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Waterbirth: Pros, Cons and Lots of Stories! {Episode 47}
97 Plays5 years ago
Bonnie and Audrey discuss everything related to waterbirth. They share some pros and cons, and then they share many stories of their own personal experiences with waterbirth.
Mentioned in this episode:
Gentle Birth Choices book and video
Bonnie's Hypnobirthing Blog Post
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode 47
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 47. Today we're talking all about water birth, the pros, the cons, and some birth stories. Okay, quite a few birth stories because once Bonnie and I got started we couldn't stop.
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. And we're homeschooling moms to a combined total of 18 children. We know firsthand that motherhood is full of crazy chaos and overwhelming obligations, but it should also be full of love and laughter. Regardless of where you are on your journey, come join us as we work together to find joy in the chaos of motherhood.
Focus on Water Birth
00:00:43
Speaker
Okay, so water birth. Yes, we're going to be talking about water birth today. And before we jump into that, Bonnie has an email that we received to read to you for review. And I've got a little humor segment.
00:00:56
Speaker
Yes, we are always so grateful for your reviews that you leave us on iTunes, but we equally love hearing from you in DMs and emails, so thanks so much. This one says, Audrey and Bonnie, thank you for the episode about survival times. I was feeling so down on myself, wondering why I couldn't get myself together. Then I listened to this episode and thought, well, I have a four month old baby.
Listener Email and Humor Segment
00:01:14
Speaker
We just did a large and draining two week family vacation, and my house is under major construction. Maybe that's a good time to give myself some grace, like you said. Thanks for the inspiration and confidence in me. Oh, we love that.
00:01:25
Speaker
Absolutely, give yourself some grace and some space to let things settle down. Yes, that is one of my top episodes I recommend to people when they're having a really, really hard time. It's probably because they're going through a survival time, so go listen to that one.
00:01:40
Speaker
Okay, so today I have a funny thing that one of my kids, my two-year-old, she has got this little line stuck in her head that she keeps repeating over and over again. Do your kids ever do that? Oh yeah, it's usually something really annoying. Okay, yeah, this was really annoying. And today, so she's been saying, hello, my name is Bobby Joe.
00:02:08
Speaker
for days on end. And yes, I don't share my kids' names publicly on the internet and all that, but her name is not Bobby Joe. Where did she get that from? I don't know. She's been saying it for days and days, walking around the house. Hello, my name is Bobby Joe. So yes, I did break down and yell at her today. Your name is not Bobby Joe.
00:02:33
Speaker
That's awesome. She ran away offended crying and I was like, Way to go, mom. Well, I do have to tell you that when you posted so on Instagram, if you guys haven't seen Audrey a little while ago posted a cute, darling little poem that her two year old recited and I showed my kids they wanted to watch it about 100 times. They thought it was the cutest thing they'd ever seen about her little blanket poem. So like,
00:02:57
Speaker
So, in the meantime, that's been circulating my house. My kids keep repeating it. My 12-year-old has come up with like two or three variations that are not very nice. Have to do with bodily functions and other things, but I guess he's being creative and rhyming. I don't know. Oh my word. I thought you'd appreciate that, but I thought that was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. That is so cute.
Why Water Birth?
00:03:20
Speaker
All right, so we're assuming if you're listening to this episode on water birth that you want to know more about water birth or you've had a water birth or you're okay with this topic. We are going to be sharing a lot of birth stories, water birth stories in this episode. So if that's not your thing, talk to you next week, right?
00:03:40
Speaker
Right, right. And as all things, birth, just like we talked about potty training, there's often so much comparison and sometimes some bad feelings when births didn't turn out the way we had expected or had hoped. So I hope there's none of that. None of those feelings emerge when we're talking. We just want to share something that's really passionate. We're really passionate about one of our favorite ways to give birth and share some more information.
00:04:04
Speaker
Yes. And if you want more information, if you're looking for more specific information about water birth, I totally recommend Water Birth International. We'll link it in the show notes. It's waterbirth.org. And it's an amazing website just full of information, everything you could possibly want to know about water birth from a positive standpoint. Because if you type in water birth on Google,
00:04:30
Speaker
you're going to get a bunch of medical sites returned first. And that might not be the kind of information you're looking for. If you're trying... I know that when I had my first water birth, I was looking for information to help spread to my family who was kind of unsure about this weird thing that I had. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was appreciating waterbirth.org as a point to send them and say, hey, go check this out.
00:04:58
Speaker
Okay. That's cool. I don't know that I have ever been on that website. Maybe when I was first doing my first water birth like 10 years ago, but I am going to go check that out. Oh, you really should. What's, you know, what's really cool is, um, that lady is her, she's based out of, um, somewhere in Oregon. That was close enough that I actually got to meet that lady and rent, um, for our first three water births. We rented our birthtub from her. Her name's Barbara. Yeah. Her name's Barbara Harper and she's an amazing advocate for water birth. So.
00:05:25
Speaker
Oh, that's really cool. You're famous. She's famous. I just know her.
