Anais H. | Surrogacy and a homebirth with a midwife.

Anais from Pembroke, ON is back on Moony Birth Stories to share her surrogacy journey carrying for her sister. Anais has previously been on the podcast sharing her two homebirth stories. 

In this birth story, she shares the process of surrogacy, her homebirth experience and some challenging moments throughout that labour, including the potential of a hospital transfer, a posterior baby, and cervical lip. Anais also shares her postpartum and feeding experience as a surrogate. 

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Transcript

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 Hi everyone and welcome back to Moony Birth Stories. On today's episode, we are joined by Anais from Pembroke, Ontario. She was previously on the podcast, so you can go back and listen to her two home birth stories. She is back to share her third birth story where she was a surrogate for her sister. She goes on to have another home birth, and she also goes more into the surrogacy journey.

Okay. Can we start by sharing a little bit about you? Sure. My name's Anais and I'm married to Brad. We've been married for eight years. We've got four kids. I've got two stepsons, Ryland and Liam who are 17 and 15, and then we have two girls Eloise, who's six, and Daphne, who's four. I'm a lawyer.

My husband's in the military, and we live in Pembro, Ontario, which is about two hours away from Ottawa. And then I have two siblings, a brother and a sister, and my sister, whose name is Chloe, is married to Eric. And together they have a 2-year-old Leo whose birth story I'll be sharing. Awesome. So can you tell us the process of, getting pregnant with Leo and how your surrogacy journey started. Yeah, so I guess a bit of background on why my sister chose my sister and Eric chose a surrogacy option. So my sister has cystic fibrosis, which is a genetic illness that affects her lungs and her digestive system. And then although many people who have cystic fibrosis can carry their own babies without issue, it really all depends on how their health is.

So it can be dangerous for the mother, for the baby, or both. And I remember after I gave birth to my oldest Eloise, I honestly felt like I was on cloud nine. I was like in this little happiness bubble. And I just remember thinking that I wish everyone who wanted to experience parenthood could. And it did get me thinking about, surrogacy.

And I did think about my sister wondering whether that's something that she was. Considering or would be needing eventually. And then a couple months later, I think it was around March or April of 2020, so obviously via Zoom my sister, Eric, Brad and I met and then they asked us whether we would consider having me be a surrogate for them.

Aw. Brad did have some reservations about it. He was, worried about all the what ifs and was worried that something would happen to me. But ultimately we did agree to go ahead with it. For me, it really didn't feel like, I feel like I didn't have to consider it too much. I loved being pregnant.

I had great birth experiences with the girls, and I knew that we were done growing our family and just knowing. What a difference it would make for my sister and Eric. Yeah, for me it was something that I really wanted to do, so I was very happy to agree to it. Then once the decision was made that, we were gonna go ahead with the surrogacy, it was still quite a process to get to a place where we had the embryo transfer.

So my sister had a really hard time finding a clinic that would take her on as a client. I'm sure she would be able. Tell you lots and lots about it. But from what I understood, there was just a lot of red tape around taking her on because, they were concerned that in the event that something happened during the egg retrieval, even though it was very unlikely that something would happen, she would need to be put under.

And in that case it would have to be done in a hospital setting. And there's very few fertility clinics that are. Connected to hospitals. Okay. So ultimately we were able to do this through the fertility clinic in London. So my sister and Eric went through the egg retrieval process, I think in the fall of 2022.

And they were able to get eight embryos, which was a really great number. We were also really lucky to have friends and family in London. So even though, we all had to spend a lot of time there, it made it really easy because we were able to stay, either with friends or with family.

And also just made it a nice little trip out there at the same time. Yeah. So how far is London from where you live? Oh, from where I live, I think it's six hours, if not more. Okay. I often took the train because that way I could, work so I didn't have to take too much time off. But then when we did the embryo transfer we all went, so my sister and Eric drove, and then we drove in a separate car with the girls.

So we were able to make a. A nice little weekend of it. Yeah. The other thing that I was gonna mention is that we had a surrogacy agreement in place. And from what I understand is something that. If someone's going through a surrogacy, you want to have in place, even in our case, we were, we're family.

There was really nothing for us to argue over. But it just makes the process a lot easier when it comes time to the birth. So with a surrogacy agreement, from what I understand, it's really easy to put the two intended parents on the birth certificate. It's a non-issue to recognize them as the child's parent versus if there is no surrogacy agreement, I think you then have to go through the adoption process, which Oh, okay.

Would be on consent and everything, but it's just, it's obviously a lot more complicated. We had that in place and then there were no issues after the birth. Okay. And so when you guys are, because obviously your sister asked you directly is, are you guys working with any sort of. Like a surrogacy agency.

