Sharing Birth Stories: Embracing the Journey of Motherhood and Holistic Healing, Jaxon's Natural Birth

What if sharing the story of your birth could transform your understanding of life? Join us on the ModernZen Collective podcast as Lizzy Sutton opens up about the intimate and transformative journey of bringing her son, Jaxon James Sutton, into the world. Inspired by a New Zealand pediatrician's tradition of recounting birth stories annually, Lizzy shares her motivation to preserve these precious memories while normalizing conversations around childbirth. This episode marks Lizzy's evolution from the Flow Aligned Coaching Podcast to this new collaboration with Nikki, highlighting the significance of storytelling in motherhood and beyond.

As we explore the whirlwind final days before Jaxon's birth, Lizzy paints a vivid picture of her journey to the Fort Worth Birthing Center for a natural childbirth. With candid humor, she recounts the unexpected onset of labor, a timely car breakdown, and the crucial support of her doula. Lizzie's narrative delves into the powerful role of HypnoBirthing, the reframing of language, and the empowerment that comes from choosing words like "birthing time" over "labor." Amidst the challenges and triumphs, the episode underscores the importance of trust in the body's natural process and the profound beauty of childbirth.

Her natural birth experience unfolds with raw emotion and intensity, highlighting the support system that surrounded her during this pivotal moment. From managing contractions in a birthing tub to overcoming the tense moments of Jaxon's arrival with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, Lizzy's story is a testament to resilience and faith in her birthing team. As she reflects on postpartum healing, Lizzy candidly shares the physical recovery journey, from unexpected challenges to the empowerment found in chiropractic care. This episode celebrates the miraculous nature of birth, holistic living, and the incredible journey of motherhood.

Chapters

• 0:13 Modern Zen Collective Podcast
• 8:39 Last-Minute Labor and Car Breakdown
• 21:31 Intimate Water Birth Experience
• 26:10 Intense Water Birth Experience
• 36:30 Postpartum Healing and Reflection

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:13

Hi, I'm Lizzie and I'm Nikki. Have you ever felt that your life was missing purpose, joy or deep connection? Welcome to the Modern Zen Collective podcast, where we embrace holistic living for a joyful, purpose-driven life.

Speaker 1: 0:29

In this podcast, we'll explore holistic practices, consciousness expansion and spiritual alignment. We will dive into personal development practices that connect mind, body, spirit and share secrets that ancient cultures have known for centuries. Together, we aim to guide, educate and connect individuals eager to transform their lives.

Speaker 2: 0:49

Join us weekly on the Modern Zen Collective podcast and elevate your mind, body and spirit. And now on to today's episode. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Modern Zen Collective Podcast. One of your hosts, lizzie Sutton, here and today. I wanted to just record a little brief intro to this podcast. It is actually an episode that used to live on my own solo podcast, the Flow Aligned Coaching Podcast, which I am no longer recording, and I am here now with my partner, nikki, so full on in the Modern Zen Collective.

Speaker 2: 1:37

But this episode is very near and dear to my heart. It is the recording of my son, jackson James Sutton, my firstborn. He's a little over two years old now. It's a recording of his birth story and it's very important for me to keep this log and keep this transcript and this talk story of this momentous event in both my life and Jackson's life top of mind and available for me to share with him as he gets older. I read this book during my first pregnancy, called Gentle Birth, gentle Mothering, and the woman who wrote it is a pediatrician in New Zealand and she has five kids of her own and one of the things that she talks about is, every year on her children's birthday. She shares with them the story of their birth, and I just love that so much. She talks about when they're really young. There are things that they remember about it.

Speaker 3: 2:38

And that stops you know when they reach around five years old.

Speaker 2: 2:41

They can't really remember their emergence into this earthly world, but I think it's very important to keep the story alive of how our children come into this world and also normalize the sharing of births.

Speaker 3: 2:59

I think it's something that doesn't really get talked about much and really nobody really asks about it until you're pregnant or your wife's going through it or something's going on where it pertains to you all of a sudden, and even then I think people there's some sort of stigma around maybe talking about or sharing about it.

Speaker 3: 3:17

People may think it's too much TMI but honestly, it's such a miracle and a beautiful thing. I don't know if you can hear baby Blake in the background right now, but she has newly emerged and I will be sharing her natural birth story as well, but I just wanted a place to put this so that way it can still live on. So please enjoy this recording of Jackson's birth story. He is my firstborn and I just had another two babies. That's all I'm going to have, and two very different births, so I hope you enjoy this.

Speaker 3: 3:54

And if you're interested, please take a listen to Blake's natural birth story if you want to hear how wild and crazy that one was. But honestly, both of my births have been things out of the movies, so I hope you enjoy and I will catch y'all on the next episode.

Speaker 2: 4:12

Today is a very, very special day. I am going to be sharing my first born, Jackson James Sutton, his birth story. Born Jackson James Sutton his birth story. So two of the books that I read during my pregnancy the only two books I read which, by the way, made me feel very, very informed and ready for whatever was to come.