Personal Water Birth Experiences
00:05:32
Speaker
OK, so to start off, we're going to just share each of our general overview experiences with water birth. So mine look like this. I've had four babies in the water. Three were at home. And funnily enough, the first one, my very first water birth, very first natural birth,
00:05:49
Speaker
was done without a midwife present. It wasn't meant to be that way. It just worked out that way, which is kind of a funny story. And then there was three at home and then one at a birth center. And those births span the years of 2009 to 2019. So over the last 10 years, I've had those four warbers.
00:06:05
Speaker
That's funny. I also have a water birth. This isn't one of the short stories I'm going to share, but I also have a water birth that happened too quickly for the midwife to get there. Yes, and I have eight water births out of my nine children. They were at home, home births in the water from 1998 to 2019.
00:06:29
Speaker
Audrey. I shouldn't say this, but I graduated high school in 1998. I'm like a pro at this now. Yeah, you got this down. Seriously, 20 years. That's impressive. Yeah. Yeah, cool.
00:06:47
Speaker
I guess it's something I obviously believe in since I've been doing it for 20 years, right? Yes, yes, I love that. And that means you are going to have tons and tons of information for us to share with our listeners. So we're going to start off with a few of the pros of water birth. The number one that I thought of was comfort.
00:07:03
Speaker
Water helps me immensely when I am in labor. It helps any pain, any anxiety I'm feeling, but I'm a big water person too. Some people don't love being in the water as much as I do. And so that, you know, it's totally a personal thing, but I love it. Being in the ocean or the bathtub or the lake or pool just makes me feel so comfortable and weightless. And it's especially helpful when you're nine months pregnant and feeling achy and huge and it just feels so great to float.
00:07:29
Speaker
I feel like unlike any other coping strategies, water has helped me during labor. Another pro is it's easy to do at home. You can rent a tub or you can just use your own tub if you have a big one. It's fairly easy to do in a hospital or birth center depending on the location. And then it also tends to keep away those unnecessary interventions. So like for example, continuous fetal monitoring, there's some pros and some cons to that. And if you're looking to keep
00:07:57
Speaker
those interventions at bay, being in the water is very helpful because they can't mess with you as much. Cervical checks, that sort of thing. Yes, yes. I totally agree with all of those. In fact, starting off with what you said about being in water when you're pregnant. In fact, that is my chosen form of activity when I'm pregnant, is swimming laps. Now, I say swimming, that's kind of a loose form, more like a beached whale flopping around. But anyway,
00:08:27
Speaker
I get my heart rate up and get some blood flowing around anyway. Yeah, it's my total favorite thing when I'm pregnant and not to water. So yes, water birth is more relaxing. You have greater mobility in the water. So yes, you are hugely pregnant, but you have more
00:08:50
Speaker
Like because the weight of that is taken off the weight of the pregnancy and gravity is not fighting against you so much. You have greater mobility. So what this means during birth is you can get into positions easier or you can move around.
00:09:04
Speaker
and if the baby is not advancing or progressing, that movement, that moving around will dislodge it and get it down there faster. Yeah, definitely. I don't know how long I could squat at nine months pregnant trying to get a baby out, but you can do it indefinitely in a pool. You feel very lightweight and able to move around a lot.
00:09:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. For me, total less tension and anxiety as well. In the water, you're just like you enter the water, it's the warmth, it's the taking off of gravity. For me, with my varicose veins, some of that pain goes away in the water. And it's just, yeah, just kind of like a relaxing space. Pain relief is definitely in the water, you experience less pain for whatever reason. You only have to deal with the
00:09:53
Speaker
expansion of your body and your cervix instead of the downward pressure as well. It's not as much. Labors actually progress faster in a water birth than otherwise. The mother conserves more energy because she's not fighting.
00:10:10
Speaker
against the pain or you know dealing with the pain as well as but she's more relaxed in the water she conserves energy for that final push um like you said less less intervention fewer drugs in water births um it's kind of a private space that the mom has like this is
00:10:28
Speaker
I always feel like when I'm in the water birth and those walls in the tub and those walls are around me, I feel like this is kind of like my space to do my thing and nobody's going to enter my space. And that's, you know, like I can really focus and get down to the task of birthing a baby in the water. You know, I've never thought about it that way, but you really have a point. And I noticed in my last birth
00:10:53
Speaker
I was at a birth center and the midwives were very conscious of that being my space and they would come over and tap me before they like did anything to me. They would ask my permission to put the, so like the water was almost like the bubble, right? They'd ask permission before they put their hands in the water to check me or monitor the baby. And I loved that. And I'd never thought about it in that way, but I really enjoyed that.
00:11:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So women have fewer tears to their pelvic floor when they're giving birth in water because you spend, you know how when you're in a swimming pool and you get out and your fingers are all, you know, they look like raisins. Well, that's because they're, your skin's all stretched out. Well, that is happening too, to your pelvic floor when you're in water. So
00:11:30
Speaker
way fewer tears. And if there is tears, they're much less severe because of the time that you spent in the water. Another huge pro is the water birth is actually a much easier transition for a baby into the world than coming out into air.
00:11:46
Speaker
because they have been inside liquid inside of you and they come out and they're still inside liquid and you don't often see that whatever that reflex is called where they fling their arms back you know like they feel like they're falling that one. You don't often see that when they're in water because they're they're just expanding unfurling slowly and it's kind of like a flower slowly opening it's a beautiful thing to see a baby born in water.
