home birth. And I knew I wasn't doing that but it was just nice to hear like different, I guess like non-medical stories where it was more like, oh, like women give birth in many different ways.
Lisa (8m 52s): Yeah. One of the things I love about that book is it just gives such specific examples of the instincts, the specific instincts that women birthing people have in labor because it demystified some of that gave me just something to work with. Yeah. And I feel like that can be a great book even if someone's not aiming for an unmedicated birth for that reason. Just to really build confidence in how natural and normal the process is when we don't mess with it too much more than we need to.
Liz (9m 22s): And it also just made me feel like very, there was like a secondary part where It was like edited and I think it also just made me very open to like, I was never like, oh I'm never gonna get an epidural. It was more like I just wanna be open and educated about things so I can know once I'm in the situation what I want and what I'm gonna do. 'cause it's like at some point like maybe I will want that epidural to get me to be able to have a vaginal birth. I don't know. Because you have no idea what your labor's gonna be like
Lisa (9m 45s): Now. I'm so curious. I know you hired a doula, right? And then you said you went through this doula training. How did all of that play out? How did that get on your radar and so forth?
Liz (9m 54s): So I'd heard such positive things about having a doula. Like a bunch of my friends in different places had doulas and I just did a bunch of research online to actually hire my doula. I reached out to a couple different resources, chatted with a couple different doulas. I actually think I found my doula Anoxia through Park Slope parents. I just looked at their reviews.
Lisa (10m 15s): That's a great resource. Yeah,
Liz (10m 16s): I just, I literally clicked like some random people and I knew what I was looking for was just someone who's really calm. Like I wanted someone who, and I think she's a mother of three, not that I specifically needed someone was a mother, but someone who's been through many births and could just make me feel like things were normal and that things got not normal or something during the birth to help me be like, okay, this is the game plan. This is how we can work together. Explain to me information and everything. And yeah, she was honestly just fantastic.
Like throughout, we had several in person chats. She came over to our house and then on top of that, I think when things got intense at the end of pregnancy, she was just every day. But she was like, If you need to talk to me every day, like we can totally do like a FaceTime and just chat. And that was just really nice.
Lisa (11m 5s): That's lovely. I love that she made herself so available to you. 'cause there's a wide range of different doulas boundaries. Yeah. Same with the anxiety. That's helpful.
Liz (11m 16s): Yeah. And then for the doula training, that was, I just kind of looked around mostly I just wanted it as like a resource to like to even learn about labor. 'cause I knew nothing about, didn't know about the phases of labor, didn't know really about any of the pain medication options. I feel like I just found out just so much information that I feel like did end up making me feel very empowered to make my own decisions during my birth. And that's, I would not recommend everyone do a dual journey for the birth. I think doing something like your class is enough information to feel like, okay, I, I know the general things that are gonna happen during the process.
Lisa (11m 52s): And do you remember at what point in your pregnancy you hired Anna?
Liz (11m 56s): I wanna say pretty early, right?
Kevin (11m 58s): I wanna, I think so.
Liz (11m 59s): I wanna say It was like maybe beginning of the second trimester.
Kevin (12m 2s): Yeah, maybe like the middle of the second trimester. Yeah. Because I think we did, you did the class the first trimester and then I think It was like halfway through because I think we also had like discussions of do we need a doula? Do we want that? Because for me at least, I had no inkling of what any of that is. And I was like, I think I had the very Hollywood expectation of birth and all that. You go up at the hospital, hospital does everything, like whatever.
Liz (12m 30s): Yeah, you were definitely supportive but you were also confused why. Yeah. You were like what do they do? Yeah.
Kevin (12m 35s): And so I think it took a good amount of like discussion until we made that decision and definitely very glad that we did.
Liz (12m 41s): Yeah. I feel like by the end of the pregnancy Kevin was like, oh my God. Because I think it's just a lot of emotional labor for the partner and for him to have a support too I think. Absolutely. It was obviously absolutely support for me, but I think sometimes, I mean it was just I was anxious but you were anxious and then at the very end, Anna came over like when I was in labor And he could just get some sleep for a couple of hours. Yes.
Lisa (13m 3s): Yep.
Kevin (13m 4s): And then that honestly was like, and I don't know If you wanna go into the birth, but yeah, the night before, because we gave birth in the middle of the night at that point we were just both so tired. Yeah. And I think I was on like a couple of hours of sleep for the last couple days and just being able to take a two hour nap in the middle of the day or in the evening was so restorative.
Liz (13m 28s): And I feel like I kept telling him he needed to like yeah because I was like I can't sleep because I'm in labor and the contractions are happening. But I was like, you need to sleep. And he couldn't. Yeah because I feel like he just wanted to be present and be like, oh what do you need? What's going on? Yeah.
Lisa (13m 45s): And the different things that you did, like prenatal yoga and chiropractic and acupuncture, was that a result of the doula training that opened your eyes to the benefits of some of those things or a mixture?
Liz (13m 56s): Yeah, I think it was just like multiple things. Like I think that book Nurture had mentioned things that could be helpful and then I, I think I didn't actually start acupuncture till maybe I took your class and I didn't really do that till the end of pregnancy. And then also, yeah, my doula did mention it as well. Like she had a list of resources. So I think I was going through those. I went through your site's resources and I think I was just trying to do anything to feel like my body was prepared. Like for some reason that was like my fixation. I think I had a lot of fear about having a C-section even though at the end of the day, like if I had to have a C-section, it would've been fine.
I think it was more just, I don't know, I wanna get my baby turned down right And I want my pelvis to be open and all of these things that, that was one of my fixations I feel like during pregnancy. Yeah,
Lisa (14m 39s): Doing something proactive often just gives us a little greater of a sense of agency in a really uncontrollable process. So I find that for a lot of us that's doing something that feels helpful because it's like, well there yeah exactly. There's a benefit to this.
Liz (14m 53s): And I felt really lucky just to be able to have those things just 'cause like I had the time and the space and like my insurance covered a bunch of it so I could do those things. And I totally agree that that is how I like try to put control in a situation that has like really no control where I'm like I'm gonna do proactive things. And I think that did help 'cause it channeled my energy somewhere.
Lisa (15m 14s): Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Nice. So then do you wanna go ahead and talk about what happened around 35 weeks?
Liz (15m 23s): Yeah, around 35 weeks. It was just a routine appointment. I had been feeling pretty much good, honestly my whole pregnancy I physically felt very good. The only I think pregnancy complication or potential complication prior to that was I had placenta previa and like one of my early scans that resolved and that actually I like my OB very much was like these mostly resolved like don't worry about it. And I think I mostly didn't worry about it. And then at 35 weeks I went in, we were kind of rushed. We'd just come from upstate for our babymoon and we had just been kind of a very intense lead up 'cause there's been a lot going on and we rushed into the appointment, I sat down, I got my blood pressure read.
I had only been sitting down for maybe all of 10 seconds and then I think I had one 40 over 80 or something.
