The Mom Archives: Child Birth, Post Partum Care, and the Imbalance in Women's Healthcare

Join Melissa and Jenny this week as they discuss child birth, post partum care, and the imbalance in women's healthcare. 

Love this content and looking for more? Sign up for our monthly newsletter via our website www.steelroseswomen.com

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Jenny (00:02.008)
Thank you for listening to Steal Roses, a podcast for women by women. My name is Jennie.

Mel (00:08.158)
And I'm Melissa, and we're here to bring you honest content in a space where we can still be real about the everyday challenges for women.

Jenny (00:18.22)
So, quick check in before we dive in to our little topic, Melissa. You actually said right before we hopped into recording, your week got away from you. So, how'd your week go?

Mel (00:29.03)
Oh, yeah, no, it definitely got away from me. You know, when you're I started really strong, like on Monday, I was super productive, I was juggling like multiple things, and I must have burned myself out because by Wednesday, I was like, crap, behind and all the things that I wanted to get done, like my to do list was just, and I was like, all right, I'm going to stay up Wednesday night and like, get a bunch of stuff done after my daughter goes to sleep.

Jenny (00:46.519)
Ha!

Jenny (00:48.772)
You're like, how did this?

Mel (00:58.998)
And that didn't happen. I literally passed out putting her to bed.

Jenny (01:03.54)
You know, I'm an advocate for sleep over stuff. Because sleep is like so critical to our brain function, our body function, so good for you.

Mel (01:13.954)
So I just gave myself a pass this week and I'm gonna try and do the things that I wanted to do on the weekend. That's my new goal. But thank God it's Friday. Well, when this drops, it won't be Friday, but when we're recording it is Friday.

Jenny (01:27.811)
Yeah.

Jenny (01:31.undefined)
for us for recording. It's Friday. If I sound, I was just going to say if I sound a little raspier than usual, I actually got sick this week. Yeah, I got sick this week, which is always, I have to be honest, when I get sick, I get really angry because it's going to slow me down and I'm aware of that. But I will, I have to tell you, so we were having an interesting conversation at work.

Mel (01:35.947)
How was your week?

Mel (01:43.273)
Oh no!

Mel (01:51.498)
Look, I don't have time to be sick. I don't have time.

Jenny (01:59.86)
I work in marketing and specifically in women's health. And one of the conversations that we had at work this week was around how women, it's almost like a badge of honor. And this is, Melissa kind of went there a little bit. It's almost like a badge of honor when you're so busy and able to accomplish so many things.

Jenny (02:21.264)
Excuse me. Well, but no, but it shouldn't be. It's not supposed to be an edge of honor because we're supposed to be taking a step back and taking care of ourselves because like the conversation went something to the effect of like, if you go down, the whole ship goes down. My husband says this all the time. You have to take care of yourself. If you go down, like that's it. Like we don't function. And so I actually took a sick day and

Mel (02:21.757)
I'm still doing it. I'm doing it.

Mel (02:27.349)
No.

Jenny (02:48.48)
going to be jealous. I slept for like six hours. This is the only reason why I'm a functional human being right now is because I took a sick day and was like, yeah, I know. I know we were both like super busy this week, but yeah, I took a sick day and I was like, I'm just going to sleep because I have to do that. Like if I don't do it and I push myself, like it's going to get worse. So thankfully I do feel better. Um,

Mel (02:56.558)
I didn't even know you took a sick day. We were not in.

Mel (03:11.086)
Okay.

Mel (03:14.59)
Which is good because you never used to do that. Like, do you remember? And you were crazy. Even when your three kids were like little, I'd be like, Jenny, you need to like stop and like, you have a cold.

Jenny (03:19.349)
I never did that.

Jenny (03:23.868)
Never took a sick day. Oh, yeah, because at that point, I was trying to overcompensate for the fact that I had three kids to show everybody like, oh, yeah, I got this. I have a hundred and two degree fever, but it's fine. I can come on site. No problem. Like, no, you can't like you're going to get people sick and you're sick. Like stop it. I know I've learned a lot in my thirty nine and a half years of life. And at this point, I am very much an advocate of you need slow down.

Mel (03:31.966)
I'm like, no, I got this.

Mel (03:40.526)
Thanks for watching!