Speaker 2: 4:40

In one of the books, the doctor slash, mom of five, talks about how every year on her child's birthday, she sits down with them and shares the story of their birth and how they came into the world with them.

Speaker 2: 4:54

And what was so interesting to me is that she said that the first few years of their life, even three, four years old, they will remember different things about their birth and will share that back with her as she's sharing the story with them.

Speaker 2: 5:10

I thought that was so interesting and such a cool, neat thing and a way to kind of normalize talking about birth and all the things that go around with it and sharing that with your kids, whether they be male or female, from any perspective, to just help them get a better idea of what it's actually like and take this taboo that we have about talking about all the hard parts or the gross parts or the TMI parts of the birth. Get rid of that, because it's one of the most beautiful, magical, spiritual, insane things that anyone could experience, whether that you're the mother going through the birth, the husband or partner that's there with them, or the midwives and birthing assistants or doctors or nurses or whoever's there. So I think it is such a cool idea and I really want to start doing this with Jackson. So he turned one about a week ago, on November 7th 2023. And I sat down and shared with him the story.

Speaker 3: 6:19

There were definitely little pauses in between of course, because keeping a one-year-old wrapped up is a little bit hard, a little bit difficult. I'm figuring it out. You know, you got to do all the gestures and all the things, so it's kind of it's fun.

Speaker 2: 6:34

It's fun. I really enjoyed it. So I had a really good time sharing the birth story with him and I wanted to come on the podcast and share this with y'all too. You know my pregnancy finding out I was pregnant, then my pregnancy, the birth and after the birth has just been life changing for me. I don't know how it wouldn't be Having him growing in my body, giving birth to him and having him out here in the world. You know, different things have come up to me and I've reflected on different pieces of that and different things really like shook me at different points along this journey and I want to start to share that with you, with the world, whoever wants to listen.

Speaker 2: 7:20

I think it is important, as women, to get a different women's perspectives on what they've gone through. We're never going to experience pregnancy the same. I think the biggest thing I learned from being pregnant is how individual our bodies are and how every single person can go through the same thing and experience it completely differently emotionally, physically, mentally, like on every single front. And while we all know those things like I'm a yoga instructor, I work out all the things like, yeah, oh, everyone's individual, blah, blah, blah. Yes, but this was just so in my face about how different it was from woman to woman.

Speaker 2: 7:58

It's crazy, so obviously you never know what it's going to be like until you're in it. But it's also really great to woman. It's crazy, so obviously you never know what it's going to be like until you're in it. But it's also really great to get other people's perspectives and stories to just get an idea of what could happen or what some things they did to help them get to the other side of that situation or do the best thing they could, or remedy it or whatever it may be. So I want to start to share these things and I want to start with Jackson's birth story. It's almost like a scene out of a movie. I swear y'all aren't going to believe this, but if you know me, this is real, this is real.

Speaker 3: 8:35

I do this kind of crap.

Speaker 2: 8:38

So funny. So we're getting to the week before his birth. He was supposed to be born on Friday to the week before his birth. He was supposed to be born on Friday, november 11th slash 12th somewhere in there. That was his guest date and I had decided to stop working two weeks before that. I thought he was going to come a week late, like a lot of firstborns do, and lo and behold, he came a little early.

Speaker 2: 9:00

So after it was all said and done, I literally had only not been working for about a week by the time I went into my birthing time, my labor. I stopped teaching yoga Saturday the weekend before. I stopped serving tables Sunday, the weekend before that last week of work was the hardest week of work of my entire life. I didn't want to do it at all, but I had committed to staying with everyone until the end of October and I wanted to honor that commitment. I wish I would have just said fuck it and been like sorry, I'm about to pop a baby out. Figure it out. I should have done that, women do that.

Speaker 3: 9:37

If you need to, it's okay. You can leave people hanging. You're about to have a baby, so I worked up until a week before I had him.

Speaker 2: 9:46

I wish I had longer to just relax beforehand, but that's how it goes, so that next weekend, after I finished working, saturday rolls around. This might be TMI for some people, so if you're not interested, just turn off now. But I thought that my water had broke. I had some leaky fluid in my underwear and it wasn't whatever I normally have. You know, we normally have. We know what it normally looks like to us and I was like, wow, this doesn't smell like anything. It's not pee, it doesn't look like anything. What is it? So I texted my doula which I had a natural childbirth at the Fort Worth Birthing Center. I chose this for a lot of reasons. We can go over that another time.

Speaker 2: 10:34

My husband was a little hesitant at first and then, once he started doing more research and went to the birthing center with me and listened and learned and all the things, he was very much on board. So I was at the Fort Worth Birthing Center, which is a standalone birthing center, which hospitals have their own birthing centers which are different, and then these are standalone birthing centers, so these are staffed completely by certified nurse midwives and birthing assistants and they're separate from anything else. So that's where I had my baby, and when you are a first time mother at the Fort Worth Birthing Center, you are required to have a doula, which I wanted one anyways. So I have a doula, and what a doula does is they're pretty much your coach. They're like your pregnancy and birthing expert. They're there for you, they're there for your partner. You know, y'all have neither. So I don't know how we could expect our husbands to be our coach when they don't know what the fuck they're doing either. So the doula was great because they know all these different things. They can help you get the baby positioned properly beforehand. When I was sick, she gave me natural remedies, so I didn't take medicine, anything like that. She helped prepare my first meals for my body, so I had really easy bowel movements after my birth. All sorts of different things and different doulas offer different services.

