Birth Matters Podcast, Ep 92 - A NYC Dancer's Home Birth

In bed at home the morning after giving birth

Whenever Hannah tried to reconcile her background as a professional dancer with the idea of pregnancy and birth, it felt like the two were incompatible. Yet when she does get pregnant, she finds ways to beautifully integrate the two. While pregnant, Hannah obtains a grant to both create and perform a dance work that tells the story of her journey into parenthood and to hold dance & journaling classes to create a community of support for fellow pregnant people. Ultimately, she chooses to give birth at home. Today’s birth story shares all the details of how Hannah hires a great midwife and doula birth team to support her and her husband in their Upper West Side home birth.

New mom and dad, smiling and holding newborn baby

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Episode Topics:

Smiling parents, dad holding newborn baby girl in tutu

Hazel in her first tutu

  • Found out they were pregnant on Father’s Day 2021

  • Wanted to give birth in a birthing center due to her mom’s experiences

  • Hiring her doulas and how taking birth class helping her consider home birth

  • Ended up hiring Wildroot Midwifery - mixture of in-person and virtual prenatal visits

  • Because they took birth class early, doulas helped remind her of things later on

  • Hiring doulas early helped her evaluate her birth choices

  • Dancing through pregnancy in different trimesters (sick in 1st trimester, body image challenges)

  • Had TSH number come back outside of range of normal, saw endocrinologist

  • Had a subchorionic hematoma - started bleeding while on vacation in Buffalo, small enough to be insignificant for the health of the pregnancy, took 3 weeks off exercise

  • 2nd trimester resumed dancing once hematoma resolved itself, performed in one new creation

  • Finding Thresholds - dance performance on her dance company’s website/YouTube channel

  • Try not to compare yourself to others in terms of physical activity or to your pre-pregnant self

  • Got the Plunge development grant to teach some classes for folks in the perinatal period

  • Really enjoying the community that these classes fostered, included some journaling

  • As part of the grant, created a solo exploring several things including the ideas of feeling like pregnancy is a performance of sorts, exploring the idea of control

  • IG=@hannah.newman.pan 

  • Labor starting, not sure if it’s starting, has pinkish discharge, has some fluid leaking

  • Go to prayer meeting

  • Contacts midwife Sorayya, who doesn’t have pH strips to test to see if it’s amniotic fluid

  • Starting to do early labor activities - they take a walk

  • Started watching The Office, having a hard time during contractions as they’re getting stronger

  • At the recommendation of doulas, exaggerated side-lying intensified contractions but they space out more.

  • On the phone a few times with Chloe

  • Did not want to sit down

  • 5:30 - feels like she doesn’t know what to do anymore, midwife recommends doula come

  • Doula Sarah-Grace comes to join them around 7:30pm

  • Before doula arrives, at some point doulas recommended getting in shower - more frequent but more bearable

  • Sarah-Grace arrives and suggests all kind of helpful things - guiding her up and down each wave/contraction

  • Tommy and Sarah-Grace trying to fill the labor tub 

  • Getting urge to push, doula recommends summoning midwife

  • Needing to stand until urge to push, then feeling “squatty”

  • Sorayya arrives around 10pm, has a hard time to find parking

  • Squatting outside pool, pushing for about 1.5 hours

  • Tommy sharing about when baby was crowning and the awkwardness of looking at baby’s head (with hair)

  • Reflections on meeting Hazel

  • Had a 2nd-degree tear, thinks maybe she might have pushed a little too hard/long

  • Gave birth on one knee (pushed shifting from one knee to the other for the remainder of pushing)

  • Tommy feeling tired, them trying to figure out co-sleeping/bedsharing instead of having baby in a bassinette

  • Feeding her hand-expressed colostrum through syringe to help her poop

  • Early postpartum support from Sorayya

  • Tailbone pain, some other postpartum issues that midwife helped her navigate that it could be pelvic floor related

Interview Transcript

Lisa: Welcome Hannah and Tommy, I'm so thankful you're willing to come onto the podcast today to share your birth story, your baby's birth story. Welcome.

Hannah: Thanks so much, Lisa. We're so excited to be here. It feels surreal after listening to your podcast, literally my whole pregnancy, I feel like I learned so much from it. So it's kind of crazy to be here.

Lisa: Oh, that means a lot to hear that you listen a bunch. And you both took my birth class back in October. And it was super early You had your baby long after everybody else did, right?

Hannah: Yes, we did. Yep.

Introducing Hannah and Tommy

New parents outside with newborn, mother is wearing baby in a wrap across chest

Family photo

Lisa: So if you could just please introduce yourselves, maybe share the neighborhood you live in and how long ago you gave birth, any of those essential details?

Hannah: Sure. My name is Hannah. We live in Harlem, and we gave birth, I guess, I gave birth eight weeks ago tomorrow. Our baby Hazel Grace is eight weeks tomorrow, which is wild. 

Tommy: My name is Tommy. I am the husband and father. I work in product management within finance, and it's been just a joy to be at home with our baby and being able to support Hannah. 

Hannah: Oh, and I guess I should say what I do, that would be helpful for later. I am a dancer and writer. Basically, I dance for a company called Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, located down by Union Square. And then I do a bunch of different writing things as a writing consultant for City Seminary of New York here in Harlem.

Lisa: I'm not sure I knew the writing piece of that. That's great. 

Hannah: Yep, a little dual career going on.

Lisa: That's so great, I love it. Yeah, I do remember that you, I believe, heard about my classes through a mutual friend, your pastor and someone, a friend of ours we've known for probably gosh, 20-ish years, I think.

Long time, through my work at Hope for New York was how I first met Scott.

My husband has worked on committees with him as well since then. So, near and dear to my heart, and I was so grateful that you heard about the birth classes through him.

Hannah: Yeah, we were too. I think it was probably when we first told him we were pregnant, he said, oh, you should get in touch with Lisa Taylor. I know her through, I don't even remember what he said and just kind of casual, and then I realized Lisa's got an amazing birth class, this podcast, also leads East River Doula Collective.

Amazing connection, we're so grateful that, yeah, connected us to you.

Lisa: So let's get started by sharing, if you would please share anything and everything you'd like to share about how your pregnancy went, how you chose your birth setting and your care provider, or your team, all of that good stuff.

Finding a care provider

Hannah: Sure. So we found out that we were pregnant on Father's Day 2021, which was pretty fun. 

Lisa: Ha Aw, that's fun.

Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. All things considered, I think I had a really great pregnancy. And that's funny to say now, looking back on the ups and downs throughout, but you know, talking to other people also, and just the host of things that you can come up against during pregnancy, I feel really grateful now on the other side.

But finding a care provider definitely was a bit of a journey for us. Started off in July at an OB practice with Mount Sinai West. And we kind of just wanted to start off somewhere because I was already pretty sure that I wanted to give birth at a birth center in the city. And that idea, I think really came from my mom.

Hannah: My mom gave birth to me in a hospital setting, did not have a great experience. Had an experience of, yeah, just the care that didn't feel as personal maybe, or as much like it really listened to her wants and desires. And then she gave birth to my brother in a birth center. And so I feel like growing up, hearing those two stories and her great experience in that birth made me want to go that route.

And then your class and learning more just about the physiology of birth and your Oxytocin and how important that is to feel really comfortable where you are. I just felt like that would be a setting that I would feel more comfortable in. But then as we were working through some insurance things, I was trying to just get care at the OB practice in the meantime, and then actually through you, through the East River Doula Collective, we got connected to our doulas team, Sarah-Grace and Beth who are amazing.

Home birth

Hannah: And I'll definitely talk more about them later, but as we were talking with them, it kind of became apparent. They definitely could recommend hospital settings in the city, that would be good options for an unmedicated birth, which was what I wanted. They felt like home birth, this is probably the most helpful piece of information, is actually really similar to a birth center in what you're actually getting.

