Birth As We Know It ™️-Birth Stories and Experiences

51- Rachelle Samia- 2 Vaginal Births-Uterus Didelphys-NICU-Breech-Wildflower Birthing Services

• Kiona Nessenbaum • Episode 51

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In this episode, Rachelle educates us on what Uterus Didelphys is, when she first learned about it for herself, and how it impacted her conception, pregnancy, and birth journeys. She also goes into detail about both of her birth experiences, one of which was a really wild precipitous vaginal footling breech birth. 

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Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only with no intention of giving or replacing any medical advice. I, Kiona Nessenbaum, am not a licensed medical professional. All advice that is given on the podcast is from the personal experience of the storytellers. All medical or health-related questions should be directed to your licensed provider. 

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Kiona:

Hello, and welcome to Birth As We Know It. I am your podcast host, Kiona Nessenbaum. I have experienced birth as a doula, a student midwife, and as a mother of three amazing children with my husband and high school sweetheart by my side. After attending over 130 births, including my own, I've realized that each birth experience is truly unique. So make sure you subscribe and join me every week as we are guided through many different birth experiences through the lens of the storyteller. Please be aware that some of the stories can be triggering to hear, so feel free to pause, take a breath, and come back and listen whenever you're ready. With that said, let's prep ourselves to dive deep and get detailed about what really happens in the birth space. As a reminder, this podcast is intended for educational purposes only, and has no intention of giving or replacing any medical advice. All advice that is given on the podcast is from the personal experiences of the storytellers. All medical or health related questions should be directed to your licensed provider. Before we dive into the episode today, I want to give a big shout out to Scott Johnson, who is the newest patron on my Patreon account. Scott, thank you for becoming a patron member. And I truly appreciate you. Scott Johnson is the host of the, What Was That Like Podcast. And He has amazing stories that are shared by real people that have been through unreal experiences. So you should definitely go check out his podcast as well. And I want to ask all of the listeners to please join me in the Birth As We Know It Podcast Community on Facebook.. The group has officially launched and I would love for you all to join so we can all partake in conversations about the podcast together. This is the place we'll all be able to go to talk about all the things about all the episodes and just to ask regular questions. All you have to do is look up Birth As We Know It Podcast Community on Facebook and request to join. And don't forget to share this episode with a friend so they can join the BAWKI community as well. All right, let's get into the episode. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Birth As We Know It podcast. Today I have Rachelle Samia on and she is the owner of Wildflower Birthing Services where she offers birth and postpartum doula services as well as childbirth education. So welcome Rachelle, thanks for coming on today.

Rachelle:

Thank you so much. So happy to be here.

Kiona:

Yeah, I'm super excited to dive into your story, especially because when you filled out your guest request form you talked about your Uncommon health, or how do I say this? Your uncommon uterus. So I'd love to hear more about that. But before we dive into that, you know, I've got to put a little hook in there for the listeners. Before we dive into that, I would love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself and who's in your family.

Rachelle:

Yeah. so, my name is Rachelle and I just celebrated 10 years married with my husband.

Kiona:

Congratulations

Rachelle:

thank you. Yeah, I felt like that was a huge milestone. and I have two, Children. My son is eight and my daughter is five and we have a dog and a cat. It's my dog's 11th birthday today. So we will be celebrating later. and my husband, he does tech work and is a photographer on the side. So we spend a lot of our time, Outdoors, we are constantly doing these mini adventures where we're at the ocean one day and the mountains the other. and so we really like to focus on just being outdoors, in nature and going new places, trying new food. So that's just a big part of what our family does. So a little bit about us.

Kiona:

Oh, I think that's so awesome. So I'm going to say it again. Congratulations to 10 years married because that is a big accomplishment. I also want to say that's so cool that your husband has that hobby on the side that takes the whole family out on adventures, you know, to go see everything, try new things. I think that's super cool. And also happy birthday to your pup.

Rachelle:

Thank you. Very important. He's like another child. So

Kiona:

Yeah, absolutely. One of the first babies, you know

Rachelle:

Yes, he absolutely was. Thank you so much.

Kiona:

Yeah, of course. So as we dive into your pregnancy, labors, and births, I would love for you to tell us a little bit about your uncommon uterus and then we can talk about how that potentially plays into your conception journey and all the things.

Rachelle:

Yes. so I guess just straight to the point, I have, they call it a condition, but I don't like that word. it's called uterus didelphys. And what that means is I have two completely separate Uh, uteri. and so to kind of map it out for people that may not be able to grasp what that means. first, there are a ton of different variations of uterine abnormalities. So, with time and with research and digging in myself, we're finding that there are so many different variations now, before they thought it was only two or four different variations. And now they're seeing that they're Each person is unique. So one person may say, Hey, I have this condition. And another person, may be labeled with the same condition, but it's wildly different. So I like to just put that out there that this is my unique anatomy. it's called uterus didelphys, but you might come across someone who has the same condition. but it's slightly different. And so, basically, what it is, it's two separate functioning uteri, they're not joined. There isn't a septum through the middle. That's a different situation. they are two completely separate operating entities, and so they each have their own cervix because you go the uterus to the cervix is a funnel at the bottom of your uterus. I have two completely separate Cervices and then that your cervix, I guess, empties into your vaginal canal, right? For the lack of a better phrase. So some people have two separate vaginal canals and they're actually separated by a septum and it goes all the way from your cervix all the way to your opening. and so I'm getting really. anatomy driven here, I guess, but there's no other way to explain it. in my case, I had a partial septum, and so my septum probably went, two thirds or three quarters of the way down to my vaginal opening. So if you were to just look at my vaginal opening, like right at the surface. It looks like a normal vaginal opening. There isn't anything going on there. but if you went to do like a cervical exam or another pelvic exam or a pap smear, you would realize that there are two different paths. There's one to the right and one to the left. which you can imagine all kinds of interesting scenarios with pregnancy, with, your menstrual period and what that looks like. What do feminine hygiene products look like? All of those things. So, Yeah, long story short, that's what I have going on. Also, you develop your kidney around the same time that you're developing your uterus. So I was born also with one kidney. And so that's a common situation with those with uterus didelphys.

Kiona:

Wow. Yeah, I think that this is so interesting and thank you for sharing that because you just taught me something. I love being able to learn things from people because this is new to me. I knew that it existed, but I didn't know the actual phrase for it and I also didn't know the many different varieties of it. So thank you for sharing that. I do have questions, and you also don't have to answer them if they're too personal. Okay, I am curious, like, how this impacted your conception, but before we dive into that, at what age did you find out that you had this condition?

Rachelle:

Yes, so this is, this is an interesting story. So, at 16 years old, I started getting a lot of symptoms that may be mimicked like a yeast infection and I won't dig into the details in case it grosses anyone out, but, I went to several providers, you know, they give you your prescription, they check you out, and I was consistently getting misdiagnosed. It wasn't fixing the problem. We couldn't figure out what was going on. long story short, I skipped through that. so 16 years old, the symptoms started. by 20 years old, I went to my sixth doctor and at this point I found someone in, I'm from the Seattle area, and so I found someone, in Seattle who specialized in women's health and she was well known in the area. So I went to her because I'm like, listen, this is not getting anywhere. This is still an issue four years later, something is going on and it's not a yeast infection. So side note, that was like the start of learning how to advocate for me and myself and my health. So there is that situation off to the side, but back to this, yeah, 20 years old, I find this doctor and she really gets in there with, Uh, ultrasounds and pelvic exams trying to figure out, okay, we're going beyond the surface. Now what's really happening and what they found, through an ultrasound was that my abdomen was filling full of fluid and they found that it was coming from one of the uteri. So they could see because. So when a uterus isn't blown up, like by pregnancy or it's not normal to be filled with fluid naturally, but if something is blowing up your uterus, it's a lot easier to see on an ultrasound or a scan versus if there's nothing in there. Sometimes it can be very, very difficult to differentiate, an abnormality. So in my case, I had had a ton of ultrasounds before. But they weren't able to actually see that there were 2 there. So that's it can be very tricky with ultrasound. So, by this point, I had 1 that was filled with fluid. It was actually infected and it was leaking fluid through a hole in the wall of the uteri into my abdomen. So my abdomen was filling with fluid, menstrual fluid and like all kinds of good stuff. and so this doctor is like, Whoa, what do we have going on here? This is really, this is life threatening. So, we had surgery actually scheduled on my 21st birthday. So that's what I was doing.

Kiona:

No partying for you.

Rachelle:

No, no, it was so terrible. but it literally was like, can we just schedule it the day after? Come on. And she's like no, this is a situation where we cannot wait. This needs to happen. So that was a little bit scary. but they, yeah, they basically went in and they opened it up and cleaned it out. And. real time saw what was going on with my anatomy and at the same time also removed my vaginal septum. So my vaginal canal is just one normal opening just like most cases and then just opens up to the two different cervices. So that's how I found out it was a journey from 16 to basically 21.

Kiona:

Yeah, goodness. That sounds like an adventure for sure. And good for you for developing the courage and agency to actually advocate for yourself, like, even at the young age of 20. Because, man, at 20, if I didn't have a baby at 19, I would have no idea, like, where to turn, what to advocate for, and all of that. So good for you with that. And the fact that you went through six doctors in four years is Mind blowing to me, but good for you. I'm really proud of you because, look, now you had a solution and you are still here, right?

Rachelle:

Yes. Thank goodness. Yes.

Kiona:

yeah. Very risky if you didn't find that doctor because you would have went into, like, the ER or something and you would have, you could have potentially gone, like, what is it, septic? Is that what they call it? Yeah, goodness, yeah. You could have potentially gone septic, that's That's intense. So good for you. I will continue to say good for you, because that's awesome.

Rachelle:

Thank you. I don't, I, you know, it's one of those things where I'm just, I'm super thankful because I don't, I don't really know where I developed those, that skillset. Right. But it was just like this inherent trust in my body that someone is getting it wrong. And I can't stop until we figure this out because I knew something wasn't right. So I'm, I'm thankful. Listening to your intuition and your gut is just Oh, it's so important.

Kiona:

Yeah. And intuition comes up a lot in this podcast because people have to follow their gut because a lot of people, especially as their first time parents, they're like, Hey, this doesn't feel right to me.

Rachelle:

For sure, yes.

Kiona:

Yeah. So Just another random curious question. Is this genetically passed down or is it just random with who ends up with this, quote end quote condition? Because I don't want to call it a condition if you don't.

Rachelle:

No, I always, it, it, technically I guess it's a, it's a diagnosed condition, but I feel like that it sounds like I'm ill or something, you know what I mean? I don't like the negative connotation, but I don't mind. so, what I found, and this is just like layman's research, so, When I started out, it seemed like no one had this and providers were telling me this is super, super rare. We've never seen this. A lot of providers still have never seen it. Right? So it's rare enough to where it's considered super uncommon or a lot of providers, are scared by the, you know, figuring out you have the condition to be honest, but, my layman's research is pretty much consisted of finding a group of people now. Now there are social media groups, full of us that have either the same or like different variations of uterine didelphys. and so what I found is that scientifically, if you look at research, there isn't a lot of research and so they're not finding a connection. and so just. With this random layman's research of looking at these groups and the people responding because there have been a lot of discussions around this. It seems like the majority is not passed down. It just happens to be 1 of those developmental flukes that happen. it seems to be narrowed around, like, Eight weeks of gestation where things kind of go haywire, and that's when your kidney is developing and your uterus. And so it seems like there's something that goes haywire around eight weeks. There's some of these people that do report that their parents or grandparents had an abnormality. so it still is kind of like there's a possibility. but as far as my family goes, no one has any known issues outside of me. I'm it.

Kiona:

Yeah, that is so interesting, and I think it would be hard to find the actual statistics on that if much research isn't being done. And I imagine that, some people aren't as open to being different in that aspect, and they may not be sharing it as well, you know, because afraid of judgment and stigma. And so, when you were born with one kidney, how soon did your parents find out that you were born with one kidney, and were they super concerned?

