Artwork

Innhold levert av Meagan Heaton. Alt podcastinnhold, inkludert episoder, grafikk og podcastbeskrivelser, lastes opp og leveres direkte av Meagan Heaton eller deres podcastplattformpartner. Hvis du tror at noen bruker det opphavsrettsbeskyttede verket ditt uten din tillatelse, kan du følge prosessen skissert her https://no.player.fm/legal.
Player FM - Podcast-app
Gå frakoblet med Player FM -appen!

Episode 364 Georyana's Surprise Breech HBAC + Postpartum Anxiety

43:36
 
Del
 

Manage episode 457370648 series 2500712
Innhold levert av Meagan Heaton. Alt podcastinnhold, inkludert episoder, grafikk og podcastbeskrivelser, lastes opp og leveres direkte av Meagan Heaton eller deres podcastplattformpartner. Hvis du tror at noen bruker det opphavsrettsbeskyttede verket ditt uten din tillatelse, kan du følge prosessen skissert her https://no.player.fm/legal.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Women of Strength!

We have another beautiful VBAC birth story for you today from our friend, Georyana. Georyana shares how she went from having an unplanned Cesarean with her first birth to a planned HBAC but unexpected breech delivery!

During her first postpartum period, Georyana experienced postpartum preeclampsia, depression, and anxiety. She and Meagan dive into coping tools and resources available for anyone else going through the same.

While prepping for her VBAC, Georyana also talks about the power she felt while listening to other stories on The VBAC Link Podcast. She knew she had to give her body the chance to show what it was capable of.

“If it could happen for her, it could happen for me. Why disqualify myself? Why disqualify my body?”

Needed Website

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

Full Transcript under Episode Details

Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. Merry Christmas to you. It’s so fun to be recording today. It’s actually not even October. It’s September when we are recording, but it’s so fun to think how close we are to Christmas. I hope you guys are having an amazing day, and if you are listening the day after Christmas, I hope you had an amazing Christmas.

We have our friend, Georyana, with us today, and she is from Florida. Hello, love. How are you?

Georyana: I’m doing well. How are you?

Meagan: I am so, so great. I was going to say that as you may hear, she’s got her little one on board, so we may hear all of the little baby coos and noises. What is your baby’s name?

Georyana: Her name is Sophia Victoria.

Meagan: Sophia Victoria. I love it. I’m so happy she’s here. I actually love when we have babies because I don’t really hear those noises anymore. I hear them as a doula for a minute, but I miss those little coos. It’s so fun.

Okay, like I was saying, she is from Florida. She’s a stay-at-home mom of two beautiful babies, a three-year-old and this one-month-old that she’s got with us. She works part-time remotely and is a Christian and serves as a worship leader for the youth group worship team. Is that correct?

Georyana: Yes.

Meagan: Awesome. I love that. She says that she’s officially started homeschooling her toddler this year which is super exciting. That is exciting. We’ve had so many moms on the podcast lately who are like, “I’ve quit my job. I’m homeschooling,” or “My full-time job is homeschooling.” That’s amazing.

Georyana: Yeah. Yeah. It really is just to be able to soak in all of these moments with your kids. Time flies so fast. You just want to treasure everything.

Meagan: It’s so true. It really does. I have a 7th grader which is crazy, so yeah. Super crazy.

Remind me, you used Needed’s iron?

Georyana: Yes. I’ve actually used it for postpartum.

Meagan: Yes. I wanted to talk about that because we talk about their prenatals and all of the other things to do during pregnancy. We haven’t really talked about the iron, so can we talk a little bit about why you’re taking iron and how it’s been?

Georyana: Yeah, so after this pregnancy funny enough which is something I’ll tell during my story, but I passed out after I gave birth. I believe it was due to a lot of blood loss and low hemoglobin, so after I gave birth, I kept taking my prenatals, but my prenatals only had 15 milligrams of iron in them. That’s when I decided to go for Needed. I had heard of a lot of amazing reviews. I had heard about it too on The VBAC Link.

I’m only taking one additional per day, so I’m taking around 30 milligrams of iron.

Meagan: Have you noticed a difference?

Georyana: Tremendously. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely less fatigue, more energy. I was getting dizzy a lot during the early days of postpartum and breastfeeding, so that helped a lot too.

Meagan: That’s what I was going to say. It’s probably helping you breastfeed as well.

Georyana: Yeah. It’s definitely an amazing supplement.

Meagan: That’s so awesome to hear. I believe in Needed’s products wholeheartedly, so it’s so fun to see that other people are loving it too.

We do have a Review of the Week, so I want to get into that really quickly, then we are going to turn the time over to you to share these stories. This is from nnoah and it says, “Generational trauma”. It says, “This podcast and the Facebook group have been a godsend to me. After my 56-hour failed induction and emergency C-section due to very low heart decelerations with my daughter, I told my husband I would be happily scheduling my C-sections from now on. My sister-in-law told me I could VBAC, but I had no hope that my body could birth after such a drawn-out process that ended in ‘failure’. My mom had three C-sections herself with the first being highly traumatic, and I never realized how much her birth experience has influenced my own physiological state as I approached labor and delivery. I researched everything with my first from breastfeeding to infant development and sleep, but I did not read a single book or take a single class on birth. Now, I realize it was because of how much fear and trauma I was carrying around with me from my mother’s experiences. I walked into birth ready to fail because I didn’t think I could do it. I wasn’t tough enough.”

She says, “After listening to this podcast, it has me believing in my body and preparing my mind even more before we try to conceive our next baby. I have begun working through my birth with How to Heal a Bad Birth,” which we absolutely love if you want a good book on how to heal a bad birth. That is one of our favorites.

It says, “I’ve already interviewed a VBAC-Link certified doula to assist me in my next birth when we conceive. The resources, podcast, and recommendations here have had me anticipating my next birth with excitement rather than dread. I couldn’t be more grateful for this resource. Thank you.”

Wow. So many things within that review. I one, am so thankful for that amazing review, and I want you to know that we are here for you and this community and these stories are here to help empower you even further going into your next birth. I love that she said that she had a doula before she was even conceived. She’s found the doula she’s going to hire, and as soon as she conceives, she can hire that doula.

As a reminder, just like she said, we have a VBAC directory with VBAC-certified doulas. You can go to thevbaclink.com/findadoula and look for a doula in your area.

Okay, mama. Oh, look at this cute little baby with a full head of hair.

Georyana: Yeah, she had a lot of hair. That’s how she was born, with a lot of hair.

Meagan: Her hair was probably born first. It’s so long, oh my gosh. Oh, I’d love to turn the time over to you to share these stories of yours.