00:12:14
Speaker
And then my final one, we talked a lot in episode five. I talked a lot in episode five about preparing kids for a new sibling by having them at the birth. And a water birth is really, really a less graphic birth for a kid to be at from my teenage sons down to my little shy two year old. They're just not scared when mom's in the water. Water is a friendly thing to them and it's less graphic.
00:12:39
Speaker
And they can do it. They can be there. So anyway, that's one of my pros of water birth. Yeah, totally. And in addition to that, any squeamish husbands. Some say a husband has to sit down during birth or doesn't handle blood. Water birth's for you. Yeah. My husband happens to be the opposite. The one birth he was the most excited about was the one, I'll talk about later, the water birth that wasn't, because he was going to actually get to see what was going on. He likes that so much.
00:13:07
Speaker
Okay, so moving on, we're going to talk a little bit about the cons of water birth because they are definitely not for every birth or every mom.
Challenges of Water Birth
00:13:13
Speaker
So they're definitely not for high risk births because of, like we mentioned, the restrictions in monitoring. So if your baby needs to be monitored nonstop or you need to be monitored nonstop, being in the water is not a great idea.
00:13:23
Speaker
If the water and the tub are not cared for properly, it can introduce some infection. So midwives often get pretty strict instructions for how to care for the water. And if you leave the water in longer than the day you give birth or whatever,
00:13:39
Speaker
that you have to care for and make sure that there's no bacteria growing in there. And it can also be difficult sometimes to find a hospital that will allow it. So if you're not looking at home or birth center birth, finding a hospital that is friendly to water birth is not always as easy as you might hope. And often, they'll let you labor in the tub, but they won't let you actually give birth in the tub, which is kind of lame, in my opinion, to labor there and then have to climb out and transition and get in a bed. Yeah, make you get out. Yeah. Who wants to do that, right? Not happening.
00:14:09
Speaker
And then the final warning about a danger of water birth is to be aware of overheating. So oftentimes you're in a tub that's quite warm.
00:14:18
Speaker
And oftentimes in a warm room that's all closed off in private, you can get dehydrated pretty quickly. And most midwives know to keep you hydrated and make sure you're going to the bathroom regularly. But this actually happened to my sister. She wanted to do a water birth in a birth center and she got too dehydrated and it stalled labor and she had to go to the hospital. So that's just something to be aware of that it's very easy to lose those fluids quickly. You wouldn't think of that when you're in water.
00:14:45
Speaker
Right? Yeah, right? Because your water is everywhere, but you actually have to get it in your body because you're sweating it out. Right, right. So some cons of water birth that I thought are for us personally are the family can't see as much. Like that's a pro if the kids are squeamish, but it's also a con if they want to see. Another thing about a con of water birth is on some of my water births, some of my earlier births, I lost a lot of blood and you can't really tell how much blood is lost when it's in water.
00:15:14
Speaker
And then there is also the logistics of getting a tub and putting it in a place in your house if you're having a home birth that can support the weight of the water and the tub. That's something they have to keep in mind. Yeah. And really hope there's not going to be a leak if you're like on a second story apartment or something.
00:15:31
Speaker
That could be catastrophic. Yeah. I suppose that a con my husband might say is draining it and dealing with the water afterwards. But that's never been my part. Agreed. My husband would make jokes about it. Sometimes he's like, oh, well, that tree in the backyard, that's a really good fertilized tree because that's where all your earth water went. It would be.
00:15:54
Speaker
Okay, so now we're going to head into our story section we have a few water birth stories to share with you guys just because I think that the personal experience of Understanding how it goes for some people can be really beneficial if you're facing a potential water birth or thinking about doing it yourself And birth stories are the best aren't they?
Empowering Birth Stories
00:16:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah, my favorite. My first water birth was with my third child and she was going to be my first natural birth. I have all kinds of crazy stories of birth. I've done about every birth you can imagine. But so the first one that I wanted to do without any drugs was I decided to do it at home and I wanted to do it in the water. So the crazy thing was because I'd never felt the full birth scenario. I'd been medicated before. I never knew what it felt like to go from early labor to late labor to transition to birth.
00:16:40
Speaker
I didn't know how close I was getting and I didn't want to be that lady that called the midwife and she just hung out at my house for a day, you know? So I waited till the last minute to call her and she was actually really close to me, but I said, hey, I think I'm getting in the water now. I think it's about time. She goes, okay, I will walk my dogs and I'll be right over. And she came maybe 30 minutes later, about two minutes after the baby'd been born.
00:17:03
Speaker
I got in the water, you know, calmed down and started to feel the urge to push. But again, I had no idea what it was. I tell people, this is a little TMI, but I tell people it kind of felt like
00:17:13
Speaker
explosive diarrhea, like my insides were going to explode. And and it was totally involuntary because I wasn't doing any pushing. It was just my body saying it's time, which just goes to show how relaxed and, you know, ready I was. So I did like two or three pushes and she came and my husband caught her and we were like, what now? And then, you know, she was about five seconds before she cried and were like, come on, breathe, come on, you know. And then the midwife walked in the door. But that was really, really empowering for me because it was my first
00:17:43
Speaker
first natural birth and also I did it all by myself. So I was pretty proud of myself. Yeah, that's, that is pretty amazing. My midwife always says, or she's told us after the one that came before she got there, she said those fast, really fast water bursts where the baby comes before she's there. She doesn't really worry about those too much because the baby's usually okay when they come out really fast like that. It's when there's a stall in the labor that, you know, when they get stuck or there's a problem. Right. True.