Rachelle:

We had no idea until I was 16 17 and started getting scans. No clue. and that's something that usually isn't routinely checked out. So you wouldn't know. And with, a female, especially your female presenting someone with a uterus, at birth, that's something that they can't see. with ultrasound, because it's so small, so you can't see an abnormality. we did have my daughter, my, both of my kids, they check their kidneys and at birth, just as something that they did, knowing with, knowing my situation, just to make sure every, all the organs are there. and of course, my daughter was too young to check. They, they tried to check out and see what they could see, but, there was nothing there. So, yeah, it's, It's hard to figure that stuff out. I'd say the majority of people with a uterine abnormality find out either, at birth or like a cesarean delivery is usually not even during pregnancy. A lot of them aren't even aware. So I had a weird situation where I was able to figure out prior to pregnancy or conception, but yeah, most find out after delivery.

Kiona:

Yeah, yeah, and so you said, previously that when you had your surgery performed on your 21st birthday, that they removed the septum in your vaginal, canal as well. Did the septum impact your intimacy prior to removal at all, or were you not yet active at that time?

Rachelle:

Yeah. So, at the point of being active, there, there was a difference. Yes. And I must say that probably more so, less, less that, but more so with tampon usage. And so when I'm trying to insert a tampon and I wasn't realizing it was going either to the right or to the left. And so it was always leaking. It was painful, because I'm basically just running into my septum and not knowing, you know, it's picking a side. And so it was a really interesting journey. Menstrually figuring out like, okay, you know, you have a period, you're learning what it is. You're still young and not knowing like, why is everything leaking? Like, what the heck is going on? And so a lot of people now that have the condition and they still have a septum, they will actually use two tampons, one on each side, because they're aware of the situation. which is so strange to even say,. But yeah, I had more problems with that than anything of figuring out like what, what is going on, but you think it's normal. You just, that's just how it is until you figure it out.

Kiona:

Right, and so going to menstruation, did both of your uteri shed at the same time? Like, were they synced in cycles?

Rachelle:

So that is a very good question. So, this question gets a lot of pushback. So this is where I see a lot of people arguing or like, it's not possible, you know, but, it's really interesting because I have found, Kind of living this condition and through this whole journey that I think things, there are more things that are possible than we originally think or are told, right? As do a lot of things in life. And so this is one of those things where it's like you have to be open minded because everyone has all these different experiences and they are mind blowing because we're used to seeing things from one perspective and this is how it works. Yeah, so I've had to be flexible. But to answer your question, when I was younger, they were synced together. So I had no idea. It was like one menstrual period. Everything seemed normal. I didn't have significant pain. I didn't have any significant issues. Like, I feel like it was pretty typical. it wasn't until pregnancy. that I was pregnant in one uterus and bleeding from the other uterus, which causes a whole other can of worms of fear and anxiety. but I had so many people tell me like, that isn't possible. That's, that's not what was happening. And so it's really hard when I'm like, well, every time I would bleed, I would freak out and go in and they'd get an ultrasound and they would be like, Oh no, it's the other uterus. It's full of blood. Like that uterus is menstruating. This other uterus has a baby. Everything's good. I've seen it with my own eyes. And so like each uterus has its own ovary over there, and so it operates on its own. So even hormonally, they thought, okay, with pregnancy, it will stop. Most people with my condition do stop, but some don't. And so mine, I didn't stop having that second period until like 15 or 16 weeks with each pregnancy, and then it stopped. So that's my story. Just an interesting, interesting situation.

Kiona:

That is so interesting, and I, I'm also intrigued in the fact that there is kind of a battle in the answer to this question, because everybody is coming from their own lived experiences, and you're like, well, it happened to me, so I know it's possible.

Rachelle:

Yeah. It's very tricky. Yeah. To have people know that it's not scientifically possible. And it's like, I don't know what to tell you anymore

Kiona:

Right.

Rachelle:

I've seen it. But okay, you know, for you, maybe it is not scientifically possible. But for someone with two uteri, I've seen it. Yeah. With my unique makeup. Yes.

Kiona:

Yeah, yeah. And so, are they I'm so curious. So are they in sync after your pregnancies as well? Do they become in sync again or do they kind of have to balance themselves out?

Rachelle:

Yeah, so mine have always been in sync. and so outside of pregnancy where one kept it going and the other was pregnant, I've been lucky that mine have always been at the same time. After both pregnancies, they returned, they're in sync. so it seems normal. You would have no idea. it's not like double the flow, double the pain, like everything is pretty normal. but there are others that have my same condition that do have two separate periods every month, which is horrible. That's a serious downside to someone that experiences that.

Kiona:

that sounds horrendous. I struggle to get through just one. so, so that actually brings me to question. I want to dive into the conception actually, but I do have this question

Rachelle:

Yeah.

Kiona:

Were your pregnancies both in the same uterus, or were they in separate uteri?

Rachelle:

Yeah. And

Kiona:

you weren't pregnant at the same time, you know, but, but, and oh my gosh, like, this could probably also,

Rachelle:

Yes. I know where you're going make

Kiona:

it possible to have twins, yeah!

Rachelle:

Yes. Yes. So I'll just blow people's minds here for a minute. So, yes. Both, so both of mine were in my right uteri. And so my left uteri, I call it the bad uterus, quote unquote, that's the one that actually had the surgery. And the infection occur. And so we wondered, well, there are a lot of questions about conception in the 1st place. Like, if that was even a possibility, but, if it was a possibility, we wondered if the left uterus would even function because we didn't know what kind of damage had occurred, how much scar tissue built up from this. and that would impede conception. So we don't know if the left one functions, but my right, I was pregnant with both of my kids in my right uterus. as far as in general, it is completely possible to, get pregnant usually, right? If there are no problems in the right uterus. Or the left uterus or get pregnant at the same time in both uterus where they're two completely separate separate embryos like they're not twins. They didn't split off nothing divided. It was one in one and one in the other. there are stories of like one in the right uterus and then a month later, conceiving in the left uterus. So they're actually like a couple months apart, two completely different children. they're not twins in any way, shape or form. So there are some really interesting situations that can and have occurred. Sometimes you'll see them pop up in the news like she's pregnant with two babies at the same time, and they're not twins. it's possible that is not fake news if they have this condition. and so that was something we were worried about. Also, like, hey, if my. If my left uterus is still having a period and my right uterus is pregnant, does that mean that you stop intercourse? Because what if we randomly like six months along get pregnant in my left uterus? Like, is my body going to know like, Hey, there's already one growing a baby here. Let's not do the other. So that was like another worry and another risk that you took because that's a wild situation.

Kiona:

Yeah, it is.

Rachelle:

yeah, definitely possible.

Kiona:

yeah that is so wild and again, I appreciate you educating me on this because my mind is blown. This is so cool to me. but when I saw that in your form, I was like, oh my gosh, I have to ask or I can't hold back my questions.

Rachelle:

yes, obviously I am equally as much of a nerd and so for me, I was doing my own research and researching others. And so I'm so open about it because I feel like what if you're someone who's struggling to conceive, or this is something, this is you, or you feel like you have this condition and you're like crushed because you feel like you can't conceive, this can give you hope, or, you know, maybe you feel like a a total weirdo because you have this situation and you're alone and you have to get two pap smears instead of one. And you're not alone in this. I think there are more, kind of as you touched on, I think there are more of us than what we know, to be honest. It's more common than we think. So,

Kiona:

I think so, for sure. Especially because there are people out there that don't go to the doctor. You know, there are people that never get seen. There are people that just end up pregnant and they just go with the flow. Because I've heard many stories out there as well saying, Oh, I was pregnant but I bled the whole time still, like I was on my period. You know, like those, those stories of, I didn't know I was pregnant until I was in labor kind of thing.

Rachelle:

Yep, that's it. That could totally be it.

Kiona:

Yeah, it's so, it's so mind boggling to me and I love it all, so thank you for sharing.

Rachelle:

Of course. Yes, absolutely.

Kiona:

So let's go ahead and dive into your conception. With you knowing that you had this condition, I can't pronounce it so I'm not even going to try right now, but, with knowing that you had this condition, how did you go along your conception process?

Rachelle:

So, for anyone interested, it's called uterus didelphys. And so if you look up any variation, yeah, there you go. Yeah, it'll pop up. So if anyone's interested in going down the Google rabbit hole there, but, when they figured this out at 21 years old, I was told, listen, we don't know anything about this. This is super rare. It seemed to them that the odds of conception, odds of conception naturally are already as we know it, like pretty low. So it's a miracle to me already when conception is naturally occurring because it's not a 100 percent chance every cycle. a lot of us don't know that, but it. It's like around 30%, I think, normally, right? And so they were like, listen, your odds of conception naturally are extremely, extremely low. If even possible. if you are pregnant, we don't know what your uterine walls are like, two separate uterus. We have no idea. We don't know what implantation is going to be like. How things will develop, it will highly be unlikely you'll be able to carry full term because we don't know how big these uteri are stretching because they do measure smaller than your typical uteri. Uh, we don't know how much room is in there. My organs are also like positioned slightly differently. I think to make room and. To make up for just one kidney, so they didn't know how things would be able to expand or stretch or where there's room for a baby or what that would even look like. there were a lot of just unanswered questions and a lot of unknowns. So to take the conservative route, all of the providers were like, well. You can try it. and we can basically see what happens, but just be prepared for loss. Be prepared for miscarriages. be prepared for your inability to conceive. And then if you do conceive, be prepared for the inability to carry full term. So you're kind of up against this. You're, you're hiking this huge mountain here, but try it out. Like, let's see, because we really don't know. So that was kind of the story that I was faced with.

Kiona:

That's intense, that's intense because going in, especially with being so young still, and being like, well, one day I might really want to have kids. That just really plays with your mind, and it's more, to me, it sounds a lot like fear mongering because they don't know. You know, they, they haven't worked with it, or they haven't learned anything about it, or studied it, or, you know, been able to practice enough to see it often enough. And, that, that's really hard to hear. Because, it makes me sad for you, just like, being that 21 year old saying like, hey just know that you may not ever be able to be a mom naturally and if you are, constantly be on alert for a miscarriage or a loss because you're different. You have two uteri. So it's like, Ugh,

Rachelle:

It was horrible. It was It was, devastating to me. I was the person that grew up, always imagined being a mom, always wanted a ton of kids. That was very much me. Like I was a mom to the core from a very young age, just super maternal. it was crushing. It was soul crushing to hear this news. and I think another, like, I don't know, I hope this doesn't come across as like tooting my horn here. But I think. I mean, I think some people are put in different circumstances for a reason and so having to kind of face like, wow, I had to learn self advocacy at a very young age and medical advocacy at that. I'm, I'm so glad that I followed my instincts and went that route and learned how to do that for myself. and then kind of switching into hearing this, it was really easy at first to, you know, go down the pity hole of like, wow, I'm never going to have kids. What if I meet someone? What if I meet my future spouse? And I have to say like, listen, I might not be able to have children. is this a deal breaker for you? And that's actually a conversation I had with my now husband on our first date, which sounds wild, but that's another situation. If you know, you know, but having those conversations, I mean, like the whole thing was just like, you don't know what you're facing so much anxiety, so much fear, so much sadness, it was soul crushing to me, but I think after I got through that initial period of like. How am I going to do this? Wow. This is some big news having to process it. I think somehow, and this is that thing where like, I feel like maybe this is part of the calling of getting into the birth world, but understanding that your faith and your trust and your confidence in yourself and your body is like so important. And even if everything they said was right, and I believed that being in that negative mind space and the stress and anxiety that comes with that, actually prohibits your body from performing optimally. And so I realized this or put this all together at the time or that age, but I am so thankful that I was able to kind of get through that, that period of sadness relatively quickly and move on it. You know what? I'm not going to listen to this because they also told me at 16, I had a yeast infection. They told me the same thing at 17, at 18, at 19. It's not that they're providers and doctors and medical professionals are humans too, right? They make, they make mistakes. There are errors. They don't know everything that goes on. They do the best that they can. but with that said, they don't know every single little thing that goes on and how different. We all are, you just don't know. And so for me, I was like, okay, if I would have given and just listened and didn't advocate for myself, then I wouldn't have found out what I know now. And it could have been seriously detrimental. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to go along life. Like I am just like everybody else. And I'm not going to have a problem. I'm going to conceive. I'm going to have kids. And if stuff comes up in the way I'll deal with it. I'll deal with it as it comes, because that's, I'm going to trust myself and my body that, that I was made just as great as everybody else. And there's a way like I'm going to find the way. So I'm so thankful because I think it could have gotten really dark, really, really dark. And I know that it does for a lot of people for sure.