Lisa: So there's nothing you could have at a birth center that you can't have at home birth, except maybe nitrous oxide, I remember they mentioned, or maybe you also mentioned that. I think both of you said it at the same time in different emails that I was having with you and with them. So I think hearing that from, I think the both of you, made me realize we should at least look into home birth, and definitely appealing to not have to do some sort of scary New York City commute to a different location at 5:00 PM on a Friday. That definitely had been worrying me. So we started to look into home birth, and this is all happening around, I don't know, maybe 15 to 20 weeks pregnant. And I had heard from you, and I think others that home birth practices can fill up quickly, so I'm getting a little bit worried. And anyway, all to say, we interviewed two different home birth midwifery practices, and we settled on Wild Root Midwifery with Chloe and Sorayya, and it was amazing. I'll share more later, but just felt like the kind of care I was looking for with hour-long appointments, as opposed to maybe 5, 10 minutes, someone asking you how you're doing emotionally, how you're eating, how your exercise is going, all of these different things that just felt like, yeah, pregnancy is a really holistic experience. It's impacting my entire body, which I did not fully realize before getting pregnant. So to have someone really care for you, mind and body, was really great. And then it was a mix for us of televisits and home visits, which is also amazing. I think they just opened an office actually, so I think they are switching over to doing some in their office and some at home. I just went to that office a few days ago, maybe I forget, a week ago or so because they are sharing an office a couple days a week with a close friend of mine who's a lactation consultant and we had lunch and she first had me come see her new office and it's beautiful. It's very beautifully designed and I was very impressed with it and excited that they had this Long Island City office now.

Hannah: Yeah, it sounds really great, I'm excited for them. So that was kind of our journey to settling in with them. And I think that was at 20 weeks. So halfway through, it felt kind of late to me, I'd wanted everything figured out a little earlier. Maybe that's our personalities to want that and take birth class at 18 weeks and all these things. 

Lisa: I wish more people would, I really do. You know, because like what you're talking about, switching care providers and switching birth settings, I think more people would have more time and, you know, less stress to really think carefully about those choices, because often, many people feel like, oh, now it's too late and it's not necessarily, but the options certainly would be more limited by then, by you know 20, 30, the 30th weeks.

So I'm so glad you did that. Everybody, listen to Hannah.

Hannah: I am glad, I think the benefits of taking it early, we were worried that we would forget everything by the time it was the birth, which I think is probably everyone's fear.

Lisa: Yep.

How Birth Class Helped

Hannah: And maybe this can be a time I can talk a little about your class and how helpful that was for us, because I think as you're making all these decisions, any of that information kind of upfront, and then it's simple and easy to go back and review it later.

And I think also the act of having doulas, they do a lot of that kind of review with you. I don't know if they all do, but Sarah-Grace and Beth were super organized and having some, you know, pre-birth visits with us, both in person and on Zoom, to go over our birth plan and what we wanted and think about coping techniques, comfort techniques, and labor.

And so it really did feel like they almost guided a review of the material. And I did go back and watch a few of your videos that you have access to after taking the class. I would've done more of that if our baby hadn't been born a little early, which we'll get to, but I think it was great to just kind of navigate a lot of those early pregnancy decisions, and that is the time when at least I felt probably the most stressed about not knowing anything. So I think that it really set us up for success. Even as we were making that decision about home birth and thinking through if that was what we wanted. And I will say about that too, because I think probably other people have similar concerns. Everyone thinks about safety. And I think that's, you know, when you tell people you're having a home birth, everyone's first question is, do you have a hospital plan? You know, in New York there's a ton of hospitals, so I think you'll be able to...

Lisa: They're on every corner.

So, you know, yeah, we do have a plan if it's necessary and we have thought it through.

Researching Homebirth & Addressing Concerns

Hannah: But so we did look into, and our doulas helped guide that process too, of looking into safety data. And Tommy, if you wanted to talk about, you're a little worried about the cleanup. 

Tommy: Oh yeah, just like, you know this happened at home, like what's going to happen afterwards.

And obviously now I can say from having done it, you literally don't have to worry about a thing. And that's, I mean, that's just credit also to our birth team, they were excellent in what they did and not even a thought. 

Hannah: And I remember thinking that was funny that he had thought about the clean up because I had not even once thought about that.

I don't know if that's a personality thing, but yeah. It's not, nothing to be concerned about. I think you said on a podcast previously that they are like fairies kind of, you come out of your room, and everything is back to normal, which was our experience. 

Tommy: Pretty accurate. 

Hannah: And I didn't realize how messy it can be, so it's really saying even more. So I think those two concerns we felt our fears were assuaged on those two counts and that made us feel confident moving forward.

Benefits of having a doula

Lisa: Can I just mention one thing, as you were saying about your doulas refreshing you on birth education stuff. I was reminded that a couple of the doula teams about who might have gotten the most glowing feedback, which includes your doula team, usually, I don't know if it's a requirement, but they request that their clients please take birth class before they start having their prenatal visits.

And I think that is so brilliant because your doula, that's just a logical sequence because your prenatal visits are never going to be as comprehensive, or we don't have as much time as we would have in at least my childbirth series and most childbirth series are going to be longer than your prenatals with your doula.

So it's nice to have that sequence. I just wanted to amplify that statement that you made. 

Hannah: Yeah, it was great. I don't know if they require it, but I think they already knew we were signed up for your class when we were initially talking with them. I think that we hired them around 15 weeks, also pretty early. And I knew I wanted, once we decided we wanted to work with doulas, I think I wanted some help navigating the birth scene in New York City.

And also just felt like I heard so many friends give great feedback about having a doula for their birth. And I think I felt the benefit of having someone to also support Tommy in the birth. That it wouldn't just be him with me, which would be great, but.

Tommy: I didn't know, probably fully what a doula did beforehand. And I think, you know, it was more Hannah talking to me into the fact that we needed a doula. But now I'm on the other side, looking back, I could not be more thankful that we had a doula, just I couldn't have imagined doing it by myself. You know, coaching Hannah through those contractions was not something that I would have been able to do.

I think, especially for home birth too, because you're, you know, if he had to set up the birth pool and coach me through the contractions and make sure I was drinking water, I mean, it's actually kind of a lot of stuff. 

Hannah: And not that I can't do that myself, but it helped to have someone hand you the water, I'm getting ahead of myself.

But I think having a doula as a part of the team, and I think some home birth practices maybe require that, I'm not sure, and I'm not sure about ours, but it was great.

Being a dancer while pregnant

Lisa: Great. Well, so was there anything else you wanted to share about pregnancy and planning for birth before you jump into your birth story?

Hannah: Yeah. I can share a little more about the, how the trimesters kind of rolled, a little bit about dance and pregnancy, because that was a whole journey for me.

I think I'd always wanted to have a family and have children and I had also wanted to pursue a dance career. And so I think even since I was a kid, just seeing those two paths in my life kind of scared me, that I didn't see how they could ride on the same track, really. 

It felt like two separate tracks, and I think leading up to thinking about trying to get pregnant, our conversations together as a couple, it really helped me see the path for that. And I think Tommy had almost more vision of how it could work than I did. And so I think so much of that in your ability to dance through pregnancy and beyond, can depend I think on your mindset, on the way that you're approaching it and your support systems.

But for me, I think, I had a lot of questions around what was safe physically and what I could and couldn't do. And some of that was impacted by how I felt. I felt pretty sick in the first trimester from about 6 to 17 weeks. I thought, oh, this is supposed to just turn off at 14 weeks, 12 weeks, doesn't always do that. 

Hannah: And it wasn't, you know, just a lot of loss of appetite and it was sort of difficult. I think I lost weight and was kind of getting nervous about that. Also created an awkward, there's a lot of, you know, a lot of issues around weight, and eating in the dance world, of course.

And it's an awkward experience to have people think, oh, you look like you've lost the weight and literally say that to you. And then you have to say, well, actually I'm pregnant. It's sort of a swerve in the conversation and people aren't expecting and not the way you wanted to tell them. And so some of that was a little bit hard, but things started to look up kind of at the end of that first trimester, but in the first trimester just had sort of two things happen that I didn't know about going into pregnancy that may be helpful for other people to know are possible.