00:18:13
Speaker
Okay, so I'm going to share my first water birth story too. And granted, this has been 20 years ago, so 21 years ago. So is this your first born then? Your first born was your first water birth? Yes, this is our first born. And we lived about 45 minutes away from the closest hospital. So we had to do some convincing on both our family and finding a midwife that was okay with us being that far away on our first one because we didn't have any, um,
00:18:43
Speaker
Any proof that you could do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, we found this one really awesome midwife and she was like, yeah, we can do this. Women have been doing this for years out in the frontier and no, no other women or midwives or anything anywhere. We've got this. Yeah. So we rented, we drove down to water birth international and we rented a tub, got it home, set it up.
00:19:05
Speaker
when I was in labor, see my, your first labors are longer usually than your subsequent ones. So when I went into labor, we set up the tub and filled it. And that took a couple hours, I think, to get it set up in labor. And I was just, you know, walking around during that time. And I just feel so amazing to get into the tub once you're there. And we, um, for this birth, we lived in a little tiny,
00:19:28
Speaker
10 by 70 maybe trailer Like the whole thing was just our little birth story going on right there and it was just my husband and I and our midwife and her assistant and my sister was there for the birth to and I don't know it was like that was the point where I know I've seen this quote before but it was like that was a point where I
00:19:53
Speaker
I was born, you know, with every birth a mother and a baby is born with the first one. And like I just, that was such an amazing, powerful experience because like I came into who I am too.
00:20:06
Speaker
I love that. And I felt the same way about my third birth. My first two, I kind of almost felt like something was taken from me because they did not go the way I'd anticipated and everything was kind of done to me instead of me being the person who birthed the baby, you know? So to have that experience was so empowering. That was the first word I thought, wow, I feel so powerful, you know? I just did that. And I'll add that to a pro of water birth is that
00:20:30
Speaker
Um, if you have a desire to catch your baby, it's a whole lot easier when you're just kind of tight and private in that little tub. Then if you're sprawled out on a bed somewhere, oftentimes the providers are in a better position to, to catch that baby and be the first one to hold it. But I love that. I love being able to grab my baby as it's coming out of the birth canal. I just thought that was fascinating. Have you, have you caught some of your babies?
00:20:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Isn't that like the most powerful thing in the whole world? And I will say also, one of my midwives mentioned this, too, that just instinctively on one of my births, I reached down and like, you know, helped the baby emerge. And she said, I found that when moms feel that urge, they often help themselves stretch and get that baby out in a position in a comfortable position. And that there's fewer tears that way, too, because they're like, I need a baby out instead of just having a doctor or a midwife like shoving on them. You know, they know what feels good and what
00:21:22
Speaker
where they can stretch and so it was pretty fascinating. Yeah. I have delivered, let's see, one, two, three, four. If it wasn't that came so fast, I didn't even know he was coming and so nobody caught him. Yeah. I think I've caught six of my babies. That's really cool. Yeah.
00:21:47
Speaker
I'll have to think about that and verify. Yeah, yeah. So my next story, I'm just going to combine two of them. So after the first home birth, we had the twins. We went back to the hospital for them. And then we had two more home births, home water births in a row. And they were fantastic. And they were also very, very quick. And so one suggestion I'll say for anyone who's planning one in the future is to make sure your tub is set up ahead of time.
00:22:14
Speaker
And the minute you feel any labor happening, start that tub, right? Unless it's maybe your first baby, your first baby you have time, but just a quick story of one of them was my son, he
00:22:28
Speaker
He was very late as all my babies are and I decided I was going to take castor oil that time. My midwife was okay with it and she told me how to prepare it and what to do and to call her when I took it so that she could kind of watch the clock. So I took it that morning, it was a Saturday morning and just kind of put her in around the house feeling crampy and the effects of castor oil set in. And then about three hours after that started happening, so no actual labor just going to the bathroom, my water broke fast and hard and 55 minutes later he was out.
00:23:01
Speaker
So intense. People were like, well, that's nice. It was so fast. I'm like, really? Have you ever gone from 0 to 10 centimeters in an hour? It was not pleasant. But I was so glad. I was so glad, number one, that I was home. And number two, that the tub was up and ready to go. Because actually, now that I say that, I think it was maybe only half full when I gave birth to him because we didn't have time. So I'm like pushing him out and people are still pouring hot water in the tub.
00:23:25
Speaker
So that was pretty fun. But yeah, that is the bonus to being at home. You don't have to go anywhere. You will have a baby in a car. Oh, yes. Okay. I wasn't going to tell this story, but here's a bonus.
00:23:38
Speaker
was my son that came before the midwife did. Same thing, I was kind of off and on having labor and I couldn't tell if I was in labor or not. So I had been having some false labor and I was so frustrated. I said, I'm just going to go to bed and if it's serious, it'll wake me up. And if not, I'll still be here in the morning sleeping, at least I'll get some sleep.