Kiona:

Yeah, absolutely, and I commend you on that because you were young. You were young. 21 years old is not an old full Like, yeah, technically you're an adult, but like, that is so young. That's when everybody's trying to figure everything out, you know? So, yeah, I commend you for that because that was probably really hard to have that self talk and then be like, you know what? I'm going to follow my gut and just do this because I'm just as good as everybody else. So I love that. I love that for you. When it comes to the actual conception of your first kiddo, how was it when you found out you were pregnant and how did your pregnancy go?

Rachelle:

Yeah. So, with my first, my son, conception actually occurred really fast. It was like within our, our third or fourth cycle, I was like tracking and doing all that good stuff before. Because we didn't know, right? So I'm like, let's get all the information. Let's do all the tracking. It was a shock because here we are There it's highly possible. There's no way this is even going to work But we're just going to throw caution to the wind and we're going to try it for it to happen after like three or four cycles Shocked me. That's the only way to put it Just complete and utter shock. And I remember not to get emotional about my dog. Other people that have dogs and might, might understand this, but, my dog follows me everywhere. He was with me in the bathroom when I took the pregnancy test and found out. And so it was like this moment of shock of staring at my dog. Like, what is this? There's no way of just like. Total shock, total joy, like, feeling like I achieved something huge. I was like, rocky at the top of the steps. I did it! Like, this actually worked! This is unbelievable! So it was like, a huge range of emotions. It was an incredible situation, I'll never forget.

Kiona:

Yeah. Oh my gosh. And how awesome for your dog to be by your side in that though.

Rachelle:

My dog and I had a bonding experience.

Kiona:

you weren't alone, which is what matters, right? Like, you were with your dog and they were just there by your side and you could just hug them and be like, What the heck is actually happening?

Rachelle:

Yes! Yeah, I didn't want the disappointment of like having my husband or the pressure, right? Like I kept it very private because I didn't, I didn't want to get hopes up. I didn't want to get anybody else's hopes up. It was like, we don't know if this is going to work. So I'm just going to keep this to myself. So I was so happy my dog was there, whether I fell apart and, you know, spooned him while I cried or got to celebrate. So I'm glad I had that. That no pressure comfort there, for sure.

Kiona:

Yeah, oh, I love that. And I'm sure your dog loved to be there, too. Ha,

Rachelle:

He, funny story, he was there for my second pregnancy test with my daughter as well. So we kept it going.

Kiona:

That's awesome. so let's go ahead and get into the pregnancy. How was your pregnancy and did having uterus didelphys impact anything of your pregnancy at all?

Rachelle:

yeah. So at first everything seemed normal. I think the biggest piece of impact was that I was so closely monitored. there was a mental struggle between, like, maintaining that positive mindset of, like, this is normal. Everything's progressing as normal. This is fine. I got this. Between, like, Should I be worried? Because if they're, I'm, I was getting biweekly ultrasounds. I was seeing maternal fetal medicine, weekly, like the whole pregnancy, like not just, okay, 36, 37 weeks. We have something weird coming up. Let's start there. The entire pregnancy was like extreme monitoring. I lived at the hospital. and that was another piece too, is at this point. We conceived, I'm doing all of this research, and I had like this newfound trust and faith in my body and that, hey, I conceived, I conceived pretty easily considering, pretty quickly considering, maybe I can do this, right? Like, maybe I was right. Maybe it's more normal than people think. so I was like, super pumped about a home birth, a water birth, like a water birth was my dream come true. And so I think the second devastation having to face was like, No one would touch me with a home birth, a water birth. It wasn't a possibility in Washington state. And so midwifery out of their home birth. Nope. Like no one would touch me except multiple OBGYNs and maternal fetal medicine in the hospital setting. So. That was an interesting part of my pregnancy, kind of having to get through the grief of like, can I have the birth that I want and that I dream of and envision, and that I trust my body to do. Cause now I'm like all hyped up on like, my body's got this and having to go like, well, wait, does it really? Because they're doing all these things in monitoring. It's scary. Right. Every time you're like expecting to find something. And so that was probably like the biggest difficulty. Not actually the pregnancy itself, if that makes sense.

Kiona:

Yeah, no, that makes total sense.

Rachelle:

that was tough, but pregnancy was pretty normal. I had like a little bit of morning sickness. Nothing severe. growth was pretty normal. Everything seemed, I would say, I'd venture to say, and I'm sorry for people that don't relate to this, I enjoyed my pregnancy. And maybe I was just, I'm thankful for it, but I didn't really have any issues, until about 28. Well, the, there was the bleeding. That was a little bit scary, but we just get it checked out and it was fine. But, until I hit, I went into preterm labor about 28 weeks from conception through 28 weeks. It was, it felt relatively easy and enjoyable.

Kiona:

Yeah. And I mean, I would say don't apologize for enjoying your pregnancy. I think that's awesome.

Rachelle:

I always feel so bad because I know, I know I

Kiona:

Yeah, there are definitely some people out there that really struggle in pregnancy and have really, really intense pregnancies, but that does not take away the amazement that you had for your pregnancy. So embrace it, love it, keep it yours. You know, that's totally fine and love it. But, yeah, so preterm labor at 28 weeks, and so in your guest request form you also said that you didn't actually end up giving birth to him until he was 34 weeks, correct?

Rachelle:

yes, yeah. thats right

Kiona:

So let's talk about the in between what happened in that time?

Rachelle:

yeah so, 28 weeks and it was really my body responds, I guess, in a non textbook way. And so this is something I learned now as a birth worker. I think I'm very cognizant of telling people, like, what you see on the movies, what you read in the books, it's really different for everybody, which can be confusing and its own burden of itself, but not everyone operates or feels the same. So, at 28 weeks, I was just feeling off. There wasn't any pain. I couldn't, I didn't know what was going on. I just felt off. And I actually had, a coworker slash friend, now a good friend at the time, was like, You need to get checked out. Like, you, you're saying you're feeling off. There's something going on. I'm, I'm not in pain. No, I just feel weird. No, you need to go. So, I went and they were like, wow, like, you're contracting, your cervix is softening, you're dilating. We have a situation going on here. And I was like, what? You know, they're like this, your preterm labor. What? Like, no way. We cannot, we can't do this at 28 weeks. Nope. This is not how it's supposed to go. That was a shock because I was like feeling great going in there. Like, yeah, okay. it was kind of shocking to know, like, okay, my body's responding this way. I had no idea. Okay. So if you feel that weird, Something's just off. Just get it checked out. It's not embarrassing. It doesn't hurt anything because you don't want to be like me. And like, I could have gone into labor at 28 weeks, you know, and not had something to possibly prevent or help prolong it. So, what they did was they put me on bed rest and pelvic rest. So. I was just stuck kind of like being very protective, slow moving. I stopped working at that point. they put me on progesterone suppositories to try to help. And because at the time they figured, Hey, we don't have strong evidence saying that it does, but we also don't have anything saying it doesn't like it's worth a shot. So I did progesterone. I did bed rest from 28 weeks. And I had contractions and, like, very slow cervical effacement and very slow dilation from 28 to 34 weeks. but at 34 weeks, on the dot, I had more signs of labor and then delivered at 34, 34 plus 2. So, they were able to hold that off for 6 weeks. So, I think that was an excellent win. And we did steroid shots for lung development. we also did that as well, just to kind of prepare for worst case scenario.

Kiona:

Yeah, man, that's so amazing and this is the perfect situation to attest to the fact that hospitals are there for a reason and they're amazing, you know, because so many, there are so many people that are like pro home birth and only home birth and hospitals are trash and all this stuff. But no, I'm a strong believer that everybody has a specific provider for a reason. Hospitals are there for a reason and you know. This is a perfect example of that because you needed all of the things that they were giving you in order to help you hold your baby for six more weeks. Six more weeks. Like, that's huge. And then for you to still have him closer to term, you know, at 34 weeks, I think that's great. So, tell me about the steroid shots because I've never had one and I've just been told that they hurt extremely bad. Is that true in your casE?

Rachelle:

No, no, I just had two. they, it just felt like a normal shot. I feel like, what is that one that's like, I think it's the Tdap, like it burns in your muscles. To me it's like really severe. That was way worse. No, this, for me, it was like, it was two of them. I think, I don't recall exactly, but they're like a certain period of time apart that you get them. yeah. No, it was just like a normal, it felt like a normal shot for me. I hate shots. So maybe normal is terrible all the way around, but no, it wasn't a huge deal. It was for, for what I feel that the benefit like significantly outweighed any risk or, Anything. Yeah, so I'm not one to like put a ton of stuff in my body if it's not necessary, but this is one of those things where I was like, listen, 28 weaker versus 34 weaker. Huge difference. Like, yes, I'm going to take, I'm, I'll do what it takes. And that's what I did. And it, it ended up being the right choice. Yeah.

Kiona:

awesome. Did you have to take the RoGAM shot at all?

Rachelle:

Yes. So I am also, I'm a negative over here with my blood type is not super common. So I was also lucky. Yes, to get another injection.

Kiona:

Yeah. And I was told that those hurt for sure. And so I'm going to probably

Rachelle:

Yes,

Kiona:

that one

Rachelle:

do. Those are not fun. That was not fun. One, you get like one prior and then one after delivery. Got the one prior and was like, wow, nope. And so after delivery, they come by, you know, like, Pretty close after I want to say within like you have to get within the first 12 hours or something if I recall right I may be way off on that, but they come by, you know, pretty immediate postpartum. They're like, right. We're here to give it to you. And I remember asking them like, How long do I have? Because I can't do it. I can't do it. And they're like, well, I think it was 12 hours. So I'm like, can you come at like 1130? Can you like, let's push it to the end because I can't even, no, I can't even do this. I have to like hype myself up. So I remember asking them like, please come at the end of like the allotted time period. So yeah, it wasn't fun. Necessary, I think, but not fun.

Kiona:

Yeah. Oh gosh. So maybe that's the shot that I was thinking of. Maybe the steroid shot was just like a normal thing and then the RoGAM shot was the one that was treacherous for everyone. So

Rachelle:

Yeah. In my opinion, yes, probably.

Kiona:

yeah. Okay, awesome. So let's go ahead and talk a little bit about what your labor looked like. Did you get like a trial of labor to be able to have a vaginal birth or did you end up in a cesarean? Like, tell me all the things.

Rachelle:

Yeah, I'm glad that you asked this question. and this is another one of those things. Now, you'll start to notice, I think, as people listen, maybe my theme of birth work and like, where, where the thread is, where everything falls, but kind of along the same line. So, the majority of people that I've talked to, or I'm in groups with that have similar same conditions, I would say, a high high majority of their providers go immediately to cesarean section deliveries. and again, that could be they're acting conservatively because they don't know the risks. They don't want to attempt the trial of labor. We don't know the outcomes. There's, there's no research out there. There's nothing. So to save their own behind and be conservative, like I understand why that, recommendation is in place. And so for me, I got very lucky. So I already was like going from a mindset of, Home birth and water birth and wanting like the most physiological natural birth possible to like facing the hospital situation and trying to figure out how can I bring that experience to the hospital? Is this even possible? And I tell you, I am so thankful for my whole story with this pregnancy and labor because I found a provider. Who, she had a ton of experience, a ton. She does like missions outside of the country. She had experience with all types of different levels of care, all types of different situations. And so, she had come across one situation with uterus didelphys in her career. but we're all different. So, I mean, Does that really carry much weight? I don't know, but the biggest thing and this kind of comes to like finding the right provider for you is that she was so on board and so supportive. I mean, she changed my life as far as like, I will be thankful for her for the rest of my life because she sat down. She heard me out. She heard what I wanted. She was so gentle and was like, listen, here's hospital policy. Here's what I have to do to protect myself and my behind. Like, here's what I have going on. And she was very upfront. I know this is what you want. I see and hear what you want. Let's make this work. I'm going to advocate for you until I feel it's not safe, or it's putting my job on the line. That was our understanding. And it was like, this lady here, she took me all the way. She's like, we don't have any proof to say that you do require a c section. We don't have any proof to say that you can't do this. So until we know, like, if this is a risk that you're willing to take to try it out, I'm And if things get ugly, then we go the emergency route. I'm there with you. I'm gonna walk this through with you. And so I was like, heck, yeah, that's. This is what we're doing. I trust my body. I'm going to trust it all the way to the end. This is what's happening. And so I was so lucky to have someone on board because the majority of them with my condition are not, it's like an immediate shutdown and immediate no. I credit that to her. Like I could have refused a C section and you could get into all of that, but she, oh my goodness, she was just an amazing provider. And so she gave me the option. So we went forth with spontaneous labor and let's just see how it goes and we're going to just take the natural route as far as we can until we can't.