Thyroid imbalance

Hannah: I had a thyroid, I think TSH, I don't know all the medical terms, number come back different than what it should have been. And so I saw an endocrinologist throughout pregnancy, about that. And I'd done a little research on my own and talked to our OB who we were still with at the time. And she had said, it's so different than it's probably not pregnancy related, but it did come back to normal enough during pregnancy that I do think it was certainly the first trimester. Your body's just kind of changing so much, that it did affect my thyroid hormones. And I didn't know that was possible to that degree. So that's something to think about and research if that happens to you. I think it was probably good, I saw someone throughout, but it did feel a little bit like, pretty sure this is related to pregnancy, which is pretty wild that it can affect all the systems of your body like that.

Subchorionic hematoma

Hannah: And the second thing that happened was that I had a subchorionic hematoma. So we were on vacation at the end of August, at around 13 weeks, and I started having some bleeding. And I'd had a little bit of spotting previously in the pregnancy, but it was never a bright red. And so everyone tells you if you see that, you need to go to the ER.

Hannah: So we went to the ER, we were in Buffalo, New York at the time, and just a really scary experience. You see that and you're immediately thinking of having a miscarriage. So we were definitely really scared, but honestly, the people at that hospital we were at were amazing, really comforting through what was a really scary experience, but ended up being this subchorionic hematoma to my knowledge, is sort of like a little pool of blood in between the chorion, which is part of the membranes around the baby, and the uterine wall. And it can just stay there, and you never even notice it or it can bleed out. And then you realize that it's there. And I think it's not serious unless it's very large and mine was fairly small.

 I was recommended to take time off of exercise. I didn't need to be on bed rest or anything, but just took about three weeks off of exercise, which felt a little bit, yeah, just kind of scary. You don't know if it's going to clear up, is this going to cause growth issues for the baby or anything like that. But thankfully, the next ultrasound, it was gone, and they didn't know that I had it until I told them.

Hannah: So that was, we're really thankful for that. And that was the first trimester, a bit of a rocky ride in that way.

So I wasn't doing a lot of dancing, I used to run a little bit, not a lot. I've never been a very consistent runner, kind of quit that, I was just feeling too crummy. 

Second trimester

Hannah: But second trimester, things started looking up and was able to return to dance.

It worked out with the beginning of our company's season in late September. I have a really supportive director at our company, Igal Perry, and my coworkers are awesome. So I was still able to be rehearsing and I did perform just one piece that was a new creation that I was cast in. It was a lot of fun and really fun to have something created on you with the knowledge that you're pregnant.

Pregnant mother in dance studio

32 weeks working on choreographing a solo about pregnancy/transition into parenthood (click for link to choreographed solo, filmed at 35.5 weeks)

But also the choreographer just treated me like another dancer and just said, if you can't do something, just let me know and we'll change it. So that was a really special experience, to perform in December, almost 29 weeks pregnant. I think some people thought I was a little crazy, but you know, just that heard the advice, if it feels fine, if you did it pre-pregnancy, you can continue doing it. And that advice had felt a little general to me and a little bit scary to be figuring out almost every day. Well, can I roll on the floor? When should I stop rolling on my stomach? When should I stop doing partnering? Should I stop doing all partnering work? Or could I do some of it? 

Just like, so many questions. Yeah, so I found that to be a little stressful to navigate. Without a lot of guidance, there's just not a lot of pregnant dancers, I know a few and I've been so grateful for their support. But it's just not super common. I think especially almost in the contemporary field.

So all that to say it was a really special experience to perform with my baby together. 

Lisa: I love that. Didn't you say, is this the performance you were saying, there's a recording of online that we can watch if we're interested?

Hannah: Oh there, this is a different one. Yes. This one is not online. I guess technically, there is one where I was pregnant in June. But with like four weeks pregnant, I didn't know yet, that is online, it's called Threshold on the company's YouTube channel.

Lisa: Nice. I'll be sure to get that from you and post the link to that on the show notes page.

Hannah: Yeah, definitely. So that was kind of the second trimester. 

And I think throughout the pregnancy, I found it helpful with dance to just kind of really focus on not comparing myself. And I think this might be helpful to anyone who wants to stay active in pregnancy and who was active before and you're dealing with just a lot of the changes, how things are different daily, but I think to focus on not comparing yourself to other people around you in the room, in your running club, whatever it might be, at your gym, but also not to compare yourself to your pre-pregnancy self, and to be sort of sad about that and the loss of certain capabilities, because you won't be able to do everything safely. Nor will you really want to at a certain point. So I think it helped me to just focus on exploring, and this is a new body that I've never had before, that is also growing another human being, which is super cool and amazing. But will it mean that you're going to need to explore your different capabilities. That they won't be the same they were yesterday or two months ago, but to just try to have some excitement about that adventure instead of sadness about what isn't true right now for you. And I think that made me have a lot more freedom and joy in exploring and processing my pregnancy through dance, is something I started even from the day that I found out I was pregnant. Just kind of improvising and journaling, doing a mix of those things to think through what was this experience like and how was it hard and how has it been great and what do I hope for my baby in the future and how am I imagining her, and all of these different things. So that was cool for me to do and led me to want to do that for other people and see if that would be something helpful for others.

Third trimester - Building Community through prenatal dance class 

Hannah: So, in my third trimester I received a grant, the Plunge Development Grant, and was able to do some workshops for people who are expecting and was hoping to do that for both moms and their partners, but just decided it might be simpler to keep it for the moms this time around and explore more options in the future.

Pregnant persons smiling at camera, cradling bellies with two on Zoom in the background

The first "Moving Through Pregnancy" workshop, supported by Dive and Dine's Plunge Development Grant and held at Peridance

But that was really cool to just get some community with other people who are pregnant and having this experience. And I didn't realize how powerful that would be for all of us. It wasn't so much what you're doing together, but the fact that you're gathering together, having an experience together, talking about where you're giving birth or when is your family coming and how early are you having them and how long and all of these things we got to talk about.

But the structure of them was around dancing, not just talking. So we just kind of did like a warmup and then some journaling and creating some movement about the words that you journaled, using that as a springboard to create a little phrase that would kind of be almost like a movement journal or diary of your pregnancy.

Hannah: So that was really special to get to do that. And the other half of that project was creating a solo about, at least my experience of pregnancy, I think everyone's is totally different, which is part of what makes it hard because then you don't know what to expect. So that solo is online on my Instagram, if anybody wants to see if that's part of your experience. Mostly explored themes of your identity, changing, heading into parenthood, which I think feels overwhelming. And to me felt like, wow, will my entire identity, myself, change who I'll be on the other side of this. But it was helpful for me to rest in the fact that no, I think my identity right now, I see as a child of God, and I will see that on the other side with the addition of being a mother. 

And the aspects of, I think everyone has an aspect of performance in pregnancy that you feel like you're performing a role, a little bit of pregnant, and what do people expect? Do they expect me to be bigger or smaller or more tired or less tired? So I think I felt that, maybe more as a dancer when people are looking at your bodies specifically, had a lot of people say, oh, you don't look pregnant, or you look bigger than I thought you would, like all these different things.

And then the last thing was control and exploring that through dance, wanting to control every aspect of the pregnancy, of the birth, maybe of my child's life down the road. But feeling that you can't, pregnancy kind of just rolls and the birth kind of just rolls and there are decisions you can make along the way to really help yourself and help your baby for sure.

Hannah: But you can't control everything. And I think that being a lesson I wanted to take into motherhood, that I'm going to have to release that into God's hands, that I can't hold on to all of that. 

So that's kind of what I explored in the third trimester.

Lisa: Oh, thank you. Those are some really deep concepts and I very much want to, and I'm sure others do too, want to check out that work that you created. What is your Instagram? Can you let us know?

Hannah: Yeah. It's @hannah.newman.pan 

dot pan. 

Lisa: Great. Thank you for sharing that verbally. I already had it, of course, but I'll include it on the show notes, but not everybody's going to visit the show notes page. So hopefully, someone is typing that in right now.