Speaker 2: 11:58

So I texted my doula on Saturday and told her what was happening and she's like oh well, you know, just relax this weekend, do what you regularly do, just keep an eye out, whatever. So I kind of did, went about my day, saw it again, you know, sunday morning and I was like I don't know what's going on. She said okay, why don't you do some curb walking? And curb walking is exactly what it sounds like. It's one foot on the curb, one foot on the street. You just go curb street, curb street, so it's like side lunges pretty much. You're lunging, stepping up and then stepping down, stepping up, stepping down. So I don't know Sunday's football, so we watch football all day, of course, and so I was like Bo, let's go for a curb walking after the 325 games were over, you know.

Speaker 2: 12:50

So it's like 6, 630. So go do some curb walking before this Sunday night game starts, which you know for everybody that watches it starts a little bit after seven. So we decided to go curb walking. We have four Labradors, yes, four Labrador retrievers. They're huge, it's a lot. I love them so much and we took two of them with us on the walk. So we went out of our cul-de-sac, up a cul-de-sac and then came back and then swapped out the dogs and got the other two dogs. So we started taking out the second set of dogs and I barely made it out of the cul-de-sac before I started having contractions. You're not really sure, but you don't really know what's happening.

Speaker 2: 13:35

I'm like I think this is contraction. I think I have one hand on Bo's shoulder, another hand on my hip. I'm like bent over, you know, and I'm like, okay, maybe we shouldn't walk anymore, Maybe we should just go back.

Speaker 3: 13:49

So we go back to the house.

Speaker 2: 13:53

We go, we start watching Sunday night football. You know I'm going through labor or, excuse me, it's interesting. I went through this hypno babies program beforehand, which I highly recommend to everyone, and I'm going to do an episode on the things that I really loved that I used during my pregnancy and after separate. But I went through hypno babies and they really talk about the words you use around things. So it's not contractions, it's like squeezing, it's pressure, it's not labor, it's birthing time, it's not your due date, it's your guest date or your guest month, and it's really interesting how the words you use around things really do change that kind of stuff. So anyways, back to it.

Speaker 2: 14:36

Side note, we go inside and I'm just having a hard time. Laying down is not comfortable, Sitting is not comfortable. You know I have to hunch over. It was almost really comfortable having like my hands on a table or something and do like a down dog, almost let my stomach and my head and stuff just go between my legs. But really I spent most of the time on the toilet.

Speaker 2: 14:58

So my husband's sleeping I mean he had been out hunting the night before all night got up early and was hunting that morning. You know this is hunting season. It's November, so he's in it to win it these days. So he's sleeping on the bed, Football game's going blaring in the room. I'm on the toilet and I've got his phone timing my contractions myself and finally I'm like man, these things took like two minutes long and like a minute apart. I'm not sure if I'm timing this right, but I feel like I'm doing this right. I feel like I'm doing this right. So I took a screenshot, sent it to my doula and she's like are you sure? And I'm like yeah, this is what's happening. She's like okay, why don't you just call the midwife? So, with a lot of first time moms, they will think they're going into their birthing time and they're not. You know, false labor, whatever they want to call it.

Speaker 3: 15:47

So a lot of first time moms they don't really believe you when you're like, hey, I'm going, I'm starting. And so I called the midwives and they had just gotten home, you know, taking their melatonin. They're like, okay, let's go.

Speaker 2: 16:00

So the midwife was like all right, let's go to the birthing center, we'll meet you there at 1115. And it was like 1030 at this point and I said, okay, so 1115. So I called the midwife or my doula, let her know she's going to be there, we're all just going to meet there, wonderful. So I wake, bo, up, and I had literally packed our bag for the birthing center that morning. Well, bo packed it that morning. So it's crazy because we just got ready for it and we didn't have one bag, we had like three bags.

Speaker 2: 16:32

So Bo puts all the bags in the car. We had just gotten this new Volvo XC90 fancy freaking car about a week or two before that, and so he's getting all ready and I'm in the house. We finally get in the car at 1045 and we get rolling that way. So we're only about 20 minutes from the birthing center. So we're pretty close to highway 30 and we get onto the highway, we make it about two exits up and this car starts to shut down, like completely shut down, and my husband's like oh my God, what is happening?

Speaker 3: 17:11

What is happening? And I'm like I was just like holding on to the, to the oh shit, handle, you know, trying to like sit on my side, so I'm not sitting completely down, I'm like I don't know, I don't know Are?

Speaker 2: 17:23

are we out of gas? It was like the first thing I said and he looks down, he's like you've got to be kidding me.