Lisa (16m 7s): And of course it's gonna be higher when you just sat down. You just pointed that out.
Liz (16m 11s): Yeah, it was interesting. And then I, and then the nurse was sort of like, your blood pressure's high And I was like oh that's weird. But didn't think anything of it. Like I didn't even connect like that could be something serious. And then when my OB came in she was sort of like Hey your blood pressure was high. This reading we ended up, she had wanted me to have weekly NSTS because I'm over 35 at the end of my pregnancy. And I had said, let's not, can I skip the first one? I really don't want 'cause I don't really like being in medical settings.
Can we not do that? And she said that's fine. So when I had that high blood pressure reading at that appointment, she's like, I want you to go in to triage for them to look at your blood pressure and also to get aNST. And I was like I'm gonna be calm in my mind I was like I'm gonna be calm, this is, I knew I was gonna be called but I was like try to tell myself it would be fine. So we like got to triage and then it was honestly really hectic. We went to the check-in desk and they were like, Hey it's really busy. Do you need to be here? And we were like, we think we have to be here.
Like our doctor told us to and they were like Okay well you could be waiting here for hours. We were like okay. So we sat there, we eventually got called back and then they put a blood pressure cuff on me and the fetal heart rate monitor and they started the NST, the non-stress test and everything was fine with the NST baby had accelerations in the heart rate, which is like what they're looking for when he moved. But then my blood pressure, I was getting consistently like one forties over eighties and because of that, eventually it went down and I was released.
But they said you have gestational hypertension. And then the doctor came at the very end and said you'll need to be induced at 37 weeks. And we asked some questions but it sounded like that was just what you needed to do. And we didn't speak to the doctor but at one point the PA said to us like If you choose not to be induced you're gonna need to sign in against medical orders and a MA. So then I was like oh my god, like this is serious. They said until you're induced you need to monitor your blood pressure at home.
So that was the initial triage. So it went from like the 35 week OB appointment to the pregnancy emergency room and then this diagnosis. And at no point at the OBS office did they like retake my blood pressure. It was just that first.
Lisa (18m 30s): That's what I was gonna ask you 'cause they're supposed to do it four hours apart and it's two readings, four hours apart minimum I think or around four hours apart. That is what constitutes that diagnosis of hypertension as I understand it. And I
Liz (18m 43s): Think it's 'cause I had it at the OB office and then I had it at the AT triage. So I think technically I
Lisa (18m 48s): Wonder how long that was apart. Yeah,
Liz (18m 50s): I think technically like that I, it probably was four hours, I'm not sure, maybe even a little less. But I think like in the book of, okay because a lot of medicine is like algorithms. So it's like I had that diagnosis because I met the diagnostic criteria and I felt like I was struggling with that. That was the thing that I struggled with my whole pregnancy where I was like this doesn't make sense to me. And when we get into the later part of the story, I feel like I kept having just my own gut feelings about it and also just information. Like I think I wanted to be as objective as I could be about it or there's a bunch of ways that they can monitor both blood pressure and potential preeclampsia risk that I was like okay, like what are the other factors?
And if any of those factors are telling me that this is what is happening, that I have gestational hypertension, I wanna make the right decision that is gonna be safe for me and my baby. Sure.
Lisa (19m 39s): Yeah. Yeah. So then what?
Liz (19m 41s): So then I feel like I just witted like a mental spiral a little bit 'cause so I guess what happened was I wanted to talk to my OB again and I also like I kind of agreed okay we'll do the induction. 'cause at that point I didn't have any more information. I just had this diagnosis. We picked up a blood pressure monitor. Something that I think you had mentioned in your article, which is really important I think is like getting a blood pressure cuff that is known to be accurate and tested. 'cause you can get the super cheap one and you can be getting totally different readings.
Lisa (20m 9s): Was not aware of that until I heard the second science writing.
Liz (20m 12s): Yeah, yeah. And also like blood pressure can change a ton even If you have an accurate cuff based on every movement, mood positioning like blood pressure can change a bunch. Like I think that was also new to me
Lisa (20m 24s): The bladder, how full the bladder is.
Liz (20m 25s): Yeah. Yeah. And so I started just monitoring my blood pressure. So they said twice a day but I was obsessively checking my blood pressure because I was so scared. Like I was checking it honestly like 10 times a day, which at some 0.1 of the NST nurses was like don't do that, just check it twice a day. Like it's worse for you to be so obsessed with it. And chatted with my doctor like around 35 weeks and said okay, we'll probably schedule an induction but if my blood pressure stays in the one forties, I'd like to push it back as much as possible unless something happens.
And then she was on vacation for I think like a week and I saw someone at the practice and during that time, pretty much from then onward, like every time I went to a medical setting, like my blood pressure was high but at home it was completely normal. One 20 over 80, 70, something like that. So that's when I started questioning. I was like what is going on? I was like I don't really understand this. And I had never heard of, so a bunch of people in my family are like in medicine. So I started talking with people about it.
Like my sister's an ER doctor, my mom's a nurse, my aunt is an OB and oh my sister's like have you heard? She goes, it's probably White Coat Hypertension. And I'd never heard of that. And yeah so I was like oh so my anxiety is what could potentially be causing the high blood pressure. Yeah. So chatted with the OB on the phone before she had it on vacation scheduled or talked about scheduling an induction around 38 weeks if everything stayed stable.
And then on top of that, like just monitoring at home. And then weekly, she also wanted weekly blood draws and labs to check for preeclampsia signs as well as weekly NSTs. So I agreed to all of that and started to get that scheduled. And then after that is when while taking my home blood pressure readings was seeing that I was getting normal readings at home. And then that is when I started talking with Catherine, my sister, my Aunt Lisa who's an OB and my mom who's a nurse, she be like, what's going on?
What should I do? And I think honestly with their support it made me feel more, I guess it's called expectant monitoring or more like that is a reasonable thing to do in this situation. So I think just chatting with them made me feel confident like oh I can do this. And it's not necessarily, I don't know, the way that I feel like risk was being presented to me in the hospital setting was like this is so dire. Like you could die at any moment. That was honestly the sense that I got.
Which is hard 'cause I know how serious it is and I think it can go pretty fast. But yeah. What was your experience through all of this? Yeah
Kevin (23m 12s): And I think the one thing that add is like your mom also had it,
Liz (23m 15s): She did at 41. She went with me over 41 weeks. So she got preeclampsia at the very end and she had two, me and my sister, she had two C-sections. Yeah.
Kevin (23m 26s): And I think she kept saying how tired she was through all of that.
Liz (23m 29s): Yeah. And she said, I think it was hard 'cause blood pressure, you don't feel blood pressure. So that was the thing that was also hard was that like I felt fine but you can feel fine and have high blood pressure. But she did tell me, she's like with preeclampsia, I don't know if this is a hundred percent true, but in her experience she's like, do you have preeclampsia? There's
Lisa (23m 48s): More signs usually. Yeah.