Georyana: Okay. Well, just like every VBAC, it starts with a C-section. Mine was in 2021 with my first son. It was an overall healthy pregnancy quote-on-quote. Every prenatal visit was normal for the most part. There was nothing out of whack. I do want to be transparent and say that I did not eat healthy or exercise knowing that I was supposed to. I remember working at this part-time job, and literally after I was done clocking out, I would go straight for the Chick-fil-A. It was Chick-fil-A every day. I ended up gaining around 87 pounds during my pregnancy.

Meagan: Wow, okay.

Georyana: I was 215 when I delivered. At around 39 weeks with my OB/GYN, she was like, “I want to schedule a C-section because your baby’s measuring really big.” We did the whole– I forget the word– where they actually check the baby’s weight.

Meagan: Oh, like a growth measurement in an ultrasound.

Georyana: Yeah, she was like, “This baby is already a 10-pounder.” I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I was freaking out because I really wanted to give birth naturally. That was something I had told her about, but she was like, “No, let’s schedule a C-section.” We were going back and forth, and she was like, “Okay, well at least we are going to get an induction date.” She set up an induction date for March 15th. It was a Monday.

I started going into labor. I started going into labor on Friday spontaneously. I went into spontaneous labor. I didn’t really know that much about laboring at home and all of the things like right now that I know you’re supposed to do.

Yeah. I had labored at home for an hour or two until contractions started getting intense. I went to the hospital which was an hour away. I checked in. They checked me. I was 2 centimeters dilated, and they took my blood pressure. They were like, “You have high blood pressure.” They didn’t give me a reading or anything, but they were like, “We’re going to make you stay. We’re going to have you stay. We’re not going to send you home.”

I was like, “Okay. You guys know what you’re doing.” I started laboring for an hour or two, and then a nurse came in and I had explained, “I really want to try and go for a natural birth.” She was like, “Okay. I’m going to give you an hour. I’m going to give you an hour.”

Meagan: What?

Georyana: “I’m going to give you an hour and see where you are as far as dilation and as far as progressing.” I was like, “Okay.” An hour went by. Mind you, I was strapped to the chair because there’s something that you’re never really taught, to move around while you are laboring.

At the one-hour mark, she comes in. She checks me, and I’ve gone nowhere. She goes, “I’m going to put you on Pitocin.” Things started getting really crazy at that point because it was my first time feeling contractions, and those contractions were horrible. They are so intense, and now having had experienced these natural contractions from my VBAC, you can automatically tell the difference.

She puts me on Pitocin. I labor and I had my husband with me. It was back-to-back contractions to the point where I could barely breathe. I had taken one birth class, but it was the standard information. They never really teach you how to breathe or the importance of getting your mind right, and the importance of your mind and how it plays such a huge role in birth.

I just kept laboring. I kept literally squeezing my husband’s hand. I couldn’t allow him to go anywhere. It was horrible. As the hours passed, things started getting worse and worse. They ended up breaking my water. Then it was more Pitocin. It was already Saturday the next day. I hadn’t drank anything. I hadn’t eaten anything. There was no ice. There was nothing.

Yeah. It just felt horrible. I just stayed. At one point, I couldn’t handle the pain anymore so I asked for an epidural.

Crazy enough, when the anesthesiologist came, he was with a student. He had asked the student to put the epidural inside of me. They had me sign a consent form. I was like, “Oh my gosh, what is this?” I had heard about the epidural and that it was supposed to numb you, but I never expected to get to that point.

I got the epidural, then I just started feeling numb. It numbed me completely down. The day went by. It was Saturday, then I eventually reached a 10. It was 10 PM on that Saturday. I was like, “Okay, well I want to try and push.” I tried to push for an hour or two, and basically, that went nowhere because they had me pushing on my back. They were trying to tell me, “Just try and push as if you are trying to go to the bathroom and poop.”

It was just so frustrating because I was trying, and nothing was working. Eventually, they were like, “Your son’s heart rate is dropping. We just have to do a C-section.” When she told me that, I felt like my world came crashing down because I didn’t want it at all.

But in that moment, as a mom, you are so vulnerable. You are going through so many emotions mentally, emotionally, physically, and so many things that it’s just so hard to make a decision. Obviously, you want what’s best for your baby. I was like, “Okay. Let’s just do a C-section.” They didn’t put me to sleep entirely. It was just my legs, but I just remembered that when they did that, I lost it. I had a very severe panic attack. I was like, “I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel my legs.” There were all of these nurses around trying to calm me down.

Eventually, we went to the C-section room. My husband was with me, and they did the procedure. My son was born thankfully. They made sure he was okay. They put him near my chest for a minute. They cut the cord and all of the things.

But I didn’t know what to expect. I thought that was what I was supposed to expect, to have him for a minute and to have him take him away. I didn’t have anything else. So nothing, I stayed at the hospital for an entire week because my blood pressure rose drastically.

Meagan: Did you have postpartum preeclampsia?

Georyana: Yeah, technically. Without the seizures, thank God, but the blood pressure was crazy high. There was a nurse coming in every 2-3 hours to check my blood pressure. I got medication. Yeah. It was just a horrible moment because right there, you just gave birth to this human being while your body is out of whack going through all of these things, and you just feel like you failed. You feel like you failed, and you just did a horrible job.

But you know, I just kept in-hospital, and one week later, I was released. The C-section recovery was horrible. It was very, very painful. I couldn’t even walk or anything. Taking care of the baby was just really hard for me. Yeah. Eventually, my blood pressure got back to normal, and everything was well.

I suffered from postpartum depression and severe anxiety to the point where my husband would go to work, and I would stay alone in the house. I would think that I was going to die of a heart attack.

Meagan: Oh, yeah.

Georyana: Yeah. My mental health was bizarre. I constantly felt like I was dying. I remember one night, I woke up in sweats. I just felt like I couldn’t breathe. We had called the emergency 9-1-1. I literally felt like I was dying of a heart attack. They checked me and were like, “No, you’re fine. It’s just an anxiety attack.” Postpartum was definitely not the greatest experience for me for the first.

Meagan: I am so sorry to hear that happened.

Georyana: Yeah, but other than that, I’m so grateful to God that my son is healthy. He’s currently 3 years old, and he is just a joy to be around.

Meagan: Yeah. Do you have any resources or suggestions for someone who may have experienced that before or just in general for someone listening in case they have any symptoms or anything like that that you want to share?

Georyana: For what specifically?

Meagan: For postpartum anxiety and panic attacks and stuff to maybe help recognize what it could be or resources that helped you.