Yeah. We didn't, okay. So those are definitely around, so that, so if there's a surrogate. Looking for intended parents or the other way around, intended parents who are looking for a surrogate, they can join these agencies who help them. Like they're like matchmakers, right? Yeah.

Like they'll find someone who might be a good match for someone else. But because we already knew, they knew they had asked me and I was okay with. That too. We just did that on our own. Okay. So without the need to go through an agency. Okay. Sounds good. And then, so how did that embryo transfer go?

It went well. So we went the morning, I think it was February 4th. And so yeah, the four of us went. It. I don't actually really remember a whole lot about the transfer, but it was really seamless. It happened really quickly. They gave us a picture of the embryo. And it's funny 'cause with the girls, I never felt like I was pregnant before seeing the pregnancy test.

But this time I just had a feeling that it had worked and my sister also felt the same way. Yeah, we were all pretty excited to see what was going to happen. I had a box of Amazon. Like pregnancy tests. Yeah. That obviously I wasn't going to be needing, so I. Like after this pregnancy.

So I didn't feel bad at all about starting to test like really early on. And so I actually got my first positive pregnancy test, I think it was five days after the transfer. Oh wow. How exciting. And every, yeah. And then, I test. Said so many times a day, like an unreasonable amount. And so it was neat to see the line get darker and darker.

And then we told my sister over Zoom. I was showing them the pregnancy tests and she, I don't think she had ever taken a pregnancy test, so she wasn't too sure what she was looking at. And so I had to explain to them, that it meant the transfer had worked. So it was really exciting. My due date was October 23rd, and my sister loves Halloween, so the first thing she said was.

The baby can't be born on Halloween. And I love listening to birth stories and I love learning about birth. So I feel like I have a pretty good knowledge base, but somehow I thought that with IVF the due date, you were a lot more likely to give birth around the due date as opposed to going way past dates, post dates.

I told her that there was no way I was gonna make it to October 31st. It wasn't anything to worry about. Okay. And then my sister shared the news with her family with she created a recipe card saying that, it took one cup of this, one cup of that just to show that we all worked on it together.

And it was adorable. It took my parents a long time to figure it out. Finally, didn't, did they know that you guys were going through this though? They did okay. But they didn't realize that the transfer was happening so soon. I don't think we told them that. It was a bit of a surprise, even though it's hard to make it a surprise with.

IVF pregnancies. Yeah. And so in my area there's only one midwifery group. So as soon as I got a pregnancy test, I applied to be with them. I unfortunately had to switch from my usual midwife, Ashley, a couple months in, which was a big bummer 'cause I really loved her. She was there at my two previous births.

But the nice thing is that with Chloe and Eric being in Ottawa, it's like I said, about two hours away. So they were able to make it to most of the midwife's appointments. Sometimes they'd connect by phone, which was really great. And the other thing that was really nice was that, I really felt like Chloe and Eric trusted me.

If I told them I wanted to do something or not do something, like they were really supportive and on board they were also really. Interested in being educated. It felt like a really. Positive and mutually respectful relationship, which I think made all the difference in the pregnancy.

I had home births with both of my girls, and so that's something that I wanted to do as well. And honestly, they were on board. My sister was there for my youngest. So she had seen it and it didn't think it was gonna be an issue with her, but even Eric he didn't seem to have an issue with it either.

We watched the business of being born together so that they could, understand it a bit better. And yeah, ultimately they were fine with it. And I really think it made for yeah, a really positive birth experience. 'cause, we weren't in the hospital setting and it can be a bit, not always the smoothest when it's a surrogacy. And people not understanding that, the person giving birth is not the person keeping the baby. So just, we didn't have to deal with any of that. The midwives knew us and that wasn't a problem. Yeah. That's amazing that you guys sound like you were a very cohesive team and all on the same page.

Like I imagine that it would be tough if you guys were butting heads a little bit. Yeah I think it could have been really challenging, so it's really great that wasn't an issue. Yeah, that's awesome. How did the pregnancy go? Overall it went well. I think for me, the most, me memorable part of it is that I was probably six throughout the entire pregnancy.

Oh no. Yeah, I don't usually, like my immune system is usually I. Good enough, but it honestly felt like I just didn't have one. Like every time I would get over something, I'd get sick again. And it wasn't like just a little cold, like I'd have these horrible cough. And I got ear infections too, which I had never had before, or at least, not since I was a little kid.

Yeah. So it was, that was not the best, and then of course, with all the coughing it gave me some pelvic floor issues, which I hadn't had up until that point. But it definitely became an issue. So I was really happy to get those period underwears just to be on the safe side. Yeah. And thankfully that's resolved itself 'cause I thought that it might not, but it's just resolved itself on its own, once I was no longer pregnant.