@hannah.newman.pan

Great. 

Hannah: Yeah. I hope it's helpful. My intention wasn't just to document for myself, but hopefully, have it be a springboard for other people to think through how those themes are kind of emerging in their own pregnancy.

Lisa: Beautiful. Performance art, well, all kinds of art are just such a powerful medium to process these rites of passage and, you know, significant life experiences. So I'm very excited about the work that you're doing and this work that you created and the community that you were fostering in the class environment.

So, thank you for doing those things, and I hope you'll get back to it once you're feeling a little more settled in as a parent. 

Hannah: I want to, and I think there's like a lot of, I want to explore different variations. Is there like a mother-baby version or bring your partner, bring your spouse version. We'll see. But I'm excited about that, and I think I selfishly was creating my own community, just trying to pull people in and under the guise of a dance class.

No, I'm kidding, but I hope to continue to do it in the future.

Doula Collective support group

Lisa: Yeah, and our Doula Collective just started a support group, and you're a part of that, right?

Yes, a postpartum support group, but I think we just had week two a few days ago. So hopefully, that can be a nice source of community support for you as a new parent, as well as maybe continuing this exploration of similar work that you might want to do.

Hannah: Yeah, that's been, it started off great, really helpful. One of the women started a WhatsApp group, so people are already sharing easy instant pot recipes or questions about meal trains and things like that. So, I think it's going to be really helpful.

Lisa: All right. Anything else about pregnancy before we go into the birth story?

Hannah: I don't think so. I think that's most of it. Well, the last thing I'll add is about kind of those things, that the last four weeks I was really excited about eating pineapple, drinking raspberry leaf tea, eating dates, and all of those things. I guess that kind of leads into the birth story, but I feel like I don't know what combination of those things helped, but I enjoy those foods anyway.

So it was exciting to try that, but that was recommended by our doulas and through research online. So I did do some of that and was trying to do some yoga at the very end, when I did stop dancing at 37 weeks, because I was feeling like I'm just modifying everything in ballet class, the very simplest exercises. I had some tailbone pain and pubic, I guess more discomfort than pain. Things kind of shifting and clicking and just felt unstable in the last couple of weeks of pregnancy, which is wild. It's your body kind of preparing to let something very large out of that area. But it felt like maybe this is okay for me to step away, and I think I definitely had peace about that and was going to lean into just kind of, you know, sitting on the birth ball and eating pineapple and doing prenatal yoga in those last weeks, but I only really had one week. 

Pelvic health programs

Lisa: One question I have is, particularly with your background in already being so physically active, a lot of your work being focused on the physical body. Did you, before birth or after birth happened do any like prenatal programs, like fitness programs or pelvic health programs, or see a pelvic PT or have you since birth? I'm just curious about that.

Hannah: Yeah, I have to say I've never been good at cross training, something I always aspire to do more of, so I really only did prenatal yoga. Sarah-Grace, one of our doulas is an amazing prenatal and postnatal yoga teacher, so I was doing her classes. Can't say I made it every week, but I would say two to four times a month and could tell this is really good for my body.

It felt really good, something I should be doing as a dancer anyway, is yoga. And I really wanted to see a pelvic floor PT before birth and just didn't get around to it. And I would recommend for people to make that a priority, no matter how great you think your pelvic floor health may be, not that any of us really know, because you just don't think about that. At least I didn't. I do have an appointment for later this month, after birth. Yeah, so I'll be checking that out and hopefully that will help. I don't feel like I have major issues with it, but I'm definitely noticing things are weaker. I could use some help, and so I'm excited to explore that, but that's really all that I did.

Lisa: Great, that sounds great. Prenatal yoga is one of my very top recommendations for sure. And Sarah-Grace is wonderful, so I'm really glad you had that.

Birth story

Lisa: Great. Feel free to, as you were saying that you were doing things to try to get the party started, and you did go before your due date, estimated due date, of course.

Hannah: Yes. Right, estimated. Yeah, so, she was born exactly two weeks before my due date, at 38 weeks, which I was not expecting. I think the two things everyone says are that your first baby is probably going to be late or very likely will be late, and your water probably won't break first.

And those two things happened the other way around for me. 

Basically, woke up at 38 weeks on the dot, felt a couple of contractions, just like 15 minutes before our alarm went off at 7:00 AM. And I've been feeling some Braxton Hicks, just like very mild tightening area in the abdomen area, I guess, is how I describe it.

And these felt a little bit different. I had always worried about how I would know labor was starting, and it's kind of funny because I didn't really know if it was starting for a couple of hours this morning. So those first two contractions just made me think, what if this is the last day we wake up without a baby?

And it was. I didn't say that to Tommy, I don't think I said anything to you though. And he's shaking his head. Because I really wasn't sure, but I did go to the bathroom and found a little bit of pinkish discharge and some wateriness. And I think then I said something to you. What did I say?

What do you mean you think it did? So I was trying to figure that out, but we had a prayer meeting on Zoom at 7:30 that we still just joined anyway, texted our doulas after and they said, keep an eye on it, it could have been the mucus plug, but keep us posted, let us know. 

9:00 AM and 9:30, I have more water, enough to drip down my pant leg. I'm still saying, I'm not sure if it's my water breaking. But I hadn't had any issues with incontinence in pregnancy, but I do know our doulas had said, and our midwife later said, you know, discharge at the end of pregnancy can be, I think the word they used was "impressive."

So you never know. I think I was in denial though and didn't do a great job of communicating how much water it was. I think I was probably minimizing a little bit, because I needed about 36 more hours to wrap up some work things. 

I proceeded to get on a Zoom call at 9:00 AM, informed them, I'm thinking my water may have broken, but I want to just wrap this up.

And people are, of course like, you shouldn't be here. But our midwife Sorayya was scheduled to come for our 38-week visit at 10:00 AM that morning. So she came, I think I blurted out as she's coming up the stairs, "I think my water may have broken, but I'm not sure." 

She's just not even settled in yet, she didn't, because I had not called her, I would recommend to anybody to call the moment you suspect it may have broken, because she didn't have the correct test with her to test if it was amniotic fluid. So just said, let's monitor it and let me know if you're having more contractions. So I felt bad about that. So that would be a recommendation. Just call if you think your water broke, which is what they tell you anyway. 

So 11:00 AM I'm on another Zoom call for work, frantically sending people documents, because I just really didn't want to worry about it after the baby was born and had the feeling like I'm 90% sure this is it. Contractions were a little bit more regular, maybe 15 to 20 minutes apart.

I think by around 1:00 PM I'm a hundred percent sure they're 10 to 20 minutes apart. And Tommy, what time you said, just log off. So I did, and sent messages like, yep, I think this is it. And he had already, he was already getting ready, you told your team.

Hannah: Yeah, he gets five months of paternity leave, that's the other thing, so it was truly a "see you later." Yeah, so once I decided this is it, we did sort of launch into the early labor activities that we had discussed in your class, that you encouraged us to just make a list of things to distract yourself as long as possible.

Lisa: Prayer meeting was probably not on your early list. 

Hannah: That was not, but I'm really glad we went. The funny thing was we, I was so unsure, I was unsure enough at that point that I didn't ask for prayer for birth. We just didn't say anything to people.

Lisa: Because you're like, I have two weeks, we'll have another prayer meeting before then. 

Hannah: Exactly, that's what I was thinking. And it's not that we didn't feel free enough to ask for it and we just thought, you know, it wasn't it.

So then we did take a walk and we were going to go to Whole Foods to get a little treat, which is something that I wanted. But by that point, I was already feeling like, I'm not sure if I walk there that I'll be able to get back comfortably, because the contractions were becoming enough that I was having to, I guess I would say, focus on them a little bit, like think about breathing or continue pacing or something like that.

So I came home, and Tommy went because I wanted to have snacks for the doula and the midwife and everybody. Yeah, I had dreams. One of the things on my list was baking cookies, but it was progressing fast enough, that wasn't going to happen. Then when you came back, we started watching The Office.