Georyana: Yeah, definitely my biggest resource was God, the church, and prayer. I think that helped me a lot and just having a community of people who you can count on whether that’s a friend or your mom where you can say, “Hey, mom. I’m going through this. Hey friend, I’m going through this. Pray for me. Come over. Please help me. Please help me do some chores,” or anything like that. The weight is a lot.

Once you’ve given birth, you’re thinking about a million things– the baby, the diapers, yourself, the kitchen is a mess, and you definitely need to have the support group to lean on.

But as far as anxiety, learn where your mind is going. Be able to detect those thoughts that creep in and that tell you, “Hey, you’re not doing a good job. You’re going to die. This is going to happen.” Learn to stop those thoughts or reframe. Reframe your mind. We have so much power in our minds.

Meagan: Yep.

Georyana: If we only knew where it could take us.

Meagan: Yeah. I agree. Our minds are so powerful, and there is something about that community that can really, really help. There are even more resources like deeper resources. There is postpartum support, Baby Your Baby, and so many things. We talk about this in our course, and I won’t go through all of them, but I think it’s so important to do a self-care checklist after. Think about, “Have I eaten enough? Have I slept enough?” You want at least 5 hours of sleep. Most of us with newborns can say no to that automatically, so maybe doing something like hiring a postpartum doula, having our mother-in-law come, having our community come in to help and hold baby so we can get really good and effective sleep. Have a bath or a shower. Just getting ready for the day is weird but can help us mentally. It can help us get out of that mental funk.

Exercise– now, we can’t really do that in the beginning. But have I exercised is another question. Have I allowed myself to laugh today? Have I allowed myself to smile today? These are things. There are many more. Like I said, we talk about those in our VBAC course because it is so important. It’s not talked about enough, so I’m so glad that you were able to take this space to feel vulnerable enough to talk about this experience.

Georyana: Definitely. I agree. Right now, for this postpartum, I have my mom. She lives 30 minutes away. She comes twice a week and helps me cook meals.

Meagan: So good.

Georyana: Yeah. They are delicious. You just have to be willing to take the help. There is definitely help. Yeah. It’s important that we don’t feel alone.

Meagan: Yeah, I agree.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Sorry, we can go on to this next birth story.

Georyana: This next birth story– my husband and I knew that we wanted another baby, but we just didn’t know when would be the right time. 2.5 years passed. We got pregnant. It was a surprise. It was a surprise and a blessing.

All I knew inside of me was that I wanted a VBAC. I wanted a VBAC. I was like, “You know what? I’m going to try for it again.” I was obviously open to the fact that it could end in a C-section. I didn’t have a closed mind in that sense.

I ended up searching for supportive providers. After finding one, I found an OB/GYN. The first thing that I had asked was, “Do you support VBACs?” They were like,”Yeah, we do. We do.” They had five doctors on board, so basically, every prenatal visit had a different doctor so that eventually when I would go into labor, one of them was going to be assisting my birth.

To each one, I would always ask the same thing, “Hey, I would like to do this. Do you support it?” They were like, “Yeah, we do that.”

My blood pressure was great at every prenatal visit. There were no concerns. I did change a lot of what I had previously done in my previous pregnancy which is that I started exercising. I started walking 30 minutes 3 or 4 times a week. I started eating healthier because I think that’s one of the things that most people don’t talk about too is the importance of nutrition. It is important in pregnancy. You’re always told that you have another human being and you have to eat for two. You’re like, “Yeah, let’s eat for two,” and you gain 10, 20, 30 pounds.

I tried to be mindful of what I was eating. Long story short, everything was going great. At my 32-week appointment, I met with a provider. I meet with one of the doctors on the team, and my same question pops up. She’s like, “Oh, you can’t really go past 40 weeks here. You can’t.” I’m like, “Why? I’m perfectly healthy. My blood pressure is fine. Why can’t I go a day past 40 weeks?” She was like, “No, you can’t. You actually have to schedule your C-section date right now. You have to sign a consent form. You have to put your due date as your C-section date.”

My due date was August 1st. I was like, “Well, I don’t understand.” I was just feeling led on because, during the prenatal appointments, there were subtle signs, but I guess I didn’t really want to pay attention to them because I was like, “Oh my gosh. I can’t imagine switching providers.” I was 7 months pregnant. I was like, “Okay, thank you. I’m just going to call back and schedule that C-section.”

I remember going home and being like, “Wow. This really just happened.” I remember that I started praying. I told God. I expressed how I felt. I was just very overwhelmed and, “Is this really the path that you have for me?” I felt that he just told me, “Do a home birth.”

I was like, “What? A home birth? That is not–”

Meagan: That’s not what I’ve been looking at at all.

Georyana: That is insane. Funny enough, I started researching, is that truly an option for me? After researching, I found a midwife. She is actually Chrisitan, a pastor, a worship leader, and a midwife.

Meagan: Wow. She wears a lot of hats.

Georyana: She wears a lot of hats. I don’t know how she does it, but I expressed to her, “Am I able to do a home birth if I had high blood pressure during my previous pregnancy?” She was like, “Yeah. We will monitor you. We will make sure you are taking care of yourself.” She did tell me, “During labor, if your blood pressure skyrockets, we’ll have a plan in place and we will go to the hospital.” We had plan A and plan B.

I spent the last 2 months with her. She would come to my house, and check my blood pressure. She had me drinking lots and lots of water which is another thing that we underestimate or is not often talked about.

Meagan: We do. We really don’t. We usually drink water, but we’re not getting enough of the hydration.

Georyana: 100%. She was like, “You need to be drinking at least half of your weight in water.” All I remember was that every day, I was chugging water. She actually advised me to take Calm as a magnesium supplement.

Meagan: MagCalm?

Georyana: Yeah, MagCalm. That helped tremendously. That helped tremendously. Everything was safe and sound. I was doing all of the things at 37 weeks– the Miles Circuit, the red raspberry leaf tea. I was eating the dates and all of the things that they tell you to VBAC. I was listening to a lot of birth stories, especially on The VBAC Link which just helped me tremendously because I was able to get in a right mindset. The birth stories edified my faith to a whole other level.

I just remember every day doing dishes and I was plugging in a story. Every story was different, and I was like, “Wow. If it could happen for her, it could happen for me. Why disqualify myself? Why disqualify my body?” That’s another thing that we do a lot. We often hear, “Oh no, your body wasn’t meant to do it” or “Your body can’t do it”.

Meagan: Yep, yeah. We hear those things, and then we believe them.

Georyana: Yeah, that’s the sad part. I think I was 39 weeks and 3 days. I go into labor. My water broke at 3:00 in the morning, but I need to backtrack that. At 38 weeks, my midwife checked me. I had asked her to check me. She checked me, and I was 3 centimeters dilated. The baby was head down. The baby was head down. Everything was normal and everything was looking good.