00:23:59
Speaker
So I woke up at midnight and I was like, oh my goodness, here we go. And I called my midwife and she's like, OK, I'm jumping in my car right now. And there had been some flooding. And so she had to go around on back roads. It took her about two hours to get here. And he was born about 10 minutes before she got here. Oh my goodness. So what happened was my husband got my husband. I got my husband up and I said, hey, you need to fill the birthtub. And he's like,
00:24:28
Speaker
How do you know? Shut up and get up. I've done this before. I know. Right, right. Yes, this was number seven. So he's up and he's kind of groggy and he hooks up the hose and he's filling it up with hot water. But we have two water heaters, one on our upper level and one on our lower level. And he can't get it filled by emptying the upstairs water heater. So he says, go downstairs and get some pots and fill them up and put them on the stove.
00:24:56
Speaker
So here I am in labor filling four gallon pots and hefting them across the kitchen onto the stove to warm them up, which is probably what made the labor go so fast. Yeah. Note to self. So then he gets up my son, our teenage son, who was, I don't know, 16 at that time or something, and he says, go downstairs and relieve your mom from
00:25:22
Speaker
You are a true pioneer, mom, Audrey, all in water and labor. No, so I get up there and I get in the tub and it was about half full and my son starts bringing up these pots off the stove because they're warm enough and he dumps one and he goes back down to get another one. He brings it up and he dumps it in and I feel this by that time I was in the tub and he dumps it in. It was this, you know, flush of warm water around me from the four gallons that he dumped in. And I said, oh, that feels nice. And then I said, oh,
00:25:54
Speaker
because Harry was coming and so my husband he turned around he's grabbed for the phone because I had called the midwife about 10 minutes earlier and I said where are you and she's like I'm 15 minutes away call me if you start pushing so I said okay yeah whatever so they can tell by your voice you know how far along you are so my husband turns around he's scrambling for the phone and he hears me say you know he's trying to punch the numbers and dial it and he hears me say
00:26:18
Speaker
It's a baby. That's awesome. What do we have here? And my son at the bottom, it was at the bottom of the stairs and he heard the baby cry and he's like, well, I guess I missed it. That's so funny. So it was just you, just you two. Well, you and your husband and your son.
00:26:39
Speaker
Yeah, we had woken up one of our teenage daughter and she had put woke up one kid and put him on the bed and she was out of the room to get another one. So there's one kid laying on the bed. So only one kid actually observed that birth. But just then my husband got the midwife on the phone as the baby was crying his first cry and she says, I'm 10 minutes away. I'll be right there. It sounds great. Perfect. That's funny.
00:27:06
Speaker
So the story I was going to share before that one popped into my mind was a story about the water birth that wasn't. So sometimes you really want to give birth in the water and it just doesn't work out. And what happened on this water birth that wasn't?
00:27:22
Speaker
was my daughter had her, this was number eight, she had her fists up by her head, by her ears. And we know this because when the midwife actually checked me one time and she said, oh, now I don't feel head anymore, I feel a hand. She has her hand on top of her head.
00:27:39
Speaker
So she wouldn't descend down the birth canal and when I would get in the water, I was actually relaxing too much or she wouldn't move down the birth canal at all. So the midwife said, I'm sorry to tell you this, but I don't think you're gonna be able to have water birth or unless you can make it back in time. But sometimes it helps to move the baby to jostle around if you do stair laps, go up and down stairs while you're in labor.
00:28:04
Speaker
Yes, I did about 100 stair laps while I was in labor with that little stinker. And by the end, my legs were so tired that my husband was holding me up under one arm and my big, huge teenage son was holding me up under the other arm because I couldn't hold myself up anymore. My legs were so tired from basically exercising my whole labor.
00:28:26
Speaker
And so I sat on the birth stool and my husband, afterwards I learned this, he motioned to my teenage, our oldest daughter and he said, make sure you get this on video, this is the only one we're ever gonna get to see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So did you get a video of it? Yeah, yeah. Perfect, that's awesome. And my husband is such a jerk, he likes to play it backward. Show me backward. And that is the most cruel thing you can do a woman is show me. So the baby going back in? Yes, yes, don't ever do that to a woman. That sounds horrible to watch.
00:28:57
Speaker
I had an almost water birth too. So my second to last baby and I've told this story multiple times about. So it's our same baby. Oh, yeah, that's true. You two year old. Okay, see stinkers.
00:29:20
Speaker
I had a placental abruption. I was late and started bleeding. So I went to the hospital. My midwife met me there. Because if you're not familiar with home birth, every midwife
00:29:34
Speaker
usually most home birth midwives partner with an MD so that if there is a complication or a concern, she can talk to him or you can go see him or her and they can figure out if you're still okay to have a home birth. So I went to go get checked out at the hospital because it was a considerable amount of blood.