Yeah. Another, oh, yeah, go ahead. I was just gonna say, it's so awful to, to be feeling not great your whole pregnancy. Yeah. Like the pregnancy itself was fine. Like I didn't have any aches and pains. But yeah, just like anytime I watch a video of myself talking to the girls from that time you can always hear me coughing.

And yeah that's what I'll remember about the pregnancy. Yeah. Another weird health thing that happened, which I just thought I would mention in case it's happened to somebody else. So during the pregnancy I started developing this heartbeat issue where. Even though I'd be at rest, my heart would just randomly spike up to 180 to 200 beats per minute.

Like I could see it on my Apple Watch. Okay. Which was really weird. I had never had that before. And I did hear someone talk about a similar experience on another birth story podcast that I had listened to, and they had said that they were told it was like a long COVID thing. So I don't know if that's what it was.

That's also resolved since then. Like it continued a little bit. Postpartum. But I'm also glad that's not happening anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And then another neat thing, for people going through, surrogacy experience Chloe and Eric found these bracelets called bond bracelets. Okay. And so essentially there's two bracelets and when when you wear it and you tap on it, the other person who's wearing the bracelet will feel the vibrations.

Whenever I could, if I could see a Leo kick, I'd tap on the bracelet, like the same rhythm that he was kicking. Oh. And so if it, whoever was wearing it would be able to feel it, which was, I think, pretty neat since, they didn't live around the corner, so it's not like they could come by every night or anything.

So yeah, it was a pretty cool discovery on their part. Yeah. That is so sweet that they can feel a little bit more involved in the pregnancy. Yeah. I've never heard of that, but that's really cool. Yeah. So with with IVF, is there any sort of extra monitoring or ultrasounds that you have to go through throughout pregnancy?

So at the very onset they did want us to, so I had to do blood work to confirm that my HCG was going up as it should. And then we did go for an ultrasound, I'm pretty sure, at which point they discharged us from the fertility clinic, which was a good thing because obviously it was quite far away.

If we didn't have to go there for additional testing like that, definitely. Worked for all of us. So they were really good at making sure we could go to, locally for ultrasounds and the testing. We had to do that and I had to do the injections, like leading up to the transfer and then after the transfer, I think for the first trimester or so.

And then, yeah, that was, that all wrapped up. Okay. Awesome. And then, yeah, anything else notable from your pregnancy? I know you shared a little bit, but anything else you wanna share? I think the only other thing, so I guess two things. One of the things was that unfortunately during the pregnancy Eric's father passed away and it was really sudden and unexpected.

And so that's something that we all. Really struggled with obviously there, he wasn't my father or father-in-law. But they have a cottage near us and obviously my sister and Eric had been together for a long time, so we had really gotten to know them well and honestly considered them to be like our extended family too.

So it was quite hard. But then Colleen, Eric were able to honor his memory by giving, by naming Leo's middle name after him. So it was a sweet way to, to honor him. Yeah. Okay. The only other thing that I was going to say is that with this pregnancy, I experienced, I guess Braxton Hicks from, shortly after 20 weeks, and I think it was like almost every night.

The first time it happened, it really felt like the real thing. It went on for hours and it seemed to be increasing and, the intensity was increasing, they were getting closer. And then nothing happened and that just kept on happening. And obviously after it happens a couple times, you really stop thinking about it.

Yeah. But knowing that this was happening, I just assumed that, I would only need, I didn't think the baby would be late. I thought if anything, the baby might come early. So with that in mind, I decided to take four weeks of mat leave. So where I am, and I don't know if it'll be different from province to province, but where I am, you can take, so the surrogate mother can take 12 weeks of or up to 12 weeks of maternity leave. And I thought that I wouldn't need that. I felt without having a baby as long as I gave myself enough time to recover physically, I would be fine to go back to work after that.

So I planned to be off around mid-October, knowing my due date was October 23rd, and I felt that would give me. That should give me, a couple days to rest up before the birth, and then hopefully about three plus weeks after to just recover at home. Yep. And of course as soon as I went on mat leave, all the cramping that I had been feeling completely stopped.

Oh, of course. Yeah, the midwife said that she thought it was an irritable uterus. Yeah. Which is a ridiculous term, but all this to say, it actually didn't do a whole lot, as you'll see. I think maybe when I was three, nine weeks, I agreed to do a cervical check just to see where I was at, and the midwife was.

I think she probably could have said it in a more positive way. But she looked totally surprised and said my cervix was, completely unfavorable. I was not dilated not, my cervix was not thinned. So it did we question how things were going to go. Yeah. There was also a lot of talk about Leo possibly being a big baby.

