Carly G. | Home birth turned hospital birth, vaginal delivery with epidural, and midwifery care.

Carly from Saskatoon shares the story of her daughter, Nora. Carly took courses, planned for a home birth, and was excited for birth. At 40+3, labour began spontaneously and continued over the next few days. After a long labour and limited support, Carly and her husband agreed to go to the hospital to receive an epidural and begin pitocin. In labour, Carly developed an infection which she received antibiotics for and all was well. Her daughter was born vaginally and they experienced a few challenges immediately postpartum. Ali and Carly conclude with a conversation about a few things she wished she had done differently during the planning process of birth. 

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Transcript

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 Hi, welcome back to Moony Birth Stories. On this episode, we are joined by Carly from Saskatoon. She is going to be sharing her pregnancy and birth story with her daughter. Carly had a midwife throughout her pregnancy and was planning a home birth. However, after a very long labor, she transferred to the hospital, received an epidural, and then went on to have her daughter vaginally.

She also goes more into her postpartum experience. Okay, let's start by telling the listeners who you are and about your family. Okay. My name is Carly Met and I'm from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I've lived here pretty much my entire life. I married my husband in 2022 and we got pregnant in 2023 and had our baby girl.

In 2024 and she is now a year and a half and just a basket full of life and very entertaining now. So I love everything about motherhood and officially a stay at home mom and it feels good. Yeah, that's awesome. And so tell us that road to getting pregnant. So we had been, we only started trying for a couple months.

We waited a little bit after marriage just because we wanted to do a little more big travels without kids. And so we spent a year. Traveling and doing our thing. And then we started trying and we got pregnant within a couple months and it felt very easy and natural. And I know some women struggle a lot, so that's not, yeah, it's hard.

But yeah, we got pregnant fairly easy and yeah. What were your initial thoughts when you found out you were pregnant? Very scared, heart jumping outta my chest. But excited at the same time. We knew we wanted kids and we know we wanted a big family, so it was just kind of time to start trying and I wasn't expecting it to happen necessarily that fast.

So took me by surprise a bit when the test came positive. Yeah. And then what were your feelings about birth at this point? I had been following a lot of people about natural birth and home births and having a water birth and just being in your own space to have the birth.

So I was very excited for the birth process. I wasn't scared. I wasn't scared of the pain. I wasn't yeah. I guess nervous about it. I was excited to bring a baby into this world and create life. Okay. And who was your care provider throughout your pregnancy? We had a midwife through the SAS Health.

Okay, awesome. And then, yeah. Anything notable about your pregnancy? How did first trimester go? Second trimester. I honestly had an easy pregnancy. I wasn't sick. I was able to move around. I worked out through my entire pregnancy and I was on cloud nine except for sleep insomnia. I had insane in sleep, insomnia, and there were nights where I would be up.

Anywhere from one to four hours, and at some points I would just end up getting outta bed. I don't know, reading or journaling or watching TV or whatever I could do to just chill out and hopefully go back to sleep after. So yeah, that's so hard. It's like you're already so exhausted. And then, yeah, the sleep insomnia.

But yeah, the best thing you can do is just either read a book or like meditations or just anything to try and calm your mind a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And then how were you preparing for birth? We actually did a it's called a pain-free birth course. I'm pretty sure her name's Karen, if I'm not mistaken.

And we just did that online and we like watched the videos together and we practiced the moves and yeah, Nick was very. Great about it, and he was very open about participating with me and pretty much doing anything that he could to prepare and help my birthing process along. And that was the biggest thing we did.

We did. Take any other classes which in hindsight was maybe a mistake. Okay. But yeah, that was the biggest thing we did. Okay. And then you said, yeah, you were really into unmedicated deliveries and home birth. So was that the plan? That was the plan. Yep. It was. We had the midwives. Our plan was just to be at home.

We had the pool set up and yeah, we were, I set up my entire living room with birth affirmations and a calm environment, twinkle lights. The whole meal deal and that's not it, what ended up happening. So yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there for sure. Yeah. And then take us through those last few weeks of pregnancy.

I. I actually left work, I just ended my work on at the end of the month. So March 31st was my last day of work, and I wasn't due until the third week of April. So I had those three weeks of nesting at home, which was honestly. So beautiful. Just to clean the house and like dust, little things that hadn't been cleaned and since we moved in pretty much to the house.

And I did lots of puzzles and lots, spend lots of times outside. And it was honestly like one of the best things I probably could have done for myself was just having that relaxing time away from. My stressful job that I wasn't loving. Yeah. There's something so sacred about the end of pregnancy and just taking that time to enjoy for yourself, like doing whatever you want, connecting with your baby, getting your house ready, connecting with your partner.

