Description:
Sierra shares how devastating it was to experience a miscarriage during her first pregnancy and how that impacted how she felt throughout her pregnancy with her daughter Ember. She also touches on how her size, while being completely healthy, leads her providers to treat her differently and push her into an unnecessary induction.
Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only with no intention of giving or replacing any medical advice. I, Kiona Nessenbaum, am not a licensed medical professional. All advice that is given on the podcast is from the personal experience of the storytellers. All medical or health-related questions should be directed to your licensed provider.
Want to hear another interesting birth story? Tune into 69-Nicole Bulow-Miscarriage-Bell’s Palsy-2 Vaginal Births-Solfuel Wellness-Baker & Sophia
Resources:
- Perinatal Support of Washington: https://perinatalsupport.org/
- Postpartum Support International: https://www.postpartum.net
- Preeclampsia Foundation: https://preeclampsia.org/
- Grow Therapy: https://growtherapy.com/start/get-therapy/
- Blueberry Pediatrics: https://www.blueberrypediatrics.com/
Definitions:
- Basil Body Temperature
- Blighted Ovum
- White-Coat Hypertension
- Preeclampsia
- Manual Placental Removal After Vaginal Birth
- Cows Milk Protein Allergy
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Transcription of Episode 83:
Intro 0:08
Welcome to Birth As We Know It, a podcast that is dedicated to recognizing the many different ways that birth unfolds. I am your host, Kiona Nessenbaum. I have experienced birth as a doula, a student midwife, a birth assistant, and as a mother of three amazing children of my own. After attending over 140 births, I’ve realized that each birth experience is truly unique. So make sure you subscribe and join me as we are guided through many different birth experiences through the lens of the storyteller. Please be aware that some of these stories can be triggering to hear. So feel free to pause, take a breath, and come back and listen whenever you’re ready. With that said, let’s prep ourselves to dive deep and get detailed about what really happens in the birth space.
Disclaimer 1:05
As a reminder, this podcast is intended for educational purposes only and has no intention of giving or replacing any medical advice. All advice that is given on the podcast is from the personal experiences of the storytellers. All medical or health related questions should be directed to your license provider.
Doula Service Annoucement 1:26
Before we dive into this episode today, I have an exciting announcement. Your girl, Kiona Nessenbaum, is back in the birth space as a birth doula. So if you are local to the greater Seattle area and in need of some birth doula support, please reach out. I would love to support you as you transition into parenthood. To learn more about this service, you can go to
birthasweknowitpodcast. com/doula. Another service that I’m offering is called Labor Prep from adult perspective. Now this can be done virtually or in-person, so it’s also available to those that are not local to the greater Seattle area. What this is, is a two hour info session where you and I connect and talk about the best ways to prep for your labor and to inform you of what your options are. We also touch on how you can cope throughout labor, how partners can support you as you are laboring. And we touch on postpartum. So if you want to learn more about this service, go to
birthasweknowitpodcast. com/laborprep. All right, let’s dive into this episode.
Kiona 2:32
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Birth As We Know It Podcast. Today I will be talking with Sierra who is going to be discussing her birth story of her daughter, Ember. So welcome, Sierra. Thank you so much for coming on today.
Sierra 2:47
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited.
Kiona 2:49
Yes, I am very much looking forward to this and diving into your story, because there’s a lot of details that I’m sure people can relate to.
Sierra 2:56
Yeah, I hope so. I hope it’s enlightening for some.
Kiona 2:59
Yes. Yes, absolutely. So let’s go ahead and start off at the very beginning of when you first decided or found out that you were going to become pregnant.
Sierra 3:10
So in 2020, my husband and I kind of decided like, Hey, let’s go ahead and start trying. And at the time I had almost zero birth education. I was not involved in the birth world whatsoever. So I really did think it was just try and go right. Like and so we had tried that first month, I didn’t get pregnant. I was devastated. And then I became quickly obsessed with tracking all things, basal body temperature, looking at, all of your ovulation, just everything on the apps. And it took us about eight months to finally get pregnant again, almost a year. We never saw any outside resources through fertility or anything like that. I became pregnant. I was super, super excited about becoming pregnant. And at the time in 2020, obviously, COVID had just started really kicking up. And my husband wasn’t even allowed at the doctor’s appointments with me And I had went in for my first ultrasounds and everything looked good. But baby’s heart rate was a little bit low and they just kind of said, Well, we’re still early. That can happen. Don’t freak out like everything’s okay, but we’ll have you come back in a week and I’ll check again. And of course, you know, I go back in a week and the whole time, that whole week I was just a mess. I just felt it almost like innately inside of me, like something didn’t feel right and I felt like things were wrong. I almost went to the emergency room just thinking I need to confirmation that something isn’t right. But when I went back that following week, baby didn’t have a heartbeat. And so we went forward with, the miscarriage process. At that point, my husband and I were super, super devastated. My mom, like at that point, you know, when you’re brand new pregnant, I had told my family and I was super excited and the process of miscarrying at home was really traumatic, very painful, and I wasn’t expecting everything that came along with it. And then that kind of really changed my perspective on getting pregnant, the excitement behind it. I just feel like I was kind of robbed of that joy, right? Like robbed of that naivete I got. It’s the best way I can describe it. Like, you know, I always told people, like, I wish that I never experience kind of this long standing where you’re trying to get pregnant, trying to get pregnant, and then you finally do, and then you have this loss because it just it screwed with my head pretty bad. So I took a step back completely at that point and told him like, Hey, I don’t even want to try again right now. I want to lose some weight. I had I knew that it wasn’t my fault, but I was like, Let me just get my body as healthy as I possibly can before we do this again. So I had lost probably like 80 pounds in a year. One could arguably say that was not healthy. And so I kind of just really stopped eating very much. My whole goal was get as thin as you can. You know, blood pressure is normal. I mean, I never had high blood pressure, but it was just kind of like, I want my body and my heart and my blood work to come back completely clear. So I felt like there’s nothing wrong with me that could make this any higher risk. And it needs to be. And so once I felt like we were ready, we started trying again and again. It took a very long time to get pregnant with Amber. It was about around the same amount of time, around eight months. And I was the same obsession taking 400 pregnancy tests every month. You know, just like overwhelming amounts of pregnancy tests. I tell people all the time, I had stock in first response like it was ridiculous. after taking all of those pregnancy tests, my fears were super high, but I was extremely devoted to just staying pregnant at this point. That’s all I wanted was just, Please God, do not lose this baby. Stay pregnant. I knew at that point I needed to start looking for an OB practice. I wasn’t really versed still in like, too much of the midwifery or doula care at that point. So I started looking for Opie’s and I had this weird episode at work and I felt like my heart was racing. Almost like if you were having a panic attack, my heart was beating out of my chest. I had not been to the doctor yet to confirm pregnancy. And I ended up telling them like, you need to call an ambulance. I don’t know if I’m about to pass out or if I’m having a heart attack, but something isn’t right. And I don’t know if that was just when you first get pregnant, you get the dizzy spells and you kind