So I think from 30 weeks onward, I was measuring like three weeks ahead, I think maybe four weeks ahead. Yeah. So I think almost every time there would be a discussion around, he might be a big baby, we'll have to worry about shoulder dystocia. Maybe we could do an ultrasound to just get a better idea of what the size was.

Yep. And. I feel like I had educated myself on the issue and I just worried that, the information that an ultrasound would give us was unlikely to be accurate, and that if anything, the worry of having a big baby might cause more. Intervention than actually having a big baby. Yeah. I talked to my sister and Eric about it.

They were on board. And so I think that helped. I also expressed colostrum leading up to the birth so haka makes these little colostrum bottles and I was able to fill those up. And yeah. There was also some question about the positioning. At one point they thought that he might have been breach.

Okay. Even though to me he felt not breached at all. But they, came to the house to do like an ultrasound on their little. Portable machine, it looked fine, but they still wanted me to go get an ultrasound done at the hospital just to double check. Okay. And so when I went, I just was clear that, it was just an ultrasound to determine the positioning of the baby.

I wasn't interested in knowing any size estimates and I didn't want to be told about it. So they listened and they didn't take down any information about that, which was good. Yeah. Good. That they respected your wishes for that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then were you doing anything else to prepare for labor?

So I started doing the mile circuit from about 40 weeks onward, which I personally really don't enjoy. But because the concern that he wasn't exactly, I never know how to phrase it, but even though he was head down, oh, I think he was sunny side up possibly. Okay. Yeah. Or just. Yeah. Anyway, so just for positioning concerns, I just did the mouth circuit and also I started doing hypnobirthing meditations, like just ones that I could find on Apple music.

So like in the evening when I laid down with my daughter to help her fall asleep, I just listened to the meditations and I figured it's not, I wasn't doing the actual hypnobirthing, but I was hoping it would help. Yeah. And so how old were your daughters at this point? Yeah. At the time they would've been two and four.

Okay. And so did they understand and know what was going on? A little bit, obviously maybe not the 2-year-old, but the 4-year-old. Yeah. So I talked to her about it and I told her that it was Chloe's baby that was in my belly. Yeah. I don't feel like she really like, to her, that seemed really normal.

She never questioned, why is it not your baby in there? And just from the onset, we were just really clear like it's going to be Chloe and Eric's baby, and even now to this day, like they still, they'll see pictures of me when I was pregnant with Leo. And they just know that he was in my belly.

They never, they don't really seem to, I guess they know no different. They wouldn't know. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. That's awesome. And then, so what was the plan to, who are you going to have at your birth? So the plan was to give birth at home. And like the layout of my house is funny.

Like we have a living room and sorry, a kitchen. And then down the stairs towards the back of the house, there's one living room, and then. Towards the front of the house, there's another living room. So I always gave, so with my daughters, I gave birth to them in that lower living room. Yeah. And so I figured it would be a good way, like I could be there laboring and then they could be, sleeping or in that other la living room, just waiting until it was a good time for them to come and join us.

Because I still wanted to have. Some privacy to labor. I just I'm not one to love having tons of people around. Yeah. And then we also, I did wonder about having my oldest there for for the birth, just depending on how things were going. It was just something that I had in the back of my mind.

And yeah, I think that was about the plan. Okay. And then, yeah, take us through when this labor started. So I guess it technically started on Halloween. Okay. So by that point I thought that's where this was going. Yeah. Although you'll see there's a little, there's a little plot twist.

Okay. So at that point, I was 41 plus one and my sister and Eric were staying with us. It just made it easier that way we didn't have to worry about them traveling for two hours. And then. The day of Halloween, my parents also came up for the night so that they could come and trick or treat with us.

So we took the kids trick or treating by our house. And actually, funny thing, my sister and Eric dressed up as Brad and I for Halloween, which was hilarious. They actually aced it. They did a really good job. Yeah. And as we started walking, I started feeling, contractions and we had two little kids, so we weren't going super fast.

It took us about an hour to do our little neighborhood, and by the time we returned home an hour later, I did notice that they had picked up an intensity and I was starting to think that maybe I was in labor. So my mom and I went to go drop off the boys at their friend's house for trick or treating, and we made plans that they'd stay at their mom's overnight, so we didn't have to worry about them.

And then on the drive back, I noticed that my contractions seemed to be plateauing. So they weren't, they weren't really lessening, but they definitely were not increasing in intensity or in speed. So I did start to wonder if maybe it was prodromal labor, which I had a lot of with my youngest.

And then while I was gone Brad and Chloe totally decorated the living room where I wanted to give birth. They had blown up the. The birth tub. There were twinkly lights and candles everywhere. And honestly, it looked totally magical, like exactly what you would want to have. Yeah. But of course I got home and told everyone that kidding.