Jenny (03:52.98)
You have to take time for yourself, like, make sure you get better. Don't let yourself get too sick. Um, I will say this though. Um, my family doesn't know how to react when I do that because they're not used to mommy not being in constant motion. Um, and yesterday was one of those days where it was like a, why aren't you cleaning or why aren't you cooking or what are you doing? And I was like, I'm going to sit here. I'm I can, I was like, I'm sitting here. I'm forcing myself into this. Um,

Jenny (04:22.36)
But yeah, other than that, it was a pretty decent week. Yeah, other than that, it was a pretty decent week. So kind of moving into our topic today, we've mentioned a couple of times that I have this passion for healthcare. I've been working in the industry from a marketing perspective for like 17 years. So yeah, I know, I'm so old.

Mel (04:47.018)
Oh my gosh.

Mel (04:51.573)
I remember when you went into this field.

Jenny (04:53.597)
I know, I know it's funny because I started in this field right out of college, but I've been working in healthcare since I was like 14 in various doctors offices, surgical centers, like I've always really loved it. But the older I got working in the system, the more I had a sense of the imbalance between like women's healthcare versus like everything else.

Mel (05:03.489)
Amen.

Jenny (05:20.748)
I remember this kind of key moment where I wanted to research something on behalf of one of my family members. I went to go look up articles or journals or something that I could look up to help her get through this troubled time that she was getting through. There was no research. I literally couldn't find a single article around what I was specifically looking for. It was a-

Mel (05:46.638)
Cheers.

Jenny (05:48.836)
I was astounded and I remember I went over to one of the doctors that I was working with at the time and I was like, I don't understand. Why am I not finding anything? And she laughed and she was like, yeah, no, there's very little out there. She was like, it's really a shitty situation for lack of better words. So on that note, we wanted to discuss postpartum recovery periods today.

Mel (05:56.82)
anything.

Jenny (06:17.024)
or lack of recovery periods, and just birth experience in general, and how different it is from person to person.

Mel (06:34.158)
Sorry, I was looking something up. Yes, no, and I think that's something as we talk to, as you talk to more and more people, it's something that, like you said, it varies from person to person, and your experience, the birth experience, it is completely different from that of your friends and that, and of course.

Jenny (06:35.16)
That's okay.

Mel (07:04.422)
Every person's personal medical situation is different, but at the same time, there's a lack of consensus on certain things that ends up surprising you because it really doesn't seem to be, there doesn't seem to be a standard protocol, or if there is, it's not always followed.

Jenny (07:10.477)
Right.

Jenny (07:16.981)
Mm-hmm.

Jenny (07:29.708)
Right, exactly. I know for sure that there are standard protocols released annually. However, I also know for sure that those standard protocols are skewed in nature because historically, predominantly amount of women test subjects in studies and everything, test subjects is not the right word, but women participating in studies are Caucasian. There's a major racial disparity.

Mel (07:59.202)
Mm-hmm.

Jenny (07:59.408)
in a lot of protocols that are put out there. And that actually has a major negative impact on Hispanic women, African American women. It just does. And it's really not a great situation when you really look at the numbers. It's been a really long time since I had to deal with bringing a newborn home, thank God, because if I had to do it at this point, I would...

Jenny (08:28.916)
I would just crumble to pieces. We babysat for my grandkids a couple of weeks back, and my grandson is one, and he had me up all night, and by the morning I was like, oh my God, I would never be able to do this again. So it's interesting how my age has impacted, how I can sustain that kind of level of...

Jenny (08:58.412)
work in the middle of the night. But anyway, the topic of postpartum recovery was actually put back on my radar by an account on Instagram that we're linked with. The account is called Postpartum Support International. I want to give them a shout out for bringing this topic back up and for really pushing this on social, because again, this is something that is really not talked about. And you know.

Jenny (09:26.152)
when women encounter these life-threatening situations after birth and once they're home, people don't talk about it and they're like, oh, it's just their situation or it's a rare situation. Well, even if it's an 8% situation, it should be discussed more openly and not to make people scared but to make them aware. They had this really impactful post.

Mel (09:48.236)
Yeah.

Jenny (09:51.372)
that not only address mental health, but also the physical impact of giving birth. Physical problems after birth can include life-threatening high blood pressure, stroke, which can cause long-term physical and mental challenges, loss of vision from preeclampsia, heart failure, which is rare, but it does happen, and postpartum depression. I actually can identify with three of these through myself or family members, so it's not that rare. They make it sound like, oh, it's one in a million shots.

Mel (10:18.871)
Yeah.