00:29:51
Speaker
And they checked me out and they said, we don't really know what's going on. We're assuming it's a placental abrechaun, which means it's just a little tear or a big tear in the placenta, or it starts to come off of the uterine wall. And sometimes it's not a big deal and sometimes it's catastrophic. So, you know, obviously I was being monitored. And in the hospital, you know, the plan had been a home birth in the water. And in the hospital, my midwife said, well, what's your opinion to the doctor? And he said, well, if you really want to give birth at home, you can try. And I remember thinking, I don't think that's a great idea. And the midwife's like, I don't
00:30:21
Speaker
I think that's a great idea either. And again, like you mentioned that one of the cons of water birth is that you cannot monitor the blood loss. And so I did decide to stay at the hospital. And as soon as I made that decision, I really felt a lot of peace. I knew it was the right decision for that birth. And interestingly enough, I was able to see how they measure blood loss in the hospital. And they put you on like these big chucks pads and then they measure them and they weigh them.
00:30:42
Speaker
So they pull them off, weigh them, take off the weight of the pad itself, and then they add it up. So they could tell once I was done giving birth that I needed apparently two units of blood. So I got a transfusion after that because they were able to tell how much I'd lost. But that was a big concern. And my midwife said, if this continues when we go home, we're just going to come right back because that's always something that they watch out for is blood loss on the tub because it just
00:31:05
Speaker
It just starts to look red and then that can be scary. Anyway, just an example of how things don't always work out the way you anticipated, but if you listen to that mom's intuition, you can make the best decision for you and your baby. Yes, absolutely. I did count up while you were talking. I have caught seven of my babies. Awesome. That's so cool. Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
So the midwife got the one that didn't come out in water. So did she end up coming out with her arms up then? With her hands still up? Yeah, my husband has slowed that one down enough and gone back and forth that she did not have her hands up there when she came out. Okay, because that would have not been fun. Yeah, and the other one I didn't catch was the one that came so fast that I didn't even know it was coming.
00:31:51
Speaker
But the rest, and then the first two, my husband caught. So that's, let's see, that's four. I didn't catch nine, five. I have caught five. I can count. But I did want to tell the story of the first water birth that I did catch one of my children, because that was like one of the most powerful experiences in my entire life.
00:32:09
Speaker
So, this was my third and my husband had caught the first two because we wanted him to, that was just our part of our birth plan. And so, on the first two, he was in the tub with me so that he could catch the baby and I would kind of, he was supporting me, you know, I'd have my arms around his neck and on his shoulders and he'd be holding me up and supporting me, but then he could catch the baby. Well, on the third one, it was somehow different. He hadn't gotten in the tub yet.
00:32:38
Speaker
I was starting to feel pushy and I was holding onto him in such a way that he couldn't really adjust himself to be there, to get his arms in, to catch the baby. So I said to the midwife, you know, we're explaining this to her that he couldn't move his arms to catch it. And she just quietly was sitting back and she says, well, Audrey, why don't you try to catch your own baby? And I was just blown away by this thought that I could maybe possibly catch my own baby.
00:33:05
Speaker
So I said, well, I'll try, but somebody else better be there to catch it if I can't do this. So then there is nothing quite as powerful as the feeling of birthing the head and reaching down and feeling the hair and the little face. If they're in the proper position, the little face is kind of pointing backward and just
00:33:23
Speaker
feeling the back of this head with your hand and then having the urge to push and just feeling this thing slide out into your hands and grabbing it and pulling it up to your chest and oh my goodness. It's the most powerful thing that I've ever done in my life is just catch and birth my own babies and I just love it so much. I wish that every woman could have that huge powerful experience. I mean like you know you have a lot of endorphins and things when you give birth but I think
00:33:52
Speaker
After that first birth and after every birth where I've got my own child, it's been like, I'm superwoman. I can do anything now because I have caught my own child.
00:34:01
Speaker
Yes, I completely agree. I was recently looking at pictures of some post-birth pictures and I realized that the pictures of me with Finn, the one that was the really lightning fast birth, were some of my favorites. I was realizing just now as you were talking that it's because he was the first one that I caught. I think in previous times, I'd either been in the hospital and not really encouraged to reach down and get in the way or
00:34:24
Speaker
Um, it was that first water birth and I was just kind of overwhelmed, you know, didn't know what to do. And, um, but that one, yeah, I think there's a variety of things that, um, catching your own baby does. Number one, it fills you with that, that sense of power. Like I didn't need anybody here, you know? Like, like my hospital, my earlier hospital births, and you can have wonderful hospital births too, but some of mine were not.
00:34:46
Speaker
particularly wonderful. And I remember feeling like I had been that my baby had been delivered, as they say. But when I gave birth at home, I felt as if I had birthed that baby that, you know, the verbiage was very different, that I was the one who had done the work and I was the one who had brought that baby, you know, and to to deliver life into your hands. There is something so powerful about that. So, so, so powerful. Yeah. Wonderful, wonderful experience. I love it.
00:35:13
Speaker
Yes. 100%. I agree. Like I said, I wish it's an unexperienced that every woman could have because there's so much power that comes with it. So much enabling you to start off your journey as a mother with so much joy. Yes. Yes. And I will say, even if you choose not to do a water birth, you choose something else and you think that's the right decision for your baby, I would encourage
00:35:35
Speaker
all women to do the best they can to retain the power over their birth. That doesn't mean you have to do everything. It doesn't even mean you have to do it natural in your living room, but to not allow that power to be taken away from you. You're the one that has grown that baby and you're the one that will get that baby out, barring a needed C-section or something.