She came back at 39 weeks, and I was like, “Can you check me again to see if I’ve progressed?” Even though that doesn’t really mean anything, I was just so excited. She checks me, and she’s like, “I don’t know what I’m feeling, but I’m not feeling the head anymore.”

Meagan: Oh, okay.

Georyana: Yeah. I’m like, “What do you mean you’re not feeling the head?” She checks, and she’s like, “I don’t know if that is her hand or her knees or something like that, but it’s definitely not the head.”

She tells me, “I think I’m going to have to send you to get an ultrasound to see the positioning of the baby.” We spend a couple of minutes just trying to sink that in. She was like, “But you know what? Let me check again. Maybe I was wrong.”

She checked again, and she is still feeling the same things, but then she was like, “Is that your coccyx (the tailbone)?”

I thought it was. I genuinely thought it was. I tell her, “Yeah. I think that’s it.”

We were like, “Okay, I think we should be fine.” We were going a little loopy. I don’t know.

Fast forward to when my water breaks at 3:00 in the morning, I started feeling contractions, but nothing consistent, so during the day, I just remembered that I texted her. She was like, “What other symptoms do you have?” I had my bloody show. My mucus plug fell out. The contractions were different from the Braxton Hicks that I had been facing all of these weeks.

I was like, “Yeah, there’s definitely some type of shift here because I feel like they are stronger. They are lasting longer.” Fast forward to Saturday, I ended up walking with my husband. His family was in town, and that also helped pick up the contractions.

At around 6:00 PM, I gave her a contraction timer app on my phone so she could see. By the way, I had a doula, so she had the app as well. She was an hour away, and she was like, “Please text me so I can come out on time.”

At around 7:00 PM, they both arrived to my home. Contractions were 6 or 7 minutes apart. She had me actually do nipple stimulation with my husband. They went out of the room. We did nipple stimulation, and that just skyrocketed everything because I had all of the oxytocin flowing.

Meagan: I was going to say that’s natural oxytocin flow right there.

Georyana: I had natural oxytocin. I was like, “Whoa. Now I’m in a whole other dimension.” Contractions were 3 minutes apart. I just remember breathing. I had worship music playing in the background. The lighting was dim. It was so different from the hospital. It was so intimate. It was something unforgettable what I experienced on that day and when I compare it to my hospital birth, I had so much tension. All the bright lights, it was so different.

She set up the birth pool. I went in, and I sat down. She was like, “Okay. I think it’s time to push. You’re at a 10.” She had checked me. I was trying to push, but I didn’t really get it. I was trying to feel my intuition because they always tell you, “Your body knows when it’s going to push.” She had me stand up, and she coached me. She said, “Try standing up and seeing if you have the urge to push.”

When I stood up, I got that urge. A contraction came. I did a push, and nothing happened. Then another contraction came, and I did. I just remember breathing in, and I just let it out. She sees knees.

Meagan: What? Knees?

Georyana: Knees. She sees the baby’s knees come out. She screamed.

Meagan: What?!

Georyana: She was like, “Oh yeah. She’s breech. She’s breech. She’s coming out breech.”

Meagan: Oh my goodness.

Georyana: I just remember I was moaning during that period. I was just like, “Ooh.” I didn’t look at anyone, but my husband tells me that at this moment, I just looked at the doula and she had her jaw on the floor. She was like, “Okay, well, you have to breathe in, and push in during the next contraction.” I remember that during the next contraction, I just let out the biggest roar. It was a roar.

She came out entirely. My husband caught her. I just fell. I just fell, and yeah, she was breech. She came out knees first, then her legs, then her whole head just popped out.

Meagan: I am dying right now. This is amazing. Oh my gosh. Once her knees came out, her whole body slipped out?

Georyana: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Definitely. It was such a moment of shock.

Meagan: Yeah, I bet for everybody.

Georyana: Yeah, for everyone because we thought she was head down. I kept telling her, “You were right. You were right. What you were feeling was the knees.”

She was like, “Thank God I didn’t send you to do the ultrasound because you would have gotten a C-section automatically at the hospital. That would have been an automatic C-section.”

Meagan: Yeah. They wouldn’t have entertained that at all.

Georyana: Yeah. He put her on my chest. It was so surreal. I was like, “Wow. My body did this. God really did this to me.” We went on over to the bed. They weighed her. She was 6 pounds and 3 ounces.

Meagan: Aw, your tiny little thing.

Georyana: Yeah, she was tiny which also helped me. Yeah. Shortly after, I started breastfeeding. With my first, with my son, that was something I really wanted to do, but he never really quite latched so I just pumped for 2 years.

For this one, I didn’t really expect to breastfeed, I was like, “If it happens, good. If it doesn’t, then whatever.” But when she started breastfeeding, I was just like, “Wow, my body is doing this too.” The connection that I just feel with her that I have is just out of this world.

That was my experience.

Meagan: Wow. Had your midwife done breech before?

Georyana: She says that obviously when she was in training with other midwives before she went solo, she had experienced breech births, but this was her first time solo and alone. Technically, she’s not allowed to deliver breech babies under law. If she knows, she needs to automatically send me to the hospital.

Meagan: But if the baby’s knees are coming out, and baby comes out like that, what are you going to do?

Georyana: Yeah, exactly. You don’t really have any other option than to just deliver the baby.

Meagan: Oh my goodness. Wow. That’s an amazing story. This is so awesome. Oh my gosh. This postpartum has been much better?

Georyana: Yeah, it has. During the first one, like I said, I suffered from anxiety and panic attacks. I didn’t really get that this time around. What I got this time around was anger.

Meagan: Hmm, okay. So some postpartum rage?

Georyana: Yeah, it was rage, and I guess just handling two kids and the transition from one to two hit me hard. I didn’t really know how to understand that. But the same thing around, just being able to give myself grace, I had a postpartum session with my midwife and my doula being able to let them know how I felt was very good. It was very helpful. Speaking with my pastor and just letting them know my feelings and how I felt really helped me. It really helped me.

I’m doing so much better now. This postpartum has been amazing. A lot of breastfeeding, a lot of cuddles and snuggles. Seeing my son play with his sister was something I always dreamed of, being able to have two kids.

Meagan: Oh, what a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing. Huge congrats. This little ball right here is just stunning. Her head, oh my gosh– her head of hair is just insane. She has so much hair. That is just so much fun, and I’m so happy for you.

Georyana: Thank you so much, and thank you for having me.

Meagan: Absolutely.