Hannah: That was the next thing on the list, to try to laugh and just have some lightheartedness, which started off fine, but halfway through, I think the episode, I was asking you to pause it during the contractions, so I could focus, which was sort of defeating the purpose of distraction. I don't remember, then what happened next?

Soon after that, our doulas are texting us suggestions as well, which is really a helpful way they can support you before they actually come. Just texting some ideas of what you could do that we had talked about with them two days previously at our last visit. So she did recommend, why don't you try laying down and do exaggerated sidelying with your leg propped up and just kind of try to relax and rest a bit.

Laboring mother leaning on yoga ball, partner rubbing her back from his chair

Labor in living room

I found that really intensified the contractions, the sensation. It did space them out a little bit more. At this point, I think before we laid down, they were about three or four minutes apart, which is kind of scaring me because I was thinking, oh my goodness, that's kind of close together. How could this have gone that quickly?

But no one seemed to be rushing here or concerned. My mom was concerned. I think, she was like, you've got to call them, they have to come now. And I said, I think that they are very experienced, a very experienced team, they know when they should come. But I think that lying down spaced out the contractions for me a bit, but then they were more intense.

And I was on the phone a few times with Chloe, the other half of our midwife team, who had recommended staying in one position for a few contractions to let your body kind of settle into that. And I did try doing that, and it was still kind of painful. I think somewhere to the end of that, I said, I don't know what to do anymore, we had tried hanging on Tommy and pushing against a wall, different things. I did not want to sit down. I think that was part of the hard physicalness of it, was I just really felt like I can't sit on the ball, I can't sit on the couch, chair or lie down. So it felt like being on your feet a lot was a little more tiring than I'd projected.

So at that point, I think maybe around 5, 5:30, I said, I don't know what to do anymore. It was going to just getting progressively more intense and they were sort of staying at about three minutes apart. 

Time to call the doula

Hannah: And so that's when I think Chloe had said, why don't you call, this is a good time for your doula to come, let them know that.

And so we did. The way that doula teams work, basically, whoever's kind of on-call for both of you, if you have a team of midwives or a team of doulas will come to your birth. So it was Sarah-Grace who came, and I felt bad, it was kind of during rush hour at that point, so maybe not the most peaceful Uber ride for her. But she came I think around 7:30. It is wild. I know I've heard people say on your podcast, how like the labor lands, the way time passes is so strange, it feels like, how long did I do everything for? I just have like almost no recollection, but at some point in there, they had recommended I get in the shower, which did help I think alleviate some of that discomfort, but it did make the contractions pick up in pace. 

So I think they were every like one and a half to two minutes and I was kind of freaking out like, what if this makes the baby come sooner and no one's here? I'm getting out of here. And then when I got out of the shower, I did start having some shaking, which I think can be hormonal, and that you can shed more light on that, but maybe the cold of getting out of the shower plus the hormones.

And so I wasn't able to kind of calm that down for a little while. And that's a weird sensation to feel like you're a little bit uncontrollably shaking. 

Doula arrived

Hannah: Sarah-Grace got there and was just so helpful, I think in suggesting things to try, in talking me through the contractions. Something I found helpful was that she would talk to me, say, you're coming to the peak, now you're coming down from the peak. So it really felt like each contraction was only 30 seconds instead of a full minute, because you think, oh, that was the worst part, now it's getting better. Just changes the way that you're thinking about time and the way that pain is coming in that time.

And Tommy was helpful, she's helping Tommy try to set up the birth pool, which unfortunately, we had not tested prior to this, so we didn't know where the correct attachment for the hose to our sink was.

So that would be another recommendation for people doing a home birth is, test that out. So they started boiling water.

Lisa: What was your experience like with that?

Hannah: Every burner is full pots of water. You dump it into the pool, and you go.  Fill up the ocean. 

So, I remember looking at them like, maybe I should just tell them to call it quits because this doesn't look like it's happening. But then magically, Sarah-Grace finds the attachment, they get the pool going, and I think somewhere around that point, I think she said to you, I heard her whisper to you, "She's getting pushy, I think you should call the midwife." And I guess that feeling, I think most of the time I was pushing against a wall, just standing up. I don't think that was a position we talked about in birth class, but just kind of feeling stabilized somewhere, standing up felt best to me.

And I think at a certain point, people talk about the urge to bear down or to push. And it does feel like you just, I would describe it as getting squatty. Like I just kind of, when a contraction came, you just kind of wanted to squat down a little bit. That's how it felt, and so I think she saw that, and I think then, yeah, Sorayya got here, maybe half an hour to an hour later after that point. Around 10:00 PM, and I think you want to talk about that experience of her arriving? 

Midwife arrived

Tommy: Well, of course she couldn't find parking 

Hannah: New York City life. I think I told her, you want to come up and I'll come and park the car?

Tommy: And she insisted on giving it another attempt and she did find a spot, like a block or so away. And then she came up and, just how I remember it, it felt like she like slid into home plate like home plate, meaning under Hannah with the Doppler, you know, monitoring the heartbeat.

It just happened so fast, and she got to work, I can't sing her praises enough. 

Hannah: Yeah. But it was true, it felt like she came to the door and immediately she's checking the baby's heartbeat under me, and things are rolling. I don't even know how she unpacked her stuff. And I don't remember seeing her unpack her whole kit.

I think at that point, I think I said to her, and maybe to Sarah-Grace, is this pushing? Am I doing it? Like, because it just felt like it just rolled along and they were like, yeah, this is it. You're doing it. And someone asked, do you want to get in the pool? And at that point I was too nervous that I wouldn't be able to get over the edge or it would feel worse if I got in the pool. I think throughout, you have all these tools that we learned with you in birth class, and we discussed with our doulas.

I got scared along the way of changing to the next thing that would make it feel worse. But I think it's still good to try for a couple of contractions. The different things that I did try, it will also make you realize what does work, that is the best position because it could be worse.

So I ended up never getting in the pool. After we had, you know, driven somewhere to pick it up... Tommy's shaking his head... it's four days before, all the boiling,

It was the placebo effect. I knew I wanted it there; I think I had envisioned myself using it more for pain coping earlier in labor and not necessarily, I wasn't married to the idea of having the baby in the water.

So I decided to just hold on to the edge of the pool for all of the pushing, which was sort of funny. 

Lisa: Well, I guess the water, Tommy, the water you put in there helped it stay stable for her.

Hannah: That's true. 

Lisa: You know, right, because if it wasn't full, she wouldn't have been able to use it for stability.

Hannah: Exactly.

Lisa: You get credit.

Hannah: That's going to make them feel a lot better. So I think it felt really good to have the freedom to push in whatever position you wanted to. Like I said, I couldn't have imagined lying down. Also reminds me to mention that, yeah, in a home birth, I think unless they needed to check how you're progressing, if things are not progressing or it seems like they're not, then they would need to do a cervical check. But it felt really great that no one did a cervical check, because I did not want to lie down or have someone sticking something up there with all of the sensations you're feeling.

So I'm still kind of wild that it can roll like that and you're just pushing and that's it. But yeah, so I think I was squatting for like 40 minutes, and then I think I said, I'm kind of getting tired and then knelt on one knee and the other knee on my poor yoga mat, which got a little bit destroyed in the process through all of the different fluids.

But in the end, yeah, I think, I guess that sensation, I can talk a little about the mentality of that time, I think I pushed for about an hour and a half. And I know that's not super long, it just in the middle of it, it can feel like an eternity and how in the world am I going to get this baby out of here?

Hannah: Just that sensation of the bobbing down, you can feel the downward pressure and you push, and it feels good, okay, and then the rebound, yeah. And I think that started to get a little frustrating, and at one point I do remember thinking, there is no other way at this point, I have chosen this path, she has to come out this way.

So I think, and I had envisioned myself praying more, I think throughout the whole labor. I think I said one prayer, Lord help. Maybe at that point, but just like the mental presence, wasn't fully there to, to do that. But one cool moment was when Sorayya asked if Tommy wanted to look, when you could see the head, apparently.

Lisa: Do you want to talk about that? 