00:35:55
Speaker
That is really, really powerful when I realized that, no, I have decision making authority over this birth and I can choose to let this happen or this happen. It's really important, I think, for women to retain that. Yeah.
00:36:08
Speaker
Yes, I love to think when I'm, you know, and I've had some anxiety in some of my pregnant season, some of it is about, you know, giving birth while I be able to do it again. And I like to think a thought or a mantra I like to think about when I'm in those anxiety anxious times is to think about all the other women in history that have birthed babies. It's just kind of a calming effect to think about women have
00:36:36
Speaker
women were created to do this. Yes. I completely agree. Yeah. Have you ever read the book, The Red Tent?
00:36:44
Speaker
No. I love that book so much. If you are a birth junkie, I highly recommend this book. It talks about, it's set in biblical times and it talks about the women of the red tent and that's where they gathered together during their menstrual cycle because they were unclean, considered unclean, they couldn't go about their daily life. But all of the women who are menstruating at the same time would go in there together and they would talk and
00:37:07
Speaker
strengthen their sisterhood. And then it was also where they gave birth and that they would, you know, squat on the bricks and they'd be held up by their sisters and their mothers and their aunts. And it's really powerful. I will say a little caveat about that book is they don't talk entirely positively about some of the authority figures in the Bible. So if you're a Christian woman, that might be a little offensive, but I just love the sisterhood feeling of it so much. I recommend it for that part. Okay. I'm gonna check that one out.
00:37:36
Speaker
So my final little story I want to share is my last one. I ended up going to a birth center for, and I can't fully explain why I decided to do this instead of a home birth. Maybe because of the birth previous to that, that was the placental abruption was a little bit jarring. It shook my confidence a little bit, but I just felt really, really good about going to a birth center instead of being at home this time. So I did that and we'd also moved farther away from the hospital. So I felt better about that.
00:38:00
Speaker
And that was a very unique experience and I really, really enjoyed it. I felt like it was just as comforting and positive as being in my home, maybe slightly more medicalized because they had, you know, maybe some stricter requirements to do, but I really, really enjoyed it. And what I loved about this time was that I was able to, I've never been much of a music listener during labor. I like to like hyper focus on my breathing and relaxation, but this time I did keep my earbuds in the whole time listening to some hit no birthing tracks.
00:38:29
Speaker
So we can link that too. If you're not familiar with hypnobirthing, it's one of my favorite ways of relaxing and wrapping your mind around how to give birth. Tell us more about that. I'm so curious about that.
00:38:40
Speaker
Yeah, so people kind of roll their eyes at the hypnosis aspect of it. But it really is just a way of teaching yourself how to get into the most relaxed state you can be. So it's not like you're waving a watch in front of yourself. No hocus pocus. It's just teaching your body and mind to become as calm and relaxed as possible so that this baby can work itself out of you without resistance. When we feel pain, the first thing we want to do is tense up.
00:39:09
Speaker
And that's like the opposite of what you're supposed to do to get a baby out. So it is fascinating. I highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in laboring at all, but especially a labor without an epidural or other drugs. It's just so, so powerful to help you get in that great zen-like state to be able to push your baby out. So I just listened to those tracks the whole time.
00:39:29
Speaker
And it also helped because that was the first time I think I mentioned in our other episode about welcoming babies, you know, siblings, welcoming babies, that we had kids there. And so it was helpful for me because I didn't hear any of their whispering. I didn't hear any comments. I was just totally in the zone and I loved that experience.
00:39:48
Speaker
That's awesome. I'm going to keep that in mind because while I feel like I have a pretty high pain tolerance and have never felt the need or searched out any other, you know, pain relief during birth, I wonder if my daughters will perceive pain differently.
Hypnobirthing and Conclusion
00:40:05
Speaker
And I would like to be able to, you know, have a tool in my toolbox to offer them also, you know, hypnobirthing. Check it out. Because some of them really affected and respond to music as well.
00:40:15
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I think sometimes a lot of it has to do with the personality of the mother too. Like I'm very much a kind of controlling tense, sometimes anxious person. And so if anything wasn't right or the labor came too hard and fast or something, anything unexpected, I tensed up and it was really hard for me to relax and get into that good state. So that was really helpful.
00:40:38
Speaker
Cool. Okay. I have one more water birth, um, experience to share. I was going to share the story, um, of my fifth, no, sorry, my fourth. And, um, this during this water birth, I had back labor. And, um, so it was more intense. What happened was he was, I think I'm going to say this, right? He was posterior. So he was face. His back was against my back and normally a baby's
00:41:02
Speaker
back spine will be out against your stomach. So his, as he descended down the birth canal and all that, because he was posterior, his, it was more intense on my spine. So I did have a water birth that time. And I think, I don't know what I would have done without the water because of, you know, all the things that we've said about helping with the pain. It really did help. But an additional thing that they had me do during that labor was to lift up on my belly in each contraction to kind of move him a little
00:41:32
Speaker
little bit off and relieve some of that pain. And they actually had a strap, kind of like a rubber exercise band strap that they gave me that I was using to help lift up on my belly as well. Oh, that's fascinating.