Kiona:

That is so awesome. I would say the fact that she did have experience with the uterus didelphys before. I got better at pronouncing that. Did you notice?

Rachelle:

Yeah, yeah,

Kiona:

the fact that she had experience with that before does hold weight because it is such an uncommon condition that at least is brought to the forefront for her to say, Hey. I trust you and your trust for your body, so let's do this, until we really can't. And so she was comfortable enough to push the limits just enough, to allow things to just kind of go naturally and flow. So I think that's super awesome. And so with that said, did you end up having a vaginal birth?

Rachelle:

Yes, I did. Yeah. So I pretty much got my dream in the hospital setting, it was a little bit more medicalized because it was at 34 weeks. So we had the NICU team involved and everything like that. So a little bit more chaotic in a delivery room than maybe, you would see normally. but that's without saying. Yes, I had, I did a completely unmedicated, completely zero intervention labor and vaginal birth in the hospital setting. it only became medicated because I started hemorrhaging post birth and that's another situation. Another reason why hospitals are there for a reason for some people and some conditions. So, I believe in both sides, which maybe is interesting, especially for birth workers. Sometimes you see they're pro one side or pro the other, but it really is what is the best fit for each person. I believe that that's how it is. Providers make a difference also. but yeah, I, I got my dream, and I got my dream labor and delivery in the hospital. I had an amazing nurse that changed my life and set me on the trajectory to birth work. And so, yeah, that is a huge pivotal. It was a life changing moment for sure.

Kiona:

Yeah, that's awesome. Tell us more about this nurse. How did she help guide you toward birth work?

Rachelle:

Yeah, so I show up unmedicated my water broke at home Which also isn't super common. So I had a water breakage at home 34 plus 2 go into the hospital. This is a contraction start right away And so, get into the hospital, and I'm like, this is the plan, and I think you, I don't want to say usually, but often you're like, yeah, okay, like, that's how everybody starts. We'll kind of see how it goes. but I remember like, oh, you just gave me fuel. Like, that's it. I'm really taking this all the way. I'm stubborn. So I was assigned a great labor and delivery nurse. So awesome. So incredible. And then she goes on her lunch break and my labor is pretty short. It was seven hours from the start of my water breaking and contractions to the actual delivery, like seven hours and six minutes. So for a first time parent, like that's really short. Considering it could go like 18 to 30, right, is I think the norm. So super short. So things progressed like pretty quickly. My nurse that I was assigned who was excellent She went on her lunch break. And so I had a new nurse come in to cover her lunch and At this point now, I knew it as transition at the time. I didn't know I didn't do child birth education or anything prior to my first. but I'm in transition. I'm at the point where I'm like, okay, now it's time for the epidural. I don't know what I was thinking. I was wrong. Let's just get this over with. This is terrible. and this nurse, like, she comes to my side and she said. Are you familiar with the Bradley method? And I was, I did, you know, I did read the books and do the stuff to try to get through this on my own because I knew I wanted unmedicated and I was like, yes, I'm familiar. And my husband's standing there like, I don't know what's going on. I'm trying to be helpful, but I'm not sure what to do. So he never left my side, it wasn't his fault. He just didn't know what to do. So he's just kind of there, waiting for direction. I didn't know what to tell him to do. and so this nurse shows up and she's like right by my face and she's like, okay, I did the Bradley method with my child. I'm going to coach you through this with the Bradley method. And so I'm like, Oh, I'll do whatever. Okay. And I remember her getting like really in my face. She was very present, got into my eyes. Like, I need you to just look at my eyes. I need you just to follow me. We're just going to focus on one contraction at a time, one breath at a time, you're just going to follow me. And she would breathe and I would breathe and I would just copy her. And she'd kept the same rhythmic pattern, the breathing. And then it'd start to get difficult. I'd close my eyes or look away and she's like, nope, nope. Bring your eyes back. I need your eyes back. Right. We're right here. And I remember Maybe we were like a foot apart But it felt like she was like two inches from my eyeballs And she was like right in my space and she was like no she didn't leave my side She brought me through transition Into pushing that baby out. It was 20 minutes of pushing like it was a super easy transition and into pushing she was just like I don't know if I would have made it right, which is one thing where it's like, I don't think I would have made it without her, but I think she knew this is what this lady really wants. This is, she just needs this. This is what she needs. So she inherently just knew that I needed that. she didn't give up and she, the other lady tried to come back from her lunch break and she was like, no, no, we're busy. Like, you got to take my patient load. Like we've swapped. And so she actually swapped and stayed with me the rest of the time. Not that the other, the initial nurse was fantastic, so it had nothing to do with that. But, just the way that she connected with me and was like, I believe in you, you're doing this, we're doing this together. I'm going to help you through this, knew exactly what to do. That changed my life of like, wow! The impact there of like, yeah, I would have gotten through it. I had a great labor, everything was great, but like, there was something that changed inside of me where it was like, Oh, I have to try not to get emotional here. The empowerment that she gave to me. So it wasn't like she was doing the work. She was there like, Hey, I'm here with you and you are doing this. And I'm showing you that you're doing this. You just need someone to keep you on track. And it was like the most powerful, empowering feeling that I could do it. I did it on my own. She knew exactly like what I needed to get there. And just having someone who understood and was in like that very vulnerable private space so closely with me. I don't know, I can't even explain it. And I didn't, I had no idea what a doula was. Even like through my second delivery, which is really weird, but it never left me. And then I think once I made the connection, I was like, This is it. That's it. Like, if I can impact people the way she did, that's my calling right there. Like, she just did something to empower me and like, confirm, she validated what I knew about me and my body the whole time. And so, I don't know, that, to not go on some crazy emotional rant, that, it was, it was life changing.

Kiona:

I love that so much. I really do love that for you because it really just shows that How you're cared for and the attention that you're given at such a vulnerable spot and time in your life and in your labor is so impactful that how you're treated at that point really sticks with you. And I love that. I love that so much. And she was just honed in on you. She probably was two inches away from your face, you know?

Rachelle:

it felt that way. I mean, she was like, not letting me, she wasn't letting me get out of control. She was keeping me right there in that space and it, yeah, it was incredibly important.

Kiona:

Yeah, I love that for you. I think that's super awesome. And kudos to that nurse as well, doing a fantastic job.

Rachelle:

Yes, absolutely.

Kiona:

Yeah, and so you had mentioned that you hemorrhaged, after you gave birth to your son. And I was just curious. about your placenta attachment. I don't know if this has anything to do with your hemorrhage, but when you said hemorrhage, I was thinking, Oh, you have uterus didelphys. So How does that impact your placenta attachment, because they are two separate uteri, but is there a higher chance of, like, placenta accreta, where it, like, you know, goes into the uterine wall, since the walls are slightly potentially different than a single uterus? Like, I'm just so curious if there was anything like that going on.

Rachelle:

Yeah, so that's one of those things that they, I think, providers assume, they assume the worst case scenario, but they don't actually know. I can't find any information. No research has been done. No, like, long term or large studies have been done. It's usually very minimal. what I know is that, so I did have placenta previa at the beginning, and, but it kind of worked how the majority of other cases work. It was, like, slightly covering the cervix, and it did move up by about 30 weeks it had resolved. So at 28 weeks preterm labor, I, it was still like on the cusp of the cervix. And so that was a little bit scary. but by 30 weeks it had completely resolved. So that could be a typical situation. That could be the fact that it was a smaller uterus or it's not shaped the same as others. but at the end, yes, delivering the placenta, it was normal. there wasn't any retained placenta. It came out in one piece, like the delivery seemed pretty smooth. but with the amount of bleeding, what they assumed was the case was that there was the start of an abruption, upon delivery. And I think that's kind of what, what started it. So we don't know, it's all speculation, but we're assuming like, maybe with delivery, that was enough stress. To cause an abruption because maybe there isn't as strong of an adherence to the uterine wall. as others, maybe it's the shape. Maybe it alters it because it has to stretch so much to accommodate a baby when it starts out much smaller than a typical uterus size pre pregnancy. So, I think there are all kinds of theories, but I think that's ultimately what they decided on was that it was the beginning of an abruption, so maybe it's more likely with my situation. We don't know, but I did not experience that with my second.

Kiona:

Okay. Yeah, that goes to show that more research needs to be done and more statistics need to be had for sure, yeah. And so when you hemorrhage, did you need any kind of blood transfusion? Did you hemorrhage that much or was it able to be stopped in time to level out and balance out?

Rachelle:

Yeah, so here's kind of the crazy part and why I appreciate. So the provider that I had for prenatal care She was actually on call and delivered my first child, which already is like another like rare situation So I was incredibly blessed like I think this whole situation Everything worked out in favor She was actually on call and she delivered and so I'm thankful she did because she already knew me and she She kept like a very peaceful and calm, environment, which I think is really important. And so I didn't find out until after the fact, I felt a lot of bleeding. It was unmedicated. I could feel everything. I felt after the placenta delivery, there was a lot going on. You don't know if it's normal, right? I'd never delivered before but I remember feeling like whoa It felt like water breaking a lot. Like this is a lot of stuff that's pouring out I don't know if this is normal. No one's freaking out. I'm just gonna go with it And unfortunately, my son did have to go to the NICU and so I was more focused I think on that but I remember them like jabbing my thigh with Pitocin to get the bleeding to stop and at first my I'm not able to say it because I think I'm still in shock. I just delivered, but my brain is like, wait, I said, unmedicated. Like, what are you doing? I don't want any of this. I refused an IV. Like, I was that person where I'm like, unless I absolutely need it. I'm not, I'm not doing it, you know? And so I'm like, wait, wait, what's going on? You guys knew what I wanted. If there isn't any reason I already delivered, come to find out, right? Like, There was a reason for it and a fantastic reason for it. So they were able to get it stopped. and then the next morning my provider did a follow up to check on me to see how I was and she was like, you were one cc away there from getting a transfusion. Like, you were one mark. She's like, I don't think you know how much you bled. And I was like, I didn't know. And I'm glad I didn't because I didn't need to freak out. You know what I mean? And so she was like, that was, whew, that was a close one. And so I didn't find out until after, but I didn't need anything. They got stopped in the nick of time. Everything was fine.

Kiona:

Well, I'm glad that everything turned out well because, yeah, I was curious about the placenta abruption and things, and especially knowing that you had previous still at 28 weeks with having some small signs of labor and everything all the way up until 34 weeks. It does make sense for that to kind of fall into the provider's head as a possibility of what happened because, also uterine fatigue, your uterus was continuing to contract slowly and a little bit over those six weeks. So that's a lot. That is a lot. And uterine fatigue in general contributes to hemorrhage. So even if it's full term. So I'm glad you had the providers you did to help you through that situation.

Rachelle:

Thank you. Yeah, looking back, it's like such a conflict because I'm like, I'm very pro home birth, physiological birth, hands off birth, intervention free birth, for sure. But in this case, I look back and I'm like, if I had been If I had gone against provider's wishes and like gone unassisted, or something which is great, a great fit for some people, I'm totally not anti any type of birth. But looking back for me, I'm like, okay, that was the right fit for me because I'm worried about what would have happened for sure. That would have been one of those emergency situations that could have been really, really scary.