Jenny (10:22.216)
All three of these people were healthy, young women that had no pre-existing conditions, but developed these heart conditions or severe preeclampsia, all these things after birth. And then I also know of at least two that were basically told, oh, you just have to wait it out.

Mel (10:34.288)
Yeah.

Jenny (10:49.544)
loss of vision from preeclampsia. Oh, yeah, you got to just wait it out. What do you mean? Like, how could you say that?

Mel (10:54.678)
Yeah, yeah I know. And how scary is that you have a newborn, and actually I think both of those individuals, their babies ended up in the NICU, right?

Jenny (11:08.968)
Um, I'm, I'm also thinking of like my husband's side of the family. So one of the, yeah, a couple, some of them didn't, but some of them did. Some of them were in NICU and.

Mel (11:12.78)
Oh, okay.

Mel (11:18.642)
Yeah, so imagine like you have the now your baby's in the NICU and you're having all of these you're having your you yourself are having these scary postpartum side effects and literally they're just telling you, yeah, just wait it out.

Jenny (11:36.024)
Just wait it out. It's okay. How do you know I'm not gonna drop, you know, how do you know I'm not gonna drop like a pebble? Well, I'm trying to, well, I'm not a pebble size. I'm more of like a boulder size. But how do you know I'm not gonna drop like a boulder? You know, while I'm trying to care for my children. Like it's wild. Now majority of pregnancies progress without incident. And I'm gonna throw some stats at you, but approximately 8% of all pregnancies involve complications that if left untreated, it says,

Mel (11:45.826)
No.

Jenny (12:05.788)
The quote is may harm the mother or baby that irritates me a little bit too, because it's not as dramatic as I think it should be Some complications are related to pre-existing health conditions, but This is the part that's wild others occur unexpectedly and are unavoidable like oh my gosh, so We're as women not educated on any of this stuff like Melissa. Have you heard did you even know of? the risks

Mel (12:12.124)
Yeah.

Jenny (12:34.092)
the health risks that are involved with pregnancy to this extent. Like I knew, okay, some stuff, but I didn't know you could develop heart problems, heart failure after having a baby. Like that's...

Mel (12:45.066)
Yeah, now, that was not discussed at the OBGYN at all. No.

Jenny (12:49.504)
Like nobody talks about that and I get it. Like people don't want, you don't want to scare a new mom. You don't want to freak them out. I get it. But what about leading up to that before you're even pregnant? Why isn't this just socialized? Why isn't this talked about? Like put it out there, put the information out there because if you are considering being pregnant, you should be aware of everything that could potentially happen. And then if you're not, what, you know, your relative or your friend.

Mel (12:53.13)
No, of course.

Jenny (13:14.444)
that's having a baby, like someone needs to be informed, you know, and make sure that like, if you happen to start feeling a little off, don't try to power through it like we all usually do. Call your doctor, make sure that you're getting the appropriate medical care. After I had my twins, and I'm kind of an idiot, cause this is still a problem, but after I had my twins, I was getting up off the floor and I had this severe pain in my abdomen.

Jenny (13:43.192)
that felt like I had busted a hernia or something. That's what it felt like. And I only know about hernia pain because of my work, that I felt like I had a hernia. And I was laying on the floor in pain, pushing my stomach in, and it went away. And I was like, oh, that was weird. And I kind of just kept going. Couple months later, it happened again, and it started happening consistently. So I went, I eventually did go to the doctor for it.

Jenny (14:12.852)
And I got an ultrasound done and they were like, well, we don't see a hernia. And I was like, okay, well, something is happening. Maybe you're not seeing it in that moment, but like there, there is something happening. No, we don't see anything. It's not a hernia. It's probably just, you know, it's, it's probably just maybe pulled a muscle. Maybe it's gas pains. I'm like,

Mel (14:21.462)
Something.

Jenny (14:37.948)
Now, six years later, I still get that pain.

Mel (14:43.222)
Yeah. No. Well, and didn't they- didn't you actually have a hernia at 1.2?

Jenny (14:43.648)
It's still there.