of get the faint flushes. And I just had never experienced that before, but I was panicking. So they came. And of course, it was this whole drama. I had to tell them I’m pregnant. And then, you know, me having my anxiety around doctors, it was pretty scary. But they took me to the hospital and did an ultrasound at that point had gotten that first ultrasound in the emergency room, I was so happy. They were like, Oh, we see an egg sac. And we think, here’s a look at their little pregnancy or too early to see a heartbeat, but this is exactly what we want to see. My beta levels were great and left feeling super confident, like, okay, I’ve got this, this is good. Even though this was a scary thing, which they thought was just a fluke, they’re like, Honestly, we don’t know what’s wrong with you. Like, what happened with that? There was nothing actually medically wrong. They just chalked it up to like pregnancy, weirdness. But they did say follow up with your OB in a couple of days just to make sure baby’s okay. And I was like, okay, great So I got scheduled with an OB practice that had it was kind of like, I call it like the pregnancy factory. I mean, this place had all of the best doctors, but I think there were ten MDs that worked in that office and like four or five nurse practitioners under them. And then a slew of nurses and then they had their whole ultrasound clinic. They had a clinic in building that just did things like procedure wise, like actual internal procedure. It was pretty crazy. It was like an OB hospital practically. I got schedules with them about four days after the emergency room visit and again I was nervous but felt a little bit better just because of what I saw at the hospital. my husband and I had went to that appointment and. The girl that was scanning me, we were doing a transvaginal and she looked and she looks like it just fell on her face. And she just was looking at me. She’s like, Hold on, I’m going to go get a doctor. I’m going to get a doctor. And then she comes back and she’s like, Well, all the MDs are busy, but I’m not seeing anything. Almost blighted Ovum is kind of what she was telling me, meaning that there’s no pregnancy inside of your gestational sac. And I was devastated because I told them like no. At the E.R. they saw a pregnancy. I saw it. I saw the baby. Like, what do you mean there’s nothing there? And she’s like, I’m just not seeing anything. I’m so sorry. And so we had to go meet with the OB directly after that. And he looked at the scan pictures that she took and he agreed. I think it’s a blighted ovum. I think you’re about to miscarry. Just kind of prepare yourself for that. Well, thank God I didn’t take any medicine at that point. I said, okay, we’ll just book a scan in a week. We’ll try again. But the OB that I had at that point, I wasn’t a fan of his attitude. He was very laissez faire about the whole thing and just kind of like, too bad, sucks to be you have a great day, you know, And it just wasn’t what I needed. So my husband and I went home and just grieved for a week, right? Because we were having to expect that nothing was there and that was what was going to happen. And so going to that next appointment, it was like so incredibly stressful, so stressful. And looking back, that is an office I would never have chosen for myself. You know, there’s at least 50 pregnant people waiting in the waiting room and all varying sizes. You see people coming out crying. There’s people going in laughing. I mean, it was just the mix of emotions and people and the energy in the room was huge. So you felt like you’re going to pass out waiting for your ultrasound. You know, like it’s just incredibly stressful. But I go back and it’s my turn for ultrasound. My husband and I are just prepared to hear like, okay, or, you know, your body hasn’t miscarried yet da da da. Well, she does. The transvaginal goes in. First thing she sees not only just a full blown little, little nugget baby, you know, like a bean size baby, but a heartbeat immediately. I could see the heartbeat without her even reading it. So I just started bawling. And I’m like, What? It’s like, What are you talking about? Like, they just told me that she wasn’t there. And the ultrasound tech didn’t have much to say, but she was just like, Oh, congratulations, heartbeats. Good. I think our heart rate at that time I was about six and a half weeks and it was like 140. So I felt pretty confident. And we met with the new O.B. and he was fantastic and he was just very blunt and said she messed up the ultrasound. I’m looking at the images prior and I would not have taken those images. I would have called for somebody else. I don’t think she was capable of taking an ultrasound that early. She might have been a newer tech. And it just was like, it’s wild. People can do that to somebody. You know, like there’s the stress that that caused. So then started my, blood pressure issue. Right. And that kind of led into this ongoing white coat, hypertension diagnosis throughout my pregnancy. When I first started going to OB appointments, it was like if I even saw the blood pressure cuff, I would get this anxiety ridden fear over me. And my blood pressure is normally very, very normal. And in office it was anywhere from 135 over 90 to on a really bad day, like 150 over 100. And if I would lay there for five or 10 minutes, it would go down substantially every like five or 10 minutes. If I was laying down in a quiet room and things were calm. But even the stress of being in that huge clinic, none of the nurses know you. So you’re having to explain everything. Every time you get your blood pressure reading, it’s in front of the entire waiting room. Everyone’s watching you do it. They would tell you, Oh, that’s high. Like every time it was like this stressful situation. And I just fed into that, you know? And it was like I would be sitting there sweating, visibly shaking there, taking my blood pressure. And I’m like, This isn’t baseline for me. Like, I don’t normally just sit here and shake and sweat. So I’m going to assume it’ll be a little high. My doctor was understanding he had me on a low dose aspirin, but he was medically inclined side, less on the mental health side. And he just had said, I will want to induce you if this continues. I wasn’t completely against that because I didn’t really know any different at the time, but I was just hyper fixated on blood pressure the entire pregnancy. I mean, he had me taking it at home at least seven times a day. And I think part of that was due to my weight because I am an overweight client. And so there was a little bit of I don’t want to say mistreatment, but he had me focusing on it a lot more than other clients maybe. Because he had this predisposition that something could go wrong because of my weight. Even the blood work was always completely normal. I had my gestational diabetes test after an hour came back at like 73. Like I was completely healthy. And my blood pressures were never high at home. I get to, I guess we can fast forward a little bit to right around the end stages of my pregnancy. was about 37 weeks, I think everything had just gotten really anxious in general. Yo know, baby’s coming and you’re worried about the house and washing all this stuff and husband and I were just kind of having a little date night together. And I just said, you know what? I feel a little weird. I’m going to go lay down. And looking back, it was probably like a mini panic attack. I don’t know what was happening, but I took my blood pressure and it was high. At home, it was 140 over like 100. So I told him I was like, okay, I’m going to lay in bed. If it stays high, then we’ll just we’ll deal with it. We’ll go to the hospital. We’ll figure it out. Thinking, you know, I’m not completely out of the woods of getting preeclampsia. Nobody is right. And I’m definitely at that stage in my pregnancy. And I’m not completely naive to that. Right? So I wasn’t avoiding care, but it wasn’t fun to deal with. And I took it a couple more times, but I think I’d freaked myself out good enough that it stayed high. And so he just said, okay, let’s go. Screw it. Let’s go. Let’s go to the doctor. So we went to the hospital. I got checked and the nurses were incredibly sweet and they were just like, Let’s check it and you’re okay. Like, let’s just, keep a radar on it. Mainly asking me, have you been prescribed any blood pressure medications? Right. Like, if I hadn’t been treated for blood pressure, they weren’t as concerned. And after laying there, it just normal, normal, normal. Like just go home. You’re fine. You know, a preeclampsia person would not be sitting here with a normal blood