Tommy: Yeah. Um, Sorayya's like, do you want to, do you want to look? Sure, I didn't know I was allowed in that zone over there. So I went down, and I don't know where to look or what to even look for, and I'm like, I don't see anything.

She's like, oh, shine a light. I'm like, okay, I guess I'll use my phone. But you know, you feel like a little kid, like in a professional work environment, I'll pull my flashlight app. 

Hannah: We had the lights dimmed, there was a candle on, it was 10:00 PM. So you couldn't see them. 

Tommy: Right. So I shine the light on.

And I said Bailey, she has hair, and it was like an inside joke between us, so. 

Hannah: We wondered if the baby would have hair. 

Lisa: Did one of you have hair and the other one not, when you were born?

Hannah: I think we both had hair. Maybe part of it is, my brother had a lot of hair when he was born, and he was just the cutest baby. So maybe that's where it was coming from for me. I don't know, silly. 

Tommy: Well, just like encouragement, motivation, during a time of frustration, I'm like, I can see our child, the characteristics of her appearance. 

She was right there. Like, I could see her hair. But the thing that I did not say in a caution to all, you know, husbands out there, what I did not say in that moment was, how in the world is a baby going to fit through a sliver of that size, because I saw the hair through something this big and I'm like, in my heart, I was like, there's just no way this happen, there's no way. 

Hannah: He told me that after. 

Lisa: But you did not verbalize it then, good. 

Tommy: I absolutely did not verbalize that. And I went back to my, you know, hollow words of, you know, you got this, you're doing great. Like, even though. 

Hannah: He was in shock. 

Tommy: Cognitive dissonance, like in my head thinking like, yeah, there's just no way.

Meet the baby

Hannah: That to learn afterwards. But I think you said, I wrote down in the birth story that I wrote about this, that you said at that moment, it was also the baby became real. It was something we had just talked about, but actually seeing something of your baby for the first time was like whoa, this is a real baby. So that was kind of cool too. 

And I think that's how I felt when she finally did come out. It's this strange sensation, just actually feeling the baby come out of you. But I think I also was getting a little bit frustrated by the end of it, feeling like, man, I'm done with this. I am ready to meet my baby.

I think I did push a little too much beyond the sensation of the contraction, which maybe you would tear less if you didn't do that. It was just kind of like, we're done here, pushing as much as possible. 

Lisa: I know, you got to do what you got to do. Sometimes, there's only so much you can do. And like you said, there is this I'll use the term that Tommy just used about a different topic of that cognitive dissonance, of I just want this to be done so much, but also there's the other piece of it. Yeah.

Hannah: Right. I would have loved to not tear my perineum. Yeah, and when she was born it's just a wild feeling, that it almost just feels like this baby dropped out of the sky. And I think just to connect, that's the same baby that was inside of you, that you've imagined, but it was just a moment of, it's surreal and triumphant in some ways of everything. Whatever you went through as an individual and getting pregnant, in your pregnancy, in the birth, this is it, you did it, that's the baby.

You still have to deliver the placenta, but your baby is here, so that was just really cool. And I think you said, I just looked at her, I think I was crying a little bit and I think I said, Oh, hi!

Which is so ridiculous. And like I waved at her, and Sorayya's like, take the baby on your chest.

New mom with just born baby on chest, midwife overlooking and checking in

On couch right after birth, with midiwfe Sorayya checking in

But, yeah, and then they just help you get over to, we just went over to our couch. She was born in the middle of our living room, next to the birth pool, on the outside of the birth pool. And everything's covered in chux pads, they do such a great job with that. And just really cool to be just laying on your couch with the baby in those first moments. She's covered in stuff, and I'm covered in stuff, and oh, her birth assistant Alessandra also was there. She came, I think maybe 10:15, 10:30. They were just going to work, checking the baby, checking you. They gave me Pitocin and something called miso and something called Shepherd's Purse. Those were orally, and Pitocin was a shot to help stop the bleeding.

And I could tell like, they really actively manage everything in such a professional way, but that doesn't disrupt this kind of like world you've ventured into with this little, tiny baby that you've grown. So that was pretty neat. And Sarah-Grace is coming to me with applesauce and water and coconut water, and so it was just really helpful to have a team like that, so that we could really just start your first few moments with your child. 

Second degree tear

Hannah: So yeah, I had a second-degree tear. Like I said, I wonder if you do really focus on patience and pushing with the contraction, if that would have helped.

I think I got a bit impatient, but it was also encouraging. I forgot to mention in the feeling of the baby bobbing, that Sorayya did say, because I think I mentioned that I just feel like she keeps going back up. And Sorayya said, "It's actually helpful, it's sort of stretching everything out slowly so that you will be able to birth the baby more easily," which was encouraging to hear, I think, in the middle of that.

Lisa: Yeah, and squeezing all the fluid out of Hazel's air passageways so that she can more easily breathe when she's born, getting the lungs ready for that inhale exhale motion. Yeah, there's so much benefit from that rebounding, but it can be really frustrating. I totally hear you when you say that. Do you mind clarifying, I think I lost a little clarity on, you said you were squatting at first and then you got tired from doing that, because that does require a lot of energy. I think I missed, what position did you try after that? Or positions, plural, and what position did you give birth in?

Hannah: Just one, kneeling on one knee.

Lisa: Kneeling on one knee, ok.

Hannah: And I was just switching from one knee to the other knee. I think I squatted maybe for 40 minutes and then did the one knee kneeling for the next 40. Someone offered me a birth stool, yeah. Just over the yoga mat, which did have chux pads on it, but when you're kneeling, you're kind of shifting things around. 

And I remember Alessandra said, you know, you can clean up the yoga mat, because you know, there's all kinds of stuff on it. And I said, it's okay, we'll just, we'll get a new one. But yeah, so I gave birth on one knee to her. And someone offered me a birth stool at one point, and it was the same thing I mentioned before, I'm just feeling nervous about changing positions and having it feel uncomfortable and just feeling like I really can't sit. I don't feel like I can sit. I think it was helpful. I think the rest of that evening there's a lot they do to help you, they clean up, and obviously, check you in the baby, watching them check the reflexes is so cool.

Getting to see that, I don't know if in the hospital you see that happen in front of you, that was kind of neat. And she was explaining, this is the startle reflex, this is the walking reflex that they come out of the womb and they kind of stand them up and the baby's taking steps like...

Lisa: Isn't that amazing? No, you don't get that in the hospital. Not from anyone, I've never heard of that happening in a hospital. 

Hannah: That was pretty special to me, like watching kind of all of these different, and having her explain it a little bit to you.

And she weighed and measured the baby, I think that was another moment for us wow, she was teeny, 18 inches and 5 pounds 14 ounces. So you just hear the five pounds, and you think, oh, is that okay? That's pretty small. And I had suspected, I had, I was measuring small, I guess the fundal height is that what it's called, or that the uterus measurement was a little small. So I did get the growth sonogram or two to just check and everything was fine. So I wasn't totally shocked, but I was a little bit, is that okay?

But she was perfectly healthy, which we are so thankful for.

Lisa: Love that. And just coincidentally, I think I shared this with you, but I and my mother were both 5 - 14.

Hannah: Oh, wow. 

Lisa: Have a little club here of 5-14'ers.

New mother with newborn on her chest, they are looking at each other

On the couch right after birth

Hannah: great. That's a great size of baby and I've said afterwards, I can't imagine something bigger coming out and people do that with double the size, so wow, kudos to them for sure. Yeah, and then they just also stitch you up right on your bed, and I was really nervous for that.

I think going into giving birth, I was nervous about tearing. Really didn't want a tear but knew most people do. Maybe Sorayya is particularly skilled, I really did not experience any pain with that. So I was really thankful, either while she was stitching me or after actually, in the recovery process. 

Lisa: Nice, I'm thankful to hear that. 

Hannah: I'm just gonna say that she's really great at it maybe, or it was just type of tear but yeah. Yeah, she's gifted. They then left and Sarah-Grace stayed on a bit longer to just make sure we were getting settled in and that I had some food. I don't think I ate the whole time; I was just not hungry. And yeah, I think that's most of the birth. 