Kiona:

Yeah, absolutely. And so leading into your postpartum time, you did say that your son had to go to the NICU. How long was he in the NICU?

Rachelle:

Yeah we were so again, we were so lucky. We were initially quoted three months And we were out of there on day 14. So I don't want to minimize the 14 days because it was probably the worst 14 days of my life But he was out of there in 14 days. We have a lot to be thankful for.

Kiona:

Yeah, that's a big difference 14 days versus 3 months. So, you know, he must just take after his mom and he's a powerhouse and does things just, you know, he's strong too, so. I think that's awesome. Yeah, yeah. and so with him being in the NICU and you experiencing an early labor and everything like that, like a preterm labor, how were you psychologically postpartum? Did you come across any postpartum mood disorders or anxieties?

Rachelle:

I think At the time, I felt okay. It was just extremely difficult to get through the NICU times. Looking back, I probably had some type of form of postpartum depression. I wouldn't say anxiety, less of anxiety, but definitely some form. I feel like it, it's so hard because like the, the more urgent feelings of postpartum depression, I feel like reduced once he was out of the NICU and we, we settled and everything, everything felt okay. but then there were like these feelings of things that come up. I wasn't able to bond with him the way I wanted to. The postpartum experience didn't go the way that I wanted to. I missed out on so many things. I had so many problems breastfeeding. and that's something I really felt. Really felt passionate about doing and so I was just really, really hard on myself. And I thought I was just being really hard on myself. But looking back, I'm like, I was probably still struggling for sure. Like that first year was probably, he had some medical issues pop up, when he was three months old, also that were difficult. And so it was probably a year of struggling and looking back where like, okay, I probably could have used additional support, but didn't even like really realizing that it was happening. If that makes sense. So yeah,

Kiona:

Yeah, and I would say that that is very common, actually, especially with first time parents because you don't know what to look for. You don't know what to watch out for, and you're like, is this normal? I mean, everybody says you're supposed to be super happy with the baby, and I'm happy, but this is also really hard. how do I get through this? You know, so, I, I feel you with that one. cause it was similar with me. with my son, my second pregnancy, I didn't realize that I was, like, actually experiencing postpartum depression until about after a year. I don't think I labeled it until after a year with him, because I was like, oh, this is just different. It's hard. He was also a fall baby, so it was darker and it was way different than my first because she was a summer baby. And so, yeah, it was just a lot. With having your son so early, did it impact your feeding choices and, what you did for feeding?

Rachelle:

Oh, yes, that was that was a disaster. So, this is what I had an a really I'm going to try to be careful with my words here. I had an unfortunate experience in the NICU. I don't think anyone has a positive experience of the NICU. So I'll just put that there to start. But I feel like my experience could have been better. and so that was really, I think that was an added layer that was really difficult. So when I was in postpartum, the first struggle at first was that I couldn't see my son. There was a period of time where they were worried about my bleeding. Obviously, they were worried about him. I didn't even know what he looked like, like. They handed him to me. I'm in some kind of shock, took him away. That was it. It was so fast. So I think it was dealing with like the initial shock and not even knowing what he looked like. And then came the anxiety for breastfeeding, right? I really wanted to breastfeed. I was really, especially being early. I'm like, okay, I got a preemie here. I feel like it's even more so important. let's do this. And so there was like this stall of time where like, there wasn't that immediate skin to skin. There wasn't the immediate, Latch and attempt at breastfeeding, which we know is like a huge indicator of success. Like you, these are things that indicate like, not always, right? But they'll give you better chances. And so I was crushed because I'm like, okay, I'm already like, here I am, like, I keep just getting kicked and we're just getting further and further away from the goal. And so I think that was hard sitting in that moment, knowing like Okay, I might have to come to terms that, like this isn't going to work, or maybe my supply is going to really struggle. that was, I think, the start, which was not a great start. That was a really difficult place to be in. I had a postpartum nurse that was like, listen, I'm going to explain this to you because I know how important breastfeeding is. They in the NICU are very much about protocol and like standard of care. So they follow this protocol. They follow standard of care. They go down the checklist, go down the checklist. And so sometimes they forget that, hey, there are emotions involved or like parents have wants and needs because they're worried about here are the medical needs of the baby. Let's go down the checklist. Let's go to the next one. Boom, boom, boom. And that's just like Kind of the reality of what it was at that time and she said, if you really want to breastfeed, you're going to have to strongly advocate because it's not something that they just like. naturally progressed to and welcome, especially with most NICU babies. They're not strong enough to latch and efficiently, extract milk. And there are all these issues, right? That they're used to seeing. And so she's like, you're going to have to really strongly advocate. I just need to tell you that, like, that's the advice I can give you. And so when they let us go down and kind of start establishing the relationship With him in the NICU, we could spend all day and all night there if we wanted. and that's what we did for those 14 days. Like we spent all day and would come home to eat dinner and take care of the dog at night, and then we'd be back. And it was, that was our life. I was pumping around the clock and I was begging to have him latch, even if just for a second. Right. And I know their medical concern was, They didn't want him to get exhausted. They didn't want him to burn more calories than he was taking in. At this point, he was four pounds. he was born at five, two. And so I completely understand the medical need and where they were. So I, I kind of gave up and respected like, okay, we're not, I'm not going to get him to latch, but then let's do breast milk. And so I remember pumping around the clock at home, at the hospital and bringing in my milk and storing my milk there. And, I would come in and my milk would still be there. From like the night before and I was like heartbroken and I'm like, what is going on? What's happening? Oh, you know, it was just easier for us. He had the feeding tube He had a g tube and so they were like it's just easier for us to just pump the formula for the g tube We didn't notice it. You know, you could save that for later. It's not a waste And that was where it became like a really frustrating experience because I'm like, why not breast milk and then supplement with formula? Now with what I know now, there were so many options that were possible that wouldn't put him at risk medically or for growth. he didn't have any respiratory distress. He was showing that he was feeding well, like he was making huge strides. Obviously, that's how it went from three months to 14 days, because it was like he picked things up quickly and we were out of there, which is great. But, It took more advocating than once we were in the NICU because then I had to kind of get, get a little bit more bold and like, listen, why aren't we using my breast milk first? And then following with formula, if you're saying he's not getting the calories, why aren't we? So we started getting involved with the round tables and we started getting involved with the shift changes and calling and speaking to providers that were there when we weren't. Asking them and we let we got super involved. I remember my husband like cringing like oh no here She is again like she's speaking up and asking for the doctor, you know, like here here she goes But I don't I don't regret it. I was always respectful and kind But there are all these questions of like, yes, there's a standard of care and there's medical need, but when something else is doable, and it's the parent's wishes, like breast milk, why aren't we doing it? And so that was a huge, huge struggle. And then there was like. We found out he was, they were overfeeding him through the G tube. So he was like vomiting, all this formula, all it like turned into a whole situation where it, it was just, it was a challenging situation. It was, it was challenging. So that started my journey with breastfeeding on a really poor foot. and so I continued to pump, I continued to try to breastfeed and I was able to. We, it was basically like supplementation and breast milk until he was about 10 months old where my supply just wasn't. It wasn't doing anything anymore. So I gave up around 10 months old. it was the best that I could do. I did the best that I could. There was a lot of pumping. It was like exclusive pumping and bottle feeding. he did at some point start to latch and breastfeed. But then again, my supply with the supplementation and everything else just couldn't keep up with it.

Kiona:

Yeah, I want to say I caught a phrase there that I don't agree with. you said you gave up. No, I personally am listening to your journey and you exclusively pumping for 10 months and still putting in the effort to try to get him latched and to still pump and still feed him breast milk while supplementing. That is not giving up. That is a goal that you met. Okay? Like it may not have been your anticipated goal. Some people don't do breastfeeding longer than three months, six months. You made it to 10 months. Rachelle, that's amazing. I just want

Rachelle:

thank

Kiona:

give to you

Rachelle:

you. No, thank you. That's going to make me cry. Thank you so much.

Kiona:

no, but it's so true because I am a strong believer in saying that the phrases that you use with yourself and others around you are really impactful and you did not give up. You fought. You fought until 10 months. So I just want to say that out loud

Rachelle:

thank you

Kiona:

yeah, absolutely.

Rachelle:

thank you so much. Still beating myself up, apparently. Still there. But thank you. That means a lot. Thank you so much.

Kiona:

Yeah, yeah, of course, and I have never had a baby in the NICU, but Based off the stories that I've heard, being in the NICU is really, really hard. So I also really want to commend you and your husband for advocating as much as you did. Because it is a lot of work. It's a lot of work to constantly be pushing up against the system. Every day, in and out. And so, I'm proud of you for doing that. I think it's super awesome. And you accomplished your goal of getting some breast milk in him. I think that's great.

Rachelle:

thank you. Yeah, it was, it was not easy. Thank you

Kiona:

Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm making cry over there

Rachelle:

No, it's all good things. All good things. I, I think what's really important with NICU parents now, you definitely have this, and again, I want to be careful with this because every baby and every family is different. There are babies with, with way more medical need than my son had, right? Like, we were very lucky that it was minimal and it was resolved fairly quickly. There are times when you need to go in and you absolutely need to follow what providers say to a T because it's imperative. Like, so I want to be very clear that there's a huge range. for us and for other families, there's this thing where you go in there, especially you're a first time parent, you don't know what you're doing, no one tells you how to handle these situations, every child situation is different, but I still feel there's like this inherent, biological tie where you know how to advocate best for your child and what they need, and they're all different. They're all different. And so in the NICU, they're following like a very standardized way of care. They're going down a checklist for every single baby and they're not all the same. And so for us, I wish I had done more, but I can't beat myself up. It is what it is. We did the best we could at the time. knowing what I know now, it probably would have been different. My husband would have been so embarrassed. He probably would have left. But, I think knowing what we know now. Our baby like we knew what he needed and what we needed to give him and they pretty much were like, Nope, this is how it goes. This is what we do with every baby. This is just what you have to accept. So I think there's a part there that's like really tricky because it may not be what every baby needs or there may be babies were like kangaroo care that skin to skin is it makes a big difference for that baby and it's possible. They just, for whatever reason, like, don't want to deal with it or don't have time for it, or, you know, whatever, who knows, right? I'm not accusing anyone of anything here, but, I think it's really hard because it's a scary place to go in there and feel the pressure of needing to listen to every single thing they say and follow all of their directions, but I still feel like there's a part in there for some families where it's not, like, super medically fragile or, like, a micro preemie situation. That's a different story. where there, There are some elements where parents should be given more credit to being able to choose and figure out like what really does look like the best care for my child. And so for us that was the most difficult part of navigating the NICU is because we feel like we were bad parents if we did stand up and go against recommendations or question recommendations even that we were doing something wrong or dangerous. and that was really hard.

Kiona:

Yeah. I can't even imagine how hard that is because even just supporting people as a birth doula and saying, Hey, my client doesn't want this. I'm talking about. A full on adult who can speak up for themselves. And then there's these teeny tiny babies that can't speak up for themselves, but do have health conditions that are tricky and do have parents that have desires, wants, and needs. And to try to find that middle balance. And like you said there are some times when. You really do have to follow those standards of procedure because it puts the baby at risk if it's not. But, just like what you had mentioned before, every provider and every nurse that's there is also human. And every provider and every nurse that's there is also covering their own butt. You know, they don't want to make one small mistake and then have everything just shatter beneath them. So, it's a really fine line to walk. I love that entire story. so let's start diving into the conception, pregnancy, and birth of your daughter, which was three years later.