I could feel things falling down. Yeah. Yeah. I just told 'em I was gonna go upstairs and get some sleep while I could. And we told Chloe and Eric that we'd wake them up when it was closer to the time. So I think I fell asleep at about 10 30 at night. And then I woke up two hours later at 1230, which was on November 1st.

So baby had listened to his mother's request and was not born on Halloween. And I woke up with a contraction at that, like it felt like it was radiating through my whole body. And I waited in bed to see if I would get another one. And I did. And then as soon as I got out of bed, it's the heat drained from my body, or I don't know what happened, but it was like instant shivering. I just could not warm up. So I just put on every layer that I could find. And went down to the kitchen where I had labored before. It's like I find it to be the perfect spot. It's not, we have low lights and I.

Sway leaning against the countertop, I always find that to be the best spot. I put on my headphones and I listened to my hypnobirthing meditations, and honestly it felt like a really great labor. Like I, it, when I think about that time, I really don't think about pain. I would say that it felt painless.

And I remember looking outside and I guess. While I was asleep, it started snowing, so it really looked like it had gone from fall to winter, like in those few hours that I was asleep. So I think that went on for about two or three hours, and then Brad also woke up and came downstairs. I also messaged one of my friends who had agreed to come over and take some pictures of the birth.

So I think she started to make her way. Over around that time we decided to call the midwife, I think a bit before 3:00 AM because the contractions were happening every three minutes. And that had been happening for over an hour and I had also had some bloody shows. Looking back to my youngest birth, it was looking really similar and I was thinking that Leo was going to be born.

Sometime in the next couple hours. Yeah. So the midwife around arrived around 3 55. So there was my midwife a midwife from I guess the backup midwife from the other team and also a student midwife. Okay. And I asked them to check me when they got there and I was seven centimeters and 90% of faced.

Okay. Great. Yeah. And so even though I was at seven Centimeters and very probably going through transition, I was feeling super zen. I was just listening to my meditations and still feeling really good. The midwives even joked after checking me asking if I was really in labor. 'cause I just I was talking with them in between contractions.

Like it was, it felt very easy. It sounds wonderful. Yeah. Yeah, it will change, unfortunately, but at this time it, it really did feel wonderful. And, honestly yeah, like I said, it really felt like things were progressing really well. I remember also looking in the mirror around that time and seeing the purple line.

Oh yeah. The purple line. Yeah. So essentially it's like between your butt cheeks and it goes up towards your back as you are getting dilated. And I could see that it was like, I had, I think I had looked before anyways, it looked like it was. And it was a good indicator to me that things were progressing.

So again, I was feeling good. And so around I guess a little bit before five, I got in the birth pool because I had started to feel pushy and with my two previous birth, by the time I got in the water, I felt ready to push. And things overall happened pretty quickly. Like I never had to push for very long.

But this time it didn't feel that way. My body felt like I had to push, but it felt like nothing was happening. And the midwives were telling me to trust my body if I felt like pushing. Like I should go ahead and push, but it just didn't feel right. So I think around five 15 or so I asked if I could get checked.

And they found that I was almost nine centimeters, but had a cervical lip. They felt like it was still good progress and they suggested that I move to the bathroom to try like differently laboring positions in there. And that's when things started to take a turn. My body just felt so pushy and usually pushing felt really good, but it just didn't feel good.

This time it didn't feel productive and it just felt like I was stuck. Okay. And all the things that worked the other two times weren't working. So it was laboring on the toilet and it just felt horrible. They also suggested doing like the Captain Morgan move with a knee up, and it was just excruciating.

And then everything started to bug me. Like I could hear the midwives talking and I just, it was just getting to me. I just wanted to have complete silence. Yeah. And so at one point I came out of the bathroom and I asked Brad why all the lights were on in the living room, and he looked at me all weird and said.

Only the twinkly lights were on and the candles, and it was really dark in there, but it just, the light was just I just, I couldn't take it. I wanted to be like in a dark corner with total silence. Yeah. And thankfully one of the midwives Soki, I think sensed that I was struggling a bit. And so she came over to me and asked me if the chatting was bothering me and.

I am someone who has a hard time, like I'm a people pleaser, but thankfully this time I did say that it wasn't bothering me. And so she was able to talk to the other midwives and make sure that it was quiet, which I really appreciated. She also looked at me looked at me and she held my belly and she told me that I was doing a great job and I can't remember what else she told me, but I remember it being like a bit of a turning point that after that, at least for a little bit after I felt like I could do this and.

Yeah. Yeah. I felt it was just that little bit of encouragement that you needed. Yes, exactly. Then I think around a bit after six, I went back in the tub to try and push. I did like lots of different positions and again, nothing was working. And I remember I had a moment where I was just thinking about.