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan’s bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donations
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

  continue reading

375 episoder

Artwork
iconDel
 
Manage episode 457370648 series 2500712
Innhold levert av Meagan Heaton. Alt podcastinnhold, inkludert episoder, grafikk og podcastbeskrivelser, lastes opp og leveres direkte av Meagan Heaton eller deres podcastplattformpartner. Hvis du tror at noen bruker det opphavsrettsbeskyttede verket ditt uten din tillatelse, kan du følge prosessen skissert her https://no.player.fm/legal.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Women of Strength!

We have another beautiful VBAC birth story for you today from our friend, Georyana. Georyana shares how she went from having an unplanned Cesarean with her first birth to a planned HBAC but unexpected breech delivery!

During her first postpartum period, Georyana experienced postpartum preeclampsia, depression, and anxiety. She and Meagan dive into coping tools and resources available for anyone else going through the same.

While prepping for her VBAC, Georyana also talks about the power she felt while listening to other stories on The VBAC Link Podcast. She knew she had to give her body the chance to show what it was capable of.

“If it could happen for her, it could happen for me. Why disqualify myself? Why disqualify my body?”

Needed Website

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

Full Transcript under Episode Details

Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. Merry Christmas to you. It’s so fun to be recording today. It’s actually not even October. It’s September when we are recording, but it’s so fun to think how close we are to Christmas. I hope you guys are having an amazing day, and if you are listening the day after Christmas, I hope you had an amazing Christmas.

We have our friend, Georyana, with us today, and she is from Florida. Hello, love. How are you?

Georyana: I’m doing well. How are you?

Meagan: I am so, so great. I was going to say that as you may hear, she’s got her little one on board, so we may hear all of the little baby coos and noises. What is your baby’s name?

Georyana: Her name is Sophia Victoria.

Meagan: Sophia Victoria. I love it. I’m so happy she’s here. I actually love when we have babies because I don’t really hear those noises anymore. I hear them as a doula for a minute, but I miss those little coos. It’s so fun.

Okay, like I was saying, she is from Florida. She’s a stay-at-home mom of two beautiful babies, a three-year-old and this one-month-old that she’s got with us. She works part-time remotely and is a Christian and serves as a worship leader for the youth group worship team. Is that correct?

Georyana: Yes.

Meagan: Awesome. I love that. She says that she’s officially started homeschooling her toddler this year which is super exciting. That is exciting. We’ve had so many moms on the podcast lately who are like, “I’ve quit my job. I’m homeschooling,” or “My full-time job is homeschooling.” That’s amazing.

Georyana: Yeah. Yeah. It really is just to be able to soak in all of these moments with your kids. Time flies so fast. You just want to treasure everything.

Meagan: It’s so true. It really does. I have a 7th grader which is crazy, so yeah. Super crazy.

Remind me, you used Needed’s iron?

Georyana: Yes. I’ve actually used it for postpartum.

Meagan: Yes. I wanted to talk about that because we talk about their prenatals and all of the other things to do during pregnancy. We haven’t really talked about the iron, so can we talk a little bit about why you’re taking iron and how it’s been?

Georyana: Yeah, so after this pregnancy funny enough which is something I’ll tell during my story, but I passed out after I gave birth. I believe it was due to a lot of blood loss and low hemoglobin, so after I gave birth, I kept taking my prenatals, but my prenatals only had 15 milligrams of iron in them. That’s when I decided to go for Needed. I had heard of a lot of amazing reviews. I had heard about it too on The VBAC Link.

I’m only taking one additional per day, so I’m taking around 30 milligrams of iron.

Meagan: Have you noticed a difference?

Georyana: Tremendously. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely less fatigue, more energy. I was getting dizzy a lot during the early days of postpartum and breastfeeding, so that helped a lot too.

Meagan: That’s what I was going to say. It’s probably helping you breastfeed as well.

Georyana: Yeah. It’s definitely an amazing supplement.

Meagan: That’s so awesome to hear. I believe in Needed’s products wholeheartedly, so it’s so fun to see that other people are loving it too.

We do have a Review of the Week, so I want to get into that really quickly, then we are going to turn the time over to you to share these stories. This is from nnoah and it says, “Generational trauma”. It says, “This podcast and the Facebook group have been a godsend to me. After my 56-hour failed induction and emergency C-section due to very low heart decelerations with my daughter, I told my husband I would be happily scheduling my C-sections from now on. My sister-in-law told me I could VBAC, but I had no hope that my body could birth after such a drawn-out process that ended in ‘failure’. My mom had three C-sections herself with the first being highly traumatic, and I never realized how much her birth experience has influenced my own physiological state as I approached labor and delivery. I researched everything with my first from breastfeeding to infant development and sleep, but I did not read a single book or take a single class on birth. Now, I realize it was because of how much fear and trauma I was carrying around with me from my mother’s experiences. I walked into birth ready to fail because I didn’t think I could do it. I wasn’t tough enough.”

She says, “After listening to this podcast, it has me believing in my body and preparing my mind even more before we try to conceive our next baby. I have begun working through my birth with How to Heal a Bad Birth,” which we absolutely love if you want a good book on how to heal a bad birth. That is one of our favorites.

It says, “I’ve already interviewed a VBAC-Link certified doula to assist me in my next birth when we conceive. The resources, podcast, and recommendations here have had me anticipating my next birth with excitement rather than dread. I couldn’t be more grateful for this resource. Thank you.”

Wow. So many things within that review. I one, am so thankful for that amazing review, and I want you to know that we are here for you and this community and these stories are here to help empower you even further going into your next birth. I love that she said that she had a doula before she was even conceived. She’s found the doula she’s going to hire, and as soon as she conceives, she can hire that doula.

As a reminder, just like she said, we have a VBAC directory with VBAC-certified doulas. You can go to thevbaclink.com/findadoula and look for a doula in your area.

Okay, mama. Oh, look at this cute little baby with a full head of hair.

Georyana: Yeah, she had a lot of hair. That’s how she was born, with a lot of hair.

Meagan: Her hair was probably born first. It’s so long, oh my gosh. Oh, I’d love to turn the time over to you to share these stories of yours.

Georyana: Okay. Well, just like every VBAC, it starts with a C-section. Mine was in 2021 with my first son. It was an overall healthy pregnancy quote-on-quote. Every prenatal visit was normal for the most part. There was nothing out of whack. I do want to be transparent and say that I did not eat healthy or exercise knowing that I was supposed to. I remember working at this part-time job, and literally after I was done clocking out, I would go straight for the Chick-fil-A. It was Chick-fil-A every day. I ended up gaining around 87 pounds during my pregnancy.