Liz (23m 50s): I felt miserable, I had bloating, I had like upper quadrant pain, I had all these things that were like, something is wrong with me. Yeah, yeah,
Kevin (23m 60s): Yeah. And so I think for me it was hard because I think it was difficult to hear from people that you're supposed to trust and we do trust. But I think just their advice and what we were seeing at home just differed so much and it was a juggle. And I think for me, I felt out of control because it also wasn't my body. I had no clue what was physically feeling, how she was actually feeling about it versus the only thing I could perceive is she seems healthy.
But then I'm seeing numbers, like high numbers at the doctor's office in a place where it's supposed to be clinical and very by data and all of that stuff. So I think for me it just felt very out of control and not knowing what to do and even how to feel about the situation because I like, on the one hand I'm like terrified I'm gonna lose my wife, my kid. Yeah.
Liz (25m 0s): Yeah. I think that was really hard for me. I mean other outside of like my own experience, I think watching Kevin go through it too was just really hard. It's like you're not in a vacuum in pregnancy. Your decision impacts other people, your partner, your unborn child. Yeah. And I think what I kept coming back to throughout that whole process was making the right decision. I think that and the whole time I felt like the decisions were made for me to some extent. It's like when you're in the sort of medical establishment, it's like you have your appointments, doctors tell you what you're gonna do.
And I felt like this was a moment where I was making those decisions. And if I decided to be induced early, like Sam would be born a couple weeks before his due date. And although I think most of the data says that, there's not a ton of complications, there is some risk around like his brain is still developing, his lungs are still developing. But then the flip side was like, what if I wait and something bad happens? And I just felt like all of this was weighing on me to be like, make the right decision for yourself, for your baby.
What does Kevin want too? To some extent, even though I know at the end of the day it was my decision, it was watching Kevin be anxious as well alongside me. I,
Lisa (26m 14s): I do have a question. I know you said that the whole concept of White Coat Hypertension was a new concept to you. But once you learned about that, did it make sense to you in terms of any past experiences in medical environments or was it kind of like really I respond that way really. Okay.
Liz (26m 33s): Yeah. And I think that's the hard part too is I think I've never who can say whether you have White Coat Hypertension or not. I don't think it's ever even been put in my charts because I think part of it is they don't really say you have White Coat Hypertension at the end of pregnancy because it can not be, and it can be something, it can be preeclampsia, precursor, gestational hypertension. So that was just something that was a new concept to me and I both was and wasn't surprised. Like I think it makes a lot of sense to me conceptually since the way your body is physiologically responding to a stressful environment, your heart races, all that. It made sense to me that your blood pressure goes up.
So I was like, oh that does make sense. And for me, I've struggled with anxiety my whole life and I was like of course now that I know blood pressure is something that I can be anxious about, I'm gonna be anxious about it. 'cause anxiety finds a way to manifest itself. Before in my pregnancy I was intensely nesting, I was obsessively researching and I think my anxiety channeled into my blood pressure readings after that. So I guess another note just about like mental health in pregnancy is I chose to go off my antidepressants during my first trimester 'cause I'd been very stable for about a decade.
And that is like something I wouldn't say I regret, but I would not do again. I would not do it again.
Lisa (27m 47s): That's been shared on this podcast before by other people, in fact by a mental health therapist and a doula. Yeah. Who's like stay on your meds, stay
Liz (27m 54s): On your meds If you and your doctor feel comfortable that
Lisa (27m 57s): Yes.
Liz (27m 58s): Yeah it was. And then I ended up going back on in my third trimester and it definitely, I think, I mean it took a while 'cause it doesn't come right away, but I felt like it helped towards the very end of my pregnancy and then also helped postpartum. 'cause I haven't really had, knock on wood, I’m still not full year out, but I haven't really had any depression or anxiety symptoms postpartum, which has been Oh good. Great.
Lisa (28m 21s): Good. Alright. So then you wanna go into the birth story from there.
Kevin (28m 27s): Did you wanna talk through the other hospital visits with the blood pressure? Oh yeah. Because there's a couple like,
Lisa (28m 34s): Oh yeah, feel free to do that.
Kevin (28m 36s): Scary ones. Yeah. Not scary ones but just like high pressure ones.
Liz (28m 39s): Oh yeah. I guess the other stuff that we could talk about would just be the weekly NSTs.
Kevin (28m 44s): Yeah. We were going through essentially every week we had a doctor's appointment and then we live in Brooklyn. Our hospital was in the upper East side. So it wasn't necessarily like right around the corner for us to get to.
Lisa (28m 58s): Not super convenient.
Kevin (28m 59s): Yeah. So every week, sometimes twice a week we had to go up there and it's a 40 minute drive there. Hospital appointments usually took two hours. So it was a lot of time. And I think some of the visits were good, especially with the NSTs. I think a lot of providers there were, it's very accommodating. We all became friends at a certain point, frequent flyers. They would give us the room all the way at the end where it's quiet and darker. They give us time before setting off the blood pressure readings.
And those visits were great. But then we also had a few visits where I remember one particular one where your mom visited because she wanted to come to an OB appointment. And of course it was an OB appointment where we had a high blood pressure reading at the OBS office. Had to cross town to go to triage because they wanted us to go to triage. And then I just remember, at least for me waiting because I think your mom wanted to just see what was happening and they only allowed one guest in in triage.
So you and your mom went up and I just sat in the hospital lobby just waiting for two, three hours. Yeah. And I think at that point It was escalating a lot. Yeah. I wasn't there. So yeah,
Liz (30m 14s): I think I went to triage two or three times at that one, that final triage visit, my blood pressure was super high and I actually was having a full panic attack. Like my legs were shaking on the gurney and they like came in, they put IVs in, they said if your blood pressure doesn't go down, we're gonna have to give you a blood pressure medication so you don't have a seizure and you're gonna have to be induced. And It was like 36 weeks. Yeah. So I was just, and that did not calm me down. That made me more anxious. Right. Yeah.
And then anyways, eventually my blood pressure did go down but after like I don't even know, two hours maybe and then I left. But essentially I decided I'm not doing this again. We're not gonna treat, I decided unless I was getting high blood pressure reading. So I think my criteria were I'm getting high blood pressure readings at home. Anything in my labs show that I have any sort of symptoms or anything on the NST that's like your baby is in distress. I was like I will go to labor and delivery immediately.
That's logical. Yeah, that makes sense. So yeah. And that also felt very empowering once I made that decision that I wasn't gonna just go to a place that I knew was gonna induce me to have a panic attack unless it was time to deliver Sam. Yeah.
Kevin (31m 34s): And I think that was like one of our last ones. And then there was another NST where I think we went in, the blood pressure was, I think that one wasn't even like high as far as your readings typically went in a medical setting. But it was a scenario where they also had doctors come in and like high up doctors and talk to us about all the risks and all that. And on the one hand it was very scary to have a hospital like higher up talk to us about certain things.