Speaker 3: 17:29

We're running out of gas. You've got to be kidding me. And so my dumb ass literally ran the car down to E, never put gas in it and just like, left it in our driveway.

Speaker 2: 17:43

And so we ran out of gas on 30 and my husband, amazing, did good enough to get us up the ramp onto the side of the what do you call those freaking streets, the frontage roads and in Texas they have really long frontage roads and we made it. Two exits up to Ridgely and I don't know if you know Ridgely and 30 over here, but there's a little bit of like sketchball area a little bit, but it's like the one place on the highway. There's a few houses right there, so we ended up stopped out in front of this house and it's 11 o'clock at night and my husband starts banging on these house doors here and so he's banging on the store. Nobody answers. He goes to the next door.

Speaker 3: 18:23

So he's banging on this door and he's like do you have any gasoline? Like a little, can I could put it in the car like anything at all. My wife's in labor. We ran out of gas on the side of the road and meanwhile I've got, I'm outside the car hanging onto the top of the car, just like you know, like very much like in labor here, and I can't say anything. I can't be upset because I don't want to be upset. I can't be upset because if I want to be upset I better be upset at myself. Because I did this. I ran the car down, I didn't put gas in it. Oh my God, of course my husband didn't check for gas when we're going to the freaking burling center.

Speaker 2: 19:00

He's worried about his wife who's in labor there. They're about to have a baby, so I can't be upset. It is the one time that I'll ever be able to run out of gas and do that with not getting bitched out by my husband. He didn't say anything to me because I'm in labor.

Speaker 3: 19:15

He let me have this one, thank you, thank you Bo.

Speaker 2: 19:19

He's banging the second house. He gets banging on. The guy opens the door. He gives him a little gas can that you fill your mowers with. There's nothing in it. I'm hanging out the door. He's like there's no gas. I'm going to call you a lift. I'm like no way, you're not calling me a fucking lift, I'm staying here. So he and I was like, look, this guy came out. This guy came out. So the guy came outside of the house we were at.

Speaker 2: 19:39

He's like what is happening? You know, it's Sunday night, 11, maybe 10 at this point, and Bo gets a gas can from him. There's a little gas in it and I don't know if you guys have any of these fancy cars, but they have these little gas catchers inside the gas. You have to put it in and you have to get it past the extra little thing to get the gas in. Well, these little cans don't do that.

Speaker 2: 20:02

So all the gas Bo is trying to pour into the car is backwashing all over him. So all the gas Bo's trying to pour into the car is backwashing all over him. He's covered in gasoline. It's all over his hands, his arms, his clothes. So he gets it in there. Car won't start, so he gets this guy. He's like can you please take me to the gas station? You know? So the guy takes him to the gas station. I'm just there hanging out on the side of the highway, side of the road, hanging in the car, just like just waiting, and so Bo leaves me and he goes and he's gone for like 20 minutes.

Speaker 2: 20:33

I'm sitting there. I'm like Jesus, this is taking a little while, but really I'm not really worried about it. It's nighttime, it's not that cold out. It was a pleasant night. It was the night before the blood red moon, so it was like really bright out, it was beautiful. And you know whatever, I'm in labor on the side of the road. It's cool, I did it to myself, Can't be upset about it. So he finally gets back. I find out later this guy took him to a gas station, like forever far away, and there was one exit up. So he gets filled up both of the cans, gets it enough in the car for the car to start tosses the gas cans on the grass. He's like all right, thank you, See you later. So we take off and we make it one exit up to the gas station and he fills up the car. So I'm outside of the car it's super uncomfortable to sit at this point and I'm like okay, is that enough? He's like, no, it's not enough. I'm going to put enough gas in here to get us home.

Speaker 3: 21:21

You just you know chill and.

Speaker 2: 21:30

I, you, did this, yes. So we get the car filled up and we finally get rolling to the birthing center and I get a call from them and they're like where are you guys? You have the baby on the side of the road. Like we've been waiting for you.

Speaker 3: 21:37

I'm like no, we're like, we're five minutes away, we're almost there.

Speaker 2: 21:40

So we get there at 1145. So we're 30 minutes late and, um, husband smells like covered in gasoline. I'm in my birthing time, whether they believe me or not yet. So we go inside, they check me out. They're like, oh, yep, yep, it's happening. I'm like, all right, let's do it.

Speaker 2: 21:59

So we go upstairs to the birthing suite and they only have two birthing suites. Nobody else was there in the whole place it's me, my husband, my doula, the birthing assistant and the midwife. In the whole place it was perfect, absolutely amazing. So personal, so intimate, so quiet exactly what I was hoping for. And so we go upstairs to the birthing suite. The birthing suite is like a hotel suite. There is your own kitchen with island, everything stocked with pots and the whole shebang. There is a queen-size bed, there is all the birthing accoutrements you could think of birthing balls, stools, whatever. You have your own bathroom with a shower and a toilet. And then in the other room, in the back, there is a couch and a huge, half a clamshell tub I'm talking like a little mermaid half a clamshell bathtub. It's amazing, anyway.