pressure after 10 minutes of being here. So just go home. You’re fine. And then I felt better. But that was another trip to the hospital that I wasn’t exactly excited about. they did end up calling. Either they called my doctor or I did. But we had to inform him of that visit and the high blood pressure reading, which kind of triggered him to be like induction. Let’s go. I could tell that that was where he was headed and he was excited about it. I wasn’t necessarily excited about it. But when you get to a point of being so pregnant, you know, I’m sure plenty of other women have said that induction doesn’t sound like the most horrible thing that could happen. Right. You know, and you’re like, I’m just ready to not be pregnant anymore. And if I could take every blood pressure cup and light them on fire, I would. Like, I’m never going to check it again in my life. You know, So I was ready, but a little bit nervous. And go to my 39 week appointment, and I just was like, please, God, please, God, with the blood pressure, just be normal. Be normal. Of course not, because I’m expecting this induction. Don’t know when it’s going to happen. Me and my husband went to that 39 week appointment. The nurse took my blood pressure. It was the perfect 160 over 100. Just that nobody wants to right at the treatable level in hospital, Right? Identical. And looked at me and he said, okay, you’re going to stand up. Don’t even talk to me. There were no options. And now I would have totally advocated for myself. But he stood me up and he said, okay, okay, I will, husband, you’re going to go home and you’re going to go get her stuff. And Sierra, you’re going to walk across the street. The clinic was connected to the main hospital, so it was maybe like a five minute walk. He’s like, You’re going to walk across the street and go get checked into labor and delivery. We’re going to we’re going to do it today. And they don’t have a choice. I’m getting you a bed. And I was just like, wait, what? Like, right now? And he’s like, Yep, your blood pressure is way too high. We got to take you in. And I just cried. It was like, Well, no, nope, I’m not ready. Not ready. And looking back, I would have said, If you thought I was healthy enough to walk myself to labor and delivery alone, you know,he just thought, okay, this is good. I can call him. They’ll get her and we’ll get this over with. That’s where his head was. He didn’t test my urine for proteins. He didn’t get a blood test. He didn’t let me lay down for a little bit. None of that had happened, but I just believed him. I was afraid. I walked across the street. My husband left me. I went over to labor and delivery terrified
Kiona 17:39
Yeah
Sierra 17:40
and just said, you know, Dr. Patel wants me to check in. And that’s how that started. So by the time my husband got there, it already had a room. think my blood pressures were a little bit high when I first got there, but at least 30 minutes after checking in, I did not have a high blood pressure reading for a while. I mean, they were all very, very normal. Blood came back normal. Urine came back normal. I was not pre-eclamptic. They followed through with the induction. Knowing what I know now, I would have stood up and said, I’m going home. I’m a healthy person. My blood pressures are normal and I’m not pre-eclamptic. So there’s no reason for this induction right now. But I listened and I stayed. We had started with. Misappropriate, all misappropriate.
Kiona 18:29
Misoprostol.
Sierra 18:30
I think that’s I mean, there you go. We had started with that and nothing zero changes whatsoever. and that lasted for about a few hours that they let me kind of write on that. There were no changes.
Kiona 18:45
Only.
Sierra 18:47
one dose of. Yeah, that medication. and after that medicine they went straight into Cytotec, which I believe is the internal one correctly that they put on the cervix itself. Yeah. so we did that one and I felt crampy and a little weird, but still nothing was happening just kind of like a waiting game at this point. I had been at the hospital for 7 hours. I’ve had these two medicines and we’ve seen nothing. Blood pressures are normal, baby’s fine, everything is normal. Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention when I got there, they said no eating. Starting now. You’re done.
Kiona 19:23
Wow. When was the.
Sierra 19:24
Yeah.
Kiona 19:25
Before that moment.
Sierra 19:26
I don’t even remember. To be completely honest, it was probably sometime that morning. Right. So they said, no eating. You can drink water, but that’s it. Right. Like you’re done. So after the Cytotec’s, been in for a while and that’s not working. The OB comes in, that’s on call. And the way this hospital worked was that place across the street that I was that all of those doctors were on call every 36 hours. So you never had an option to see your OB unless you were lucky and they were there on call. But otherwise it was just, you know, this rotating sphere of doctors. So I had met this guy before but didn’t know him. He didn’t know my case. I just knew of him. And he walked in and said, okay, well, we’re just going to start Pitocin. We need to get the show on the road. Your high blood pressure client. Everyone kept calling me that like a high blood pressure patient, High blood pressure client. And even the nurses found it strange because they’re like, she’s not at she doesn’t have high blood pressure. This is it’s just weird how they’re doing this, but they were just how they were justifying the induction. And he came in and started me on a Pitocin drip. And once you’re on Pitocin, you can’t leave your bed. you’re not allowed to walk around, or at least at that hospital. You can’t you had to lay there and you were only allowed to drink water.
Kiona 20:36
making you stay on the bed when you have pitocin.
Sierra 20:40
Hmm.
Kiona 20:40
Not an epidural,
Sierra 20:42
Hmm. Hmm.
Kiona 20:42
But pitocin.
Sierra 20:43
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
Kiona 20:44
Wow. That is.
Sierra 20:45
Because they justified it, saying because I’m a larger mom. They were having a hard time with heartbeat readings.
Kiona 20:51
Oh, God. I am sorry already.
Sierra 20:55
No, it’s no. And it’s so bad. It’s so bad.
Kiona 20:59
Gosh,
Sierra 20:59
And
Kiona 20:59
I.
Sierra 20:59
so I just I’m like, do you guys have mobile monitors? And they were like, they’ll move around too much. Like an I’m not a massive person. I think at the time of delivery, I’m five, six, five, seven and I was around 240. So I’m not massive heavy, but whatever. And I thought that was so weird that they just wouldn’t allow me to move or do anything.
Kiona 21:21
For their convenience, for ease.
Sierra 21:23
100%. It was for their convenience. And so we’re on Pitocin for a good like 8 hours. They kept increasing it two mg or I think that’s the dosage is and by mg they kept increasing from like two mg up. And I know twenty’s as high as it goes for at least at that hospital and I was contracting but I was not dilating, my body was not ready, I was barely effaced. Baby was head down. She was in the right position, but she was high up, you know, she just wasn’t ready. And I was so tired and I was so hungry at this point. It was definitely the next day just to keep me on track. I was in the hospital for a total of five days. I was induced for three and a half of those, almost four, So by the next day the doctor comes in. I’m a mess. I haven’t eaten. I am sad, I am scared, all of the things and it’s still COVID. So my husband was the only one allowed in there. I wasn’t allowed to leave the room. He was allowed to leave to go get, like, DoorDash food from downstairs. But that was about it. Nobody else was allowed in. I couldn’t have even a birth support provider if I wanted it at that time, which was hard on him too. He was the only one there with zero knowledge of birth education, just trying to do his best. And the doctor had come in. At that point I was on 18 milligrams of Pitocin with no change to my cervix in like 12, 13, 14 hours. And I was just hungry and tired the doctor comes in, you can tell he’s annoyed, he’s been working and he looks at me and he goes, just up her pitocin, give her 20, We’ll see what happens. And my husband, like politely interrupted him and he was like, Hey, you know, would it be okay if we just stopped for a little bit or decreased it some and just let her get up and move around and have a moment to just breathe? And I’m never that just so mad when he said this, But he looked at me and he says, This is a hospital, not a holiday. And if you want to have a baby, then let’s do that. But if not, then you can leave and go check in at a hotel.