Rachelle:

yeah. This one will be quick because her birth was furiously quick. This is a wildly different situation, which is I can laugh about it now. I was not laughing at the time. but knowing now, it's I'm so thankful that I, I received like such a different experience because I think it makes me better as a birth worker to have these just crazy experiences. but it makes me laugh because it's, it's so crazy. It just fits her personality today. so conception with her took a little bit longer. I was a little bit older. I wasn't old by any means, but, I think I was 32 or 33, when I conceived my daughter and I was like 29 30 when I conceived my son. So I know the older you get, right? The more challenging things can get. so I wouldn't say I was old. I wasn't, you know, 35 or over where they say that's a rough situation for conception, but, which is not always true. So don't believe that when you hear it always right faith in your body. But, Yeah, it took closer to about six cycles, which is still very quick, right? Like a lot of people, it takes a year. It can be pretty common. So for us, it was still pretty quick. We were able to conceive naturally. We were like, yeah, right on. We're doing this again. my pregnancy with her was like, Easy. Oh, hey, I feel so bad saying this. It was easy and enjoyable. just like my sons. She, her positioning was a little bit different. and so there were times that were definitely more uncomfortable with her, um, with her I felt more of the kicks. I felt more of the movement. I had lightning crotch a ton with her towards the end.

Kiona:

hate lightning crotch.

Rachelle:

that will like drop you to your knees and it is like, it's quick and it's over. It's not like a contraction, but it's like, it is like a, like you touched a live wire.

Kiona:

Right in your vagina.

Rachelle:

Yes. Yes. It's yeah, that'll take you down. so I got lightning crotch a lot with her and I didn't with my son. so it was a little bit interesting. The pregnancy was different, but it was enjoyable. I wasn't super sick. I was working pretty much the whole time until I couldn't. and so it, for me, it was kind of like a similar situation.

Kiona:

Were you still monitored as heavily?

Rachelle:

yes, I was monitored. Just as heavily. so that was another situation and at that point, I think I had less anxiety and less worry because I had done it before. Right? So I'm like, okay, there's a chance this can go great. so at this point, I was looking at it more like, Hey, we get to see her again. Yeah, we get like, we get 80 ultrasounds versus just the two. And I know there's there's a school of thought diving into ultrasounds, how they aren't necessarily healthy. And there's that whole thing too. But like, okay. Hey, you know what? We were in the place where it was happening. And so it was like, yeah, we're really lucky. We just get to see her a lot. So it was much less anxiety ridden for sure, even though we were monitored just as much.

Kiona:

Oh yeah, man, when you just said that number out loud, 80 ultrasounds, because you got it twice a week, right?

Rachelle:

It was so many, that might be off. I'm throwing that number out there, but it was like, I mean if you I delivered her at 39 weeks. And so, yeah, it was probably pretty close to 80 for sure.

Kiona:

That's a lot of ultrasounds.

Rachelle:

Yeah.

Kiona:

Yeah, so how did your, Labor end up going with her, holding her until 39 weeks. How did that feel knowing that you surpassed the time in which you had your son?

Rachelle:

Yeah. So what's really interesting is her labor story kind of starts technically at 34 plus two. And what's interesting is my son was delivered at 34 plus two. And at 34 plus two, I was in the hospital, in triage in preterm labor.

Kiona:

Mm.

Rachelle:

And so. I remember sitting there like, okay, my body is meant to just bake babies until 34 plus two. Like, that's the deadline, regardless of what happened with conception. Like, that's what's going on. And so I was like, all right, we're gonna, I'm going to deliver her at 30. I mean, we were prepared at this point to deliver at 34. We had kind of gone through that. so we were prepared, but, I wasn't as effaced, I wasn't as dilated. There wasn't as much action going on. It was very, very slight. And so my provider was like, listen, you brought it six weeks with your son. Like you could easily go longer with her. We're not as worried. Like we know you can like bake if you take it easy. So there it was, I was off work on the bedrest again, like on the progesterone doing kind of the same thing to try to like, let's get another six weeks out of this. which would be great because I started. They're at her with 34 weeks versus 28 with my son. So already we're ahead of the game. We're doing great. which was a great, a great feeling. I think the theory is that your uterus has been stretched a little bit. So there's more space. and your body's gone through it before. So naturally your body has a better idea of what's happening. So those are kind of the theories behind. Okay, with this condition, with each one, you may be able to carry longer each time, which was great that that was coming to fruition. So, held her in, until 39 weeks. And so this is the interesting part here where she was breech. And so my son was not, she was breech. And so, especially in Washington state, and again, like I wasn't able to do the home birth, midwifery care in a birthing center, had to be OBGYN care in the hospital again, just because of the high risk condition that I'm labeled with, and, she was breached, so that meant no vaginal breach birth, and so, of course, my crazy mind was like, she's breached, no problem, we're doing a vaginal breach birth, until it's like, wait a minute, You can't really do that in the hospital setting here, at least in Washington State, so you're looking at a, you're looking at a c section. That's just how it's going to go. And so again, I was faced with the devastation of like I was in serious denial. I think like up until literally the day I went into labor, like I was in denial and Bless my provider's heart. She was like, I'm going to push this like as far out as we can. Because for me, I was like, if I have to do a C section because you guys don't allow anything else, and I'd started kind of to dig into vaginal breech birth where I'm like, I have a proven pelvis, I've done this once before, like, come on, can't we try? And obviously like for liability reasons, training, you know, like that's a whole can of worms. No way, like it absolutely wasn't happening unless I was like doing it at home and assisted on the black market. Like no one wants my risk anyway. So had to give into it. I'm trying to wrap my brain around a cesarean birth because I'm going from unmedicated zero intervention to now a cesarean and that's like the last thing I ever wanted. We don't have a big family. We don't have a lot of help. And so that was hard too, of like, how are we going to manage this? Like, what does this look like? What is healing? What's the postpartum journey? Now we have a three year old at home. We're bringing a baby home. Like, what does this look like for us? There's all these added layers of stress. I wanted the quick up in two days, vaginal birth that I had with my son where it was like way easier healing. so just kind of going through all that at first. So I was still in denial, but my provider was like, This is what's interesting is that at first when she wanted to schedule the c section She was like listen you delivered at 34 with your son. You're going to deliver really early with your daughter And we want to do the c section before you're in labor like we don't want the trial labor prior to c section We don't want spontaneous labor. We don't want any risks of anything going wrong. We don't want a risk of a vaginal breech birth. We know that your labor with your son was seven hours so she estimated The labor with my daughter would be 4. So she's like, I'm thinking you're going to be around 4 hours. We don't want any accidents happening. We don't want you far from home. Whatever. I'm going to try to advocate actually for an earlier C section and the hospital policy was they don't do anything earlier than 39 weeks. Which most people, you don't want earlier than 39 weeks. In my case, she was like, I have a feeling we're going to have wild, wild things happen. We don't want that with you. So you're a risk over here. I'm going to advocate for an earlier, for an exception. And they wouldn't do it. They wouldn't move from their policy. And they're like, whatever happens before 39 weeks happens, and if it happens, you know, at 39 weeks, and you got your C section, great, but they wouldn't move it. they wouldn't move it any sooner. She tried. So she was like, all right, like, that's my feeling. They wouldn't listen to me. And so part of me was worried because I'm like, okay, maybe she has a point. We don't want the risks because we don't know how I'm going to deliver. We don't know with a vaginal breech birth, what's going to happen, especially with this. situation. So I understood her concerns. I understand the liability part as well. but then there's the other part of me that's like, yes, like we, okay, we can't move it closer. Maybe I have a chance because for me, I was like really secretly wanting, spontaneous labor prior to the C section. I know that's like probably every provider's worst nightmare to hear, but there's such huge benefits if it's safe, to spontaneous labor prior to C section, even if you need to have a C section. And so, my thought process there was a little bit different, a little bit stubborn, where I'm like, okay, please, please, please. I tried everything spinning babies, scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees. I tried everything to get her to change position to avoid the C section, all the crazy wives tales. I did it all the spinning babies every day, morning to night. I did all the stuff. She didn't move like. They couldn't do an ECV because of my uterine condition that I would be more likely for uterine rupture if they did that. So that was not an option. So I did everything else besides that. They wouldn't manually try to do anything. fast forward 39 weeks. My C section was scheduled for 39 weeks and 3 days. 39 weeks. I wake up like 6 o'clock in the morning and, Again, I'm feeling weird. The same feeling with my son when I was in preterm labor. No pain, no notable contractions. Like I just felt weird, but I felt fine. And I'm like, okay, I've had this feeling before and there was something going on. So fine. I'm going to pack my bag for the C section. So I still hadn't prepared for the C section. It was still an unmedicated, low intervention, zero intervention birth hospital bag we had going. So I'm like, Uh, okay. It's probably going to happen today. Fine. So packing my bag, I'm putting, you know, extra pillows and like all the good c section suggestions in there. kind of just trying to come to terms with it. My son and my husband are still asleep and I take a shower. I'm in the shower by like 7 a. m. And the timeline's important here because it goes so fast. So I hope that this is okay. I'm just kind of going through this.

Kiona:

Absolutely. Go for it.

Rachelle:

7 a. m. I'm in the shower and my body is wanting to squat in the shower. And to me, I'm like, okay, so the only, again, I was not a birth worker at this point. I didn't know anything that was going on just with what I'd read. And I'm comparing everything I'm feeling to my son. And so when I felt the pressure of my son Going through the pelvis and putting pressure like starting to come down my birth canal. I felt like that same like squatty feeling. And so I'm in the shower and I remember like straight panic like wide eyed straight panic I pause and I'm like, why is my body wanting to squat in the shower? Why? And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm having this baby in our shower. I'm having this baby at home. And it was just like instant. Like I knew like, I'm having this baby at home, but then there was so much confusion because I'm like, I'm not having contractions. I don't feel any pain. I just feel a little weird. I feel off. There's no way. Like, so I'm second guessing. I'm like, I'm having this baby in the shower or maybe I'm crazy, but maybe I'm really having the baby, but maybe I'm crazy. And so I'm like, in a situation like, Oh no, what is happening? And I'm like panicking and freaking out. And I don't know because. At this point, I'm horrified to have A breach baby with my condition because no one had ever heard of it. There's no proof of it anywhere. No stories, no personal stories, nothing that we could find. I searched, my provider was searching, like no one could find any information about vaginal breach birth with this situation. Already vaginal birth is less likely than cesarean. So we had no clue. So I had some fear, like some. Serious innate fear of like, there are already risks with vaginal breech birth. We don't know what, what the situation is going to be like. I don't know. Right. So I'm freaked out now because I'm like, okay, maybe I thought I wanted to do a vaginal breech birth when I was feeling brave. Maybe not anymore. Now I'm freaked out. So it's like seven, 7:30 I call triage and I'm like, listen, here's the situation. I'm feeling really weird. I'm getting squatty in the shower. I'm thinking I need to come in to get checked out. So I'm just letting you know, like we're going to, we're going to head in there. And they did through their. Their typical protocol, are you feeling contractions? How far apart, how long? And I remember the lady like, uh, you can come in whenever you want. Like, we're not telling you not to come in, come in and get checked out, but you don't sound like you're in labor at all. Like you're talking fine. You're laughing on the phone. You're not having notable contractions. You're not breathing heavy. She's like, nothing about this phone call sounds like you're anywhere near labor. But just come in and get checked out, right? If it makes you feel better. And so I'm again, like, okay, I'm crazy. I'm totally crazy, but I'm just going to get checked out anyway. You just don't know. And we had a good friend. on their way to come watch my son. She was going to come watch my son while we went to the hospital. And I get off the phone with triage, 7:30. now we're like closer to eight. We're ready to go. she's on her way. I go to the toilet. I feel like I have to go to the bathroom and my water breaks on the toilet. And not only does my water break, I swear. So my daughter was, was essentially born spoiler alert as a double foot lane breach. And so. This is important because I could feel her feet coming down my vaginal canal. It wasn't the pressure of a head. I'd felt that before. It was her feet. I could feel her toes like going down the sides of my vaginal canal. I know that sounds like really insane. I could feel it. She like karate kicked herself. and was headed down and so I was like, Oh my gosh, I feel something coming down and I'm on this toilet. I'm having this baby in the toilet, you know, so that I'm like, Oh no! From that moment on from the point of water breaking, it was like zero to 100 with contractions. So we call the friend coming to watch my son. We're like, you need to meet us at the hospital. We're not making it like we cannot wait for you. My husband half drags me into the car because I can't walk because I can feel her coming down. So I feel like I'm having to hold her in. And. We get, this is like so crazy. So this is 8:30. So my water broke at 8:30 and funny enough, it was Labor Day that day. So she was born on Labor Day and my mom was making jokes about, ha ha, maybe she'll be born on Labor Day. And so I blame my mom for this a little bit because I'm like, you did this to us because she was born on Labor Day. but 8:30. Now I have contraction starts. So contraction started, we get in the car and F. E. R. kicks in. So I'm pushing at the end involuntarily of every contraction in the car, and so I can't control it.