But on the other hand they were really good about just having a conversation with us. And I think at the end of it they recognized that we were more informed than maybe the normal folks that come through. Especially since Liz has a lot of like folks on her side in like the medical profession and all the classes that we've taken and all the research that Liz does. And it both felt scary but like we were doing the right thing then.
Yeah. And I think that was probably one of the last like NSTs before we delivered.
Liz (32m 42s): Yeah. Because I think the thing about NSTs is that the doctors on staff there are high risk doctors for pregnancy. So the doctors we were seeing there, like they would say they saw like the worst cases and they kept saying, they would say things like when something bad happens, did a mom have to get this sick? And I think that kind of made me, it was hard 'cause I felt like am I that sick? My reality didn't match the reality that was being presented to me in the medical field, like being told that I was very sick but then also not feeling sick and not necessarily having all the data points that made me feel like I was on death’s door.
Lisa (33m 20s): Yeah. There's certainly a logical dissonance with the at home feeling fine, getting fine reads. Yeah. But I really feel for you in this conflict, so much conflicting information between what you're being told by the medical professionals and your lived experience. Yeah.
Liz (33m 41s): Like sharing my story, I'm happy I'm sharing my story, but I also was always conflicted because I know that monitoring blood pressure during pregnancy is so important and has saved so many lives.
Lisa (33m 53s): Oh yeah. So
Liz (33m 54s): Absolutely that is, that is what was so hard for me is like this is such a great diagnostic tool for finding high blood pressure before it becomes preeclampsia. So at the same time I, I felt conflicted and I was like maybe this is the reality. Maybe this is what's happening to me. Because you don't have to be someone who has high blood pressure or who maybe has an unhealthy lifestyle and maybe these things that it's like, oh this, it can happen to anyone. So I think that was the other part was trying to reason with myself like, is this what's happening? Is this actually what's happening to me? And am I in denial kind of thing.
Lisa (34m 27s): Yeah. It's tough. Hmm.
Liz (34m 30s): Yeah.
Lisa (34m 32s): So you were just buying more time to not be induced by going in for the more frequent checkups. Yeah. Got several weeks, right?
Liz (34m 41s): Yeah. It was essentially like,
Lisa (34m 42s): Or so
Liz (34m 42s): Five weeks and and I think what, and I feel like maybe you would disagree, I guess Kevin was like this was your plan all along that you were just trying to push it so you didn't have to be induced early. But I honestly felt like I was taking it day by day or like week by week. I was kind of like, let's see what happens next week. And I think that was hard for you 'cause you were like you wanted to have things scheduled. Like you wanted to know what was happening. Like when are you giving birth kind
Lisa (35m 8s): Of. Sure. That's understandable.
Kevin (35m 11s): Yeah. And I think because it was one of those scenarios where Liz was luckily lucky enough to be able to like take all of December off and be able to like focus on herself. And I think for me I was still working but then taking time off to go to the hospital visits 'cause I went to all of them twice a week. Yeah. And just like coming back and forth working. Wow. I think it was just physically exhausting And then yeah, sounds like it is emotionally exhausting of figuring out what the right thing to do is and knowing it's not necessarily my choice but knowing it also impacts me and trying to figure out like what to say, what to do about the situation.
That was all hard.
Liz (35m 57s): Yeah. And then I guess we can chat a little bit about the actual birth.
Kevin (36m 2s): Yeah. I think at a certain point I think the doctors started feeling more comfortable and also realized how stubborn we are in a way. And so they gave us leeway and they were also starting to take it like week by week, which was nice. And then we got to 39 weeks and we were just kind of like, let's just see, let's just see this out. And I think Sam's original due date was the third. Yeah. And yeah, we had reached New Year's Eve and went out for a last little dinner with some friends.
Liz (36m 36s): Went out to hotpot. I was like, maybe some spicy food will yeah. Get me to go into labor.
Kevin (36m 41s): And then like right after New Year's, that's when some of the labor Yeah.
Liz (36m 46s): Signs. Well at the Hotpod I think I was feeling Braxton Hicks 'cause I was feeling intense contractions and I was like, is this my stomach or is this my uterus? I don't know. And then I think around, I wanna say I started getting into like pre-labor contractions maybe around the second where it's like, oh I can feel things. And I would say every, like, it was not regular at all, but it's like, oh every 15 minutes I would get a contraction. I would need to stop what I was doing. But it wasn't excruciating or anything. It was just like, oh okay, something's happening. So I knew and I think I lost my mucus plug around that time as well.
So I knew labor was probably imminent and I kind of went about my daily life that day. Like I drove to acupuncture, we went to a NST that day, like a pre-scheduled NST. And then the next day I would say, but something that kind of stunk was sleeping was really hard even with the pre-labor contraction. So I was already tired going into like when I actually went into labor. So on the third, like at exactly 40 weeks is when labor really started. And we just stayed around the house.
My mom was here, Kevin was here. And then I just kinda laid on the couch, honestly, moved around a lot, had a birth ball, did a bunch of just bending over on like the fireplace and like doing deep breathing and swaying. When I was thinking about this podcast. Some of the things from class that I feel like really helped was the 360 breath. So like really like just opening up your whole body when you're breathing. And then the counter pressure stuff that Kevin would push on my lower back.
That helped a lot, especially when I was having pretty bad back labor. And then the low guttural sort of like moans, like Kevin was like, do your birth, your kind of birth moans. Like it was definitely, I couldn't even help it. Like it just came out. Right. Yeah. And then the other thing would be like, which I'd never heard of this before, but you had mentioned like pounding, like an a rhythmic pattern, which I did on my leg really when it got super intense. I didn't do that at the beginning, but when it got super intense, that was really helpful as well. And cool.
So just honestly around the house and I was like, okay, I was planning just to stay here till roughly when my water broke. Yeah. And throughout the day, like most of it was pretty manageable until I would say like the really bad like back labor, which is just, I don't even exactly know what back labor is, but that was what I was told it was. But it was just like intense pain in my back and contacted my doula Anna. She gave us some different techniques. She gave us something called the Miles circuit, which I honestly don't know if it helped, but it gave us something to do.
Yeah. When I was in pain. And then something else that I did, like I started to do later in pregnancy and that I just did throughout labor was I listened to hypnobirthing tracks where I don't know, it just let me just zone out and listen to something. So that was helpful. And at the very end towards, I wanna say like around eight o'clock, Anna came over again, came over 'cause she was like, okay, why don't I just come over? I wasn't gonna go to the hospital yet. So she came over and she did a bunch of different things.