Kiona 23:30
Wow.
Sierra 23:31
And I just started sobbing like I was so upset. I was so angry and my husband was so mad at him. Prior to my husband doing that, he went to walk over after saying that to me and spread my legs open without asking me anything and went to shove his hand to go do a check. And the nurse stopped him because I was crying. And she goes, Are you going to explain what you’re about to do to her? And he’s like, Well, obviously I’m about to check you. And that’s what my husband said, You’re done. Just go like, this is too much. That was completely inappropriate. You need to leave. And I just felt so embarrassed and defeated. Like, is my body really not doing this? Like, I’m not trying to not have a baby Like, this sucks. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be on Pitocin. And I’m sorry that it’s not working, but I felt like I was in trouble and it just it was the strangest feeling to be told by a doctor that I was like, trying to halt birth or, you know, making a mockery of what his plan was. And of course, then the next blood pressure check comes since this is like two days after we started doing all this. If I have perfect blood pressure readings and it took it while I was going through all of that and it was high again, he pushed blood pressure meds at that point. And I was like, No, no, no, no. I’m just crying like, Jesus Christ. Can you people relax on the blood pressure? I’m fine.And he pushed it anyways. And he’s like, No, it’s protocol. We have to do it. And then he walked out. I almost tanked because my blood pressure dropped to like 70 over 40 pretty quickly because I didn’t actually need the medication. that was scary having the team coming in, you know, everyone’s panicking, giving me medicines, trying to get my heart rate back up. I told you, you know, and again, I should have just stood up and left. I should have just said, this is not going well. I am leaving. But I didn’t. And then thank God. The third day, a new doctor was on call and he gets in and he looks at me and he goes, Wait, you’ve been here for three days? When was the last time you ate something? And I was like, No, I haven’t eaten anything. I’m starving. I’m dying. He immediately got the pitocin drip off. He’s like, Stop it, We’re done. All done. Pitocin, this is not working. You need to take a shower. You need to eat something. You need to walk around. If we’re even going to continue this induction, you have to do something other than lay here. Like this is not working. It was like the happiest I had felt the entire time being there. So I got up, showered, hung out on the birth ball, you know, tried to, like, induce natural labor in ways. The nurse came in. She was fantastic, gave me a peanut ball. We did nipple stimulation, you know, just all the things trying to induce anything we could outside of pitocin. And I had started to have some natural contractions on my own and I was able to move around and able to do things, but they weren’t picking up as quickly as I think doctors would have liked. And I was already been there for so long taking up their bed. An so he said, okay, well, we’re starting contractions. I want to help you out. Let’s put you back on Pitocin and we’ll get this going and, hopefully get you out of here and with baby soon. so that’s what happened. They put me back on a low dose of pitocin. Contractions started to pick up pretty decently in the beginning, but they kept it low and it was manageable. It was fully manageable. I could handle those contractions. I felt like progress was happening. He let me at least move around on the bed. I wasn’t just having to be on my back. I was able to be on my knees or on my side. And, you know, he wasn’t as worried about the baby monitor and constantly which was really helpful. And I labored for a good like 5 hours, five or 6 hours on this low dose of pitocin, just kind of having natural contractions on top of everything. And it wasn’t fun, but it was manageable. My first check when they came in, they were like, Oh, you’re at a to this is great. and then it started to pick up a little bit it definitely got more intense and I wanted them to come check me. And they’re like, Oh, you’re at a six, you’re doing fantastic. And at this point I hadn’t had any pain medication, no epidural, and I was it was insane how much more painful it was at that point than in the beginning. Like, I was like, okay, this is this is crazy. Like, if I was not giving birth, I would be like, I am dying. Something is really wrong. It is just like an intensity I had never experienced before. Something you want to crawl away from that you can’t get out of. But I was still I was managing okay, they came in and turned on more pitocin. They up to the pitocin and then it just it became I was suffering at that point. I had no breaks in between my contractions. I think I was also going through transition at that point. I became very vocal, ve animalistic, couldn’t talk. My contractions, like I said, we on top of each other. The only letdown that I had was when you’d see on the little monitor when they peak, and then it starts to slowly dip. I would feel like I could breathe, take these deep breaths, and then they would just come back up again. And I was just making noises. My husband was like, I remember looking at you like, I don’t even know how to help her. She just looks completely Like she is suffering. She’s suffering. wish I would have had check me at that point because if they would have checked me, I bet you I would have been around in eight or nine. going throuhg transition and having these crazy pitocin contractions, and had I just wrote it out, I would have been okay. But I was terrified if this goes on any longer, having already been there for four days right. Like, I don’t know if I can do it. I’m just exhausted. So I told them I wanted an epidural and the nurse came in said, okay, the anesthesia just is going to be about 40 minutes. I cried.
and screamed and was like, uh-uh, that can’t happen. I’ve already made the choice. You guys need to get this person here now. I should have again advocated for a check, because if she would have told me as that I was, as far as long as I was, I would have just said, Forget it, let’s just do this. Let’s get through it. But I had no idea how much longer. I figured if I’m still at a six, I’m screwed. I can’t do this. So, by time the anesthesiologist came into the room, I was a mess. I am shocked. They even gave me an epidural. I’m shocked they didn’t check me and say, like, Oh, you should see first. Like this is she looks like she’s in proper labor, right? She’s ready to have a baby, but nobody checked and I had to get an epidural. I was even able to sit still for the needle going in. I mean, it was at a pretty rough stage and labor that I got the epidural. an epidural, tell you there’s a risk of your blood pressure dropping. happened. And so, you know, going through that and you’re all woozy, whoa. Immediately after getting it and I remember them, they had to push some medications because my blood pressure was dropping, but it ended up not being a crazy big deal. They anesthesiologist fixed it pretty quickly didn’t give me a full epidural. She said that, I still want you to be able to move your legs and feel pushing. And I don’t know if it was because she could tell how close I was, but the pain was not gone. I still felt all the contractions. It just I was Less feral feeling. I don’t know how else to describe it. I was able to kind of breathe a little bit more and, you know, just focus. Yeah. Took like the edge off is Yeah, that’s a great way to describe it. It took the edge off so I’m laying there and time is so blurry. And I asked my husband, I’m like, how much time it went in between me having the epidural and having the baby. And he’s like, It wasn’t much like I remember you kind of laid there for a minute. The nurse came in, brought you a peanut ball and said, Y need to labor down. meaning that I was fully dilated. They had checked me at some point, and it was probably right after I had gotten the epidural and I was either benign or fully dilated. And so she flipped me on my side, put the peanut ball between my legs and said, Ju chill like this. Labor down. Let’s wait for the doctor. I laid like that for probably 40 minutes. And I told my husband, I’m like, You need to call them in here. Call them in here. I feel like I’m going to shoot myself. There’s something coming out of my booty. That’s what it felt like. I’m like, That’s what they say is the magic term. Like, you know, the way that it goes. Please call them in here. The nurse comes in and she checks and she’s like, Oh, yeah. Mm hmm. Yep. I see that you are fully ready to go. We need to get this show on the road. Like, let’s call the doctor. And when the doctor finally comes running in, I look and I saw that it was my my ob. He was the one that happened to be on Call and I was like, funny seeing you here. He looks at me and he goes, Oh, my God, you are still here. And I’m like, uh-huh! But yeah, yes, I’m still here. And he just went, Wow, this must have been really hard for you. And he went down, got in position. I was immediately like, I need to push this baby out. I didn’t get coach pushing at all the contractions. Like I said, I could still fill them pretty well. the only thing that helped me from my birth course that I did take was push. Like, you’re going to the bathroom, Just push like you’re going to the bathroom. You are taking the biggest poop of your life. And I said, I heard that. So I just tried and I pushed with everything in me and she was out in maybe three contractions.