Speaker 2: 22:50

So they started filling up the tub for me because I really wanted to have a water birth. You know, that was the ideal that was. The goal was yes, let's do a water birth. So we got there and we bring all our stuff in and Bo goes to take a shower. I'm like I can't deal with you smelling like gasoline, like this. So he goes, takes a shower. You know, we brought extra clothes for him because we weren't sure if he wanted to get in the tub with me after I had the baby, because they do these beautiful herbal baths with the mom and baby after you give birth there, and so we thought maybe he might want to get in. So we did have extra clothes for him. So it was perfect.

Speaker 2: 23:25

And I start going through the things with the doula and everything. Nothing really feels that great in terms of like doing lunges or standing or different things. What really felt good was her pushing on my lower spine, on my sacrum, on my tailbone, pressing it really hard down and also pressing my hips in towards each other. The pressure of her pressing on my hips and on my lower back felt really good. And then, once the tub was filled up, I got to get in the tub. So I got in the tub and I pretty much sat in frog legs or hero's pose, I don't know if you know these things, but like so, my legs, my shins tucked back, my feet tucked back by my glutes, knees out like legs spread freaking wide. My hips were just. It was insane.

Speaker 2: 24:12

They offered me the only thing they have there in terms of like pain management is nitrous oxide or laughing gas, and what I really appreciate is they offered it to me one time. I said no and they never offered it again, because I will say that I can see how women end up getting pain medication later on their pregnancy, because you're like, when is this going to end? Are we over the hump? Are we in the hump? Where are we in this length of time? And you have no idea, because some women labor for 24 hours, some for five days, some for 12 hours. You have no clue. And with the first time baby, a lot of times it was 24 plus hours. So you never know.

Speaker 2: 24:50

And I went into my birthing time at 6.30 PM. It's like midnight now that we're upstairs and getting in the tub and I'm telling you what really was the thing for me is the pushing didn't hurt. The pushing felt really good because your body wants you to push and when you do, it feels really good, like you get relief from everything. So the pushing and the waves, like the contraction waves, that was no big deal, like okay, we knew that was going to be a little bit difficult.

Speaker 2: 25:22

The thing that was like the most like painful for me was my hips and my tailbone. They felt like they were on fire from the inside out. So like I'm thinking what I was picturing was like Harry Potter polyjuice potion. So when they take the polyjuice potion and their whole bodies like morph into these other people. That's literally what it felt like. Like my bones were moving because your hips and your pelvis it opens up, it gets wide your sacrum it lifts up and lifts out of the way. Like that's why our tailbones are flexible, so they can move when we give birth, and so all of my bones are like opening up wide and opening up, you know, backwards and everything, and so literally like polyjuice potion. So that's what really was.

Speaker 2: 26:10

The biggest thing that I remember from my birthing time was that fiery sensation from the inside out on my hips, sides of my hips and my lower back, like sacrum tailbone area. So that's really what it was and I was in the tub and my contractions were only giving me two pushes, so my body would only give me like a push and then a push and then it relaxed out of. It is what also was difficult. And so my husband's there in front of me, he has a little glass of water with a straw and he's trying to like feed me sips of water while I'm in the tub and all I can smell on his hands are gasoline, essential oils and soap. And so the whole time I'm sipping out of the straw, I'm like don't breathe through your nose, don't breathe through your nose, don't breathe through your nose Like you don't want to smell this. But pretty much those are the smells of my birth gasoline, essential oil and soap.

Speaker 3: 27:16

And, courtesy of my husband, slash me for making us run out of gas on the side of the road.

Speaker 2: 27:23

So I just kind of like, went into the zone in the tub, eyes closed, like, laying my hands on the side of the tub, chin on my hands, you know, just riding the waves. Well, they're checking the baby's heart rate. You know, throughout this process, at different parts, and his heart rate is starting to decline. He's kind of been locked up, you know, down, engaged in my pelvis for a while, his heart rate starting to decline. So we're like, okay, you need to get out of the tub and we need to, you know, do something different. And I'm like, okay, let's do this. So we get out of the tub and they put me on the bed on my back, and I had my husband on one side, the doula on the other and the midwife and the birthing assistant between my legs, and my husband was on one side and had his arm hooked up under one of my legs. The doula was on the other side, hooked under my other knee with her arm, and the midwife's down there, you know, freaking fingers all up in me, stretching me out because first time mom, so everything's so tight down there, you know as it should be. And then the birthing assistant is behind the midwife with her arms crossed and then I crossed my arms and we grabbed hands so we like had two X's with our arms and our hands were intertwined. The midwife was like look, you need to get him out now. And I'm like okay. So this is why it happened a little quicker than I would have liked to is. Normally they will let you ease through the birth and the birthing time, but his heart rate was decreasing and I did not want to get transferred to the hospital. My only goal was to have him at the birthing center. That was the only thing that I cared about. If everything else went differently, it was going to be okay. And I know you can't get like really hung up on that and you're not supposed to, and you're supposed to have the plan B, plan C, and we did. But man did, I want to have him at that birthing center. And so she's like look, we got to do this. I'm like okay.