Like she did acupressure, aromatherapy with like clary sage. And I would say like the thing that felt the best, or I don't know if it helped, but in my mind it was one of the things that helped was like the sidelying release. So like the positioning where I laid on my sofa and she put pressure on my hip on either side. And if you let
Lisa (40m 14s): That top, the top leg for listeners Yeah. Dangles over
Liz (40m 18s): Goes over. Yeah. And that I feel like helped a bunch. And then Kevin was sleeping, getting his little bit of sleep then. And it was here for maybe two or three hours and she left. And then that was when labor didn't, it got more intense, but it still wasn't regular. I think that was something that, yeah,
Kevin (40m 36s): Your contractions were never consistent.
Liz (40m 38s): Which I was told like, oh, at some point like your contractions will be X minutes apart and you go to the hospital. My OB was like, come to the hospital when either your water breaks or your contractions are four minutes apart. And neither of those things happened until around 2:00 AM And maybe you've heard this before because you're a doula. But this, I'd never heard of this before. The way my water broke was crazy. So it wasn't like a gush or a trickle, it was a water balloon essentially. Like it partially came out as a water balloon.
So I felt around two o'clock. A physical thing.
Lisa (41m 12s): Physical waters. Yeah.
Liz (41m 13s): Yeah. Leave my vagina. And I,
Kevin (41m 18s): It was 2:00 AM so it was dark.
Liz (41m 20s): I'm freaked out. I'm so freaked out. I thought the only thing I could think of was that it was the placenta and so I scream and Kevin comes runs And he actually, actually,
Kevin (41m 33s): And then I just see this little water balloon between her legs and I'm like, I don't know what that is, but I was describing It was like, it's clear and all of a sudden it bursts. And I was like, I think that's the water. I'm not exactly sure what that was
Lisa (41m 47s): In a previous podcast episode that happened to someone and she thought it was the baby's head. And so she freaked out and I think called 9 1 1. Yeah. And then the emergency vehicle came and took her to the hospital and it all, it was just the forewaters. She's a doula now. She knows better now.
Liz (42m 3s): It's called forewaters. It's like the, okay. Wow. Yeah, it
Kevin (42m 7s): Was, yeah, it looked
Lisa (42m 8s): And a bulging sac is another term you'll hear. Yeah.
Kevin (42m 11s): Yeah. And then, and after that we just start going into overdrive. We call the nurses line for the hospital. They recommended going in, coming in. We do have a hospital a few blocks away from us. And we were like, do we go there? Do we like, what is it? Same
Liz (42m 27s): Panic, like say panic. 'cause I also, what else? Oh, the other thing to note was once the water came out that way, my contractions immediately were like three minutes apart. Yeah. So I was like, okay. We went from nine minutes to inconsistent, 9, 6, 5 to co consistently three minutes. And I was like, I'm having this baby soon, Zach. We were like, do we need to call 9 1 1? Do we need to get in the car and go to the hospital down the street? And
Kevin (42m 53s): Then, and luckily It was like three o'clock in the morning so there's no traffic. Good. And so we pulled it up on Google Maps and it was like a 30-minute drive. And so we just went, I got a speeding ticket from like one of the speed cameras.
Lisa (43m 9s): Oh no, come on.
Kevin (43m 11s): But we got to the hospital and by the time we got to the hospital, I think we were describing it as, okay, we had the water broke. There was, so we started getting a little bit of contractions and I think they were like, okay, first time mom. And
Liz (43m 25s): They were like chatting me up. They were like, love your hair Tyler.
Kevin (43m 28s): Yeah,
Liz (43m 29s): I, I was like, and I was like, can you just talk to him? Thank you. And then moving it along.
Kevin (43m 34s): And then they finally did the pelvic exam and they saw that she was 10 centimeters dilated. Oh. I
Liz (43m 39s): Was like, wow. I was honestly surprised that I was 10. I think in hindsight, I'm pretty sure I was going through transition in the car ride. Yeah.
Lisa (43m 47s): Yeah.
Liz (43m 47s): But I think it was a good distraction doing something while I was going through transition. We had a small Prius, so I was just in the laying on my side just being like, okay. And then, yeah, we got there. Yeah. Once they did the pelvic exam and I was 10 centimeters, they were like, oh. They were like, call the doctor. She needs to go right to labor and delivery.
Kevin (44m 4s): Yeah. And then the delivery itself was relatively quick.
Liz (44m 9s): Yeah. I was surprised. I think being in the hospital setting, I was scared that the longer I was there, something bad was gonna happen. I was like, something is gonna come on the fetal monitor. Like he's gonna actually be in distress. I don't know. I think it was twofold. I think getting there and them doing the initial look at his fetal heart rate and saying it's fine And he looks normal and healthy. He's just really low in your pelvis. That I was like, okay, he's okay. And then once I got into labor, I think it was like, okay, I really just want to get him out because the second he's out, if anything is wrong, they can do something.
So I think two things that, I mean, not that your birth plan is ever your birth plan, but it was kinda like two things that I was like, oh, I really wanted wireless monitoring. These are things that I like. Before it was like wireless monitoring and I don't wanna give birth on my back. Honestly, neither of those things mattered in my situation. I think because I was so far along that moving at that point didn't feel super important to me. I was very tired. So I ended up, I did give birth on my back, which was actually fine. And the one thing I did I think advocate for, and I don't even know why I wanted this, but it felt like something I wanted was I asked for the peanut ball between contractions while I was pushing.
I was on my back. But then between contractions, I just landed on my side with the peanut ball between my legs. And I just felt like a nice sort of rest. And because there wasn't time for the epidural or anything, I felt like I was in charge a little bit of my own, even though I was being coached by the OB and stuff. She was actually a really great coach. I felt like, because I was feeling the contractions, like I knew, like they saw it on the monitor, but I also knew when it was happening. So I'd be like, okay, another one's coming. And I would just lay on my back and then be coached and push. And then I knew when it was stopping and I would get back onto my side.
And I think, I don't know how many times I pushed, but I wanna say about 30 minutes. 30, 40 minutes maybe. Yeah. And then Sam came out And he was healthy.
Lisa (46m 1s): Nice. And were you feeling the urge? Did you say that?
Liz (46m 5s): I actually wasn't feeling the urge. Yeah. Which was something that I had asked my doulas. I was kind of like, Hey, like when I came in they asked me, are you feeling the urge to push? And I said no. And that is something, not that I wish I waited longer, but I was kind of like, oh, I thought that was supposed to be, but he was really low. I wanna say he was whatever, positive plus two I think or something. So
Lisa (46m 24s): It might have just been the position, the angle on the rectum of the baby. Head of the rectum maybe.
Liz (46m 28s): Yeah. He was fully engaged in my pelvis. And I think too like discussion of pain and labor, like I do think throughout like I think the pushing phase, I think I'd heard this once I got to the pushing phase maybe because it was just things were just happening. I actually didn't feel any pain at all. Like it was just pressure. I think the hardest part was the back labor at home and then maybe transition. But I also think I was in the car and I wasn't really even registering it in the same way that I would if I was in my living room or in a hospital bed.
Lisa (47m 1s): And you said in the car you were laying on your side for bed? Yeah, instantly on my side. Yay.