Like there I, it's my favorite time, honestly. Yes, it was. It was glorious. Okay. Awesome. And then so where does this labor story begin? Yeah, so I was 40 and three, and so it started on a Monday and I decided that I would book a massage. I booked it on the Sunday, and if baby wasn't coming, then I would go to the massage.

And so I went to the massage and on the way there and on the way home, I had a couple contractions, but it didn't, I've never honestly. We've never felt something like that as our first birth. So we, for me, I didn't know exactly what it was. Maybe it was just like a little bit of cramping kind of thing.

Now, in hindsight, I know that it was contractions, but so that started around my massage in the afternoon, and then during supper time I started experiencing a little more. And then they were starting to come every 20 to 30 minutes. And picking up. We went for a walk in the evening around the block, and then by 8:00 PM I was having a bath and crawling into bed to just relax and chill out.

But yeah, they kept coming like regularly every 20 minutes and then. I don't know, another hour or two after that, they started to pick up to be like every 10 minutes. And then that's when the back labor kicked in. And I moved to the couch 'cause I didn't want to. Disturb Nick's sleep.

'Cause you're supposed definitely needs all of the energy just as you do. Yeah. To carry through the entire, pre rest of the birth. So yeah. And then around midnight I hopped in the bath to try and help relieve some of the. Back labor, but there was really no relief. So I finally got Nick up around like one 30 and he started helping me work through those contractions, which then we're now like five to 10 minutes apart.

Have you had, yeah. Had you contacted the midwife at this point? We hadn't contacted the midwife. We were just waiting to see once again new parents and we weren't. Sure if baby was coming yet, there was no signs of my water breaking, no signs of mucus plug, no signs of any other thing besides, besides the contractions, right?

So we were like, let the midwife sleep and not bug her just yet. But then, yeah, so like around four 30 we decided to like hop back into bed because AB wasn't coming. And we were honestly both exhausted 'cause we had been up for quite a long time. Yeah. And then around eight 30 we got outta bed and started working through contractions again.

I spent lots of time like outside in the backyard just like taking in the sunshine and I just remember. It was such a beautiful day, like mid-April that all the snow was gone. And yeah, so we just spent lots of time outside. In the afternoon around like three o'clock, my mucus plug finally came out and that was like a little bit of relief just to know like things were progressing, yeah. And yeah, we talked. Then after that point I phoned the midwife and took another bath. I took lots of baths. I'm pretty sure I spent the entire time in the, just to relieve the back pain, but yeah. And then our midwife finally came around like nine o'clock. She wasn't like, obviously too concerned.

She had heard me like go through contractions on the phone and so she was dealing with other. Birth as well. So she came around like nine o'clock and everything was good with me and baby. She checked blood pressure and heart rate and everything was good. And my original birth plan was not to be checked.

But at that point I was like absolutely exhausted. With running on four hours of sleep pretty much. And. Like 48 hours. And so I gave in to her asking if she could check me. Yeah. And at this point I was only three centimeters dilated, which I think was like another shot in the gut of not, I've labored for this long already and I'm only three centimeters.

Yeah. Yeah. My midwife at that point then left to get some sleep. And then the contractions kept coming like every two to five minutes. They were very intense. I didn't feel anything like down in my bottom area. It was basically all in my back and my hips. Like very intense pain.

Yeah. At this point, like Nick filled up the pool and we were getting ready for her appearance because the contractions were coming so quickly and so frequently and being so intense that I. F we both thought baby would come soon to our mistakes. She did not. Oh. And yeah, for the next eight hours are just a big blur.

I was in and out of the bathtub. I eventually just stopped timing my contractions 'cause it was just getting in my head of. Focusing on the number. Yeah. Our midwife came back in the middle of the night at some point to just check me and baby. There was no progress. We started to do a couple like movements some downward like inversions some like hip rocking and working through the contractions as you're in those positions.

She checked me again and then she eventually just gave me some gravel with a needle in my leg. And it just knocked me out for the next couple hours because I obviously just needed some more rest. Yeah. So that was all day Tuesday labored all day Tuesday. On Wednesday around like 10, my midwife came back.

She checked me again and she thought that my water was still intact. We'll get to that. But I was around like five centimeters dilated after like another 24 hours. And she basically gave me the ultimatum. My baby was posterior, meaning for those of you that don't know, she was face up instead of face down.

And yeah, she gave us basically the ultimatum of what. To make the decision on whether to go to the hospital and get an epidural in Pitocin. Yeah. To get things going or to continue doing what we're doing at home. But at this point, Nick and I, like Nick was absolutely exhausted at one point.