All the cars that were in my driveway and how weird that must look because I think there were about like six or seven different cars. 'cause my parents were staying with us. We had the three different midwives. My sister, my friend, anyways. And we don't have that big of a driveway, so I don't even know where they were all parked.

Funny that you were worried about it at that moment. Yes. Yeah. The weird things that we focus on. Then I think around seven 30 I asked for another cervical check. And, it's just funny, like all those things were me asking, like I, I kept asking for cervical checks, even though going into the pregnancy and the labor, I really wanted to have it like, as hands off labor as possible.

And I feel like once I hit that roadblock, it all went out the window. Yeah, seven 30. They told me that I was full, that I was nine centimeters, but without a cervical lip. So they suggested rupturing my bag of waters. But at the time, my daughters were still in the house. They were getting ready to leave for school.

And again, I completely backtracked on my idea of having my oldest there. I did not want her there at all. I just didn't want to have to be, in a parenting Yeah. Mode at all. And she would've been four at the time, so it would've been almost impossible for her to see me and not want to come over.

I decided to go labor in the bathroom while my mom got the kids ready and out the door. And I don't even know how she managed, but she managed to get them out the door without them seeing me or hearing me. And after they left. So shortly after eight, they checked me again, and then I was 9.5 with a cervical lip again.

Okay. So at that point I think the midwife tried to manually remove the cervical lip. Okay. And so it was not enjoyable at all. It was my body just cringed at them when you said that because I had the same thing and yeah, it's not fun at all. It is not. And the funny thing is Leo was doing great throughout all this.

Like I was, I felt like I was dying, but he was doing great. He had like great heart tones, just, there were no concerns about him, which was good. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. And then I think at that point. They felt, I think the cervical lip was gone and they felt like things should be moving forward.

So I remember I even, I wanted to have a video of the birth, so I set up my phone to film Leo being born. And I'll, I won't bore you with all of it, but turns out the cervical lip came back and so I was just on and off with a cervical lip for probably about, I think between eight and nine 30.

Oh gosh. So on and off, I just, I kept feeling stuck, like things weren't moving. They checked me and I would be, the cervical lip would've come back and they kept trying to get it outta the way. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. And anyways, yeah, it was a very long. Two hours. I think sometime around then we turned off the video. I was like, he's not going to be born anytime soon. We might as well stop filming this. I've never, I don't think I've even gone back and looked at that video. I just, I feel like I don't think I could. Yeah. Not a moment. You want to read this Exactly.

Yeah. So I think around nine 30 we did tell Chloe and Eric that, I think at that point I started to officially push. Okay. It's funny 'cause the midwife, like in their view, like that's when I started pushing. And for me it felt like my body had been pushing since five in the morning.

Yeah. Even though I wouldn't necessarily always be like pushing along with my body, I was, I had definitely been feeling pushy. And yeah, so I think around 10 30 the midwives spoke with us about their recommendation that because of how long I had been pushing, we should transfer to the hospital if baby wasn't born in the next 15 minutes.

Okay. And like I said, by then Chloe and Eric were there as well as my friend. And so they were there for the conversation as well. And we all agreed that, if baby wasn't born in 15 minutes, that would be the move for us to transfer. And honestly, inside my mind I was totally fine with that option.

I just wanted to go. I was just wanting a C-section. I felt like nothing was working at all. The weird thing too is that, I felt like I was almost disconnected from my lower body. And I just, even though with the girls I had pushed without issue, I just felt like I could not figure out how to push this time.

Yeah. And so the midwife would press where I should be pushing. And that was the only thing that helped. And so she kept. Saying that she could stop doing it, and I kept asking her to keep doing it. Because that was the only way that I was able to connect with that part of my body.

Yeah. So by 10 45 although the midwives were starting to see some progress with the pushing, so Key went to call the ambulance and the hospital to let them know that we'd be coming. And so we tried, like I had said, different. Pushing physicians. Like we tried the birth stool, we tried on all fours on the side standing and nothing was working as well as laying on my back, which again, was not what I would've expected, but it's what was actually like when I was pushing on my back, that's when they could actually visually see some progress.

Yeah. And during that, like bread was. So amazing, like the whole labor. He was by my side doing what I was asking him to do. When I was pushing, I just felt insanely hot, like I felt like I was on fire. And so he kept getting cold cloth to put on my forehead. After the fact, he told me that the heat had somehow gotten turned up to 26, or it's 20, my gosh, seven degrees in the house.

Which would explain why I was dying of heat. Yeah. How was everyone else? Not but in what they didn't know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then I think it was, yeah, at 1104 the head came out. Okay. And he was born Sunnyside up. And his head came out at the same time as the ambulance arrived.