Liz (47m 6s): I know
Lisa (47m 7s): We talked about in class
Liz (47m 8s): Everything during birth class that you like had a, I think you had a seatbelt, one of your
Lisa (47m 12s): I regretted wearing my seatbelt in my first labor. Yeah. Just 'cause of all those bumps and holding my butt off of the seat. Yeah. So that sounds much less uncomfortable to be on your side.
Liz (47m 25s): And because, so Anna had gone home from our house, so she was actually able to make it to the hospital, so
Lisa (47m 31s): Oh good. I was wondering,
Liz (47m 33s): We sent her home in a taxi from our house. She probably got home at probably 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock at night. And then we, when we told her that we were gonna go to the hospital, she got right there and she beat us there. Yeah. She beat us there. No way. And yes, she was with us during the delivery. I feel like you guys supported me in different ways. I feel like you guys were doing like washcloths on me, giving me water.
Kevin (47m 53s): Water. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think, I don't know, you didn't, it wasn't a long process. And I feel like you also just have the mental like personality, labor, being a former athlete and it
Liz (48m 9s): Was just like, this is what's happening to me. I'm being coached. I'm gonna just do this.
Kevin (48m 13s): Yeah. So I don't even know how much you like registered. A lot of things. I felt like you were just like dialed in. Yeah. Which was cool to see. But yeah, we just held your hand, gave you water, had a cold washcloth on your head.
Liz (48m 29s): And then after birth, making sure that I had food. Food, I was so hungry after I was just like, I wanna eat everything. Yeah. And It was like, maybe don't eat a full roast beef sandwich right now. And I was like, okay, yeah. But
Lisa (48m 41s): What if I want to, it
Liz (48m 43s): Was just like maybe have some soup first and see how that sits.
Kevin (48m 46s): And then yeah, I think like all things considered It was like delivery was super easy.
Liz (48m 52s): Yeah, I was surprised just with how, I wouldn't say I felt, I think the adrenaline you get like adrenaline too. So I think I was just, you guys were so tired. I was like amped after the birth. I was just chatting like, and I was like, when can I get up? Can I stand up yet? And the nurses were like, maybe just wait a little bit and then you can go to the bathroom because, 'cause If you don't have an epidural you can get up pretty immediately. Which I guess was also nice.
Kevin (49m 18s): Yeah. And then you came out healthy and all that, which was I think the most important. And you were healthy.
Liz (49m 25s): Yeah. And it was so cool too. There was, which maybe for some people is not their jam, but there was like a mirror on the ceiling so I could see I didn't watch the whole delivery but it was cool. Like I could see his head. I was like, whoa, it's right there. Yeah. And then having him come out and then we did skin to skin and yeah, he was just such a sweet baby.
Lisa (49m 44s): Yeah. Any reflections on how you felt in those moments of meeting your son?
Liz (49m 49s): Yeah, I felt a sense of both. I mean like the warm fuzzy, this is my baby, but also a sense of relief. I think just having him in the world, honestly. I think having him inside of me was so hard. 'cause I was like, I love this person but I can't see him and I can't, I feel like I can only protect him but I can't really, I don't know what's happening. And I think once he was out it felt like, oh I can hold him and I can see him. And I just felt so excited and I just thought, yeah, everyone I guess thinks their kid is adorable.
But I was like, mom, he's so cute. And oh I guess the other, so much hair. I was like, I didn't realize babies had so much.
Lisa (50m 29s): They don't all but yours did. Kevin, how about you? Anything to Yeah, like to note? It was,
Kevin (50m 37s): It's a lot of the same. I think it was just a relief that everyone made it through, myself included. We all survived. And then just whole him and something so small and fragile and conceptual at that point. And just having him be like tangible in my arms on my chest. It just felt, I dunno, it's hard to describe it. It just feels warm and fuzzy and yeah. All of that like warm, nice kind of feelings. He's just super cute and yeah, I don't know.
Proud of Liz, proud of him and just, yeah, it was a really nice feeling.
Liz (51m 16s): Hmm. I don't know. I feel like for me too, it felt like it was almost like a team endeavor for all of us on my birth team with Kevin and Anna. But also I felt like Sam was part of it. I feel like. Yeah, kinda like you so proud of him. He knew when he was ready to be born and yeah, he, because I think maybe they don't know for sure but I think they say the fetus can trigger when labor starts. And I was like, he knew, he was like, this is when I want to be born. And I just feel like he did so great. Like he got in position, he got out and yeah, I was just really happy.
Lisa (51m 48s): Hmm. Beautiful. And then, so in initial postpartum in the hours or days or weeks after, were there ever any concerns about your blood pressure?
Liz (52m 1s): No. I feel like the second the baby gets that, not that they're not worried about you, but it, everything just becomes less. They're like, all right, let's just strap this cuff on you. Oh, it's a little high but it's probably fine. It wasn't even
Kevin (52m 13s): High. High. I think like through the distraction of labor and delivery. Yeah, my
Liz (52m 18s): Labor during labor pretty much my blood pressure was totally
Kevin (52m 21s): Normal. It was fine. Yeah.
Liz (52m 23s): And then postpartum it was actually, yeah, I didn't have high blood pressure at all. Yeah. I think great.
Kevin (52m 27s): You maybe one high reading
Liz (52m 29s): At point I was like, what if I literally thought in my head, what if I get a high blood pressure reading and they won't let me leave the hospital and I had a slightly high blood pressure. Yeah. And then I was like, okay.
Lisa (52m 38s): 'cause of that thought
Liz (52m 40s): And then it immediately went down. Yeah. On the second read. Oh yeah. Turns out your brain is very strong.
Lisa (52m 48s): Yeah. Powerful. Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin (52m 50s): Postpartum was good. We were able to do a lot of the things that we learned from like your class delayed the cord camping or cutting lots of golden hours, which was really nice skin to skin. And then we were able to move over to the recovery room, get situated, hold him a lot more. We tried doing breastfeeding. We did breastfeeding. And then there were periods where he was like extra fussy where I think in retrospect now looking back, he had like a tongue tie and had actually a lot of issues latching.
But we had also prior to that started collecting colostrum, which was a huge lifesaver for us. Yeah.
Lisa (53m 33s): Oh nice.
Kevin (53m 34s): Able to give Liz a break because it was very painful And he was able to get some little bit of food and relief.
Liz (53m 41s): Yeah, it was interesting 'cause at the hospital, because I guess that was something else was that he was breastfeeding actually in the latch. It wasn't that painful yet. Probably. 'cause he was still young. Yeah. And he wasn't, the force wasn't as much but he was fussy. But we were told that cluster feeding and fussiness was normal and they like did his weight and I think it was maybe he lost 8% of his birth weight, which I guess we learned was normal. Like up to 10% they consider normal. And they were like, yeah, things seem good. And I think because we were supplementing with the colostrum, we collected like everything seemed good at the hospital.