Sleeping with the baby

Hannah: I was just going to talk about sleeping for a minute, because that first night, we had anticipated having the baby sleep in a bassinet. And then our midwife had recommended, you could consider co-sleeping because it will help the baby regulate her body temperature.

And we were not prepared with how to do that and with information on that in advance. And she said don't do it if you're not comfortable. We did decide to that first night. I was pretty amped, so I think I slept 45 minutes, from 5:00 AM to 5:45 or something. And Tommy decided to sleep on the couch because he was nervous about sleeping in the bed with the baby.

But I think one thing we would recommend to people is to be prepared with a few options for sleeping potentially, if you're doing home birth, I guess, but in a hospital as well, when you've come home. Maybe what you thought you would be doing isn't what you end up wanting to do or feeling it's best. So just be a little more knowledgeable than we were about co-sleeping. Or maybe you thought you were going to have a baby in the next room, but maybe you should be prepared with also a bassinet by your bed. So just thinking through it just may not feel like what you thought it would, so just have some more knowledge about those different things.

Lisa: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. And I know you took birth class really early with me, so it makes sense that you wouldn't have remembered this, but I just want to mention for the benefit of listeners, that anyone who takes birth class with me, we go through safety principles for bed sharing as well as for not bed sharing.

So many people don't plan to bed share before birth, they've heard all these scary things about it. And then so many of us end up doing that. And it can absolutely be very biologically-appropriate, and can be done very safely, but we need to really be careful with the way we're doing it and just know the safety considerations, like you're saying.

So I'm glad you said to educate yourself on that. And I welcome, you know, any things you've learned, I always want to be filling in any gaps and honing my teaching, so let me know the things that you wish you had known.

Hannah: Oh yeah. I mean, I definitely remember talking about it in birth class, I just remember thinking at the time oh, we're not going to do that, we're going to do the bassinet.

Lisa: So you just sort of dismiss it. 

Hannah: Yep. I dismissed, yeah, we're not doing that, which you shouldn't do. I would just recommend people really listen to all of the options and think through that, and so I think that was pretty much, did you have anything to add, did I cover it all?

Lisa: How were you feeling?

Hannah: Exhausted, absolutely. Baby came at 11:24.

Lisa: So from the time you thought you might be in labor, or when you think it started? 

Hannah: It's hard to say. I think probably started around 7:00 AM. But I would really, I really kind of counted in my mind from 1:00 PM when I decided, this is labor. So maybe it could have been 16 hours, it could have been 10 and a half, depending on how you want to count it.

Lisa: Give yourself all the credit. 

Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Lisa: As much credit as you want.

Tommy: I'm just absolutely exhausted. I've got the baby and then having to consider and contemplate all the sleep options at four in the morning. And yeah, definitely echo that advice of, you know, make sure you've thought through, you know, just a few options. 

Hannah: Don't dismiss anything. I think, I meant to say this in the beginning, but I just feel like, I feel really grateful because, I feel like we had a great birth.

Hannah: And I think that can feel hard sometimes in talking about it with other people or with friends, because I recognize so many people have it just really not go the way they had wanted it to, through no fault of your own. It just unfolds in a natural way. And for you and your body and your baby, I do agree, and I've heard you say this and other people that, you know, choosing your care provider, someone who really has the same goals as you for the birth makes a huge difference. And I think that really did for us, in both our provider and setting, and having doulas. 

But I hope people can be encouraged that a good birth is possible, but also just know that, I mean, a good birth isn't in your control any more than one that felt difficult was in your control, really.

But the parts that you are able to choose, like your care setting and your care provider, your doula and the people that you have in the room, those kinds of things are. 

Lisa: Thank you. I'm very glad you said that. 

Postpartum care

Lisa: How did you feel about the postpartum care? My understanding is that home birth midwives, and my experience is that home birth midwives are very thorough with their postpartum care and visit you a number of times. Was that your experience?

Hannah: Yeah, it was great. I think, I can't imagine having to go to six weeks with nothing sort of, kind of wild. You just have so many questions about your own body. It's a lot of sensations, probably different for everyone that are happening. And so yeah, Sorayya did come back. Usually, she would come back the next day, but since she just left at 4:00 AM, she came back about 36 hours after the birth to check on me and check on the baby, and that just is reassuring that, you know, she's going to come back, she's going to weigh the baby and check on how breastfeeding is going.

Because it does feel like, the baby does, it is amazing to watch. I didn't mention that the baby does just do the breast crawl. It took her a little while, but eventually, she did. And they just know, this is where my food comes from. But I was definitely worried, I think I said before we started recording that I was maybe more worried about breastfeeding than I was about giving birth.

After hearing a lot of people have really difficult experiences with it. And then of course, the worry is, did my baby lose weight? How much are they getting, all of those things people talk about. So when Sorayya did come back about 36 hours after the birth, I think Hazel had lost maybe 6% of her birth weight.

The number is 10% at which point you would be getting concerned. But then when we went to our first pediatrician visit a week later, she had gotten back to birth weight, which was, never knew I'd be so excited about weighing a baby, but we were. Definitely had a worry in the first day or two about, I think she only had one poop on day two and she was supposed to have two poops or maybe she didn't poop at all now, which is interesting because in the moment, you're a little bit freaking out, like, she didn't poop. And I think we were trying to give her some hand-expressed colostrum through a syringe at one point on day two or three, because she hadn't pooped that day. She had pooped right after birth on me, so she did complete her initial checkpoint of doing that, so we knew it was moving.

Yeah. It was like, oh, she's so slippery. Oh, it's poo. So I was like under the blanket, and everything was very funny. And yeah, so I think I was really relieved about that, but it was helpful to have Sorayya, who I believe is also an IBCLC, just check kind of the latch and suggest different positions you could try, so that was really great. 

And then we also had, I think a four-day, two-week and four-week, I think I'm remembering that correctly, televisits. So just check-ins and of course you can call or text them any time. And then at six weeks, Sorayya came back in person to check us all out and I think she stayed for like an hour and a half.

I mean, it was a really nice long visit, and I definitely had a lot of questions at that point about different things and she was able to help me decide if seeing a pelvic floor PT would be useful to check where I was at with that. And I was just having some, like I mentioned, tailbone pain, discomfort pre-birth and pregnancy.

And then to me, I think the most difficult postpartum sort of symptoms or experiences were tailbone pain, feeling like I had fallen on an ice rink or something on my tailbone, which I had not done. And I didn't realize how much that could, how things shifting could really feel that strong afterwards, and then just general weakness from losing blood and losing fluids.

But I think she helped me kind of yeah, realize the tailbone pain and then just the sensation of kind of soreness and like lower abdomen after walking very much or standing for a very long time could also be pelvic floor related. And that that can be just your whole, everything has shifted, everything has been stretched out, it's trying to return to its normal position. There's a lot of strain in that area, so that was really helpful, to have her remind me, that's something I wanted to do and that, that would help these symptoms I was experiencing. So yeah, I think the postpartum care for home birth is awesome. Not to mention you don't have to go to a doctor's office with a six-week-old baby, schlep yourself there and yeah, it's good. They're really awesome.

Anything else to share?

Lisa: Well, was there anything else you were hoping to share about before we share your final sort of insights, or if there are any other final insights you wanted to share with listeners?

Hannah: Yeah. I think that one thing we've talked about was, we really had a lot of support in the postpartum period. I mean, we both have parental leave from our jobs. I have 18 weeks and Tommy has 20, which we are so thankful for. Our parents came for a total of three weeks and were cooking for us all the time and helping us take naps, and friends sending us seamless gift cards. Our church organized a meal train for a month.

It was awesome. Just literally ended on Saturday or last night. So yeah, and even just little texts from friends. I think we're very social people who didn't necessarily want to feel isolated. And even if you're an introvert, I don't think you want to feel isolated.