Jenny (14:47.62)
Well, yes. And then eventually what ended up happening is eventually I went in for a separate procedure and the doctor was like, wow, you have this wild hernia. And I was like, I'm sorry, what did you just say? And he was like, yeah, I had to, I had to stitch it back up. Like, you know, that you had this crazy hernia in here. And I was like, so you need to tell me. I went in for another procedure and you're telling me that you found the hernia? Like it's, it's

Jenny (15:15.848)
it's kind of crazy how all that kind of stuff unfolds. It's just, it's nuts. But the point of that is, is that like, even me going to try to treat it and try to figure it out, they still were like, nah, it's not hernia. But eventually it turned out it was hernia and they were incorrect. And I was just walking around with this gaping hernia in my abdomen.

Mel (15:20.206)
really is.

Mel (15:37.941)
God.

Jenny (15:39.456)
which also I want to call out too. After I had my twins, I had gained a lot of weight with that pregnancy. I had two pregnancies in a row in 2016 and 2017. So by 2017 and a half, and my twins were born, I was like considered morbidly obese. And I think that also affected a lot of these diagnoses and I think that, and the way I was treated.

Mel (16:05.674)
in the way you're treated or approach.

Jenny (16:08.464)
And I think that in their minds, oh, she's just incredibly unhealthy. She's having pains because she's overweight and they kind of overlook me and push me to the side. Because eventually when I did get treated for the hernia and I had gotten in for something else that was a time where I was already starting to lose weight. And then I think that they were treating me differently. And I think that's maybe a whole other topic entirely in itself that I could talk about.

Mel (16:33.818)
Yeah, no, that's a serious, that's a real thing. And actually they even made comments. When I got pregnant, I had lost a lot of weight for the wedding. And then we immediately got pregnant. And so I was actually at my skinniest during my pregnancy and I remember them saying when they were setting me up for

Jenny (16:47.79)
Yes.

Mel (17:02.51)
for my C-section, they were like, oh, because I was concerned about the, I remember what you went through with the epidural. And it made me nervous. And I was like, listen, I was like, I don't do well with needles. Like, is this going to be an issue? And I like, and the thing that made me more nervous was they were like, oh no, we're gonna get this guy because he's better and he's just about to go off shift. I'm like, great, now I have a tired.

Jenny (17:11.297)
Mm.

Mel (17:30.122)
anesthesiologist working on me. But I remember them saying like, oh no, it's not going to be a problem because you're thin. It's the overweight patients that we tend to worry about. And I'm like, see that right there.

Jenny (17:38.34)
Mm-hmm.

Mel (17:47.794)
I don't know, it's the way that they treat you, the way they perceive you. And then, and I get it from a medical standpoint, they, you know, there's a, but at the same time, the fact that these are casually in, you know what I mean? That they're in their dialogue. Like I think it does, I think you're right in the sense that it probably does color their perspective on the patient.

Jenny (18:01.952)
Yeah, like it's like a casual, well.

Jenny (18:09.292)
It does. Well, not for nothing, but like when I was in there for my twin pregnancy, and again, this is where I was at my heaviest that I've ever been in my entire life. It boggles my mind actually now when I think about it, but I was at my heaviest. I was sitting on the table in the OR. They're prepping me for surgery. The anesthesiologist came in and he looked at me and he goes, I don't know if I can make this epidural work.

Jenny (18:37.836)
And I was like.

Jenny (18:42.276)
about to get cut open. Like, is that really what? And I looked at I was like in I was in the room alone at that point, because they didn't let my husband in yet. And I was sitting there and I was like, I'm sorry, what? And I had this like, I must have had this look of like, just straight up, like, I'm gonna burst into tears. And my doctor came over and she held my hand. She's like, It's okay. It's okay. He's he can do it. Like he it's all right. And like, calm me down.

Mel (18:44.226)
Like we're gonna, that what we're leading with.

Jenny (19:09.996)
But what a thing to say when you're about to be like cut open. Like it's, you know, and my twin pregnancy was high risk because with my son, he was a C-section and then I got pregnant four months after he was born with twins. So you're supposed to wait about a year, if not more, after a C-section to let you to let your uterus heal. And because my pregnancy was so back to back.

Mel (19:13.954)
Cut open, sliced up.

Mel (19:32.178)
Right, right, right. Yeah, the ideal.

Jenny (19:40.028)
they were actually scared even towards the end of my pregnancy that my uterus was going to rupture. And I was on like, yeah, I was on bed rest for a while. And then the doctor told me like, she didn't even really have to do anything to not to be gross guys on this podcast, but she didn't have to really do anything. Yeah, she didn't really have to do anything to open me up. It was literally like, oh, here they come kind of thing.

Mel (19:45.846)
I should remember that. That was cute.