Kiona:

sorry, I just want to say F. E. R. is fetal Ejection reflex.

Rachelle:

Yes. I'm sorry.

Kiona:

Okay, go ahead.

Rachelle:

Yes. Yes. So you have this reflex that kicks in when you're far enough along and your body's ready to eject the baby, like your uterus will do the work on its own. It doesn't need you. So I was not a participant in this situation. My uterus was doing all of the work and it was literally ejecting her at the end of every contraction it was pushing. I couldn't stop it. Couldn't control it. And my son's in the backseat. I'm hollering for dear life every contraction because It was fear filled at this point because I'm like, we're having this baby on the side of the road now at this point, but also, it was like. The intensity was insane. It wasn't like your slow build up of like, okay, it's starting to get worse and more intense. It went from like zero, nothing, no pain, no contractions felt, to like on top of each other. There was no break. They were back to back contractions, level 10 intensity. They were zero minutes apart. It was like over and over and over the entire time. It was wild. So I couldn't wrap my brain mentally around what was even happening because it was happening so fast and so intensely. So, 8:30 my water breaks, contractions start. We pull up to the hospital valet at 8. 55. My friend pulls up in the valet. We're seriously, like, tossing her, the kid, in our keys, like, trying to figure out. You get the kid in the car. We don't know what's going on. Security comes down and is like, whoa, what is all this going on? Because I'm screaming. And I was Completely composed and quiet with my son and this one I was like screaming wildly in the parking lot, mostly for fear, I think, but he's telling me to sit in a wheelchair. I'm yelling at him. We're arguing in the lobby because I'm like, I can't sit down. She's coming out. And so this is one of those things where I can't blame them. because everyone who comes in the labor, right? It's like, Oh, I'm having a baby right now. It's like this urgent situation. Most of the time you have time, like most of the people are not having the baby in that moment. They are not coming out, even though it feels like it, right? And so I think it was their typical Approach of like, yeah, yeah, lady, you know, like sure. That's what they all say. Just get in the wheelchair. I'm like, no, I'm serious She is coming out And so I had I remember having to like hold on to the sides of the wheelchair And hold my rear up because I couldn't sit down because she was out like she was out of my body I could feel it and i'm wearing a maxi dress. I'm too scared to pull it up and like figure out what's going on and wheel me up the elevator. I'm screaming in the elevator because I still have contractions happening back to back. They get me into triage. They're trying to get me up on the bed. I'm telling them I can't get up on the bed because I'm literally holding her in. She's coming out and they're like, Listen, just get up on the bed. It's probably not that bad. Like we understand. I don't blame them, right? Like, normal, normal reaction. I probably had the normal reaction of especially like a first time parent, laboring parent. That's like, it feels like it's so urgent and so crazy and so scary when it's usually you have more time. they get me up on the bed. I feel like they're getting frustrated because I'm just like being a whiner about it or something. I'm not, they're having to like lift me up and do all this work cause I'm saying I can't do it cause I'm literally squeezing my legs together and they get me up on the bed. They pull my maxi dress up and I remember the nurse, like she just looks up. And my husband looks up, they're like at my feet and her face goes white, like all of the color drains from her face and I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, what's going on? And all of a sudden she like goes over. She's talking urgently with another nurse, like, whoa, something I can't understand what's going on. And then she comes back and then she's like, taking the breaks off of the bed. And she's like, we need to go now. And I'm like, okay, like what the heck is going on? And I'm asking my husband like what's going on whatever and he's like, oh, yeah Her ankles are just hanging out like her feet and her ankles both of them were just hanging out onto the bed And so she didn't expect Any of that she lifts it up and it's like what is this? So they're rolling me like Grey's Anatomy style like down the hallway and they're rushing they're running They're freaking out because they're like this is a c section. We cannot vaginally deliver this baby. This is not good They rolled me into the OR The on call provider pops in, and there's one nurse in the room, and then another nurse takes my husband to go get scrubbed up, and the anesthesiologist is on his way. So they're like doing this emergency C section prep, and the provider, so now I'm just in the room with the provider and a nurse, and the provider lifts up my maxi dress and looks under, and he like does the same thing. He pops up like between my knees, his face is white, and he's like, here's what we're doing. Right? The original plan? We're scrapping the plan. And I'm like, but wait a minute, like just, it was so painful and so intense. I remember saying like, just cut her out. I don't care. What are we waiting for? Like, I don't know what the plan is. Just cut her, just get her out now. Just cut it out. I don't care what's happening. And he's like, okay, well, we're not doing that. And this is why. She basically was like out to her bum. And her waist was laying on the O. R. table. So I had basically like her belly button through her head still in the canal in my pelvis. She was already halfway out. And he's like, we're too, we're too far gone. We can't go in there and pull her up and out through a C section. So new game plan. You're delivering this baby. Like, that's what we're doing. And so I'm just like, okay, that's what we're doing. And so he, it was so hilarious because he's like. Pops back down. I can't see his head, you know, like my legs are up pops back up. All right, we're doing this Like here's what we're doing. You know, he's like giving himself a pep talk and me a pep talk two pushes. We're getting her out We're doing this. Okay pops back down. All right pops back up. All right, you ready? Like let's do it It's like so fast two pushes. She was out. I still had FER happening. So it wasn't difficult My husband comes in scrubbed up. She's in the bassinet The one nurse is still like trying to figure out what my name is and if I had had babies before like they want to know if I had a proven pelvis, right? Emergency situation. So she's like, what's your name? Have you ever had a baby before? Like, I didn't have hospital bands. Like, that's how crazy this was. I came in there hot. My husband is like, what just happened? The baby's in the bassinet. He just missed the whole delivery. Then the anesthesiologist with like three other nurses come in, all prepped with all the stuff, and they're like, wait, what just happened? What happened here? It was wild. She was delivered at 9:12 and we pulled up at the hospital valley at 8 55. If that tells you anything.

Kiona:

Oh my gosh. Okay, so my cheeks hurt so bad right now because I'm just smiling at this whole situation. Like, oh my gosh. My heart is racing because I can't even imagine being you as the birther or the providers trying to, like,

Rachelle:

It was so

Kiona:

figure out what to do.

Rachelle:

wild.

Kiona:

Oh my gosh. That is a true adventure.

Rachelle:

It was something, it was something else. And so after the fact, my original provider, who I had Received prenatal care through. She came and saw me. She was in the hospital and saw me the next day and was like, what on earth just happened there? And she's like, this is exactly why I told them to do it earlier c section. Like, I knew this was going to happen. And so she was like, she was kind of angry about it. Like, we could have avoided it. Right? Because I'm sure that was scary. Right? Like, that could have ended up very differently for a lot of people. And she told me, she was like, how is the on call provider? And I was like. He was magnificent. He was calm. He was like all business. He was like, listen, here's what we're doing. We're doing it. Like this is how it's going. Excellent. Couldn't have asked for anyone more reassuring, like all business, like nothing was even like, like nothing was going on. Nothing was any different. And she told me, she's like, he was shaking in his boots. That's the first time he'd ever even seen a vaginal breach birth, let alone attended one in a situation like that. So I'm like, he didn't show it. Like he was Excellent. You, I had no idea.

Kiona:

Good for him, though. Good for him, because that, that's the kind of provider you need in a situation like that. Someone that kind of just takes control and is like, alright, this is what we're doing. Because, to be honest, if you did do all of the work to get prepped and everything for a cesarean, There's a higher chance that you could have lost her because of her being so exposed already. Like, halfway exposed, there's no going back. You know, her hips chillin on the table, like, there's no going back from there. And it would do more damage to your body, not just with the cesarean and everything, but in addition to that, pulling her body up and back. It's like, reverse of what your body is wanting to do. So there's that harm in that. So I understand the concern from your provider and saying, this is what I wanted to prevent. But at the same time, intuition. Your body knew what to do. It was like, get this baby the heck out of me. And that was a precipitous birth. It was precipitous. And so for the listeners, a precipitous birth is a birth that happens from first contraction to baby in three hours or less. So you said you had your shower around 7am and she was born on the OR table at 912. Yeah, my first contraction wasn't until 8:30. I was like squatting at

Rachelle:

7, 7. 30. Yeah, it was so strange. So I don't know if it's painless dilation we're dealing with. I have no idea. But as you touched on, yeah, I didn't have any monitoring. There was no monitoring. So we didn't know if there was a compressed cord is like a huge, one of the risks in vaginal breech birth, right? There are ways to mitigate that, especially with monitoring. And there, I believe personally, like, there are Ways where vaginal breech birth you're a great candidate for that and it's it's an excellent way to birth It's a variation of normal. So I do believe in that But there is the scary part, especially with the precipitous birth cord compression is a serious thing And we didn't know what her heart rate was. We didn't know what her exact positioning was we didn't know where the cord was and she also I missed this during the Uh, pregnancy part, she had a two vein cord also, and so we didn't know if she was going to be born, there wasn't anything showing on ultrasound, but we didn't know if she was going to be born with some kind of defect, if there was something going on there, so that was like another added part, but the providers who delivered didn't even know, because they didn't even know what my name was,

Kiona:

Right, they didn't have any time to look at your records

Rachelle:

No, maybe help them stay calm. I don't know if they knew I had uterus didelphys. Like they literally were asking my name and if I had ever had kids before to see like, okay, do we at least have a proven pelvis of one child or more to know that like, because this is, this is where we're going, like we're too far gone to go the opposite way, like you said, and potentially cause more harm. It was, yeah, I really, I feel like my body knew. Exactly what to do to get her out. And I feel like there's a reason it was so fast.

Kiona:

Yeah, I agree. And then on top of all of those things that you mentioned with like cord compression, there's also a super high risk of cord prolapse with breech birth. So I think that, you know, you missed all the dangers with that and with having a two vein cord, like that in itself With a head down baby is a lot. And so you kind of had all the things that are scary popping up, and you just rocked it. Your body was like, yeah, we got this. We're good. Let's do it

Rachelle:

it was crazy. Yeah. I think in all of my research, when I found out she was breached and was doing everything to turn her, you, you hear of like Frank breach birth when they're going bottom first, that's usually documented as quote unquote, the safest way. Or like the best candidate for a breech birth, not feet first, and the way she was positioned, I mean, they say no one's positioned in a footling breech position in the uterus, technically, but that's exactly how she came out. Both feet first, ankles together, in like a pencil dive situation, and That the risks for cord prolapse are way higher in that position because there isn't anything blocked like a bum, right? A bum is at least a little bit bigger to like keep the cord from slipping out there. But yeah, feet first. Yeah, I think that's when I knew she was coming out feet first. The significant fear popped in and it was like, wow, okay, there's, there might be a real risk here and we have no idea what's going on.

Kiona:

Yeah, and a couple things to add on to that is, I've heard that foot linked breech is, The scariest because feet are so tiny, the diameter of feet when they're together, when they come out, you may not be fully dilated. And so your baby's little feet could just be out there. And even if your baby's hips are coming through, it doesn't mean there's going to be enough space for their shoulders or their head. And if they're forcing their body through and then the cervix kind of like shrinks back around the neck, like the head can get stuck. Like there's so much with that. So, I'm happy that you made it through.

Rachelle:

That's a whole other episode. I'm sure.

Kiona:

Yeah, oh my gosh, so, okay. So baby is born, and how was your feeding with her? Was it different since you were full term when you gave birth to her? Were you able to latch her right away? Did she have to go to the NICU for anything? Tell me all the details with that.