Meagan: Wow, okay.

Georyana: I was 215 when I delivered. At around 39 weeks with my OB/GYN, she was like, “I want to schedule a C-section because your baby’s measuring really big.” We did the whole– I forget the word– where they actually check the baby’s weight.

Meagan: Oh, like a growth measurement in an ultrasound.

Georyana: Yeah, she was like, “This baby is already a 10-pounder.” I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I was freaking out because I really wanted to give birth naturally. That was something I had told her about, but she was like, “No, let’s schedule a C-section.” We were going back and forth, and she was like, “Okay, well at least we are going to get an induction date.” She set up an induction date for March 15th. It was a Monday.

I started going into labor. I started going into labor on Friday spontaneously. I went into spontaneous labor. I didn’t really know that much about laboring at home and all of the things like right now that I know you’re supposed to do.

Yeah. I had labored at home for an hour or two until contractions started getting intense. I went to the hospital which was an hour away. I checked in. They checked me. I was 2 centimeters dilated, and they took my blood pressure. They were like, “You have high blood pressure.” They didn’t give me a reading or anything, but they were like, “We’re going to make you stay. We’re going to have you stay. We’re not going to send you home.”

I was like, “Okay. You guys know what you’re doing.” I started laboring for an hour or two, and then a nurse came in and I had explained, “I really want to try and go for a natural birth.” She was like, “Okay. I’m going to give you an hour. I’m going to give you an hour.”

Meagan: What?

Georyana: “I’m going to give you an hour and see where you are as far as dilation and as far as progressing.” I was like, “Okay.” An hour went by. Mind you, I was strapped to the chair because there’s something that you’re never really taught, to move around while you are laboring.

At the one-hour mark, she comes in. She checks me, and I’ve gone nowhere. She goes, “I’m going to put you on Pitocin.” Things started getting really crazy at that point because it was my first time feeling contractions, and those contractions were horrible. They are so intense, and now having had experienced these natural contractions from my VBAC, you can automatically tell the difference.

She puts me on Pitocin. I labor and I had my husband with me. It was back-to-back contractions to the point where I could barely breathe. I had taken one birth class, but it was the standard information. They never really teach you how to breathe or the importance of getting your mind right, and the importance of your mind and how it plays such a huge role in birth.

I just kept laboring. I kept literally squeezing my husband’s hand. I couldn’t allow him to go anywhere. It was horrible. As the hours passed, things started getting worse and worse. They ended up breaking my water. Then it was more Pitocin. It was already Saturday the next day. I hadn’t drank anything. I hadn’t eaten anything. There was no ice. There was nothing.

Yeah. It just felt horrible. I just stayed. At one point, I couldn’t handle the pain anymore so I asked for an epidural.

Crazy enough, when the anesthesiologist came, he was with a student. He had asked the student to put the epidural inside of me. They had me sign a consent form. I was like, “Oh my gosh, what is this?” I had heard about the epidural and that it was supposed to numb you, but I never expected to get to that point.

I got the epidural, then I just started feeling numb. It numbed me completely down. The day went by. It was Saturday, then I eventually reached a 10. It was 10 PM on that Saturday. I was like, “Okay, well I want to try and push.” I tried to push for an hour or two, and basically, that went nowhere because they had me pushing on my back. They were trying to tell me, “Just try and push as if you are trying to go to the bathroom and poop.”

It was just so frustrating because I was trying, and nothing was working. Eventually, they were like, “Your son’s heart rate is dropping. We just have to do a C-section.” When she told me that, I felt like my world came crashing down because I didn’t want it at all.

But in that moment, as a mom, you are so vulnerable. You are going through so many emotions mentally, emotionally, physically, and so many things that it’s just so hard to make a decision. Obviously, you want what’s best for your baby. I was like, “Okay. Let’s just do a C-section.” They didn’t put me to sleep entirely. It was just my legs, but I just remembered that when they did that, I lost it. I had a very severe panic attack. I was like, “I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel my legs.” There were all of these nurses around trying to calm me down.

Eventually, we went to the C-section room. My husband was with me, and they did the procedure. My son was born thankfully. They made sure he was okay. They put him near my chest for a minute. They cut the cord and all of the things.

But I didn’t know what to expect. I thought that was what I was supposed to expect, to have him for a minute and to have him take him away. I didn’t have anything else. So nothing, I stayed at the hospital for an entire week because my blood pressure rose drastically.

Meagan: Did you have postpartum preeclampsia?

Georyana: Yeah, technically. Without the seizures, thank God, but the blood pressure was crazy high. There was a nurse coming in every 2-3 hours to check my blood pressure. I got medication. Yeah. It was just a horrible moment because right there, you just gave birth to this human being while your body is out of whack going through all of these things, and you just feel like you failed. You feel like you failed, and you just did a horrible job.

But you know, I just kept in-hospital, and one week later, I was released. The C-section recovery was horrible. It was very, very painful. I couldn’t even walk or anything. Taking care of the baby was just really hard for me. Yeah. Eventually, my blood pressure got back to normal, and everything was well.

I suffered from postpartum depression and severe anxiety to the point where my husband would go to work, and I would stay alone in the house. I would think that I was going to die of a heart attack.

Meagan: Oh, yeah.

Georyana: Yeah. My mental health was bizarre. I constantly felt like I was dying. I remember one night, I woke up in sweats. I just felt like I couldn’t breathe. We had called the emergency 9-1-1. I literally felt like I was dying of a heart attack. They checked me and were like, “No, you’re fine. It’s just an anxiety attack.” Postpartum was definitely not the greatest experience for me for the first.

Meagan: I am so sorry to hear that happened.

Georyana: Yeah, but other than that, I’m so grateful to God that my son is healthy. He’s currently 3 years old, and he is just a joy to be around.

Meagan: Yeah. Do you have any resources or suggestions for someone who may have experienced that before or just in general for someone listening in case they have any symptoms or anything like that that you want to share?

Georyana: For what specifically?

Meagan: For postpartum anxiety and panic attacks and stuff to maybe help recognize what it could be or resources that helped you.

Georyana: Yeah, definitely my biggest resource was God, the church, and prayer. I think that helped me a lot and just having a community of people who you can count on whether that’s a friend or your mom where you can say, “Hey, mom. I’m going through this. Hey friend, I’m going through this. Pray for me. Come over. Please help me. Please help me do some chores,” or anything like that. The weight is a lot.

Once you’ve given birth, you’re thinking about a million things– the baby, the diapers, yourself, the kitchen is a mess, and you definitely need to have the support group to lean on.