Okay? And then once his head was out, the body came out, no problem. And so even though there had been lots of worries about shoulder dystocia, even like during the pushing phase, that was something that they had talked about. Everything was fine. There were no issues with that. Honestly when Leo was born, I feel like there was not a dry eye in the room.

My friend captured some really beautiful pictures and I just remember looking at my sister as the baby was placed in her arms and just being so happy for her. Oh. So yeah, it was a really great moment. And I. I think Eric cut the cord. Honestly, at that point, I was just so happy that Leo was out.

I don't think I really paid attention to what was going on. I remember the conversation happening around cutting the cord. And I believe Eric cut the cord. Okay. And then they were able to do some skin to skin with him. Before the birth, I had talked to Brad about how I didn't want to have any unnecessary interventions and I had really made a point that I didn't want Pitocin.

Because with Daphne I had gotten it and. Really felt like I didn't actually need it. There was no excessive bleeding and I didn't want it. But in the moment, you're just exhausted. You're focused on your baby. And so I just said yes. And I've always regretted that thinking that I didn't really need it.

So when they asked me if I wanted Pitocin, he jumped up and said that was not something I was interested in getting this time. Yeah. And of course. As soon as he said that, I was like, actually, I do want the Pitocin. I just felt like my uterus was completely just not functioning anymore.

It just, I felt so exhausted. Felt just after that labor felt you, it was a gut feeling. Yes, exactly. I got the Pitocin, I was able to get the placenta out. I think about 10 minutes after Leo was born. So it all went I did end up with a, like pretty complex second degree tear.

Okay. So they debated sending me to the hospital to have it repaired, but in the end, my midwife was able to suture me and I think she did a really excellent job of it. So I was very grateful for that. 'cause I did have some struggles healing from my tears in the past. That was a good thing.

After all this talk of Leo being a big baby, he did end up being 10 pounds, four ounces. Oh, wow. Okay. And yeah, so he was actually a big baby. He, I think his head was like 37 centimeters circumference, so he also had a big head. But he was born with a big cone head, not only was he like born sunny side up, but he also had not been engaged properly, which is why it had been such a challenging birth.

Yeah. But that po like position of baby makes a huge difference. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I totally agree. Yeah. And so my labor ended up being about 11 and a half hours, and I think about six of those. Were with me being at nine centimeters or over. Yeah. So it really puts it in perspective. And yeah, it did explain, why why it had been so hard.

And it's so funny because, again, I love listening to birth stories. I've heard so many different ways of, things to do when you're in labor and baby isn't engaged properly or isn't positioned ideally. And do you think I could think of any of those things while in labor? Absolutely not.

No. Even a couple days before the midwife had suggested a physician and like no one mentioned and we didn't try it and no one mentioned it in the moment. So that's why doulas are great. I was about to, I was about to just put a little plug for doulas. 'cause they are in the right mind and they do know and they can Yes.

Give you those suggestions in the moment. Yes. No, in hindsight, I really I don't know in my area that there's a whole lot of options for doulas. There are definitely some, but it's not like in larger centers where you can really, interview a bunch of different ones until you find the one that you can connect with.

Yeah. But that was definitely my like the lesson I feel like I learned after this birth is that having someone who would've been there to just focus on that would've been really great. And, things could have gone maybe a little bit smoother. Yeah. And then, so how was then immediately postpartum?

Yeah. It was good, but I think it ended up being a little bit challenging for everyone in different ways. Chloe, Eric and Leo stayed with us, I think for a week or two after the birth, just because it made it easier for them to get the milk that I was expressing. But the downside to that is that Leo was born in a household with four kids.

Including two daycare aged kids. Yeah. Who brought back a lot of, bugs. And Chloe ended up catching the cold that they had right before Leo's birth and Leo did too. And it was a rough one. So I think it made for a bit of a rough start to parenthood. For them. For me it also was challenging because Brad was scheduled to be deployed and so he left a couple weeks after Leo's birth, which also coincided with me going back to work.

Oh, okay. And, I have to say, even though I feel like I knew how to prepare for postpartum and I felt like, I was really, aware of the physical. Challenges that you could have postpartum, even, postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety. I feel like I really actually was not prepared for this one.

I had assumed that without having a baby, just having a couple weeks to heal would be plenty. And and even though my body physically may have been, my mind was not. Yeah. So I just found it so hard to concentrate. And it probably took, I would say a good four months after going back to work to feel like I was somewhat myself.

Yeah, something that I would not, and again, if I had taken more time for myself, like I was entitled to 12 weeks I feel like that would've made it a much easier postpartum. Yeah. Yeah, you, the expectation is that if you know you don't have this baby to care for, you are getting your sleep and you would think that you would feel like yourself.