Rachelle:

Yeah. So hers was, hers was fairly typical. I remember like she's in the bassinet. We get through the shock that like, wow, I just had this baby. What the heck is going on? And I remember them like, all right, let's get an elevator. And I asked them like, she's coming with me. And they were like, well, yeah, where, where else does she go? And I was like, what? Like, I was so, I don't know. My son was separated right away. So I was just like, I'd already been mentally prepared for we're going through the same situation. I was floored. She was with me, like, in the elevator to postpartum recovery. And I was like, she doesn't have to leave my side. Like, I know what this one looks like. It was an incredible experience. That immediate postpartum, I was just on cloud nine. I didn't care what had just happened. I, I was just so happy that I could have her there and that I knew what she looked like because my son, I wouldn't have been able to pick him out from a whole line of babies after he was born because he was just taken away. I didn't even know. And so with her, I was like, To be able to like know and see and hold and touch my baby is like such like a weird birthright and biological need that I didn't get with my son, that it already was like a completely different experience. And she was. I think by nature, an incredible eater, like a very, almost aggressive eater, we latched. She was exclusively breastfed, or pumped while at work for 19 months until she told me no. I was going to go the distance because I was like, so happy to be doing it. And giving that to her and that benefit to both of us and feeling that success. It was like redeeming for my son, like, okay, I can do this. I'm not broken. All of these things. It was a healing journey for sure. and at 19 months, she basically was like, yeah, I'm done. I don't care about this anymore. And so that was hard for me. You don't think it's like, you think you have to go through all this pain of weaning, but she was like, yeah, no. she was an incredible eater and it was. I mean, we still had to work. Breastfeeding is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. We still had to learn each other. We still had to work at it. We still had those tough times. but to be able to know that I exclusively breastfed her for 19 months and we had, like, we just have, my son and I have a bonded relationship in a different way, but her and I also have this different bond in a different way because of that. And so just completely opposite in any way, shape or form from my son.

Kiona:

Yeah, I think that's so awesome, and I'm so happy to hear that you got to experience that, especially with having the strong desire to do it the first time around, and then not being able to do it, and then kind of having that redemption opportunity of saying, Look, I can, my body can, and we did, and you were willing to go. Until forever. And she's like, okay, mom, like, I think we're good.

Rachelle:

That's it. Yeah.

Kiona:

Yeah, so I think that's super awesome. I love hearing these stories, and I want to hear from you, how do your own personal birth stories impact how you care for clients in your business?

Rachelle:

Yes. So, I'm going in my fourth year now. I wasn't able to put this into words until recently. It took a lot of time to kind of get to know who I was as, a birth worker and postpartum supporter to figure out how this all kind of comes into play. but I'm so happy that I feel I can better express that now. First of all, when you're looking at birth, I would say I'm very pro, physiological birth, right? I'd say that's number one. For me, it's all about supporting and teaching you like how to trust your body, how to trust your instincts, follow your gut, give you the confidence to feel confident in those decisions that you make. also looking at all of the evidence. So I'm very much evidence based minded. So I'm the person that likes to like do all the research, look at all the stats, and then kind of decide. I'm that person that takes forever to make a decision because I'm the one looking at all of the sides and weighing all of the pros and cons. I'm the person you want to work with. If your goal is as physiological and as natural as possible, given your circumstances, I guess that's the best way to put it. So I'm the person that is like, you do what you need to feel good for you. It's not always a one size fits all. So I'm there with like the evidence best based information to give you all the sides for you to choose what is best for you and your baby and encourage you to choose like what you feel is right, what you feel is right in your gut, your intuition, help to guide you to what does that sound like? What does that feel like for you? Let's figure out what that feeling is like so that you know what you're listening to. And let's keep that going because I feel like that usually won't ever steer you wrong. And if you decide that this kind of birth or that kind of birth, whether it's medicated, unmedicated, if that's for you, I'm all for it. Like I'm there for it. As long as you're trusting your gut and your intuition and making the best choice for you, and kind of teaching you how to advocate for you, and your body and your baby, because as a parent, guess what? Advocating for your child is so important when they start going to school, if they're in daycare, like you're always going to be advocating, right? And teaching them to follow their gut. So it's kind of like giving them the skills there in pregnancy and in birth to continue as they transition into parenthood. So I do work with a lot of clients. I don't advertise or market for this. It just so happens. Maybe it happens for good reason. I do get a lot of medical professionals. So, nurses, physicians, like NICU providers, maternal fetal medicine. I end up with these. Maybe it's the evidence based stuff mixed with other stuff that's appealing, but, they, a lot of times, which is normal based on what they see is they want to get a baby scale. They want to get the outlet sock. They want to get all of these things to like, make sure they're depending on science and fact and data. They're depending on the black and white on paper to keep their baby alive and healthy and thriving. I don't judge it. Totally understand because that's their learned experience. That's where they're coming from. I take great pride in actually teaching them. You can learn to communicate with your baby and you can learn to follow their cues. And you will be just fine. Like if you learn to communicate and trust your baby early on, it's actually going to foster positive attachment. It's going to foster positive bonding and it's going to foster your confidence in parenting because when they're older and it's not a matter of like a weighted feed. What does that look like? How do you trust your gut and what parenting choices to make? Or how do you listen and communicate effectively with our child to hear what they're saying and communicating to you? And so for me, that's turned into like a huge part of my postpartum and birth work. It's all kind of comes down to that. Advocacy and confidence and following your gut, regardless of what's going on so that not only do you carry that through birth and your birth experience, but you carry that through your transition into postpartum and into parenthood because you'll always need to rely on those skills and positive bonding and attachment. We all know it's like huge. It's really important. So if I can affect the family unit and like bring those skills and build a parent's confidence going into parenthood, like that's my dream come true. That I've, I've done what I need to do. That's it.

Kiona:

That sounds awesome. And I hear the underlying kind of tagline being like, follow your gut and intuition and let that kind of lead you through the decisions that you make. I think that's great. So, what is one piece of advice that you would give to all pregnant people to prepare for labor, birth, and postpartum?

Rachelle:

Yes. Quick answer is mindset. Mindset work is so important. I wish I'd had, like, a doula and a team. If I were pregnant and had kids again, 100%, I'd be surrounding myself with the whole team. obviously, I'm a little bit biased now, but that would be my answer. But before, I feel like what allowed me to be so successful is that part of my nerdy personality that really dug in and did the research. And so I was reading and watching. Hours upon hours upon hours of positive birth stories. I wasn't listening to the negative. I wasn't listening to the scary. Yes. I knew like, here are the risks, here are the benefits. I was digging into the data, into studies and what I could understand, to make decisions, but mindset was huge. Like that really lended a lot of weight towards feeling positive that I could trust my body to do what I needed to do. I could trust my baby. I could trust my body. I could trust myself. and so that mindset I feel like is 85 percent maybe more of what birth is like, yeah, there's physical preparation you could do. But if I tell people, if you don't do any physical prep, if you eat chips on your couch, the entire pregnancy, not recommended, not always healthy, right? But let's say you did that. If your mindset is on point, like if you're super focused on staying in that positive mindset, you have the negative naysayers, you're kind of pushing away. That is what you lean on when times get tough in labor. especially with unmedicated. So that would be my huge piece of advice is don't let the mindset piece go because it's extremely important, medicated and unmedicated.

Kiona:

Yeah, I agree with you in saying that, your psychological preparation is just as impactful, if not more important, than your physical preparation for birth. So my next question is, if you could describe your births with one word, what would it be?

Rachelle:

I have two words and I can't choose between the two.

Kiona:

Give me two.

Rachelle:

I'm going to say, obviously, life altering would be one. And then the other I think would be everlasting. Because obviously they can be life altering one way or the other, but birth sticks with you like no other. Everyone can recall their birth story. I feel like, and it's so important, like avoiding birth trauma, to the best of your ability is so important because it really, these birth stories are woven into who we are. It's just. That's what I feel like it's everlasting.

Kiona:

I think that, Your second birth experience, from hearing it, it doesn't sound like it was traumatic for you. It sounds like it was a lot, but I don't hear you saying trauma. would you agree with that?

Rachelle:

What's funny is my son's was traumatic in a different way. So my son's like in the middle of it, as I was going through it, I felt like from the NICU on, it was traumatic. The postpartum journey was more traumatic. Definitely with postpartum depression, looking back probably didn't help the situation. With my daughters, I think the relief of the postpartum period and having a completely different postpartum period alleviated a lot of that feeling. So I don't feel like I had the layers of potential depression or anything there, but the speed and the fear that I felt, how quickly the labor went, and how much fear and how intense that felt. It actually took me longer to get over and process that than it did with my son. And so looking back, I feel way more resolved with my daughters than my sons. But it's really interesting. It took me longer. I didn't really talk about my daughter's birth story for a long time, or I would talk about it and people would say, Oh, you're so lucky. It was so fast. Like you got over it. And it was like 42 minutes or whatever. Like that's easy. And then I was like, you weren't there though. Like the trauma of it going so fast and not being able to wrap your mind about it and feeling her feet come out and not knowing if I was delivering a baby that was alive or not was like another level of trauma that was different from my son's. So I'm glad you asked that because Precipitous birth does, I believe, come with a different level of trauma and processing.

Kiona:

Yeah, I would agree with that. I've never had a precipitous birth, but I have talked to many people who have, and they are kind of along the same lines of Yeah, it was quick, but it was intense, and it was scary, and it was way too fast.

Rachelle:

Yes, I would have, I would have much rather had, my seven hour labor than that labor, but then again, I trust that that labor occurred that way for a reason. So,

Kiona:

Right, right. Well, I have one more question for you. What is one resource that we can share with our listeners on your behalf?

Rachelle:

yeah, tons of resources, obviously, but, I always like to throw spinning babies in there. Spinning babies is an excellent resource for anyone, any shape, way, or form, but I think the one I'd like to focus on is, Postpartum Support International. So PSI is what it goes by. It's an organization that focuses on postpartum mental health. And not only do they have a ton of resources for the birthing person, they also have worked really, really hard to develop a ton of resources for the partners. And so we do see postpartum depression in partners and postpartum anxiety. Just as we do in the birthing people. So there has been limited support in the past and now there are groups and warm lines that you can call for partners. And it's like a ton of resources now. And so it's incredible to see. So I feel like that's something everyone should have bookmarked, postpartum support international, and just have just in case for you or your partner.

Kiona:

Yeah, I love both of those resources. I definitely utilize spinning babies, even without having a breached baby. it just really gets you to understand your body and it also helps with like better positioning and presentation for baby. and I also really do love PSI because I did notice that they are doing more things for partners and I think that is extremely important on top of still having amazing resources for the birthing people themselves. So I agree and thank you for sharing those resources. but Rachelle, I want to say thank you so much for sharing your amazing stories with me. They are both completely different adventures and it goes to show that each pregnancy, labor and birth is different, even if it's being done by the same individual. So thank you so much and I really appreciate you.

Rachelle:

Thank you so much for having me. This has been such a blessing to be here and chat with you today and share, share my story for anyone that this may help or impact or just, just enjoys listening.

Kiona:

Yeah. And I just also, I just want to say again, thank you for teaching me as well as many of our listeners about the uterus didelphys because that is new to me and I've learned so much from that as well as everything else in your story. So I appreciate you.

Rachelle:

Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. If anyone is ever needing to reach out, I'm always an open book there and happy to share my journey.

Kiona:

Awesome. Thank you. Interviewing Rachlle for this episode brought me so much joy. I learned so much from her and she is so willing to share her stories and I truly, truly appreciate it. Rachelle, thank you so much for sharing your stories and for teaching all of the listeners, something new. As for you listeners, I would love to learn more about how you feel about this episode. So go ahead and join the Birth As We Know It Podcast Community on Facebook so we can talk about it. And remember if you want to support the birth, as we know it podcast, you can become a patron on Patreon. You can do this by going to https://www.patreon.com/BirthAsWeKnowItPodcast For next week's episode, I interviewed Katie Saunders. Katie is the owner of Peaceful Birth Doula Services. And she shares her three very different birth experiences with us on the podcast. She had two vaginal births and her third ended up in an unexpected cesarean. So tune in next week, because you're not going to want to miss the details. All right, bye. For now.

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Kiona Nessenbaum

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