But as far as anxiety, learn where your mind is going. Be able to detect those thoughts that creep in and that tell you, “Hey, you’re not doing a good job. You’re going to die. This is going to happen.” Learn to stop those thoughts or reframe. Reframe your mind. We have so much power in our minds.

Meagan: Yep.

Georyana: If we only knew where it could take us.

Meagan: Yeah. I agree. Our minds are so powerful, and there is something about that community that can really, really help. There are even more resources like deeper resources. There is postpartum support, Baby Your Baby, and so many things. We talk about this in our course, and I won’t go through all of them, but I think it’s so important to do a self-care checklist after. Think about, “Have I eaten enough? Have I slept enough?” You want at least 5 hours of sleep. Most of us with newborns can say no to that automatically, so maybe doing something like hiring a postpartum doula, having our mother-in-law come, having our community come in to help and hold baby so we can get really good and effective sleep. Have a bath or a shower. Just getting ready for the day is weird but can help us mentally. It can help us get out of that mental funk.

Exercise– now, we can’t really do that in the beginning. But have I exercised is another question. Have I allowed myself to laugh today? Have I allowed myself to smile today? These are things. There are many more. Like I said, we talk about those in our VBAC course because it is so important. It’s not talked about enough, so I’m so glad that you were able to take this space to feel vulnerable enough to talk about this experience.

Georyana: Definitely. I agree. Right now, for this postpartum, I have my mom. She lives 30 minutes away. She comes twice a week and helps me cook meals.

Meagan: So good.

Georyana: Yeah. They are delicious. You just have to be willing to take the help. There is definitely help. Yeah. It’s important that we don’t feel alone.

Meagan: Yeah, I agree.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Sorry, we can go on to this next birth story.

Georyana: This next birth story– my husband and I knew that we wanted another baby, but we just didn’t know when would be the right time. 2.5 years passed. We got pregnant. It was a surprise. It was a surprise and a blessing.

All I knew inside of me was that I wanted a VBAC. I wanted a VBAC. I was like, “You know what? I’m going to try for it again.” I was obviously open to the fact that it could end in a C-section. I didn’t have a closed mind in that sense.

I ended up searching for supportive providers. After finding one, I found an OB/GYN. The first thing that I had asked was, “Do you support VBACs?” They were like,”Yeah, we do. We do.” They had five doctors on board, so basically, every prenatal visit had a different doctor so that eventually when I would go into labor, one of them was going to be assisting my birth.

To each one, I would always ask the same thing, “Hey, I would like to do this. Do you support it?” They were like, “Yeah, we do that.”

My blood pressure was great at every prenatal visit. There were no concerns. I did change a lot of what I had previously done in my previous pregnancy which is that I started exercising. I started walking 30 minutes 3 or 4 times a week. I started eating healthier because I think that’s one of the things that most people don’t talk about too is the importance of nutrition. It is important in pregnancy. You’re always told that you have another human being and you have to eat for two. You’re like, “Yeah, let’s eat for two,” and you gain 10, 20, 30 pounds.

I tried to be mindful of what I was eating. Long story short, everything was going great. At my 32-week appointment, I met with a provider. I meet with one of the doctors on the team, and my same question pops up. She’s like, “Oh, you can’t really go past 40 weeks here. You can’t.” I’m like, “Why? I’m perfectly healthy. My blood pressure is fine. Why can’t I go a day past 40 weeks?” She was like, “No, you can’t. You actually have to schedule your C-section date right now. You have to sign a consent form. You have to put your due date as your C-section date.”

My due date was August 1st. I was like, “Well, I don’t understand.” I was just feeling led on because, during the prenatal appointments, there were subtle signs, but I guess I didn’t really want to pay attention to them because I was like, “Oh my gosh. I can’t imagine switching providers.” I was 7 months pregnant. I was like, “Okay, thank you. I’m just going to call back and schedule that C-section.”

I remember going home and being like, “Wow. This really just happened.” I remember that I started praying. I told God. I expressed how I felt. I was just very overwhelmed and, “Is this really the path that you have for me?” I felt that he just told me, “Do a home birth.”

I was like, “What? A home birth? That is not–”

Meagan: That’s not what I’ve been looking at at all.

Georyana: That is insane. Funny enough, I started researching, is that truly an option for me? After researching, I found a midwife. She is actually Chrisitan, a pastor, a worship leader, and a midwife.

Meagan: Wow. She wears a lot of hats.

Georyana: She wears a lot of hats. I don’t know how she does it, but I expressed to her, “Am I able to do a home birth if I had high blood pressure during my previous pregnancy?” She was like, “Yeah. We will monitor you. We will make sure you are taking care of yourself.” She did tell me, “During labor, if your blood pressure skyrockets, we’ll have a plan in place and we will go to the hospital.” We had plan A and plan B.

I spent the last 2 months with her. She would come to my house, and check my blood pressure. She had me drinking lots and lots of water which is another thing that we underestimate or is not often talked about.

Meagan: We do. We really don’t. We usually drink water, but we’re not getting enough of the hydration.

Georyana: 100%. She was like, “You need to be drinking at least half of your weight in water.” All I remember was that every day, I was chugging water. She actually advised me to take Calm as a magnesium supplement.

Meagan: MagCalm?

Georyana: Yeah, MagCalm. That helped tremendously. That helped tremendously. Everything was safe and sound. I was doing all of the things at 37 weeks– the Miles Circuit, the red raspberry leaf tea. I was eating the dates and all of the things that they tell you to VBAC. I was listening to a lot of birth stories, especially on The VBAC Link which just helped me tremendously because I was able to get in a right mindset. The birth stories edified my faith to a whole other level.

I just remember every day doing dishes and I was plugging in a story. Every story was different, and I was like, “Wow. If it could happen for her, it could happen for me. Why disqualify myself? Why disqualify my body?” That’s another thing that we do a lot. We often hear, “Oh no, your body wasn’t meant to do it” or “Your body can’t do it”.

Meagan: Yep, yeah. We hear those things, and then we believe them.

Georyana: Yeah, that’s the sad part. I think I was 39 weeks and 3 days. I go into labor. My water broke at 3:00 in the morning, but I need to backtrack that. At 38 weeks, my midwife checked me. I had asked her to check me. She checked me, and I was 3 centimeters dilated. The baby was head down. The baby was head down. Everything was normal and everything was looking good.

She came back at 39 weeks, and I was like, “Can you check me again to see if I’ve progressed?” Even though that doesn’t really mean anything, I was just so excited. She checks me, and she’s like, “I don’t know what I’m feeling, but I’m not feeling the head anymore.”

Meagan: Oh, okay.