He was sleeping on the bathroom floor while I was in the tub. Yeah. But yeah, we were just so exhausted that we decided. That we would make the decision to go to the hospital. Because I guess in my mind, I didn't have this I didn't think I had the strength to continue to do what we had been doing.

In hindsight, had we had the support or other people there during our birth, I think it would've been a different story. But yeah. With both of us being exhausted and not to mention our midwife being exhausted with being at like three other births, we were, there was no good energy, I would say.

Yeah, for sure. In the room. We packed up, we went to the hospital. We just, I didn't have a hospital bag pack 'cause you know me, I just don't do the plan B. I'm like, this is what we're doing and this is where're sticking to it. We're not gonna make a plan B of having a hospital big.

We're having the baby at home. So we didn't have anything packed. So Nick literally just tossed some sweats and a sweater and, I don't know. Random things. Yeah. Yeah. With a staircase. And we hopped in the car and headed to the hospital and yeah. Brutal ride. Don't recommend if you don't have to.

But yeah, we got to the hospital and the midwife had. Beat us there. And so she had everything like set up with the administration, which was, I'm so grateful for that. We got into a room like really quickly 'cause the hospital was very full. And so I'm glad we got into a room and they gave me the option to get Pitocin and the epidural.

But, my words were, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to get Pitocin without an epidural because I know what Pitocin does to your body. Yeah. And I don't think that I'm going to be able to handle like the extra added pain. So I just decided to get them both pretty much going against everything of what my birth bond was.

But yeah, we decided to get them both and away we went. The nurses then helped me through more movements and to help baby move around into an anterior position. And yeah, we contin continue to labor. But then I started to feel like very cold and I kept asking for more blankets and something warm and then I just, I started to spike a fever.

Oh, okay. I developed an infection, which my guess was from being checked multiple times in hindsight, yeah. I, that wasn't part of my birth bond and I wish. In hindsight again I wouldn't have been checked so many times, but there we are. Yeah. And yeah, and then so they basically said you need to get some drugs to get your fever down so that the infection is not passed on to baby.

And so once again, something I don't ever do is take drugs. Like I'm, I very rarely, if ever take Advil or Tylenol and so yeah, they gave me some drugs and that kicked in and my fever subsided. And then I had been like staying hydrated and drinking a lot of water. And they were monitoring how many times I was going to the bathroom.

And so I hadn't be in a while. So then they asked if they could put a catheter in to help drain my bladder. Okay. But then I. Said can I try going to the water bath? Going to the washroom first? So the first offer they gave you was the catheter and not to get you up to the bathroom?

Yes. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. And so then I asked if I could try to go pee on my own first. So then I tried and they said I didn't drain enough of what they wanted, so they inserted a catheter and then drained my bladder. And then they checked me again. Yeah. So I was like getting closer. But when she checked me that time, she noticed that I, my water had broke and so therefore I have zero clue when my water broke.

Like I had zero leaking. Yeah. I had. Like zero gushing of water. So the only time that I can think of like it could have happened was when I was taking one of my 101 bath to relieve my pain. So that's the only time I could think of like that. I actually had my water break. Yeah. Otherwise I really have no idea.

When it broke and then around 10 o'clock around the 48 hour mark of labor. I started feeling a lot of pressure and then the nurse encouraged me to start pushing. Around this time she was coaching me through also against my birth one I like in my mind, I know that they don't know when I should be pushing like my.

Your body knows when. Yeah. And yeah, you just gotta trust your body to that. It will do what it needs to do because it knows that it needs to grow a baby. So it knows that it needs to also birth a baby and it knows how. So yeah, I absolutely exhausted still. Yeah. So at this point, did you just feel because you were so exhausted, you weren't able to.

Maybe advocate for yourself? How do, yeah. Yeah. Basically, yeah. Yeah. It's just. Yeah, I found it very hard to a say no. To any suggestion that they had. Nick obviously was there. He knew my birth plan, he knew what I wanted, but at the same time, he was like, what's best for the baby? What's best for my wife, kind of thing.

Like he's trusting. In quotations, the professionals to know what's best. And so at that point it was like just basically you're succumbing to listening. Yeah. To what they have to say because you're exhausted and you, I. I just have no more fight in you, to say anything back at that point. Especially when you hear infection, that sounds right. That's obviously a pretty serious thing. So then you do feel like it's out of your control at that point. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I basically just, yeah, listened to the nurses, listen to what they had to say or when to push and listen to their like.

