Gina: Welcome to the MamasteFit podcast. Today is a very special episode that I know a lot of you have been anxiously awaiting. It is Roxanne’s birth story of baby number three, baby Joan.
Roxanne: Very excited.
Gina: You’re also very excited to share the really exciting birth story.
Roxanne: First day back at work, forgot how to do things…
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Gina: So I think Joan’s birth story starts with me getting my nails done, hoping to do a good luck thing for baby Joan by getting Virgo nails. And so I went to my nail lady and I was like, Hey, I got to get my nails done. And I want them to be Virgo theme to encourage baby Joan to expedite her arrival. Roxanne was like almost 40 weeks.
And I was super excited. I went and showed Roxanne my nails, and apparently we were not in Virgo, we were in Leo. And Virgo didn’t start for like another week.
Roxanne: Virgo didn’t start until I think it was like Tuesday or Wednesday.
Gina: So I told my other birth client who was due like a week later that the nails were for her. So they weren’t wasted.
But let’s go ahead and get started with Joan’s birth story.
Roxanne: So, I guess we’ll start, we had a psychic who told Gina when she was gonna go into labor. So, she reached out, and she’s like, August 22nd is the day that you’re gonna have your baby. And I was like, perfect. That actually works out really well for me.
One, my two kids would be, or my three kids would be separated by the same amount of distance, 25 months and 25 days. And then we had a photo shoot scheduled for Sunday and I was like, great, I could get all of this work done before baby comes.
Gina: I think I put it in my calendar. We were all like, the baby’s coming Tuesday.
Roxanne: We got pretty confident in her reading August 22nd. So this is like Thursday or Friday. And then Saturday, August 19th, which, surprise, her birthday, I woke up around, like, 3 a. m. and I was like, Oh, my back kind of hurts. Oh, and my belly is cramping a little bit. I probably just didn’t drink enough water.
But maybe let me time them a little bit and they’re like four to ten minutes apart and I was like whatever it’s fine I’ll just drink a bunch of water and I went back to sleep. So like between 3 and around like 7 a. m I like would wake up periodically from a, now I know contraction, drink a ton of water in hopes that I was just dehydrated because literally the next day was our photo shoot that we needed to do that, like, we had just kept pushing off for my, like, entire third trimester.
7 a. m. rolls around, and they did not stop from 3 to 7. So I get up from all of the water that I had just been consuming for the past four hours. I finally get up around 7, go pee, and I was like, oh, they’ll slow down. They did not slow down when I went up to pee. They got worse. So I text Gina, and I was like, I could just be dehydrated, but…I think it could be labor, but I don’t really know because denial is my strong suit in labor.
But I had really wanted to shower because I fell asleep the night before, early, before I got to take a shower. So I like wake up and I was like, I don’t even care if I’m not in labor. I’m just going to make sure I take a shower today.
Our house was still under construction, so I had no shower because we didn’t have a hot water heater yet, I think. So I had to walk down from my house to my parents’ house to take a shower there. And I like walk in, and it’s like 7: 20, my mom is like, Are you okay? And I was like, I mean, I might be contracting, I might just be dehydrated, but I’m just gonna, I’m just here to take a shower and wrap the gifts that I got for Colin and Lily for when they come to the hospital, just in case.
And I kept saying, like, it’s probably nothing, but I’m just gonna do this just in case. So I took a shower, again, kept having contractions all through my shower, and this is like a full shower where I was like washing my hair, not just like washing my face and body, because like, that could have waited, but like my hair, this was, Fridays are my days to wash my hair usually, and I did not do that obviously on Friday. Get out of the shower, wrap the presents. My mom is like freaking out a bit because she really wanted to lay down her sod that she bought, that she sent my dad to go get at 7 a. m. Um, so she’s like, oh no, oh no, which is like a theme in like every labor is our mom, is our mom just going, “oh no,” panicking a little bit when we’re in early labor.
Um, and I was like, “Mom, you can plant your sod, like it’ll be okay. I’m just going to continue wrapping these presents. Do you have any wrapping paper and tape though? That’d be great.” My dad is like, “Oh, she’s fine. Like she seems pretty chill. Like, you’ve got a while.” As we know, I did have a while at 7am because I didn’t have her for 12 more hours, but my husband then I was like, well, he should probably get up because he has neglected to pack his hospital bag at all.
My bag has been packed for like four weeks at this point. None of his stuff is in it. So then he, I like call him and I was like, “You should probably pack your bag because they’re not stopping.” He’s like, “So I need you to be like more confident in your decisions. Like. Do I need to get up and pack my bag and then we’re going to the hospital or like you keep being like hey like ‘You might need to pack your bag right now like but it’s probably nothing,’ I need you to be like pack your bag right now,” and I was like “Pack your bag right now.” He doesn’t like my like wishy washiness during labor, but that’s just me. So around like 8: 30, I finally get back to the house after like showering. I think my mom fed me something and then packing the presents. My husband runs to also take a shower. So now we’re waiting for him to get back from taking a shower. And Gina’s like, “Do you want to go film those reels at the gym?” And I was like, “Honestly, yeah, like it’s going to be a while.
Like this isn’t real labor. So let’s go film those reels at the gym.” And Gina’s like, “But we don’t have to go. Are you sure? Like, you could just stay home. It’s not a big deal, but I’m also on your way, on my way to your house.” And I’m like, “Okay, yeah, I’ll go. It’s fine. Again, this isn’t real labor. So like, it’ll be fine.”