And then when we got home that was when he just seemed consistently fussy after feeds. Like he would feed for like 45 minutes and still be upset. And we were like, this seems strange. And then we went to our first pediatrician appointment and that was when, I think he had lost still under 10, but I think it was
Kevin (54m 33s): 8% at,
Liz (54m 34s): Yeah, it was at the pediatrician. It was a little less than 10. But they were like, Hey, until your milk comes in you should supplement with formula. It seems like you might not be gaining. And that was when I started chatting with a lactation consultant just to be like, Hey, what's up with this? And she came over and she did a weighted feed And he just wasn't transferring enough. And she looked, not that she could diagnose necessarily, but she did look at his tongue and there like it was pretty much, it was completely flat. It was completely flat to the bottom of his mouth on his lips. And you could actually see there was I guess the tie all the way up to the tip of his tongue and his tongue was kind of heart shaped.
So that was when I was like, okay. And I had heard though, they over, I don't know if this true, not that they overdiagnosed tongue tie. So I was like, is this, I thought it was real because when I looked at his tongue I was like, his tongue looks crazy, but I also don't know. So we decided to do the release and we actually, we don't have to go all into it, but we did an initial release at a dentist and it didn't go deep enough. So then we got a secondary release with kind of the, I feel like everyone goes to him, Dr. Siegel and
Lisa (55m 37s): I was just in a class with him yesterday. Yeah.
Liz (55m 41s): Honestly, yeah, I think initially I was, I don't know, there's all this stuff around like the New York Times article and all this. But I had a great experience.
Lisa (55m 48s): He's great with him.
Liz (55m 49s): Yeah, he was just informed. Didn't sound like an alarmist. Like he explained everything. We were in the room when he did the release and then essentially immediately after the re-release with him, like breastfeeding became like pretty much
Kevin (56m 1s): Easy.
Liz (56m 1s): Easy. Yeah. So I was like, wow, okay. I, wow,
Lisa (56m 4s): You're a believer. It
Liz (56m 6s): Was worth it. I was like this was worth it. And I think it's hard 'cause you're weighing like, do I want to do this release to my baby? Yeah. But honestly he loves breastfeeding so much and I feel like the procedure itself was, seemed relatively, he didn't even seem that upset after the release. And he gets so much comfort from breastfeeding and I wanted to be able to breastfeed. So I was just really happy that we made the decision to do that.
Lisa (56m 30s): Yeah. So he was teaching this workshop to perinatal professionals in New York and I've been referring to him for years. And so it was really nice to be able to be on a Zoom with him, and he showed us videos of the actual procedure being done and how it's like three seconds. It's so fast with a little laser and is invasive but minimally invasive. And what I've heard from clients is that the post care, the stretches that you have to do so that scar tissue doesn't develop and it doesn't fuse back together because of the scar tissue. That's the part that can be more challenging.
What was your experience with post-care?
Kevin (57m 5s): It was weird because I think sometimes he actually didn't mind it at all.
Liz (57m 9s): I feel like he just loves like anything in his mouth. So he's like, Ooh, people are sticking fingers in my mouth. Yeah, a new one. Yeah. Right. And we
Kevin (57m 17s): Usually do it right before a feed because we
Liz (57m 20s): Figured
Kevin (57m 22s): We'd do it, he'd hate it and then he'd feel comforted by the breastfeeding. Yeah. And so we usually,
Lisa (57m 27s): That's a good idea.
Kevin (57m 29s): While he was a little bit fussy because he was getting hungry, but he wasn't any more fussy because of our fingers in his mouth or
Liz (57m 36s): We'd do it or I would do it or either of us would do it right as he was waking up from a nap. So he wasn't actually fully awake yet, so he was kind of like, oh, what's going on?
Kevin (57m 45s): Jam fingers in
Liz (57m 46s): His throat. He was like, oh there fingers in my mouth. And then he was, then he would be fully alert, but we would already be done with the exercise.
Lisa (57m 51s): Wow. Y'all had it down to a cool technique. Those are some good tips for people if they need it.
Liz (57m 57s): Yeah,
Kevin (57m 58s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think in that early period before all the release, it was just hard because we were trying to figure out, we were doing, what was it? Triple feeding. Oh my god. Where Oh
Liz (58m 10s): So stressful.
Kevin (58m 11s): Yeah, she's trying to breastfeed then pump and then I'd supplement with a bottle and it was just like so much time and we were so tired because he would also wouldn't sleep in a bassinet. So we held him all night. And on top of that we were at a sublet because our house had issues.
Lisa (58m 28s): Oh what
Liz (58m 29s): The first two weeks were. Yeah, were stressful. You don't need to go all the way. But essentially we, the first, we didn't go home right after the hospital because literally the morning of there was a carbon monoxide leak in our house.
Lisa (58m 41s): Oh my gosh. No. What Terrible timing
Liz (58m 42s): my mom was Here, which was, I mean
Kevin (58m 44s): She's okay.
Liz (58m 44s): Yeah, she's okay. She, we have a bunch of alarms, but she heard it got herself and my dog out of the house and we had to replace our furnace. So it was, I feel like those first two weeks with feeding, napping at our house, not sleeping and not sleeping was just like, wow, that was a lot. Whoa. That's brutal. Now everything feels easy since that. Wow.
Lisa (59m 4s): So is there anything else that you wanted to share that you haven't gotten to share yet? And or if there's not any final tips or words of wisdom that you'd like to share with listeners who are largely expectant parents and maybe some new parents?
Liz (59m 19s): Yeah, I would say like for the birthing process, I think just trust your gut is, and I know it's almost like cliche, but it really is, I just feel like during pregnancy, like you really have a deep sense of yourself and your needs and to listen to those. And I guess also I'd already mentioned this, If you can stand your antidepressants, I didn't really have the time or the luxury to do this because of how quickly we got pregnant. But just figure out what birth setting you think might be best for you.
Be it midwife care, OB care, whatever setting you feel most comfortable in. Because I didn't really think about that prior to pregnancy and I think it's helped me be informed about if we were to have a second potentially like doing more of a like midwife care where there's just more time and more attention potentially like depending on the midwife to like your mental health and like your needs. I think that would've been just really helpful for at least this pregnancy for me.
Lisa (1h 0m 18s): Good tips. Thank you.
Liz (1h 0m 20s): Oh, and I guess the other takeaway from parenthood is, this was new to me and maybe it's very obvious to you, I'm sure since you're in the birth world, but the fact that babies don't sleep or a lot of babies don't like to sleep in cribs, like that really blew my mind. And I know people talk about the fourth trimester and I never really even got educated about it. And yeah, the whole 24 7 holding your baby thing. Wow, that is, it's a new form of endurance. Like probably the most endurance I've ever had in my life,
Lisa (1h 0m 48s): Right? Because that's their natural habitat is to be on you. But in our culture that's not normalized as much as I wish it was because then it is very jarring to us. We're like, why won't my baby sleep in a crib or a bassinet, why won't they sleep off of my body? Yeah, yeah.