Positioning. I went up onto my knees and leaned over, like the back of the bed. They had it upright and so I just leaned over the back of the bed. And about after an hour of cush, Nora literally shot out of me. They thing barely caught her, and then I Yeah. Rotated back onto my back and they placed her on my chest and yeah.

And then, yeah. What were your initial thoughts when she came out? The look on Nick's face was amazing of course. 'cause he was like crying and just had so much joy. Me. It was like, I'm almost like numb. Yeah. And relieved that the whole process was over. Yeah, I bet that's a long few days for you guys and to finally be like, oh my gosh, it's, she's here.

It's been a long time coming. Yeah. Yeah. And then tell us about immediately postpartum. Okay. So she came out, she came flying out. And I think because I was like pushing so hard and like literally blue pushing almost, that's I feel like the best way to explain it. Pushing so hard that.

Like you're about to rupture something. Yeah. And so when I did when she did shoot out, I did have a fourth degree tear. So they came in and stitched me up. But prior to that the midwife had asked if she could cut the cord and I once again said let's wait a little longer. I would like at least a half an hour kind of thing.

Yeah. With Nora being attached to my placenta, whether it's still in me or not just so that she can get all the blood that's in there. And her response was, it's white already, so the cord was cut and that was basically that. And then. Like five minutes after that she was pulling out my placenta Oh, which also against my birth bond I would have rathered birth, my own placenta.

And I honestly, I was just. Out of it being exhausted and just pushing out a baby. And so I didn't really know exactly what she was doing 'cause she didn't communicate Hey, I'm pulling out your placenta right now. And she didn't explain why or didn't say anything. So this left like pieces of my placenta still attached on the inside.

And so then the doctor had to come in and. Do a membrane sweep. And so yeah, hella thankful that I had drugs because that was almost more painful than birthing. Yeah, the baby. Yeah. Like her sticking her hand in there and sweeping you out is just yeah. Not a good feeling after you just gave birth. So yeah.

They spent an hour after that. Stitching me up. And then they did their checks and everything was perfect with Nora, she was akay. And then we spent like their mandatory 24 hours, pardon me, in the hospital. Yeah. She, since she was born at 11:00 PM. By 11:00 PM the next day, they're like, yeah, you guys can go home if you want.

But it was like 11 o'clock. Yeah, we're exhausted. Might as well just spend another night. Yeah, we're just gonna stay the night and we'll go home in the morning. So yeah, we were ready to go home in the morning and. Then we had to wait I don't know, it was like seven o'clock or something. And they were like doing up the discharge papers and then we had to wait for, they decided they wanted to gimme an iron transfusion.

But then they brought the iron, but they didn't bring the counteractive drug, so then we had to wait like another three hours for them to bring the counteractive drug and yeah. So we didn't end up. Like leaving the hospital until two o'clock in the afternoon, which was another long time of being in the hospital and all of the constant checks, and you're not sleeping because people are constantly in and out of the room.

And I don't know yeah, the, I would say like the perks of being at home is, not having any of that happen. Yeah. Yeah. Just somewhere just the hospital. It's not a comfort, it's not comfortable. And there's people, and yeah it not, it doesn't compare to your home, obviously. And when that was your plan, it, it sucks.

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, just hearing, like you can hear all the other women like giving birth too, and it's I don't know. I will say though that the nurses, we really only had one like. Not the best nurse. But all of the other nurses were absolutely incredible. Like amazing people and just kind and yeah nothing against them whatsoever.

Just not my vibe of, soothing environment. Yeah. After you just gave birth. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And then how were you planning to feed Nora? Breastfeeding. And so yeah, she, she wasn't latching at the hospital. And so they brought in a lactation consultant who basically just sat there and talked at me and.

I had to ask if I could show her what Nora was doing and ask her if she could guide me on what to do. Which in my mind, a lactation consultant should be like guiding you. Yeah. Not the other way around. Yeah, she, I had, i've done a bunch of colostrum, thank goodness prior to giving birth to her.

So I had a ton of it in syringes. So she was syringe fed for the big, basically like the first. I wanna say two, three days of her life, maybe four days. And then my milk came in and she was I pumped and she would bottle feed 'cause she still wasn't able to latch. And then like a week later, week and a half, I wanna say maybe we went and got an assessment with her tongue, yeah.

And lip. And then she had that lasered done I think I don't know, maybe a month. Postpartum, I wanna say. 'cause she finally started like latching a bit. I got some nipple shields, which I never thought as a first time mom, you don't think you're gonna need a pump. You don't think you're gonna need nipple shields.