We get to the gym. I think we were here for an hour filming those reels that you all loved my romper in. It’s a Free People romper. It’s great. And then I did my mid pelvis labor prep workout that also everybody saw on Instagram, if you haven’t, we’ll link them below and then Patrick came and picked me up because Gina still had like 30 more minutes at the gym because she was coaching that day and we did have someone at the gym.
Gina: I had texted everyone that morning who I knew normally came and they all said that they were not coming. And then a random, I guess she’s not random, but someone I was not expecting to show up on Saturday just like happened to show up and we’re like, “Hey, so you can stay, but we might have to leave at some point during this and just lock the door when you, when you get out.“
So she kind of expedited her workout and left shortly after that. By the end, Roxanne was like, “I need to go. Like, I think things are picking up for me.”
Roxanne: At 10:30, I was like, yeah, it’s getting uncomfortable just sitting here at the gym waiting for Gina. I can’t do this for another 30 minutes. Patrick came, picked me up, and then we went to Gina’s house because that’s where all the kids were going to get watched.
At Gina’s house. They had a great time, but that’s a side note. We got to Gina’s house. I hadn’t really eaten, like, a big breakfast, so this is now, like, 11 o’clock, so four hours later, I was like, I should eat something, and then we can go to the hospital, because again, Patrick’s like, I need you to not have your baby in this car, so we need to go earlier than you think we need to go, because it’s an hour drive, and I was like, okay, okay, sir, so I was like, We’ll eat some food.
I ate a Lunchable. It was delicious. Gina was panicking, though, and ate nothing.
Gina: I don’t, what I remember what
Roxanne: I don’t know what she was doing.
Gina: I think I was just getting stuff together.
Roxanne: She was panic packing her doula bag. Because, again, we thought it was going to be August 22nd.
Gina: Like, I thought I had more time. And then you were like, “We need to leave now.” And I was like, “I didn’t eat. I didn’t bring a Lunchable.”
Roxanne: Which is funny because I thought, I was like, I’m gonna eat this Lunchable and then we’re gonna go. And then I ate the Lunchable, like, pretty slowly, and still nobody ate anything.
Gina: We were all panicking.
Roxanne: Patrick, Patrick ate something.
Gina: I didn’t.
Roxanne: He prioritizes eating more than us. But then we had an hour drive in the car. So this is like 11 I’m going to say 1130 to 1230 is when we get to the hospital. Patrick actually sped. I didn’t, I was in my own, I was in my own zone with my eyes closed as we were driving.
He’s like,” I was doing like above the speed limit.” Very, very, he’s like, “We got to the hospital in record time.” Like 50 minutes. Very fast. Panic driving. And we get there. And I was 4 centimeters. But a hundred percent of face, but minus two station and like we had to go to triage, they checked me in triage, Gina had to wait in the waiting room, Brittany and my mom met them in the waiting room.
And then they admitted us to labor and delivery, so a bit early, a lot earlier than my previous two labors showing up. But again, Patrick was very concerned as well as I that a baby was going to be born in the car, so we wanted to get there earlier. Knowing that, like, this hospital is very supportive of, like, low intervention, normal physiologic birth.
The midwife that was on was amazing, so I felt pretty confident that it was okay to go early. Felt safe to go early. I also really wanted to utilize that tub. It was a really beautiful birthing. It was beautiful. Very, very beautiful. My mom kept commenting on how beautiful. She was like, why birth anywhere else?
Gina: It was like, by far the most beautiful labor and delivery suite in all of the Triangle region of North Carolina. Yeah. So if you are located in the Triangle region, go to Wake Med Cary, because the hospital is absolutely gorgeous. There’s a mural painted on the wall, like a soft gray, beautiful, big windows.
It feels very like soft and pink and clean. And, you know, I don’t, I don’t know what it is about the vibe of the room. And it’s just, and the tub? Very nice.
Roxanne: The tub was really nice. And like the aesthetics of the bathroom was also really nice. Obviously that’s not really important for like birthing, but like it made, I appreciated it as I was in the bathroom.
Like it’s not like, don’t go to another hospital because their bathroom isn’t pretty, but I appreciated it when I was in labor for a while. So this is, we probably got to the room around 1 p. m., but let me look, I forgot we took notes. So yes, we got into the room around 1. I didn’t get into the tub initially because I wanted to just kind of like walk around the room and like really enjoy the tub after laboring in the room.
I didn’t need too much support. I started on the ball. I mean, I was still talking and laughing in between contractions, so still probably early, early labor. But, around 1: 45 I just, I got into the tub and I loved it. We did probably make the water maybe a little too warm for laboring, but it’s fine because I loved it.
We did discuss how I wanted to have an accidental water birth. But obviously that did not happen and we were just laughing about it, make the time pass by. I think this is when Gina and Brittany decorated the room with fairy lights that I brought to kind of like, cause I think the, the sun was still out, but eventually the sun goes down.
So having them out there was really nice.
When I first got to the hospital, her heart rate on the monitor wasn’t as reassuring to do intermittent monitoring as the midwife wanted. It looked fine, like she was having what are called accelerations, which are increases in their heart rate above the baseline.
Um, and these are signs that baby is well oxygenated at that time. But she was having those, but like the variability in her heart rate was like minimal. So she could have been in a sleep cycle. But they wanted to check back in 30 minutes just to get another, like, 10, 20 minutes tracing to see if she, like, had, like, woken up or it had improved.
So we did intermittent monitoring for, like, one hour and then went back on the monitor for, like, 20 minutes. I think that was another reason why I didn’t get into the tub initially, because I knew I had to do that monitoring. But she looked great after that, so then the rest of my entire labor, I had intermittent monitoring, where they just came and listened to her heart rate with a Doppler for a portion of my labor.