Kiona 32:34
Wow.
Sierra 32:35
I mean, total push time, I think was five or 6 minutes. It was very fast. And my you know, my OB was great. He’s down there. You’re doing amazing. Like, God Sierra keep going. You’re killing it. Like, he was giving me all the encouragement I needed, But it was like, after all those days, it just was right over, you know? It was just so done and tired. I pushed her out and I just immediately, was like, is she breathing? Is you breathing? I remember feeling so scared. And when I heard her cry, I cried. It was so happy. They put her on my chest. And I don’t really remember much of those moments. I remember her laying on my chest and kind of looking around, looking at my husband. I don’t remember him cutting the cord, but I have pictures of it and I didn’t know. Unbeknownst to me, the reason I was losing all this memory or b not being very aware, my OB is still down there and he just all he had said was, I’m going to be going around in there a little bit. You’re going to feel some things and I need to do some internal stitching. And that’s all he said. And I just felt out of body like something didn’t feel right with me. But I also had just been through this big experience. So when your baby’s on your chest, there’s something very healing about that. And she was like, this little medicine that I needed, but I had no idea what was going on down there. I still don’t know what fully happened. I know that my placenta came out relatively whole because I saw it and I didn’t see any big chunks missing out of it. But at some point he had his hand in me and he was manually evacuating my uterus. Which was not great. Right. But he’s doing that. my husband said I remember like his arm being, you know, right about here. And he’s just scooping blood and.
Kiona 34:21
And he.
Sierra 34:22
Massive amounts of blood.
Kiona 34:23
Showed like almost all the all of your forearm is.
Sierra 34:27
Right, because.
Kiona 34:29
Was up. You.
Sierra 34:30
They’re they’re scooping. They got to get up in there. And yeah, so he was scooping and my husband just said it was these huge clots and blood just coming out of you. And he’s like, and I didn’t know what to do because you have the baby. I’m trying to focus on you guys. But he said that I could tell you were bleeding more than I had ever seen someone bleed, that’s for sure. at one point, the doctor had walked to gave that bag of debris to the nurses and he said about a trash bag. It was about half full with blood and clots. that’s probably why I was laying there not really knowing what was going on. But my OB wasn’t trying to scare me. So I may have had a post-partum hemorrhage of some kind and he was trying to stop it. There may have been a portion of my placenta that was left behind. You know, I could find out I could get the records. I just haven’t. And gone and actually gotten them. And so, yeah. So then he stitches me up, I stop bleeding. Everybody leaves. They let us have our moment with our baby. I got to have the goals and our time. But we’re still very out of it. I don’t know. I think they had given me some support for the loss of blood at that point, but I was just holding her completely out of it. Lactation tried to come in, we tried to do breastfeeding, and I was just like, I can’t even think right now. Like, I’m not ready to breastfeed. I can’t do any of this. And so they were like, Let’s give mom a break. They gave my baby to my husband to give him his skin to skin time. An I’ll never forget I was holding her and she’s so sweet and he’s so sweet. And they’re doing their little skin to skin. And I looked at the nurses and I was like, Guys, I don’t feel good. Something’s going to happen. I don’t feel okay. they were like, Well, you just had a baby friend. Yeah, you’re going to feel gross for a little bit. And I’m like, No, I don’t feel good. Something’s wrong. They took my blood pressure and it was in that like 70 over 40 range. And then it started dropping again. I passed out. woke up to my doctor back in the room. Everybody’s back in the room. I’m awake again. And he was like, You’re okay. I really think that that was just blood loss shock. You’ve been on way too many medications for way too many days. Your body is just done. It’s tired. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with you, but, you know, we’ll just monitor you closely. But you’re okay. We got you back. You’re good. And that was terrifying. And I just see my husband’s face and he’s white as a ghost like this can’t happen right now. Right? Like I’m holding our baby, and there you are. So, yeah, that was kind of
the end of the birth story itself. Everything was fine with baby. All of her little tests came back completely normal Shes 6 pounds, 11 ounces. cute little nugget. She was great. And then they had moved just into this, like little Harry Potter closet of a recovery room. After you’re in this beautiful labor and delivery room, they’re like, here’s the storage closet. You get to do the rest of it in. And we stayed there for about I think it was one evening, just one evening. And I kept passing clots like the size of my palm, and that was pretty scary and continued to bleed for a while after I had no idea how much blood could come out of somebody. That was shocking. In the size of clots. Nobody mentally prepared me for that.
Kiona 37:44
Did you? Have clots when you were at home.
Sierra 37:47
Yes, but they were more like finger size is the way I would describe it. Not to be too graphic, but yeah, they were like about like the size of a finger, which is fairly normal. That’s something that I would assume you would see. But the ones in the hospital were massive and we would call and the nurses would look and they’d be like, Nope, that’s good for what you’ve got in your gut. Like everything’s fine as long as it’s not flowing. We’re good. If it’s clotting, we’re fine. So yeah, I was there and, you we got to leave. But it was definitely wild induction experience and it took a long time see the other side of it. But yeah, that was the induction portion.
Kiona 38:24
my my gosh. There are so many
that are so, uh, l, trigger something inside me. Like my. As well as, like, my birthing side. Oh, my gosh. Okay, So obviously lots to unpack here. Foremost. I strongly dislike that first OB that had you go and get the induction in the first place. I understand the safety precautions of wanting to get you in and get you induced with your high blood pressure. But the moment that they realised that you were not pre-eclamptic, they should have sent you home. Blood pressures are low. You didn’t have to be induced. And it’s obvious that the next few days showed that your body was not ready for induction, but they were still pushing it because they’re like, Well, she’s here. Let’s get a go on. Let’s get it going. And for your provider to come in and say, This isn’t Holiday Inn. Oh, my God. I. I’m just thinking of what I would do if I was your doula. Right. Like, if I was in that room, Sierra.
I.
Sierra 39:36
Yeah, 100%.
Kiona 39:39
God. Good for the nurse for saying something. And also your husband. You said his name was Will.
Sierra 39:44
Yeah.
Kiona 39:44
Good for Will as well because damn. And then for him to just come and spread your legs open without saying a damn thing. I am pissed right now. I am
Sierra 39:55
No. Yeah. And it was. It was so bad. It was so bad. I did write a formal complaint to the medical board. Board for what happened.