So I think encouraging our friends in advance to check in on us that, that wouldn't bother us was something helpful that we did, that I think our doulas suggested. But despite however much you organize your support, it's still going to be difficult. I think we thought, you know, we can really control the situation and get everything just right and in place, so that's super easy. It's just not going to be like that. 

Hannah: I think dealing with the trifecta of hormones, physical recovery, and caring for a baby as the mother, is just, that's just going to be hard. You can't control your own hormones, unfortunately. And it just, it does take you for a bit of a ride.

So, I think that was challenging, but I'm really grateful. I feel like, I don't know how many times I've asked Tommy to bring me my water or my phone, or a book or a snack. And I feel like just having him as such an amazing, supportive partner in this ride is amazing. 

So I think that, I think I just said the word amazing, like three times, sorry. But I'm just, I'm really grateful for you, and for all that you've done to help this be as good as it can be. And the birth too like, just that we can laugh together about the fact that it was two weeks earlier, we weren't expecting it, and nothing was ready, and I didn't have my freezer meals done and all of these things. But so I think that's been really great, but there's, it's just going to be challenging, but it's not going to be forever.

And I think it just feels like forever in those early moments, but just as much as you can, to appreciate all the little smiles and strange noises your baby makes and cute faces, and all of those things, just staying focused on that as much as possible, and letting yourself just go along for the ride, but still trying to structure your support in advance as much as possible, because it did really help us.

 Just, you know, have patience and grace for yourself. I think feelings of guilt and regret, I think, are all fairly common. I think I have friends ask the proverbial questions do you feel overwhelming wave of love wash over you with your first baby, you know. And I was like, no, but it makes you feel guilt of like, oh, do I love my baby?

I just want to say to people out there, they're always saying, have patience, have grace, you know, it'll come, you know, the first few weeks are hard, and you can't just base any conclusions on that alone. And over time, you're gonna love your child.

Yeah. And I think like, just realizing that it is in that first moment of saying, Oh, Hi. I mean, it really is your first moment meeting a new person, and the reciprocity you can have in your relationship grows as they can smile at you, she can smile now and eventually, we'll be able to giggle at your dumb jokes and things like that.

Hannah: So I think that the more that grows, your relationship with them is growing. It is a person, a little tiny person. And of course, we loved her from the instant and we saw her. But if you don't experience like this overwhelming wave that people speak of it as, that's okay. 

Lisa: I find it's pretty uncommon, yeah. The more birth stories I hear, in fact, I feel like season three of this podcast, that's been a resounding theme, is no, I didn't feel that instantaneous deep connection with my baby. I just didn't, and so I think that's an important message to get out there. So thank you, Tommy. Thank you to both of you for sharing that important insight.

Hannah: Yeah, but it grows like a relationship with anybody grows. You're connecting naturally over, you know, the first time she tries out the bouncy seat, like over shared experiences, once you start... 

Lisa: That was the term that was coming to my mind, was shared experience, exactly. 

Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm big on that, but, and even though I did have the shared experience of sharing my body with her for nine months, you just don't, you don't know them quite yet.

And even though I did do a lot of reflecting and connecting with her through dance and different things like that, which was so special, and I will always cherish, but yeah, it's just a new, it's a new person you're getting to know, but that's really exciting and a lot of fun. 

And we're excited to learn more about what kind of person she is instead of just guessing.

Lisa: I love it. You just brought up dance again, and I know I didn't prepare you with this question just as a dancer, I would think that music is important to you on some level. And I was just curious as to whether maybe it's a twofold question.

Did you listen to music at all in labor and/or is there a song that really held meaning for you in pregnancy or in labor or since?

Hannah: Oh, that's a great question. 

I'm glad you said that, yeah, we both do really, we like music, I think both of us and we listen to a lot of music. I'm glad you mentioned that for labor, because I had made two different playlists, because I wasn't sure what genre I would want to gravitate towards.

I made one that was like calming kind of worship music and one that was like pump up Hip Hop, basically. We both like Hip Hop and Rap. So I think once it started rolling, I was like, definitely the pump-up playlist. And so I think, but she can't come out to like Drake, I don't know some of these songs anyway. So it was definitely a mixture of like different artists.

But that was what was on when she was born, was that, and then as you're having those first moments, I remember saying, can we change the playlist now? Because now that there's this tiny baby, I think I want the calm. So I think Tommy put on instrumental worship music at that point. Yeah, so that felt better, but yeah, I think if you're not sure how you'll feel, you can always just make two playlists and make the call in the moment. 

For a special song. I think that the music I ended up using to choreograph the solo to, I think I showed the solo to my parents after she was born, and they were here, and I started crying. So I think, I think maybe those are the songs, I'm hearing those that always just remind me of that time.

Yeah, thinking about what life will be like with the baby in the dance studio and just having that time alone. As dancers, I don't know that we all get a lot of time alone in the studio. I think you're always trying to output, especially if you're with like a company, someone else's vision, and some dancers are also choreographers, but I think to just be in a studio alone by yourself, moving isn't something we all do a lot and probably most of us wanted to do more of, but that was, yeah. Just hearing. I think that will always remind me, but yeah. Did you have a special song, Hamilton? 

Tommy: Oh, yes. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tommy: Yeah. So for early Valentine's Day gift we went to see Hamilton and we watched it on Disney+, you know, a couple years back, but, seeing it in person, was just as good as everyone said it was, and then just playing the soundtrack for basically every subsequent day. And then of course she was born, was it like 10 or 11 days after, so I think that probably stuck.

Hannah: I think the song, I think it's called Dear Theodosia

Lisa: I was just about to ask if Tommy, if that especially meaningful for you.

Tommy: Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny, because having seen it on Disney+, I guess I didn't you know, it's on TV, but seeing it live, perform I think that song, really.

Hannah: Yeah, of course, I'm with all the pregnancy hormones and I'm losing it every other song. But yeah, I think that one will always be a little bit special too.

Lisa: Wonderful. I'm very glad I asked that question. I enjoyed hearing those reflections. Nice. All right. Well, thank you so much, Hannah and Tommy, it has been such a delight to see you again after these months.

Hannah: So good to see you. 

Lisa: And seeing Hazel's, the back of her head.

Hannah: Tommy is getting very good at wearing her in the Solly baby. We definitely would recommend doing some sort of babywearing for people, that's been so helpful for us as we try to just troubleshoot. I think a lot of these early days, probably the last thing I have to share is just feels like troubleshooting. And I think that's why it's helpful to take a birth class and prepare as much as possible, because then you have a bigger basket of tools that you can turn to.

And some days were just to try to get her to nap, or just rotating through the five S-es that we learned in your class, of calming your baby and helping them go to sleep. Or we're trying to wear her, take her on a walk or do motion or lots of different things, but it's just a lot more troubleshooting than we thought and problem solving. 

But it would help if you can take the stance of just having fun, just doing that together and trying to help her sleep or eat or do whatever it is she needs to do.

Often laugh, sometimes get frustrated, but it's more fun to just see it as you're just you're troubleshooting and hopefully that doesn't get you stressed out. And I think hopefully, that also helps you, there's such a wealth of information out there, which is amazing through social media and articles and Google, everywhere. But I felt overwhelmed by that, and that can make you a little crazy at certain points. 

Hannah: Yeah, so I think just being careful of what you're taking in, in this early period, I think is important, and that you are going to just do the best you can with the tools that you know and that you have for your baby, who's different from the next person's baby.

And you do feel that. I was aware of that comparison of, you know, a friend said their baby's sleeping five hours already. Oh, no, ours is doing two. So, but it just, they're all different, and I think just kind of trying to relax into that, and it's good to keep learning things, but don't make yourself crazy, so that's something that's helped us.

Lisa: Good words. All right. Thanks again. I hope we can meet in person at some point.

Hannah: Me too. Thank you so much for having us and for everything. Honestly, you've been there earlier than any of our care providers, your voice on your podcast, your help finding doulas and yeah. So, we're really grateful for everything.

And for all that you do to help people be prepared for this amazing, but sometimes challenging transition.

Tommy: Thanks, Lisa.