It was like 5 to 10 seconds, depending on like where I was and how long it took the nurse to find her heart rate. And the entire time during labor, her heart rate sounded great. Which was reassuring to me. But while I was in the tub, she would come in occasionally, listen to Baby, uh, and she was a very nice nurse.Gina: She was very nice. She was very nice.
Roxanne: She was very nice.
Gina: Sometimes there’s too many chefs in the kitchen, I find, and I don’t know if she’s listening to this podcast, I want you to know that we really like you, and we think that you’re a wonderful nurse. She started giving, like, a lot of movement recommendations. Which was like a little frustrating for me because I’m the doula I’m there to help provide Roxanne movement recommendations if she needs them and then Brittany was also there taking photos and Brittany is also a doula. I would, she would come in and give like four or five movement recommendations of like “You should try this and this and this,” when Roxanne was not necessarily like not coping well or not knowing what position to do. So there was no like reason to give a recommendation and both Brittany and I like informed her, like, “Hey, like Roxanne’s a labor and delivery nurse. We are both doulas. Like we, we got the movement. Like we got it. Like we, we really appreciate what you’re trying to…”
Roxanne: And I think, like, I know that she is a good nurse, that she’s making these recommendations because in that situation, like for a patient that is going unmedicated and potentially does need recommendations who is not as knowledgeable or like prepared for it as much as we have prepared for birth, those suggestions would have been very helpful because like if I was like, “Oh, I’m just going to sit on this ball and have this baby,” and having the knowledge of like, Oh, you can do these lift and tucks or you can do these lunges or like you can use this stool like she even like tried to find the stool that we had already taken out to be like, “This is another option for a movement.”
And that’s really like It’s really great as a nurse to be able to, like, have that knowledge and provide that. But we had a lot of people already in the room.
Gina: It was just …
Roxanne: Who would have done that.
Gina: It was like an extra person giving recommendations and talking to you that didn’t need to be talking. Like, she was interrupting you because she was trying to be helpful.
And it came from a good place. And I don’t want her to not do it to other patients because I think it’s an amazing thing that she’s doing. But when we told her, like, “Hey, like. There’s two doulas in the room. Roxanne’s a labor and delivery nurse. She’s not in any way displaying that she needs any movement recommendations. Yeah. Please stop.” Because she would just come in and talk to you for like five minutes about all the things that you could do. And that can get really overwhelming for somebody who’s like, starting to transition to active labor, if you give them too much, then you’re giving them all these decisions and it’s like, what is it? Decision fatigue or overload?
Roxanne: Giving one recommendation at a time.
Gina: If I am supporting a birth, because I mean, you pretty much knew all the movements that you wanted to do. But if I’m supporting a birth and someone says, “Hey, I need, I don’t know what movement to do,” or I can see that they’re starting to struggle a little bit. Or that the movement that they’re doing is not helping them anymore.
I’ll give them like one movement recommendation, like, “Hey, you know, why don’t we try this?” Like, or “Would you like this? Like, or do you want this comfort measure?” Like, so I give them like one option and they could either say yes or no to that. But I’m not going to give them like eight options, which is kind of what she was doing, which again, very helpful.
I’m glad she’s doing it. She’s being a very proactive nurse. I know that there are a lot of patients that have really good experiences because of her. It was just one of those, like, please read the room. And then it was also like, I actually asked the midwife. I was like, does she not know who we are? Like, cause all of the nurses are always fangirling over us, which is always really funny.
So Roxanne’s like, birth gift to the nurses. I was like, we should just print out photos of ourselves and sign them.
Roxanne: I honestly didn’t. I didn’t even end up giving the gift that I bought everybody. So I, um, Patrick and I are going to bring it when I have my six weeks.
Gina: Um, so I was like, “Does this nurse not know who we are? Is that why she’s giving us all these movement recommendations?” She did not know who we are.
Roxanne: She was, she was very sweet. And she would come in just like periodically, obviously give those recommendations, but like, listen to baby’s heart rate, give me some, like, verbal affirmation, like, “You’re doing great,” and then leave. And she would only come in every 30 minutes. So it’s like she was not like coming in super often.
And it’s only every 30 minutes, because that’s how often you have to listen for intermittent monitoring. But I got, I was in the tub for probably about like 40 minutes, and then got out because I did get a little hot. Um, so that is the one thing with like hydrotherapy, when you’re using like warm and hot water, you should only be, it should be warm water.
If you ever start to feel hot, that is when you should get out. Because that means that your temperature, like your body temperature is potentially getting too high. Um, and that’s when babies aren’t, probably don’t like it as much when you are also hot. So I got out of the tub once I started, like, really sweating and feeling uncomfortably hot.
And then I started, again, walking around the room. I think I stood for a while, did some lunges. My mom started giving me, like, back massages. And she’s, like, an amazing massage person. It’s, like, we like it, like, deep, just vigorous, deep pressure and she, she’s like, I have amazing fingers. Like, she’s like, my Korean hands are amazing.
Gina: I have good hand skills.
Roxanne: So she started giving me like massages and I started needing like a lot more like hip squeezes, jiggling, and like butt massages, because that’s like, my lower back and hips is where I was feeling like all of my contractions and I would start in my back and then wrap around to my lower belly and it was just not a great time.So I was like, Gina thinks around 3:30-4:00 is when I hit active labor. So again, this is like three hours after I got to the hospital. That I was able to labor completely on my own, really, without any sort of intervention. I get into the shower at this point, and this is when I’m, like, starting to not cope as well.
Because you, like, last time with Colin, we were at the birth center for, like, three hours, and then I started pushing, and we had a baby. With Lily, it’s a little different, because that was just, like, a crazy portion, but, like, active labor was, like, three hours. So in my mind, once I hit like three hours at the hospital, I was like, why has this not happened yet?