Liz (1h 1m 4s): And even now, Sam sleeps in a crib at night, but during the day, like he only contact naps and I'm still home right now. So it's doable and I enjoy it. And I think just I'm leaning into the whole enjoy the contact naps while they're there,
Lisa (1h 1m 19s): Whatever. So have you found that, is there baby wearing stuff that has been helpful to free up your arms?
Liz (1h 1m 26s): We, I did one of the textile wraps, like a soy wrap early on. Now he's a little too big for that and we have some other carriers, but I feel like I don't tend to wear those as much.
Kevin (1h 1m 37s): I use them. You use them? I use them often and yeah, it's super helpful. 'cause I think he more recently, he's been fighting them initially, but he eventually settles down and is calm and usually falls asleep like pretty right away and we'll just stay there and I can at least like cook. Yeah,
Liz (1h 1m 54s): I wish that I got more, I think I, I'm not completely uncomfortable with them, but I do think I need to find something that isn't like at textile reps I was comfortable with. But I don't feel like I have a more structured rep that I'm super comfortable with because I think I need more lumbar and back support.
Kevin (1h 2m 7s): He's also like a tall baby, so he still can't lift up like fully hold his head up like sitting. But then he's also like longer than most newborn infant carries really allow or are comfortable with,
Lisa (1h 2m 22s): He looked tall when Liz was burping him. Yeah, the head strength, there was so much head
Liz (1h 2m 27s): Strength. I'm pretty tall, so he's like 99 percentile. He's like already starting to go to the six to nine month And he is three months.
Kevin (1h 2m 34s): Just turned three months a week ago. Yeah.
Liz (1h 2m 36s): Oh, he's a big boy,
Lisa (1h 2m 40s): Alright, well thank you so much Liz and Kevin, it's been a pleasure to chat with you and hear all these details and I think this is gonna be really helpful for listeners.
Liz (1h 2m 49s): Yeah, this was really fun just to share our story and talk about blood pressure a little bit. And I hope that anyone who experiences a similar thing can have some sense of camaraderie in that this happens to other people and that you can advocate for yourself and that it's hard. But yeah, just be honest with yourself and figure out what you need.
Lisa (1h 3m 9s): Yeah, and I don't think this came up earlier, but I just wanna mention to listeners that White Coat Hypertension is pretty common. I see it happen in a lot of my clients
Liz (1h 3m 18s): And it seems like at least that's a sense that I got is that it's not super common for people to like, and maybe it is, but to push back on the induction like I, right. Yeah. And I think that was maybe what it was like, I think the providers were really surprised that I would even question or not follow this sort of protocol. So if anyone ever wants to talk about it or yeah, I am very open to just share my experience and any sort of tools to make yourself more comfortable with your decision.
Lisa (1h 3m 49s): So for today's teaching notes, I wanted to highlight a few things from the blog post I referred to earlier today. The post is called Why Monitoring Blood Pressure in Pregnancy and Postpartum is more important than Ever. And I'll link to it in the show notes today. I'll highlight two of the most practical topics shared in the blog post. First thing is how to get the most accurate blood pressure read when at your doctor or mid midwife's office, as well as the second thing, resources for identifying an at-home blood pressure cuff that's been tested for accuracy.
Here are some tips to get the most accurate reading and reduce the risk of getting diagnosed with hypertension If you don't have it. Did you know that's possible? It is. So #1 is before taking the read, empty your bladder beforehand and rest for five minutes with the cuff on. I know that's kind of two in one. I was trying to make the list a little shorter.
#2: use the correct cuff size because a too tight or too loose cuff can give inaccurate readings.
#3: be sure you're seated with your feet flat on the floor, sit upright and support your back. Do not cross your legs.
#4: keep your arm at heart level. Your forearm should be supported resting on a table or a pillow to ensure proper positioning. Note that if your entire arm is resting at your side, this can cause a deceptively high reading. Yet have you noticed this is the way many, I would dare say most in my experience of our clinical settings do it.
#5: take multiple readings, measure your blood pressure twice a minute apart and record the average prenatally. If you get a prenatal read that's over one 40 over 90, but not so high that it's an emergency request to wait four hours and then take another read. This is the official medical recommendation.
#6: avoid caffeine, alcohol, stress, phone usage for at least 30 minutes before measuring because they can temporarily spike your blood pressure.
#7: importantly, use relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, visualization, affirmations, meditation, prayer, or other mindfulness techniques to lower your blood pressure. These can be surprisingly powerful. Also, in the blog post, I talk about the fact that it's a good idea to purchase an at-home blood pressure cuff. This can be useful for the first few weeks after you've given birth because postpartum preeclampsia can sometimes happen in a time in which we aren't being monitored by our hospital providers.
And I say hospitals specifically because home birth midwives and birthing center midwives tend to provide much more thorough postpartum care. But in US hospitals we're sent home one to three days after birth and aren't usually seen again for six whole weeks or two to three weeks if it's been a C-section or belly birth. A lot can happen in those weeks. So to protect your health, it's a smart idea to take a blood pressure reading a couple of times a day in the first six weeks or so postpartum.
It also can be a useful tool during pregnancy if you're getting high readings at a doctor or mid midwife's office to see if it's actually white coat syndrome. But here's something important to know. Did you know that not all at-home blood pressure monitors are tested for accuracy and many that aren't tested can cause false alarms. You can do the research at a website called Validate bp. BP like blood pressure, so validate bp.org or I did some research for you in the blog post.
I list a couple of models that seem to be a good combination of tested, affordable, and accessible. So go over to the show notes for this episode over at Birth Matters show.com. And I've included links to purchase one of those models. I would love your feedback on this topic. Does anything Liz shared or I shared resonate? Do you have White Coat Hypertension? Hearing the guidelines to get an accurate read? Do you generally see these procedures used or not? Did you know all of these guidelines already?
What questions did this bring up for you? Email us anytime with your feedback at podcast at BirthMattersnyc dot com or DM us on Instagram @BirthMattersnyc. Okay, here's a sneak peek of what's up next time.
Michelle (1h 8m 28s): With my first, I was like, all my attention was focused on preparing for labor and delivery and I just had no time. It was a luxury right to do that. Yeah. Yeah. So, I was getting increasingly emotional about bringing a baby into the family and how it was gonna affect our son. And so that was all hard for me. The guilt went away for a while and then towards the end of the pregnancy it was a countdown. Our last weeks together, our last time, I'm gonna do this with you alone the last time you're not gonna be your big brother. It was really emotional for me.
Lisa (1h 9m 1s): I am gonna leave you with four different affirmations that Liz shared resonated with her during pregnancy and birth. First one:
“I trust my body to know what to do.”
“My baby knows how and when to be born.”
”My body and my baby work together as a team and birth is powerful, but so am I.”
Thank you so much for listening to the Birth Matters podcast. I hope you have a great week and we'll see you next time.