Kiona 40:04
Yeah. Good. Because.
Sierra 40:06
I did go through with that.
Kiona 40:06
You were so emotionally and physically vulnerable in a few days. It was obviously the end of his shift. He’s tired. 36 hours also is a hella long time to be on call, so I think that that clinic has a lot of things to work around on how to make it flow better.
Sierra 40:24
They shut down.
Kiona 40:25
Good.
Sierra 40:26
Yeah. No more.
Kiona 40:32
There’s a whole bunch of stuff that is in your story that I am just like, No, no, no. T is not the way to do things. So that provider, uh, I. I just want to punch him in the face. I just want.
Sierra 40:47
Mm hmm.
Kiona 40:48
To not not do that. I don’t want to say not exist because that’s pretty extreme, but I just don’t want him to.
Sierra 40:55
No, but he should not still be birthing babies if that’s how he feels about the women that are pushing them out.
Kiona 41:00
Yeah.
He needs to do like a something to where he’s not on call like this. He should be a family practice doctor or something.
Sierra 41:09
Exactly.
Kiona 41:10
But for the other provider to come in and say, Yep, we’re stopping this, let’s pause. You need to eat. And then, let’s kind of refresh, take a shower, do things, change it up a little bit. Good for him. That’s that’s a really good thing to do. like, resets things, right? And then your body. They’re doing things a little bit on their own. And then when the person came in, this time your body was responding to it better. All of that is great. Now. I’m going to jump forward a little bit and go to postpartum. Based on the description that you were giving me. You 100% hemorrhaged postpartum and the blood pressure drop is also proof of that. In my medical brain, I am not a licensed provider, but based on the studies that I’ve done.
Sierra 41:56
Sure.
Kiona 41:57
The studying that I have done, I would say you absolutely haemorrhage postpartum. And even from a personal side of it, that sounds a lot like my postpartum with my son, because I also fainted postpartum with my son. So. You were saying that I was like getting triggered and getting emotional and I’m like, this is not about me right now. But I basically saying I can relate to that feeling.
Sierra 42:21
Yeah. No, 100%. Mm hmm.
Kiona 42:25
And little irritated about the nurse’s comment of like, of course you just had a baby like you’re.
Like.
Sierra 42:34
And I’m like, No. You know, when you feel like you’re, like, dying, right? Like something is severely wrong. Like, that’s kind of where it really.
Kiona 42:42
Right.
Sierra 42:43
It’s not. Oh, my tummy hurts like.
Kiona 42:47
Like you just had so much blood loss. And I’m happy to hear that you had the epidural, at least like a partial epidural to go.
Sierra 42:57
Oh, thank
Kiona 42:58
And
Sierra 42:58
God
Kiona 42:58
you.
Sierra 42:58
for the scooping.
Kiona 42:59
Yes.
Sierra 43:00
Oh, yeah, I would have probably passed out just fully but done.
Kiona 43:04
Absolutely and not.
Sierra 43:05
No way.
Kiona 43:06
Blood loss, but that on top of the pain that you
Sierra 43:08
Just
Kiona 43:08
would.
Sierra 43:08
the pain would have been insane.
Kiona 43:09
Yeah. Ooh. I’m happy to hear that you got a chance to actually see your OB. And for him to be like, Oh, my God. And automatically validate like you’re still here. You’ve absolutely been through some shit. So we’re going to try to.
Sierra 43:22
Yeah.
Kiona 43:23
Smooth as possible for you. I would be so curious and interested in hearing your husband’s perspective on this, because he’s sitting on the sidelines feeling like he can’t do jack shit.
Sierra 43:34
No. 100%. He’s like, I’ve never he I remember him saying, like, I felt so helpless.
Kiona 43:40
Mm hmm.
Sierra 43:40
Just watching you feel like keep dying in front of my eyes,
Kiona 43:44
Mm.
Sierra 43:44
you know, and then having to, like, see the baby. And we’re happy about the baby. Just this rollercoaster of like, ups and downs. But I think the most fearful he ever was was definitely in that postpartum when I was like, Guys, I’m not good. And I went down and I woke up and just looked at his and he was just so scared. And I just the first thing I said was, I’m okay. I’m okay, right? Like, I’m breathing. I’m okay, right? Because I could tell he was thought I just I’d. So he was really scared. But.
Kiona 44:16
We.
Sierra 44:16
His perspective would probably be It was insane. Like.
Kiona 44:22
Well. That was a lot. That was a lot. And I’m sorry that you had to go through all of that. I’m sorry that throughout that time you’re emotions and feelings were not validated. And I’m sorry that there was some judgment on your size because for you to not be able to get up and walk around during your labor, like how do they expect a baby to be had if you can’t even use gravity to help that baby decend and put pressure on your cervix, you know?
Sierra 44:54
Right, because God forbid, a monitor slips for 10 minutes, you know.
Kiona 44:58
if her fetal heart tones were fine, why not let you walk around? Why not be okay with not monitoring for, you know, having it be intermittent? These are all my my thoughts.
Sierra 45:10
And I feel like there is even so much else that happened that I probably left out. Like at some point they put a heart rate monitor on her or had, you know, like just little things that just happened.
Kiona 45:21
Right.
Sierra 45:22
But it was it was a pretty packed experience for sure.
Kiona 45:25
Yeah, it absolutely was. let’s dive into postpartum and. Was when you were at home. How? Was your mental state, for one. And then also, how was your physical body responding to being at home?
Sierra 45:43
Oh, so much better. The second I got home, I felt amazing. I was still bleeding pretty significantly, but had all of my stuff. My mom and my sister were here and just completely cleaned my house. It looked like spa vibes, right? Like they made it perfect for when I got home. I mean, everything was so clean. They’d also been sitting there for four days, like, you know, just like, what else do we do but, like, redo everything and, like, make it all perfect? So the house was just completely set up, you know, my little postpartum like bathroom, just the whole night, right? Like they did everything. that part was pretty incredible I really wanted to breastfeed, so it was all breastfeeding in the very beginning. We didn’t do any bottles and she was doing pretty well with that. We did have some issues because she did have a tongue and lip tie, but we had corrected those later. So initial postpartum really just looked like a lot of laying in bed, a lot of just like constant breastfeeding. But I really didn’t have any big issues directly postpartum.
Kiona 46:39
That’s good. Yeah.
Sierra 46:41
Yeah. mean, I did. Some of those anxieties still kind of peeked up more towards when she was about two three months old. My husband only got two weeks of paternity leave, so after two weeks I was alone making it really hard. And then she struggled with sheer cosmic protein allergy.
Kiona 46:57
Mm.
Sierra 46:57
So our breastfeeding kind of came to a screeching halt because she was bleeding in her diapers. And, you know, it was pretty significant. Yeah, it was horrible. that had a whole other slew of issues. I mean, we were headed towards like feeding, too, because our baby didn’t like the formula. It’s disgusting. Like the taste of the especially the specialized medical ones are really, really gross. And she didn’t want it. And so she was like, feed striking pretty hard to the point of like dehydration and she was borderline and well. So that became crazy stressful for me was like, just gain weight, just drink your bottles. Like just getting her to drink a few ounces was so hard. But then she would drink off my boob and I would let her randomly because she was just starving. You know, It was that was horrible. There was some issue there definitely with having to switch from breastfeeding to bottle feeding and formula feeding just because of the taste of it. And how, you know, breast milk so delicious compared to formula. But I would say as far as postpartum struggles, that was definitely my biggest struggle is just anxiety around her feeding and help making sure that she was fed appropriately.