But, we got there early. In hindsight, I understand why I hadn’t, nothing had happened yet, but I was still very sad. And I was, I’m always concerned, as a labor and delivery nurse, and like, from MamasteFit, I know all of the things are a sign that something could be wrong, and I just convince myself every time that my back pain is because something’s wrong, even though that’s just, I mean, third time, same exact, it’s the same exact thing, but I convince myself every time that my baby’s in a bad position, my baby is too big, and I need to some, like, how fix it, or, like, this labor is never going to progress.
So four o’clock is when I started to have these fears. I’m in the shower for probably like 30 minutes, and then that’s when I get out, and I’m like, I need to do an inversion. So we get on the bed, this is when we do an inversion for three contractions, and I will say, potentially, there was maybe, like, a mental block by just doing the inversion, it helped my labor progress.
Um, maybe it was her position, I have no idea. The first inversion didn’t suck as much, and then every single one got worse, and like, the contraction felt more intense. I was like, well, maybe her position was off and that’s why this labor is progressing more or I’m going to be in labor forever and it’s never going to end.
So then after the inversion, we did some forward leading movements and I think we actually did do shaking the apple tree with the scarf, which felt really nice. And then did some lunges. And then finally, I think I got back into the shower, and while I was in the shower, like, my back pain was still there, but the hip pain felt, like, lower in my hips.
Like, in, like, the sides of my hips. I remember Gina, during her labor, shortly before she started pushing, like, maybe 10 minutes before when she was like in the tub and she’s just like “My lower hips hurt” and so my mom and I are just like massaging her lower hips and I was like, “Oh, finally!” In my head, I was like, “Oh finally I’m having that same pain!”
Gina: So I had it a little bit before 10 minutes. It was like an hour or so before.
Roxanne: But I remembered.
Gina: But still, yeah, it was near, baby was low. That was, and usually started pushing shortly after that.
Roxanne: Yeah, so I was like, “Oh, okay.” So I think I did one more contraction in the shower, and then I still had that same pain.
So I was like, I need to get in the tub because I’m gonna have a baby in the tub. After that, we, I got out of the shower, got into the tub. And then while I was there, I just felt like I had this intuition, I guess, just like feeling like maybe like the front part of my body, I had been doing so many like forward leaning type movements where like my hips were closed.
So I was like, maybe I should just like stretch the front part of my body. Because I think I was in the tub for a while, again, not having fun, well, not having not, it’s not fun, but like not having the greatest of time. And then I finally did, it’s almost like hip flexor stretch in the tub. And I think I did two contractions in that position and I felt on the second one that I was like pushing a little bit.
And I was like, oh, interesting. And I think I said something to Gina, but I was like, but it wasn’t like a ton of, it wasn’t like fetal ejection reflex type pushing, it was like, oh, like maybe she shifted or something. And it felt more comfortable to even like hold the contraction in that position. And so like I stayed there for, I can’t even remember, I stayed there for a little bit, but eventually started pushing in the tub and the midwife was there.
And I was like, in my head, I was like, oh, she’s gonna make me get out of the tub. And I was like, oh no. And so I just started apologizing because I was like, I’m not getting out of this tub because I don’t want to move. In my head, I’m like, the water’s really nice. And also, I don’t think I could stand up right now, even if I tried.
So I just start saying, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. And she’s like, It’s fine. She’s so nice, and I’m like, I’m so sorry. This is so weird for me. Because it, like, with Colin, I technically pushed for an hour with Colin, but it wasn’t, like, again, like, hard pushing the entire time. I was, like, I feel like it was, like, half pushing until I stood up, my water broke, and he literally, like, fell through my pelvis at that point and was crowning, born within, like, a minute. If that.
With Joan, that did not happen. I did not stand up and my water break and she fell out. So that was hard for me to accept in the moment and I ,was very upset about it and Gina’s like, “It’s fine! You just have to let this happen. Every birth is different.” I was like, “I want it to be the same! Why isn’t it this the same?!”
Cuz this is like six o’clock at by this point So like we had been at the hospital for six hours and I’m like, where is this child and I would check myself periodically just to like see where her head was like cervical dilation means nothing, but I would check to see like where she was in my pelvis and every time I felt like she was so high, like she had not dropped at all.
Obviously, I know she did drop, but like I felt like she had not moved in any sort of way towards the out, the exit. It was pissing me off. Even when I was pushing so eventually like pushed in the tub for maybe like 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes. Didn’t like it. Just started to feel uncomfortable being in the tub and pushing.
Because again, I only pushed for like one minute in the tub with Colin really. And then got out because he was born. I think at one point I like got out of the position that I was in and like my butt wasn’t even in the tub. And Gina just kept being like, “Roxanne, you’re not in the tub. You have to actually get in the water if you want to stay in the tub.”
And I was like, “I’m not moving, stop telling me what to do.”
Gina: So if you’re having a water birth, you don’t want your baby to be like, born halfway in the water. Because you don’t want them to like, take a breath. And so it’s important that they’re either fully submerged, or you stand up and you get out. So Roxanne was kind of teetering between the two.
And so I was like, “Well, you need to make a decision. You either need to sit down or you need to get out of this, this tub.”
Roxanne: In my head, I was like, my baby is nowhere near the exit yet, Gina. So like, it’s going to be fine. Let me just lift my butt up.” But also I was like in the motions of trying to get out of the tub.