Speaker 2: 29:20

So when I'm pushing, she has me tuck my chin, hold my breath, pull against the burling assistant's arms, hold my breath and push, push, push, push, push, push. And so I'm like curling up into a ball, pulling against everybody and like pushing. And so those two pushes with my contractions were not enough to get him out and that's why I couldn't do it in the tub. I also didn't have any leverage. You know, having someone under both knees and on my hands, like that, was a ton of leverage. And so I was able to actually push and so I had to push, push on the contractions, and then I had to give more pushes after the contractions and I was having a really hard time doing that.

Speaker 2: 30:02

And she's like you just have to go straight back into it, uncurl, take a breath and then go right back into it. And I'm like, oh, okay, okay, so we're doing this. And she's like, if you, I'm going to have to snip, you, like I'm going to have to cut you if we don't do this now, cause like he needs to come out. And I was like no, you know my eyes get really big. I'm like no, and she's like we'll do it. And so she pulls up the scissors like in between my legs I could see them and she goes down with them and like, does this snips? Like fake snipping thing? Apparently she fake snipped. She didn't snip me, bo said. She like kind of made the sound like she was about to and it like got me where I was, like all right let's fucking do this.

Speaker 2: 30:41

So I was like one, two, three, four, five pushes on. The fifth push got this little sucker out. He came out, you know head and then slithered out. He actually had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, but what was great was that it wasn't super tight so they didn't have to prematurely cut it, because I really wanted to do delayed cord clamping so he could get all the benefits from all the infusion of blood that comes through the cord after the birth, and so we didn't have to cut it prematurely, so they were able to just unravel it and leave the cord intact, which was really great. But he was blue, and when I say blue I say like Smurf blue and honestly, when he came out I was like we're good, we're good. I didn't worry at all, I was not worried, I was totally calm. I was like he's out, we're here, we're good, everything's good.

Speaker 2: 31:43

Meanwhile the other four people in the room are like this baby's blue, you know, a little bit worried about what's going on. So they're thumping him in the foot like, rubbing all over him. You know, I wanted to like kind of keep you know all the cheesy stuff on him and rub it into his skin, because there's a lot of goodness in that too. But we had to like rub him with the towel to like get him crying and to breathe and things. So there was a lot of suckage.

Speaker 2: 32:10

They did a lot of sucking of fluid out of his mouth and everything, because you know they're going it's like the craziest, coolest shit ever. They're going from breathing water, breathing fluids, to breathing air, like that. It was absolutely insane. Like what other creature does that? So cool. So they're doing a lot of sucking. They're doing like the thumping of the feet, pinching his feet, you know, rubbing all over him and he starts crying and he's fine and I was not worried and I was like, wonderful, I'm just going to lay here, so you know what was really really great about birthing center too, is I never felt dirty.

Speaker 2: 32:49

I never felt dirty at all. They literally cleaned up around me as I moved through the birthing center and I never felt dirty at all. They literally cleaned up around me as I moved through the birthing center and I never felt like I was sitting in anything or laying in anything or anything at all. I was like always very clean and cared for and taken care of. They do this all the time. It's like it's amazing. So that was really nice.

Speaker 2: 33:07

So I got to just kind of like lay back in the bed. They took me up, laid me in the bed, had the baby on me for like a good hour while they cleaned up the rest of the stuff. You know kind of, my doula started making my meal. My husband was with me in the bed. We were just kind of chilling. They let us give us our time. We got to spend that first hour for sure skin to skin contact, and then they started doing the measurements, like measuring him, and Bo got to weigh him and did another APGAR test, which is a test to show, like, the baby's health and it. I can't even remember what else the answer was, because I'm a little bit far out of this right now, but they do these different scores for an APGAR, like whole thing, and the midwife after she did them was putting in. She's like you know, when we first did the Apgar test and he first came out it was almost like we had a dead baby and now he's picture perfect of health.

Speaker 3: 34:04

I almost don't want to send in these first Apgar scores. I'm like, oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 34:09

So they were actually a little bit more worried than they let on. What's nice is they didn't worry me or my husband, and my husband was doing that on his own. They were very calm and cool and collected the whole time, so that was really wonderful as well. But I wasn't worried and there was nothing to worry about. So he's a very chill baby. He's either happy, smiley, moving all over the place checking everything out, or he's just chilling observing life. So he's just not a baby that cries a lot. That's probably why he didn't cry at first. You know he's like I don't want to cry. That's not me, so I don't know.

Speaker 2: 34:45

Anyways, after they did all the weights, the measurements and all that kind of stuff, I got to take my first pee, which is very important. They make sure you take your first pee before you leave. Then I got to get in the tub with the baby and Daddy decided not to get in the tub. Actually, rewind, I did not bring the baby in the tub with me. I wanted Bo to have some time with the baby.