Earlier, but like it just goes to show that postpartum is a lot on your body and those hormones and just everything your body has just went through. It's a lot. Yep. Yeah. And I feel like it wasn't until maybe a year later that I was able to look back on that and think wow, I was actually really not in a great head space and I was definitely not my usual self and, yeah, so it's interesting, in the moment I wasn't really feeling that way. I definitely did find it hard being back at work, found it hard to concentrate and like complete tasks. But it wasn't until later on that I really saw that, yeah, four weeks and really because of how late he was born.

It was like two weeks. Yeah. That was really not enough. No, not at all. And then, so what did feeding look like? You said you were expressing some milk right away for him. Yeah. I did pump for him for about, I think it was like three or four months. And I had never pumped with the girls. I just hadn't needed to.

So pumping was totally new to me. And I remember, so two days in, I felt super eng go, so I figured it was time to start pumping as opposed to just manually expressing. And I pumped for about 20 minutes and I was shocked to get. Barely anything. There was almost nothing in the bottle and I was so confused by that.

And so that happened for the next couple days. I would pump for 20 minutes and nothing would come out and I had to manually express after. And finally I realized that I had one of the pump parts in the wrong way. Oh, no. So the pump was actually not working. So finally when I turned it around, I was actually able to get, actually get all the milk out. Yeah. And I'm just so much, I didn't get mastitis I don't even know how that didn't happen. But yeah, it was a relief once I was able to do it the right way. And then, like I said, Chloe and Erica were with us for a little bit, then they went back to Ottawa.

And whenever. My parents would come up and visit, we'd send them back with some frozen milk. Yeah. And let me tell you, when you're not feeding any of the milk to the baby directly, it takes a lot of bags. Yeah. My sister actually found these silicone molds so that I would put the milk in there, freeze it, and then put that in a big zip plug bag.

So it made it a lot. Easier and more environmentally friendly Okay. And cheaper to, send the milk back and forth. And then the other thing too actually, was that I actually ended up with a nerve injury to my leg. Okay. From pushing on my back. So because my legs, like I was pulling them back and I think.

Brad and the midwives were too. So I noticed that like right after birth, I, it felt like my leg was dragging. And so yeah, I went to the physio and it confirmed that it was, from the birth. And thankfully after a couple months, it just resolved on its own. But it was definitely a weird thing that I hadn't expected.

And then finally in this. In the summer, I guess after the birth we planted Leo's placenta as well as Daphne's. 'cause I had been keeping them in my freezer. Yeah. And so we were able to plant a tree over each of them, which was a really cool way to wrap up the experience. Yeah. That's amazing.

And then your sister was doing good in her transition to motherhood too. Yep. So she she did have, again, following the code that she had right after birth, she ended up having to be hospitalized for a little bit, which was really hard. Yeah. But thankfully she was able to be really sick couple days I think maybe a bit over a week after.

And I think overall it was good. She had a good support system with my parents who lived nearby, so they were able to. Come by and help out. My sister's mother-in-law who lives nearby, so she was also able to to help and she ended up taking, I think, 18, no, sorry, she took a year of mat leave.

We're a little bit over a year. But then because they couldn't find a daycare spot for him, she ended up being off for I think closer to 18 months. Okay. Awesome. Wow. What a story, what a special thing to do for your sister. It was really lovely and it's really nice to see like the, again, I don't know if it's because of the surrogacy or if it's just because they love their cousin, but the girls really love Leo.

My oldest Eloise, I think she thinks she's his second mom. Like she's always trying to, take care of him and watch him. It's really cute. Yeah. That's so cute. And so what would be your piece of advice for someone heading towards their birth? So I think it would be to trust yourself and trust in your body's ability to do this.

And maybe be aware that other, be aware of the impact that other people's comments can have on you. I think I don't think I ended up touching on it a whole lot, but. I felt like there were a couple comments from my midwife during the pregnancy just about, how he was gonna be a big baby.

All that sort of thing that made me feel like, like maybe she didn't trust in my ability to do this. And even though during the birth, she was great and she definitely wanted me to trust my body. I do worry that some of those comments that were said along the wake. Maybe also didn't help and maybe question whether or not I could do it.

And I guess also to get a doula would be a wise idea if you can. Yeah, for sure. Good. And then what about postpartum? What would be your piece of advice there? I think we already touched on it, but just, to not underestimate even the mental toll that birth can take on you.

Yeah, like I said, I was aware, like I was watching for postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety. And I just really didn't think that my mind may also need some time to heal postpartum before going back to work. So again, not that many, hopefully not many people are in a position of having to even think about whether or not they go back to work at that point in time. But that if that is something that's happening, to be mindful of that. Yeah, for sure. Okay, thank you so much again. That was, it was awesome having you on. Thank you so much all.