It just took me a while to get there. It took me like three contractions. I feel like just to actually stand up fully. Finally got out of the tub, walked to the side of the bed and pushed at the side of the bed because it just felt better. Again, pushed at the side of the bed for like maybe 10 minutes. She did, was not near the exit still.
Even after pushing for forever, I felt like my butt was gonna explode. So then this is the point where doing lower, like mid pelvis openers could be beneficial because I was pushing for a while. So like doing a lower mid pelvis opener could work to help create more space for her to come into that lower pelvis,
and this is when the nurse did recommend, “Would you want to do sidelying release?”
Gina: This was after she made a lot of other recommendations.
Roxanne: But, again, this was the perfect… When she said that, and then the midwife was like, that could be really helpful to do that for three contractions. And I was like, you know, I don’t really want to, but I’ll try it.
Gina: And then they put you in it, and then nobody stayed in front of you.
Roxanne: I mean, my eyes, at this point, like, my eyes were closed, because I was like… “This, this baby is never coming out, like I’m gonna push for three hours because this is third baby,” but Gina, Gina held on to me. And Gina did put pressure on my hips where I was feeling like when I would have a contraction, she would like push.
She was pushing down on my hips, which felt really, really nice as well. Um, and also prevented me from falling off of the bed.
Gina: That they abandoned you in….
Roxanne: So held that for three contractions, and I didn’t feel the urge to push once I laid down, which was really nice, so I didn’t have to worry about, like, trying to push while in side lying release.
So I did that on the right side. So I was laying on my right side, three contractions, and then, like, slowly rolled back onto my back, and then moved, I think I moved into hands and knees at this point. I did do hands and knees where I was like slightly inverted. Um, so it was like more like a puppy pose hands and knees because I was on my forearms for like two or three contractions and my water broke in that moment as well.
And so in my head, I was like, oh, my water broke. So this is, this is helping. This position’s helping. And Gina’s like, you’re working against gravity. You should probably sit up. And I was like, I know you’re right.Gina: But the midwife did announce there’s meconium in the fluid and you got pretty upset.
Roxanne: Well, I’m a labor and delivery nurse always at heart, so whenever I hear, like, I know, obviously, meconium can be completely normal, a normal part of, like, pregnancy. I was one day past my due date, so, like, if they just run out of room, and honestly, this girl poops so much, like, she probably honestly just ran out of room, and it just came out. So, yes, so, after my water broke and they announced that there was meconium in the fluid, the nurse did, like, you always have to listen to the baby’s heart rate once the water breaks, just to make sure that the baby is okay.
Um, and like a cord hasn’t like slipped through suddenly. Or like the baby hasn’t like flown through the pelvis and is having like a heart rate deceleration. And her heart rate was great at this point. So that reassured me that she was fine, but it still freaked me out. It’s just who I am as a person.
It’s funny because when other people have meconium, I’m like, it’s totally fine. Like, we will monitor baby when they come out. All these people will come in and we will take care of it. For me, mental breakdown when meconium was present. So I’m in the bed, Gina’s telling me to lunge, I’m telling her to shut up, and then eventually I get onto my side to push and…
That was just the most comfortable to like actually, I felt like I was able to actually like relax all of my body. I don’t know how long I pushed on my side.
Gina: Time is magic.
Roxanne: Yeah, who knows? She did not crown as long as Lily did, thankfully. I do remember that. I felt like Lily crowned for like 45 minutes. It wasn’t that long, but it felt really long, but she did not.
I think she finally went under my pubic bone because it like took forever. I felt like I was pushing and I was like, can anyone even see her? And everyone’s like, “No,” “How long have I been pushing?! And you, no one can even see a little bit of her head at all?!” And everyone’s like, “No, sorry. You’re doing great, sweetie.”
And I was like, God damn it. So then once I was on my side, I feel like we could actually start to see her head. And that was. Very motivating for me to actually be able to see her head and I was able to actually like touch her head at and that was great feedback for me as I was pushing to like, feel that she was actually making progress.
I feel like it was like maybe four or five more pushes once we are starting to see her head that she was actually born. It was still so cool, and the midwife was, like, super supportive of me still, like, pulling her up to my chest. So I was feeling for her head to, like, know when to, like, grab her little shoulders, but once her head came out, it was a lot for me.
So once I pushed her shoulders out, that’s when I was able to like actually reach down and the midwife even kind of like handed her to me. So like we have a picture of it and it’s my favorite picture.
I thought that she was going to be a chunky baby just based off of like how big my belly was and how I like felt like my pelvis felt and um, as soon as I pulled her up to my belly and saw her like chunky little cheeks, I was like, “Oh, she’s so chubby!”
I didn’t think she was going to be as big as she actually was, but like seeing her like little cheeks made me, one, understand why the hell she took an hour to come out because she had to pave a bigger path than her brother.
So they say, like, your body will remember having a baby, like, a certain size for, like, four to five years. And if, so, like, if you wait, like, four to five years between having kids in general, it’s, like, you’re basically starting over, they say, like your body is like, forgotten what it was like, so potentially your labors could be like the exact same, cause it’s like having the first baby again. So with my daughter, it was like over four years ago that I had an eight pound, three ounce baby.
So my body was like, oh, we make seven pound babies, because that’s how big my son was. And Joan was eight pounds, eight ounces, so the path needed to be repaved.
Gina: Both my last two were seven eleven. They were the same. And they flew out. They both flew out very quickly. No. But, so Roxanne’s second birth, she was like a serene birther, like very in control, very calm, like what I strive to be with my birth.
But I have accepted that that’s not how I give birth. I am not a serene birthing goddess. I am chaos, clawing, hanging on for dear life, fetal ejection reflex, out of body experience. I’m just there for the ride I’m gonna lay down because this is, that’s all I can do at this point to relax and accept this experience.