Speaker 2: 35:12

So I got in the tub by myself and Bo and baby snuggled and took a little nap on the couch in the room right next to me and it was really sweet. I didn't feel rushed at all. I got to be in the tub as long as I want. As soon as I was done they got me out and I brought coconut oil with me and the sweet birthing assistant lubed me all up, helped me rub down my whole body Because you know you're exhausted, Like you're pretty much jelly Like from your boobs down you're jelly, you know, I literally felt like my bones were holding me up, not my muscles, like a jelly on my bones.

Speaker 2: 35:50

And so after I got out of the tub, she helped me get dressed, went to the room. They had a birthday cake for him. It was so cute, had a little zero on top and we got to take some pictures with him and his birthday cake in the room. It was so sweet. And then they showed us how to help us get him dressed, showed us how to put him in his car seat, like the whole shebang.

Speaker 3: 36:17

It was so cute. They gave us like little mini tutorials on how to like deal with the baby. You know the most basic things, but you know we're bringing a brand new baby home.

Speaker 2: 36:27

We've never done this before, so it was really nice. Um, I did have my first meal. I forgot. While I was in bed my doula did serve me my first meal. It was a soup. You have to be very, very easy on your meals. No red meat for the first few weeks.

Speaker 2: 36:48

I mean, I know some women do this, but I'm telling you I blew my fucking butthole out, like no lie. The one thing that hurt more than anything else and was sore was my butthole after giving birth, because when you're pushing down there, you're pushing down there, you're pushing the whole area down there. So, like on those three extra pushes that my contractions didn't want to give me, I like blew some hemorrhoids and I had to really take care of my poor little butthole. After this whole situation for the next while like while weeks minimum plus I didn't even look down there for a while because I was a little worried about it. I did not tear. I actually did not tear. She did not cut me. I did blow a blood vessel inside there so I was bleeding quite a bit after and so while they were like kind of rubbing the baby and stuff and he was on my chest right after I gave birth, they ended up giving me four stitches and I'll tell you what it was like no big deal. You're like fucking exhausted. You're just like do whatever you got to do. And they have this really cool thing that is a numbing spray which I didn't know existed. Found out about this through my pregnancy PS. You can buy it at the store. It's called Dermoplast. Used it to help me heal afterwards, but they numb sprayed me and then did the stitches so I barely felt anything Like it felt a little bit, but honestly, you like don't even give a fuck because you're like totally exhausted and you just want to lay there. So I did have a few stitches. They're the ones that dissolve on their own, so like no need to do anything about it. I got checked out.

Speaker 2: 38:28

Two weeks afterwards we came in for a follow-up and they kind of checked it out and I didn't have any issues At that point. I was fully healed. So I actually healed really quickly from the pregnancy. I did have a little bit of a hard time afterwards, of course, but I healed fairly quickly. After the two weeks I was pretty healed and I was able to go back to the chiropractor, which I will tell you, ladies, going to the chiropractor when you're pregnant and post pregnancy was one of the best things I did for myself, and the one after I had him. That two weeks was absolutely incredible and I don't think I could have gotten back to my old self as quickly as I did without that session Because, like I'm saying, I felt like my bones were holding me up.

Speaker 2: 39:18

All my muscles were turned off, from my stomach down. When I went into the chiropractor, I was all jacked up and I'm telling you, my abdominal muscles were turned off, my glutes were turned off, there were parts of my legs that were turned off, my pelvic area. I mean you got to think you just went through an intense like trauma to the body that it hasn't ever done before. Yes, it's encoded in our DNA and we know what we're doing. However, the body hasn't stretched or moved like that before. So, yeah, maybe two, three, four, whatever, it's going to be a lot easier, but I was jacked up and so when he turned all my muscles back on and got me all realigned, I felt a million times better and so I asked them at my two-week visit, like, could I go? And they're like, yes, go. And I'm like, okay, I'm there tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 40:02

So after we had the baby, we're all dressed, we got him in the car seat, whole shebang helped us figure out how to put him in the car, everything. We left the birthing center so I started to go into my birthing time at 630 at night. We got to the birthing center after the whole running out of gas fiasco at 1145. We're admitted at midnight and I had him at 143 in the morning. When I say it was pretty quick, it was pretty quick and I think it's a blessing and a curse, you know. The blessing is is I wasn't in labor or, excuse me, birthing time for all these hours for days. However, my body had no time to warm up, so I went from zero to a hundred, like real quick, which I guess is how I do a lot of things. So I guess it makes sense.

Speaker 2: 40:52

So I had him at 1.43. So I was in labor for seven hours, that's it Seven hours birthing time and I had him at 1.43 and we were home by 5.45 in the morning. So I wasn't even gone from my house or even in my birthing time, like for 12 hours. It was crazy. And so what was really awesome is that we were only in the birthing center for four hours post, you know, having the baby, and we did not feel rushed at all. We were ready to leave. I took my herbal bath, I got all lubed up, I had my first pee, I had my first meal, baby had a birthday cake, bo got a little nap and some time with him. We got our whole things and we were home by 545 in the morning and it was absolutely perfect.