Georyana: Yeah. I’m like, “What do you mean you’re not feeling the head?” She checks, and she’s like, “I don’t know if that is her hand or her knees or something like that, but it’s definitely not the head.”

She tells me, “I think I’m going to have to send you to get an ultrasound to see the positioning of the baby.” We spend a couple of minutes just trying to sink that in. She was like, “But you know what? Let me check again. Maybe I was wrong.”

She checked again, and she is still feeling the same things, but then she was like, “Is that your coccyx (the tailbone)?”

I thought it was. I genuinely thought it was. I tell her, “Yeah. I think that’s it.”

We were like, “Okay, I think we should be fine.” We were going a little loopy. I don’t know.

Fast forward to when my water breaks at 3:00 in the morning, I started feeling contractions, but nothing consistent, so during the day, I just remembered that I texted her. She was like, “What other symptoms do you have?” I had my bloody show. My mucus plug fell out. The contractions were different from the Braxton Hicks that I had been facing all of these weeks.

I was like, “Yeah, there’s definitely some type of shift here because I feel like they are stronger. They are lasting longer.” Fast forward to Saturday, I ended up walking with my husband. His family was in town, and that also helped pick up the contractions.

At around 6:00 PM, I gave her a contraction timer app on my phone so she could see. By the way, I had a doula, so she had the app as well. She was an hour away, and she was like, “Please text me so I can come out on time.”

At around 7:00 PM, they both arrived to my home. Contractions were 6 or 7 minutes apart. She had me actually do nipple stimulation with my husband. They went out of the room. We did nipple stimulation, and that just skyrocketed everything because I had all of the oxytocin flowing.

Meagan: I was going to say that’s natural oxytocin flow right there.

Georyana: I had natural oxytocin. I was like, “Whoa. Now I’m in a whole other dimension.” Contractions were 3 minutes apart. I just remember breathing. I had worship music playing in the background. The lighting was dim. It was so different from the hospital. It was so intimate. It was something unforgettable what I experienced on that day and when I compare it to my hospital birth, I had so much tension. All the bright lights, it was so different.

She set up the birth pool. I went in, and I sat down. She was like, “Okay. I think it’s time to push. You’re at a 10.” She had checked me. I was trying to push, but I didn’t really get it. I was trying to feel my intuition because they always tell you, “Your body knows when it’s going to push.” She had me stand up, and she coached me. She said, “Try standing up and seeing if you have the urge to push.”

When I stood up, I got that urge. A contraction came. I did a push, and nothing happened. Then another contraction came, and I did. I just remember breathing in, and I just let it out. She sees knees.

Meagan: What? Knees?

Georyana: Knees. She sees the baby’s knees come out. She screamed.

Meagan: What?!

Georyana: She was like, “Oh yeah. She’s breech. She’s breech. She’s coming out breech.”

Meagan: Oh my goodness.

Georyana: I just remember I was moaning during that period. I was just like, “Ooh.” I didn’t look at anyone, but my husband tells me that at this moment, I just looked at the doula and she had her jaw on the floor. She was like, “Okay, well, you have to breathe in, and push in during the next contraction.” I remember that during the next contraction, I just let out the biggest roar. It was a roar.

She came out entirely. My husband caught her. I just fell. I just fell, and yeah, she was breech. She came out knees first, then her legs, then her whole head just popped out.

Meagan: I am dying right now. This is amazing. Oh my gosh. Once her knees came out, her whole body slipped out?

Georyana: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Definitely. It was such a moment of shock.

Meagan: Yeah, I bet for everybody.

Georyana: Yeah, for everyone because we thought she was head down. I kept telling her, “You were right. You were right. What you were feeling was the knees.”

She was like, “Thank God I didn’t send you to do the ultrasound because you would have gotten a C-section automatically at the hospital. That would have been an automatic C-section.”

Meagan: Yeah. They wouldn’t have entertained that at all.

Georyana: Yeah. He put her on my chest. It was so surreal. I was like, “Wow. My body did this. God really did this to me.” We went on over to the bed. They weighed her. She was 6 pounds and 3 ounces.

Meagan: Aw, your tiny little thing.

Georyana: Yeah, she was tiny which also helped me. Yeah. Shortly after, I started breastfeeding. With my first, with my son, that was something I really wanted to do, but he never really quite latched so I just pumped for 2 years.

For this one, I didn’t really expect to breastfeed, I was like, “If it happens, good. If it doesn’t, then whatever.” But when she started breastfeeding, I was just like, “Wow, my body is doing this too.” The connection that I just feel with her that I have is just out of this world.

That was my experience.

Meagan: Wow. Had your midwife done breech before?

Georyana: She says that obviously when she was in training with other midwives before she went solo, she had experienced breech births, but this was her first time solo and alone. Technically, she’s not allowed to deliver breech babies under law. If she knows, she needs to automatically send me to the hospital.

Meagan: But if the baby’s knees are coming out, and baby comes out like that, what are you going to do?

Georyana: Yeah, exactly. You don’t really have any other option than to just deliver the baby.

Meagan: Oh my goodness. Wow. That’s an amazing story. This is so awesome. Oh my gosh. This postpartum has been much better?

Georyana: Yeah, it has. During the first one, like I said, I suffered from anxiety and panic attacks. I didn’t really get that this time around. What I got this time around was anger.

Meagan: Hmm, okay. So some postpartum rage?

Georyana: Yeah, it was rage, and I guess just handling two kids and the transition from one to two hit me hard. I didn’t really know how to understand that. But the same thing around, just being able to give myself grace, I had a postpartum session with my midwife and my doula being able to let them know how I felt was very good. It was very helpful. Speaking with my pastor and just letting them know my feelings and how I felt really helped me. It really helped me.

I’m doing so much better now. This postpartum has been amazing. A lot of breastfeeding, a lot of cuddles and snuggles. Seeing my son play with his sister was something I always dreamed of, being able to have two kids.

Meagan: Oh, what a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing. Huge congrats. This little ball right here is just stunning. Her head, oh my gosh– her head of hair is just insane. She has so much hair. That is just so much fun, and I’m so happy for you.

Georyana: Thank you so much, and thank you for having me.

Meagan: Absolutely.

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan’s bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donations
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

  continue reading

375 episoder

Alle episoder

×
 
Loading …

Velkommen til Player FM!

Player FM scanner netter for høykvalitets podcaster som du kan nyte nå. Det er den beste podcastappen og fungerer på Android, iPhone og internett. Registrer deg for å synkronisere abonnement på flere enheter.

 

Hurtigreferanseguide

Copyright 2025 | Sitemap | Personvern | Vilkår for bruk | | opphavsrett
Lytt til dette showet mens du utforsker
Spill