And so Roxanne had a very similar pushing to me, where it was chaos, out of body. She was like, “I do not like this. I do not like this.”
Roxanne: But it’s like, I did not mentally prepare to have an hour long pushing of fetal ejection reflex. I had prepared for Colin’s fetal ejection reflex, which was five minutes.
So when I started pushing and like five minutes later, I still had a lot to go because she was still very high up in my pelvis. I was like, “This is bullshit. I don’t like this. I do not like this. I do not like this.” My back is still hurting. This is supposed to go away once I start pushing. It is still hurting, but no, it was a great experience after.
Obviously, she was born and placed in my belly. I do remember the nurse tried to suction, like use the bulb suction and I was like, “She’s okay. As I’m like wiping like the little bubbles that are out of her mouth,” I was like, no, I’m okay. She’s fine. As she’s crying as well. And she was like coming over to like suction her mucus out of her mouth.
And I’m like, she’s fine. I think it’s okay. Super nice about it. I was like, in my head, I was like, I really hope she didn’t, she wasn’t like that lady did not let me suction that baby out, but no, and I think we wanted to delay as long as possible, but like my bleeding was getting super heavy because probably like a portion of my placenta had detached, but not like fully.
I was just like bleeding from that little site, or I’m just a heavy bleeder, who knows. But the midwife was like, “So your bleeding’s pretty heavy, so I think we need to get your placenta out.” And at the hospital they don’t allow you to leave the placenta, like per their policy, they don’t allow you to stay connected to the baby after the placenta is born, because I did ask in a prenatal appointment.
So we did have to cut the cord earlier than anticipated, but she’s still like, it was probably like still three, four minutes of delaying, so she still got a lot of her blood and her placenta came out. Just fine. I always forget that the placenta, when, when it comes out, it’s, it’s a lot, it’s a lot of pressure, but it comes out again way easier, but it’s also coming out of a hole that a baby just came out of, so it can be a little sensitive, a little bit more sensitive than I, I feel like I forget what the placenta feels like until it’s coming out.
I was like, Oh yeah, I don’t. I didn’t love that. But because of my heavy bleeding, they did have to do some fundal massages quite often for my, my poor uterus. It sucked. Sucks. The postpartum nurses were very nice about it. They did do fundal assessments because my bleeding had slowed down on postpartum, but labor and delivery, I was still passing tons of clots and having very heavy bleeding.
So they did have to do lots of fundal massages. I kept grabbing the nurse’s hands to be like, can I just have a little break? I’m so sorry. Which is funny because that’s what when I was doing the same thing to patients who were like hemorrhaging as I’m rubbing their fundus and they’re just like grabbing my wrist to like pull it away because they’re like, Please stop.
I’m just like, I’m so sorry. I will give you a short break, but I need to start again when you’re ready. And this nurse, like my postpartum nurse after for like the postpartum recovery, because I did deliver right at change of shift. 7:17, right at change of shift, because that is what nurses do apparently, um, have change of shift babies.
So my labor nurse had, like she stayed for the birth and then snuck out because she was coming back the next day. So she’s like, I didn’t feel like I needed to like come over and say congratulations. You had a lot going on, but my postpartum nurse, this is like the first time I meet her, she’s like, “Hello, I’m going to rub your belly. I introduced myself earlier, but you were pushing a baby out.” And I was like, “Hello again,”
She’s like, “I’m sorry this is how we’re meeting.” I was like, “I’m so sorry too.” As she goes to rub my belly repeatedly for two hours. And I did have a lot of bleeding at birth. I think they said, like, my, like, delivery blood loss was around a hundred, not a hundred, one thousand, um, milliliters or one liter of blood.
But then they do not include all of the blood that you’re losing over the next 24 hours, which is heavier than usual for me, but still within a normal amount. So I probably lost a lot more than just one liter of blood, and I felt it. I had all these plans for postpartum to, like, take videos of, like, my peri kit and my peri perineal care bag.
Gina: Roxanne’s about to pass out taking a shower.
Roxanne: I just, I didn’t even take a shower. Like, I think with my previous hospital births, I took a shower and I felt fine. And so I was like, yeah, you know, I’ve had shampoo and conditioner and I literally, it was a struggle just to go to the bathroom and not pass out. Like, I wouldn’t go to the bathroom unless Patrick was in the room and awake, just in case.
Gina: Which is wild because your first birth, you like, almost, you fainted.
Roxanne: I did faint. I did faint.
Gina: And so for my next two births, whenever the midwife or birth assistant would ask me if I wanted to get up and go take a shower, Like an hour after birth, I was like, no, I need to lay down because I’m going to pass out, but I don’t lose as much blood as you.
Roxanne: No, Gina’s blood loss is very minimal
Gina: I would just pop up and be like, “Oh, just kidding.”
Roxanne: Yeah, yeah.
Gina: Apparently that’s not a thing.
Roxanne: No, but it’s funny because after, the first time I’ve gone to the bathroom after every birth, The first one I did pass out and like, shook on the bed, which you and my husband were very concerned, if you haven’t listened to Lily’s birth story, episode four? Three? I don’t know, one of the first episodes of our podcast, I think it’s four. And then, uh, with Colin, I just felt like I felt really faint, but I did not like my ears started to ring, like if anyone has like almost passed out or actually passed out and you feel like the sensation in your ears that your ears are like ringing and like, like tingly.
I started to feel that on my way back from the bathroom with Colin, but then by the time we left the birth center, I felt fine. With this one, the bathroom one was a lot further from the bed at Wake Med, um, the hospital. So I did have to walk a lot farther. But I walked there, peed, and then washed my hands.