Kiona 47:58
did your providers at all talk to you about since she had that cows milk protein allergy? Like if you quit dairy, what that would do for your breast milk? Was that ever discussed?
Sierra 48:07
They did. They said you can. And I think I was. I mean, she was at a point where it was like. Refusing almost all food because it hurt her to breastfeed to. She just was learning that if I eat food, my tummy hurts so bad. And so she just didn’t want to eat. And so I, I just said I don’t have the time and the energy right now to eliminate everything from my diet. And they said it would take about 2 to 3 weeks to completely eliminate the protein. And I just was like, we just need to get her fed. I wasn’t thinking about me anymore. It was like, I need her fed so she doesn’t have a feeding tube and ends up in the hospital. And so we were just doing everything and anything we could to get her to drink formula. And what I ended up doing was I would start with like about an ounce of her formula and then fill it with the rest of my breast milk. Even though it was hurting her, it was feeding her until she got kind of used to this upgrade. You know, I keep upping the dose of her formula inside the breast milk and then eventually she was able to take a formula bottle.
Kiona 49:02
Yeah. What a great way to integrate it, though. So that she still had that flavor of your breast milk to want to consume what was in the bottle. And then since it was so gradual, she eventually associated the taste of the formula with, Oh, this is food and it’s okay.
Sierra 49:16
Yeah. Yeah, That’s kind of how we had to do it. And it took a while. That was a rigorous, long process. But you know, about at, I would say seven months. She was totally fine. Then she was bottle feeding and living her best life, gaining weight, doing all the things. She was good.
Kiona 49:35
And so since. Add that cows, milk, protein allergy. Did she not eat dairy when she was eating solids? Or did her.
Sierra 49:44
Initially, we had to refrain from any dairy intake. So it was a lot of like avocado and, you know, full fat in other ways. But it’s hard when you think about feeding a baby. They need a lot of fat and protein, and a lot of that generally comes from animal byproducts. So when you’re like trying to avoid feeding your baby any type of animal byproducts, it is kind of tricky.
we’re pretty much even now she still drinks a pea protein milk. But I’m cool with that because I don’t even drink regular cows. But that kind of freaks me out a little bit. And so. So she drinks this like, pea protein, ripple kid’s milk, and that’s been great. It tastes really good. But she can have some yogurts, you know, there’s some things will hurt her tummy. But for the most part, she’s outgrown the significant hardcore. Like there’s no more bloody stool or anything. She’ll just be really gassy and, you know, she eats too much of it.
Kiona 50:39
Mm. Okay. Okay. Well, I want to dive a little bit more into your mental health side of this. just have a small discussion on it. You did? There was some anxiety that you carried. What did that look like for you? What did it look like to have that kind of anxiety in the postpartum time?
Sierra 50:58
That looks like constantly Googling everything. That looks like waking up 100 times a night to make sure she was breathing. My obsession with keeping her alive. I think was overwhelming. And I know for a lot of women it is that way. Right. Like, even when they first have a baby, it’s like every little noise they make and then they’re sleeping and they sound like crazy, you know? But mine was next level. Or sleep schedules, you know, if she missed a nap or God forbid, she missed a window, I was panicking. I couldn’t, you know, was like, we got to get her down. If she doesn’t go down, it’s going to be 3 hours. And then she’s too like, you know, I was just so I wrote down every ounce of milk she drank. I wrote down like, all the things, right? So I just hyper fixated on educating myself on all of the things baby and health logging, every little thing that happened. and just letting that make me feel like I was less of, you know, if she would only drink two ounces instead of three, I would just sit there and cry and feel so bad. And I feel bad for her because it really did rob me of that beginning stage, that first few months of her life. I was just so anxious that something was going to go wrong and I never had time to process everything that happened. And that’s yeah, that’s kind of what that looked like. Postpartum was like every little thing I would be worst case scenario, How do we fix this? Oh my God, the sky is falling. Right? And that was also a lot for my partner and for my family because, you know, I’m just constantly afraid. mean, I enjoyed parts of it. It wasn’t like I just sat there shaking all day, but, you know, like I was enjoying my life. But I think when things weren’t going as planned, that was a lot more challenging for me.
Kiona 52:43
Yeah. around what time in your postpartum did you feel that that anxiety kind of lifted for you?
Sierra 52:51
hmm. Because the feeding struggles, once that happened and that was actual real fear that kicked everything up a notch. But I had to go back to work when she was four months old and she was at a daycare full time. And I think that as shitty as it was and I wish I didn’t have to. I think it was healthy for the both of us because I needed to be away from her for a little bit just to realize that not only can someone else take care of my baby and feed my baby if they need to, but I can be something other than this. Right. Like this. Just needed to get out of my freaking house, honestly. And being able to see on the app like, oh, she just drink two ounces of formula at school. It’s like it was just very healing in a lot of ways. Like having somebody else take care of her. As crappy as it was and sitting at my desk just crying. It was good that I got to experience of release a little bit from being a mom for moments, but I really didn’t fully feel like myself again until she really started eating mainly solids. And we got away from the bottle because she never was a big fan of her bottles. Like she just she would do it, but she was not a fan. And granted, like, her formula tasted like absolute garbage. So, like, I’ll give her that. It was disgusting. But when she started eating full blown solids. It helped. I mean, realistically, like even now, if she gets really sick and doesn’t want to eat for four days, it’s hard for me not to panic. Like, be like, just eat the food. Like, you know, you’re like, so stressed and like, you know, I have to tell myself, like, you’re being a little crazy. So I actually did get a therapist and I’ve been working with her and she’s pretty fantastic. I found her on Gro therapy, which is the school like online service that you can click different types of providers that you would be interested in. So she specializes in prenatal and postnatal anxieties and like runs, women’s groups and things like that. And so we meet virtually. And she’s been a really big help because I actually just found out that I’m pregnant again.
Kiona 54:45
Congratulations.
Sierra 54:46
I know, which is crazy, but we’re about almost eight weeks now, so I have my first real ultrasound on Tuesday, so I’m trying to mentally prepare, but I found a good job. I found somebody new. And you know, we went to our first little like meet and greet appointment and he was super cool. Loves doulas, loves midwives, advocates for home birth, like he’s just one of those guys that seems like I’m not going to worry till I have to worry. just everything I needed. Even with my blood pressure, it was a little high, obviously. Like, I’m never going to get past that. I’ve just. That’s my new thing. That’s who I am now, the doctor and what I’m going to be. And he was like, you know, if it keeps happening for liability sake, if you die, I don’t want to get in trouble. So we’ll just keep checking it and I’ll send you to go get bloodwork in urine. And if it comes back clean, I don’t really care what your blood pressure is. And it was like. Where have you been my whole life? Like, that’s all I needed. Like, I’m not saying you guys can’t check everything, and, you know, I’m not declining care. I’m just don’t treat me for something I don’t have, you know? And so we’re still very early in the game. And obviously I don’t have a crazy easy time carrying, so I’m trying to stay positive. But now Tuesday, we’ll find out. And I got myself a doula. I hired a doula this time, you know, just trying to do it a little bit more calmly. So hopefully the anxieties will be, supported a little bit more in that.