Speaker 2: 41:56

I would not have asked for anything more or anything less and you know it didn't go exactly how I wanted it to go, but the most important things to me having him at the birthing center and having a healthy baby happened and it's so wonderful to take the time to look back on it a year later and think about how much my body changed leading up to it and then has changed from then until now. Like almost, you know, pretty much feeling like myself again, I mean like fucking strong and healthy and powerful, and like a creatrix again, like I've got that internal fire, and it took a long time to get back to this, you know. So there's different stages to it. You know different stages of healing and stepping into that. Like motherhood archetype, you know I died, like part of me died, you know, when I had my son, and I've evolved and I've changed and I've grown into this new person and stepped into the motherhood like chapter of my life and not even chapter, but like not season, not chapter, like I don't even know what to call it. Right now I'm a different woman post birth, post pregnancy, now that I have a baby as we all are, and I feel so blessed to have had this little soul that we named Jackson Janes choose me for this lifetime, and so he is my number one priority. All of the decisions that I make now have to be vetted around him, which makes sense, of course. That's how it is. But people tell you these things, just like I'm sharing with you my birth story right now, and you have no clue until you're there, and that's perfectly okay. We have to be okay with that. So, before we get off on any other tangents here, we're going to close this out, because we're sitting around 40 minutes already. Around 40 minutes already, plus or minus. So thank you so much for joining me. I hope this was illuminating for you in whatever way it needed to be. I highly, highly, highly recommend taking the time to figure out what kind of pregnancy and what kind of birth you want.

Speaker 2: 44:58

Back in the day, when our parents were growing up our moms, their moms, all the generations they didn't have the internet. They didn't have access to all of these different ways of doing things. They only knew what the people in their community and their immediate circle have done. Even back then, you know think my mom's age I don't know how much they actually shared about these kinds of things. So how many outside perspectives did she have on how to go about her pregnancy or her birth? I'm not sure. Probably not very many.

Speaker 2: 45:34

In this day and age, we have access to the ancient wisdom from corner to corner of the world, all around the world, and so it is our duty to make sure that we do our research, we become informed and we choose what is best for us. Listen to everyone's advice. Let them share their stories with you. Let them share the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, but take it all with a grain of salt. This is ultimately your decision. No one else is going through this. This is affecting your body, your mind, your energy, your emotions. You get to choose, so don't take the choice lightly and don't just do what the people in your immediate vicinity do.

Speaker 2: 46:38

Take the time to look outside of your community. Take the time to look outside of your town, of your state, of your Western or Eastern culture. Take the time to just see what resonates with you and I think you'd be very, very surprised what does and what doesn't. There are decisions that we have made I have made for my child that I did not know I was going to make before I was pregnant, and I don't think you need to go and research all this stuff before you're pregnant. Like, really, our brains are filled up with all these other things that we need to know. You don't need to know these things. Then. You're going to have plenty of time once you find out that you're pregnant to start doing your research and figuring these things out and asking people. So don't worry about it until you need to worry about it.

Speaker 2: 47:28

But please take this very seriously. We are the stewards of our children's futures. What they learn from us in their first seven years will affect them the entire rest of their lives and is their subconscious programming and their underlying habits. So, like, let's set them up for success and give them everything that we can unconditional love, safety and security. And when you're pregnant, you're also setting them up for success. You are setting up their baseline health, you are setting up their baseline neurological function and if they are going to be operating from a place of fight or flight, or if they are going to be operating from a place of fight or flight, or if they are going to be operating from a place of resting, relaxing and safety and security as their baseline for the rest of their life. So it is a huge responsibility, and I know that most women treat it that way. So let's make it all women, let's take it upon us, because we are the stewards of our children's future. It's very, very important. So, yeah, that's all I have for today.

Speaker 2: 48:48

Thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 2: 48:50

If you stuck with me to the end, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 48:55

I am planning on doing more episodes around pregnancy, birth, choosing for yourself, taking back our power when it comes to this part of our lives and creation, and so I will be having some of my dear friends on the podcast to share their birth stories.

Speaker 2: 49:14

I have some friends that have had babies in hospitals and in birthing centers, so I think it would be great to get their perspectives on the differences and why they chose, how they chose and different things like that. So I will have some guests on here to share about that, and if there's more that you're interested in hearing, please just let me know about that. And if there's more that you're interested in hearing, please just let me know If you have any certain questions or anything at all. I would love to share as much as possible about this process, because it is a very magical, beautiful thing, and I think there are a lot of pieces of it that don't get talked about and I want to shine a light on it, because it's so important and we are so fucking powerful as women. Let's fucking own it, yeah.

Speaker 3: 50:03

Okay.

Speaker 2: 50:04

Thank you, have a great rest of your day. I'll see you next time. Don't miss out on our journey to living an authentic, purposeful and joyful life. Join our membership and subscribe now to the modern zen collective podcast on all major platforms and take the first steps towards elevating your mind, body and spirit. For all resources mentioned in this episode and to connect with us in our conscious community, check out the episode show notes for all links and our current offerings. See y'all next time.