As I was washing my hands, I started feeling that ear feeling. And I was like, I have a long way to walk. I need to go right now. And I literally, like, speed walked back to the bed and laid down. My nurse looked at me, she’s like, you, she’s like, “Are you okay?” I was like, “I might pass out. I’m just going to lay here for a second.”
She’s like, okay, lowers the head of my bed, gives me an alcohol wipe. And she’s like, “I’m going to be right here. Let me know when you feel better.” I did not feel great, but then I felt that way, like every time I would get up. And I was like, this is supposed to get better, like, why isn’t it getting better?
But I, at this point, did not realize how much blood I had actually lost until the next day when the midwife came to like do her like postpartum rounds. Like, because I was like, every time I go to the bathroom, like, this is like really annoying that I feel like I’m like gonna just fall to the ground. And then the next day she came in and she’s like, “Yeah, like, your blood levels have dropped a lot from when you first came into the hospital. This is how much you lost at birth.” And I was like, oh, that explains why I feel like utter crap. And then they let me go home.
Gina: Good luck!
Roxanne: Well, it’s, which is… Like, wild, because had I not been a nurse, and like, they knew I was a labor and delivery nurse, this is my third baby, they knew I really wanted to go home at 24 hours.
They were like, she knows when to go home. Like, she knows when to call for help, because this is like, her profession. So, they were like, trusting of me, which is cool. But like my one friend, she is the lactation consultant who came over and saw Joan a couple days later and she’s like, “I’m so shocked they let you go home.”
She’s like, “If anyone else was you in that position, we’re like, you couldn’t even go to the bathroom without feeling like you were going to like pass out. They would not have let you go home.” I was like, yeah. But it’s fine. I’m glad that I got to go home because I was, I mean, I was able to still walk from my room all the way to my car and I felt fine, but I did go straight to bed as soon as we got home.
And then, I mean, I’m now three, almost four weeks and I, today is the first day, first time that I’ve taken a shower and not felt like I was going to pass out during it. So. Wild.
Gina: Maternity leave over, your vacation has ended.
Roxanne: Just living it up in bed.
Gina: So we did get a bunch of questions on Instagram. The biggest one is, did you tear?
Roxanne: Oh, I did tear. So I had a first degree tear, which was the same exact tear that I had with Colin, but it did not need stitches. So, like, the first degree is, like, just the superficial skin. It can be varying degrees. So, like, Gina had a first degree with Eoghan that did need some stitches. They said mine did not so… and I’m not going to be one to argue with somebody to be ,like, “Please put some stitches in there!” Because no, no, no, thank you.
Gina: TENS unit. Did you use it? Is it worth it?
Roxanne: Yes, I used it. I should have used it more. Gina kept asking me and I was like, no, like. I don’t know why.
Gina: Some folks don’t like to use labor comfort measures until it’s like, because they feel like if they use it now, it’s going to waste it. People, some people think like they have like a time limit of like benefit from like a comfort measure.
And so they like try to postpone it and postpone it because they’re like, well, if I use it now, it’s not going to feel as good later. And I don’t find that to be.
Roxanne: Like, no, with the TENS unit, it’s actually the longer you use it, the more beneficial it is. Yeah. And I like forgot that in the moment. That’s exactly what I was like, well, like, I want to use it when my back is like actually like more uncomfortable and like it will actually like provide more relief for the back pain. But then I was also like in and out of the water and it’s like kind of painful pulling those like stickies off.
Gina: I was very aggressive the first removal, too. They were very sticky.
Roxanne: And then I was like kind of like afraid to put it back on because I was like, When I take it off…
Gina: They were very sticky.
Roxanne: Like, I don’t know what, like, maybe it was my shower, like, had gotten rid of all of my, like, protective layer.
So it was like, it was like waxing your back. It was very sticky.
Gina: I do find that TENS units are only super helpful if you have back labor. Cause for my births, when I’m trying it, it’s been like, eh, like, it hasn’t been like a game changer, but if you have back labor, TENS seems to be like money for folks.
Roxanne: So it was really great once I started to use it.
Gina: If you ever give birth again, will you do anything differently?
Roxanne: Um, maybe do that like hip opening thing I did in the tub earlier, potentially. I have no idea.
Gina: What’s your favorite part about the whole thing other than meeting your baby?
Roxanne: My favorite part is probably, and I think someone had asked us this in a message, is feeling supported by everyone around me, like fully. My husband is not a super emotional person, but during labor he’s always like the most emotional, emotionally like supportive.
With, like, verbally praising, like, “You’re doing amazing,” and, like, “You’re so great, and strong,” and, like, obviously, like, my mom and Gina are, “You’re so great,” like, massaging my head, and everything, like that, but also, it’s, like, I mean, everywhere that I’ve delivered, I’ve been fortunate to have great care teams, as well as support teams, and everyone just, like, I feel like, trusted me completely.
Like, I didn’t get a vaginal exam ever again during this labor, even when I was pushing, except when I was admitted. And so, like, they just trusted that I, my body knew what to do. So, I think that’s probably, like, one of my favorite parts.
Gina: The why behind unmedicated birth? Why did you want to have unmedicated births?
Roxanne: Um, I think for me, like, the unmedicated birth, was just something that I’ve always wanted to experience, like, with my first, I was, and I was always open to getting an epidural if I, like, changed my mind, but I wanted to, like, fully experience what labor was like so that I could understand when people do come in wanting an unmedicated birth, different ways to kind of support that, and then I always wanted to deliver at a birth center, um, so that was like Colin’s birth, and then this one, my, after my first two unmedicated births and feeling just like super badass afterwards, I was like, I liked that feeling.