Kiona 56:11
Yeah.
Sierra 56:12
And, you know, I’ll have somebody in the room like you go in toe to toe with doctors if we need to.
Like, absolutely not. We’re going to redo that feeling,
which is what I need. So, yeah, that’s kind of full circle. But yeah, she’s two and a half now and she’s amazing and healthy and. I’m relatively healthy and now newly pregnant and just saying a prayer because I told him the one thing I don’t want is what I did last time. We are not doing that again. So but it’s being educated is so helpful and listening to podcasts like your podcasts. And you know, there’s a few others that are great too. And I would just say for any pregnant woman, just educate yourself with the right resources. Spend your time listening to women that have birth talk about birth. Right. Like, stay off of Google and WebMD. And all of your little statistics. But, you know, just literally search like,
know, all of your little things you’ve got going on, like plus size, pregnancy, positive outcome. Right. Like, listen to those stories and hear what women have to say. And it’s even the scariest of stories are usually okay. You know, and just knowing that you’re probably going to be okay, everything’s going to be okay, I think is hugely helpful. And knowing what’s going to happen or what could happen prior is so quick. And I mean, you as both educators, you guys know that. But it really is when it’s your first child, it’s hard to know what all you need to prepare for. now I feel a lot more well equipped to stand up and advocate for myself because I know what I’m advocating for, you know? But yeah, that’s kind of what I would say.
Kiona 57:55
Oh, yeah. You just answered actually, the first question that I usually have for my final three closing questions, which was like, what is one piece of advice that you would give all pregnant people as they prepare for labor, pregnancy and birth? And I think that that right there is a beautiful answer.
Sierra 58:13
educate with the right resources. big ones, like the documentaries, like the business of being bored. Right? You know, there’s those kinds of big things you can do. But I think the most valuable thing that I had done for myself was listening to other women discuss birth. What did your birth look like? How did it go? Everything from emergency caesareans planned, caesareans to home births with free birth. Nobody there. Right. Like you just listen to all of it and educate yourself and you’ll feel a lot more confident going in.
Kiona 58:43
Yeah, and I think that is so true. I mean, I am biased because I’m literally seeking people to tell their story straight.
Sierra 58:49
It’s kind of your job. Yeah, like it’s what you’re doing, but.
Kiona 58:53
I agree. I agree wholeheartedly with that statement right there, because, you know, I have some scary. Stories that are told on this podcast do that people may not want to hear while pregnant, but at the same time, if they are able to hear them and listen to them, either before pregnancy or during pregnancy and even after, like between pregnancies to hear what other people have gone through to one know that they’re not alone in an experience that they may have experienced themselves to. Birth looks different for everyone, and the way that you prep for that does truly make a difference on what your outcome is. And I think one of the scariest things to do as a pregnant person is to go in. and be blissfully ignorant to just letting the provider do whatever they want to do
Sierra 59:43
I feel like at that point, it’s like you might as well plan a cesarean. I mean, you know, because it’s like if you really do, it’s hard. You give them all of the control realistically and you are in such a vulnerable place. And yeah, it is. It’s it’s so scary to think that we go in there with so little education and understanding and not even just you can understand the big heavy hitters of like, well, you might be pre ecliptic or you might you know these things aren’t great in pregnancy but even the minute details of story changes and how like will this person ask for this and then all of a sudden everything was better, right? That you wouldn’t have known before by listening to other women. It’s just really helpful.
Kiona 1:00:22
Yeah, I agree. The second to last question I have is what is one resource that I can share with my listeners on your behalf?
Sierra 1:00:32
have a ton of specific resources. Obviously this podcast birth as we know it. Another great one is the birth hour. That’s a fantastic one as well. That’s been around for a long time. And any kind of vlog or Facebook groups where you can connect with other women. I know there’s a few out there like BabyCenter that moms write. Just places that you can have access to other moms going through what you’re going through. Oh, I guess there is one. When I really anxious with the baby, especially when she was little. Little. There’s an app called Blueberry Pediatrics. And for women that are kind of not just women, but families, that you don’t love going to the doctor all the time or you don’t necessarily want to go to urgent care, but you’re not sure if everything’s good. There’s the Blueberry Pediatrics, which is based in the United States, and for $20 a month, no insurance, no nada. You have 24, seven access to M.D.s and you can video call, you can text, you can chat regarding your babies. And it’s any kids under the age of I want to say eight or 12 that you can put on there for that $20 a month and you have access to basically urgent care telehealth just for pediatrics. And that was incredibly helpful. Like at the 1 a.m. where you’re like, is this breathing sound normal? Like, I don’t get it. They’re able to do all of that with you, which is really cool and it’s super easy to set up.
Kiona 1:01:54
That’s beautiful. That. That sounds great, actually.
Sierra 1:01:58
Yeah, it’s called blueberry. It’s really, really cool.
Kiona 1:02:00
Okay, now my next and final question is, if you could describe your birth with one word, what would it be?
Sierra 1:02:09
Intense.
Kiona 1:02:12
Yeah.
Sierra 1:02:13
One word is hard, but. Intense.
Kiona 1:02:17
Intense. Yeah, I think all of the listeners and I at this point would agree.
Yeah.
Sierra 1:02:26
It’s, you know, parts of it were cathartic. Parts of it were terrifying, parts of it were this. But all of it was intense.
Kiona 1:02:32
Yeah. Intense rollercoaster of emotions for sure. Yeah. Well, Sierra, I am so happy that you came on the Birth As We Know It podcast to share your story.
Sierra 1:02:46
Well, thank you. I’m so happy I was able to Come on. It was so exciting and glad we finally got to connect.
Kiona 1:02:51
I know. Yeah, I’m. I’m glad it all worked out. Thank you. Thank you. I’m sure the listeners will absolutely learn something from this.
Outro 1:03:12
Listening to this episode with Sierra was actually pretty interesting for me because I had a lot of emotions, as you might be able to tell. But I’m happy that Sierra had a good outcome from her birth experience. I also know that she learned a lot in the process so when it I also know that she learned a lot in the process. So when it comes to birthing her baby at this time around, you I know she’s going to make some different decisions. about Sierra, thank you so much again for sharing your birth story with us and congratulations on baby number two. and then If you want to see pictures of Sierra and her family, you can go to
birthasweknowitpodcast. com/83. And if you want to hear another interesting episode, I would tune into episode 69 Nicole Bulow to talk about her experience with a loss of miscarriage, as well as having the experiences of a hospital birth and then a quick last minute home birth during COVID time. And don’t forget, I am actively practicing as a birth doula right now. So if you’re in need of birth support, feel free to reach out. You can do that at
birthasweknowitpodcast. com/doula. All right, friends, thanks for sticking around and I will talk to you again soon. Bye for now.
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