You don't think your nipples are gonna be bleeding and cracked and the whole shebang. But yeah, you just never know what your situation's gonna be like. And so the nipple shields honestly helped tremendously. She was able to latch, latch onto the nipple shields, obviously, but like latch and be able to suck that way.

And then after we had her tongue lasered and lip lasered she regressed again. Okay. I'm guessing just like due to so being so much pain. So we went back. To pumping into the bottle. And then eventually she, like I kept trying, I did not give up 'cause I knew that's one thing that I wanted out of my birth.

Yeah. As for food to be able to get the nutrients from me. And so I kept trying and she eventually was able to latch on and then. I think around like month three, month four, we finally were able to ditch the nipple shields and she was able to like fully grasp on, so that was like it, it was a long, like a long haul, but it was, yeah.

So worth it. Yeah. Awesome. Good for you guys. And then how was postpartum recovery for you? Surprisingly it took a lot longer than what I thought. I also obviously didn't think I would have a fourth degree tear, but it took a lot longer. And we spent. A lot of time upstairs 'cause we have our main level and then we have all our bedrooms are upstairs.

So the, every time I would do the stairs a couple times I would start bleeding again. Yeah. Yeah. And so we spent a lot of time just upstairs and in our bedroom and, or else we would move downstairs for the entire day and spend our day in the living room. And moved her bassinet kind of downstairs so she could still be sleeping in her bassinet if she wasn't sleeping on me.

Yeah, I was shocked at how long it took to recover. But at the same time my body did. End up recovering very well. Yeah. Big positive thing. Yeah. Yeah. And so you alluded to this a few times, but what do you feel like in hindsight would've made the difference in your birth? Yeah. There's a few things.

Yeah. Can you go into that? Yeah, for sure. I would definitely hire a doula. For this birth, we have hired a doula and I am very excited for that. I think I just had the misconception of what a midwife was supposed to do. And in my mind, they were supposed to be more like a doula, but Sask Health, I think, is not funded in the way that they can give the time and energy to you without being paid more in a sense.

Yeah, that's fair. They're stretched very thin. Yes they are. Yeah. And which then brings their energy down. They're exhausted, right? Like literally any other healthcare provider that we have, they're exhausted. And it's hard to continue to give that energy to someone when you're exhausted.

So I would highly recommend hi, hiring a doula or even just having, support people that can be there for your birth when your partner is absolutely exhausted, like you need someone to continue to give you the energy that you need to continue. Yeah. So yeah, though that's like the biggest thing is having that support system in place for you to.

Stay positive and to keep your energy up. The other thing I would like highly recommend is not stressing about it like. I was like, yeah, baby's coming. Baby's coming. Today's the day. And it was like, oh shit. Yeah, baby's not coming. Who knew we would have another 24 hours of labor and intense pain.

Yeah. Just like being able to like. Rest and relax and sleep when it's, sleep when you can basically, and get up and move around when you can. And yeah, when you have that support system in place to help you move through contractions, help you. Like work baby out in a sense of like your movement, your stretches, your inversions, all that kind of stuff.

I think that also would've been a huge addition to our birth and making it more positive in sense in a sense. I definitely would've prepared more snacks, like made more snacks. 'Cause when the midwife came over she was like, what you got to eat? Can your husband get you a snack? But obviously Nick's exhausted as well, so it's not like he wants to be cooking anything.

So I would've prepared more hardy snacks. And I think the last thing would be like. If you do end up with a midwife or a doctor or whatever, just kinda wait till not the last minute, but like sometimes their energy can bring you down and you want your energy to stay up. And just being mindful I guess, of who's in the room with you when you're in labor.

Yeah. Creating the birth team that will guide you through is a. Probably the biggest thing that you can do, for sure. Yeah. That was definitely a shorter version of a way to say it. Yes. No, I love it. The birth team. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And then what surprised you the most about postpartum? I, oh, I think you think you like get over one thing and then it's damn, something else hits. Or there's a new challenge to overcome or like you have the sleep regression or there's just like little things that come up. But I think like the biggest thing is like you don't realize how big your support system.

Can mean to you, yeah. Or like it takes a community to raise a baby. Yeah. Like literally. And so I think like leaning on your community to, and asking for support I wasn't expecting to do that 'cause I'm not like one to ask for help, but I think that was, yeah. One of the biggest things.

Yeah. Awesome. So birth team and postpartum village. That's what you need. Yes. Yep. Yep. I agree a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Carly, thank you so much for coming on. It was awesome to hear your story, and I wish you all the best in your second pregnancy and birth. Yeah. Thank you very much. It was about your being on here.