And I also really enjoyed like being able to like get up to the bathroom like immediately after and like having full control of my body. I felt like in my head, I feel like if I had an epidural, like pushing would have taken like way longer with both Lily and Joan since they were bigger. Normal size, but just like on the bigger side of normal. So that’s kind of like my reason.
Gina: Um, what helped you the most for getting through the intensity? My amazing massages. Thank you.
Roxanne: Honestly, no. So it was a mix of hip squeezes and like jiggling. Those were like the two things that helped me the most. And then near the end, I think I started doing like abdominal lifts just like intuitively.
And that, those ones helped a lot with like that front pain that I was having a lot near the end. So those two things. Yeah, jiggling, great. I felt bad because my husband started to jiggle. I think Gina, Gina went to like drink water or something. I don’t know, as I was like starting a contraction. So my husband’s like, okay, I’ll jiggle. And I was like, “Please stop. Get Gina.” And I remember hearing Gina go, “Sorry, Patrick…”
Gina: “You’re still very valuable.”
Roxanne: Yeah, he was always great about like, I enjoyed squeezing his hands to like give me something to focus on other than the contractions. So that was, just like holding his hand was nice.
Gina: So with your postpartum hemorrhage, did the midwife recommend anything for you to help with the blood loss or the anemia?
Roxanne: So she did recommend resting to obviously recover, let my body recover. But also recommended taking iron supplements and then also eating iron rich foods. So like iron rich, like meats and then also cooking foods in a cast iron skillet because you get iron from a cast iron skillet. But also with iron, um, one of the side effects of like a lot of iron pills is constipation.
And the one of the scariest things that for postpartum, for me, maybe, maybe we should take a poll, um, is that first time you go to the bathroom to poop is terrifying. So I was like, I don’t want to take normal iron pills to constipate me. Are you kidding me? It’s already scary enough. So I took Needed iron pills.
So Needed created an iron pill that one doesn’t upset like your stomach very much. So some iron pills can cause like nausea and like it just doesn’t settle well in your stomach and then like constipation. So Needed didn’t really like cause constipation for me. And then it also is formulated in a way that your body absorbs it like more efficiently, uh, since we all like food and, like, supplements that we take in, we don’t absorb a large amount of the iron that we take in, in our actual body. Most of the iron that we, like, have in our system is just recycled, because when your blood cells break down, the, your body takes the iron, stores it in your body, and then reuses it when it makes new blood cells.
So, like, 95 percent of our iron is blood, is the iron that’s already circulating. So if you have a trauma that you lose all of that blood, like your body then has to replace all of that iron that it lost. But it can’t do it as well through your diet. It, like, takes a while to rebuild that iron, which is why it takes so long to recover from blood loss.
But having, like, food sources and then having the supplement from Needed that I’ve really liked is a way to rebuild that iron in a way that is more optimal for our bodies versus, like, taking these pills that have, like, constipation and, like, upset stomach, side effects, and then also your body doesn’t absorb it as well is something that I’ve been enjoying and I feel like has helped me recover.
Gina: So if you’re interested in some of Needed’s supplements, we use them throughout our pregnancies, throughout our postpartum periods. It’s some of our favorite supplements to take. We take their prenatal multi, we take their collagen, we take their stress support.
There’s so many different supplements that they offer that have been created with like tons of research and a lot of practitioner support. And so if you want to check out Needed and use code MAMASTEPOD to get 20 percent off your first order or your first three months of subscription, and we’ll link our affiliate link down in the show notes.
So thank you Roxanne for coming on our podcast and sharing your birth story of baby Joan. I know everyone’s been really excited to hear how your birth went after following your pregnancy for nine months and then just like one day after your due date. So you know, we didn’t have the same buildup that we did for Sophie’s birth.
I know that was probably really good for your mental health. It was not good for mine at all.
Roxanne: I always feel bad because like every single one of my births have been like at my due date. And Gina stays pregnant for days.
Gina: Forever. We’re going to do a 59 week bumpy.
Roxanne: I know.
Gina: Well, thank you so much for listening to this podcast episode.
If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe to our channel. You can leave a review, share with all your friends and your family. Anything that you do to help support this page is really, we’re very grateful for you. You can listen to new episodes every Wednesday on our podcast or new birth stories, every Friday. So be sure to check us out, listen to the podcast. We offer tons of free resources. We offer a lot of online courses as well. So if you want support throughout your pregnancy, we have our childbirth education course, which is going to teach you the science of birth. So you can understand what is going on during our labor, what positions are going to feel best for you, how to know when to do those positions.
We also offer prenatal fitness programming. If you want weekly workouts to help guide you as you prepare for birth. In the postpartum, we have our postpartum fitness programs to help you rehabilitate and to find your strength again. And then if you’re looking for professional support, we have our fitness trainer course and our birth worker course that both offers CEUs.
So you can learn from our expertise and then also get some education credits as well. You can check out all of our courses on our website at mamastefit.com and use code STORY10 to get 10 percent off any of our courses. This is our, our special thanks to you for listening to the very end of this episode because we don’t post this anywhere.
So thank you for those of our dedicated fans who listen all the way to the end. And then if you’re watching this on YouTube. You got a little sneak peek of baby Joan who woke up right at the very end.
Roxanne: I know, she’s a good sleeper.
Gina: So stay tuned, we will definitely be doing an episode all about Roxanne’s postpartum recovery, especially healing from postpartum hemorrhage, which is something that folks deal with I did not personally, but I think it’s a unique experience that she can offer a lot of insight. So definitely stay tuned for that episode and thank you for listening.