00:41:45
Speaker
And he actually, besides being posterior, he also had a little hand up by his face, by his head, by his ears. Because after his head came out, the midwife just did a quick check. She thought she saw the cord around his neck, and she wanted to check. And she leaned over to check me, and I said, ow, ow, don't touch me. Stop, stop. Whatever you're doing. And she said, I don't have my hands in the water. I haven't done anything yet. And there was this little, I said, well, something's moving. Somebody's touching me. And it was his little hand. He was moving it.
00:42:20
Speaker
I actually don't recall if any of them actually were born posteriorly, but there was definitely that back labor for a long time, which usually means that the baby's flipped and it is something else. In fact, the only thing that really worked for me was the counter pressure on the hips. Have you ever done that? Where your husband or midwife squeeze your hips?
00:42:43
Speaker
No. Maybe because I was in water it was hard to do that. You have to kind of like lean over a bed or something and then my husband would come behind me and just kind of squeeze my hips together and lift up and something about that pressure on the pelvis would help alleviate that baby's
00:42:58
Speaker
head pushing where it wasn't supposed to, but that's intense. I do have to share when you said about the cord possibly being wrapped around their neck. So that's really common. I know a lot of people freak out when that happens, but it's actually extremely common and very rarely is cause for alarm having the cord wrapped around a baby's neck. In fact, this last baby, I did post
00:43:18
Speaker
a portion of the video on Instagram, if you want to scroll back, I'll have to post it again, maybe on our Instagram. Because what I did catch him coming out, but he wouldn't budge, he was stuck down there. And so I said, I unwrapped his cord once around his neck. And then the midwife came over to help. And I think we unrolled him like four or five times. He was so tangled up in that cord. He wouldn't, like we barely got him out of the water. And then after that, he couldn't get up to my chest or like rolling, rolling. All kinds of crazy things happen at birth. It's a fascinating time. I love it.
00:43:49
Speaker
So amazing and powerful. Yeah. So just a few final thoughts. We love water birth so much. Obviously it is evident, but it is not the right birth for everyone. We just want to finish with that to share that you will know the best decision for you and your baby. If you pray about it, you think about it, you do the research and you go with the option that sounds the best and the safest for you and your baby. But if it happens to be water birth, you're in for a wild ride. It's going to be a great fun.
00:44:16
Speaker
Yes, totally. And I wanted to say that if you have had a birth that has been traumatic and you're looking for your next birth to be maybe a healing experience, maybe the atmosphere of water birth with the kind of the private space for yourself, it might just be the thing that you're looking for. So just a note on that there. And obviously, I also think water birth is an amazing
00:44:45
Speaker
way to give birth. It's, I don't know, it almost feels like cheating because you miss out on a lot of the pain and everything. I mean, don't get me wrong. There's pain, right? I've delivered over 10 pound babies. There's pain, but it's pressure. That's what we're supposed to say. There's just pressure. No, there's pain. Don't worry about it.
00:45:03
Speaker
I have such a strong feeling that I just wish that every woman could have a powerful birth so that instead of when women gather around a pregnant woman and they start telling their birth horror stories that it could be a culture of a little more encouraging and uplifting
00:45:21
Speaker
and confidence building so that I would love to bring some positivity back to the whole birth scene. And I just think water birth is a good step in that direction. So that's my final thoughts. I love that you shared that because my first water birth was most definitely a healing experience after having two births that I was not particularly pleased with and were a little bit traumatic. I was so grateful to have that peaceful, beautiful, beautiful experience. And we definitely want to share that birth can be beautiful.
00:45:50
Speaker
OK, so we have some recommendations. We've talked about waterbirth.org, which is run by Waterbirth International, an amazing lady, Barbara Harper, who's doing some amazing work with water birth around the world. She has written the book Gentle Birth Choices. It's both a book and a video. And then there's another, this is an old, you're going to have a hard time finding it, but it's an old water birth
00:46:15
Speaker
It's called Birth into Being and it's actually in Russia. Women go to the Black Sea and birth their babies there in the Black Sea. It's incredible. So if you can find that one somewhere and get your hands on it, grab that one.
00:46:31
Speaker
I will also link to the hypnobirthing resources we talked about, my favorite way of relaxing during birth. And then I have a handful of posts on my blog about birth as well. Not particularly water birth, but about natural birth and about C-sections, about V-backs, about all the things that I've had to go through. So I will link those as well. And a few other of my favorite, favorite natural birth books, if that's something you're looking into. And we will most definitely be doing more podcasts about birth because we love it so much.
00:46:59
Speaker
Yeah, and we're good at it, right? We get it done. And in the meantime, while we're working on our next episodes about birth, if you want to listen to more podcasts about birth, try the Birth Hour podcast. That one's amazing. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you've enjoyed this episode, we'd be so grateful if you'd leave us a written review on iTunes.
00:47:26
Speaker
If you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at OutnumberThePodcast at gmail.com and find us on Instagram at OutnumberThePodcast.
00:47:47
Speaker
Perennium, right? Perennium. Yes. Perennium. Perennium. Perennium. Yes. Perennium. There's our outtake, folks. But we're birth experts. Don't worry about it. Yeah, yeah, we got it. How do we say it again? Perennium. Perennium. Perennium. Perennium. Never mind, I'm not even going to say it. I will never say it without laughing at it.
00:48:16
Speaker
What's the other word? Floor, pelvic floor. Say pelvic floor. There we go.