Mel (19:57.238)
It was just like boop.

Mel (20:04.906)
Hey.

Jenny (20:07.604)
I went through, so anyway, I had gone through this rabbit hole of searches for just if anything had recently any new studies, like maybe something had changed in the past six years or seven years since I've looked at like research on, you know, postpartum or giving birth or whatever, because I haven't looked at it in a long time. And unfortunately, I have not seen that many new studies. I did see that there was...

Jenny (20:36.92)
One article, hold on, let me see if I can, did I note it somewhere? Oh, Penn Medicine News, that was in March of this year, they actually released an article where they were talking through the issues with women's healthcare after they're giving birth or in the hospital. And they did actually talk a lot about the racial disparities in the healthcare system. The death rate for African American patients was far higher.

Jenny (21:05.undefined)
than Caucasian patients. And preterm delivery, the risk of complications was much more common in African American patients than Caucasian patients. So there's a lot out there and there's a lot of information out there that is verifiable that, you know, not just like me feeling like I was stigmatized because I was overweight, but imagine being African American overweight. Like you're getting the raw end of the stick there, right?

Jenny (21:34.092)
It's crappy to even say it, but it's legitimate. It's a real, real thing. Like.

Mel (21:38.654)
Yeah. No, these are things that, that.

Mel (21:44.302)
change the experience of pregnancy, of delivery or cesarean, and then postnatal care. It's a real, and again, it's not something that's actively talked about. Like I was just looking up as we're talking, cesarean delivery rates are highest and significantly higher for African-American infants. So 36.

Jenny (21:54.733)
Mm-hmm.

Jenny (22:10.712)
Yeah.

Mel (22:12.754)
over 36% of black infants are delivered by cesarean, whereas it's 30%, 30.8% for Caucasians. And, you know, people listening might be like, oh, 6%, that's not, you know, but when you make it a head-on-head comparison, 6% is a significantly higher amount of babies being born.

Jenny (22:25.92)
Yeah, and I.

Jenny (22:41.056)
Yeah. And the part that like, and Melissa and I were chatting a little bit, maybe we should have recorded our pre-session because we were chatting a little bit about like our different experiences. And I was telling Melissa, I'm like, you know, when I went in for my son, like I very much wanted to push. Like I really did. I really wanted to push and have a, not an all natural birth. Like I was obviously going to go for the anesthesia to help me along, but I really wanted to push.

Mel (22:51.018)
Thank you.

Jenny (23:10.58)
Um, the doctor took my blood pressure. I went in for a regular checkup. She took my blood pressure and she was like, oh, it's a little high. It wasn't just FYI. It wasn't that high. Like I remember being like, it's not that high. And I was, I was like, I was a week before my due date. And she was like, oh, it's a little high. Ah, he's good size. Let's get him out. And I was like, oh, okay. She was like, we'll induce you. And I was like, okay. And I'm trusting my doctor. She's telling me we can induce you. We'll make this happen. So I'm like, all right, whatever. You can induce me. Like, let's get this show on the road.

Jenny (23:41.36)
I didn't know that when it's your first baby and you're being induced, typically, it's not going to work. I didn't know that. So I'm thinking she's inducing me this is going to happen. 24 hours later, I've been in the hospital all night, have not slept because they came in every hour to adjust my blood pressure cuff, which was so tight that it was bursting the blood vessels on my arm.

Mel (23:48.234)
not gonna work.

Jenny (24:10.252)
and my arm was terribly bruised up. I had bruises all over my arms and hands from needle sticks and IVs. It was just a not a good experience. And so 24 hours later, she, doctor comes back around and she's like, oh, let's see, how are you doing? Okay, we're not making any progress. Your cervix isn't dilated. We're gonna do a C-section. I was like, oh, okay. And again, you're in the hospital at that point. You're kind of at their mercy. Cause you're like, well,

Mel (24:16.302)
change.

Mel (24:39.786)
When I was the first time mom, I felt like now that I look back, I was like, damn, I should have known better.

Jenny (24:44.992)
And you know, I wish I had the knowledge to say, no, I want to wait another 24 hours. If he's not in danger, why can't we just wait for me push? But in the moment, I was like, I want my son out. Like, let's go, let's go for it. So we did the C-section. After that, when I went back for my first checkup, she actually told me, yeah, I kind of figured that it wasn't gonna work. I just, you know, I took that step just to see, but I didn't think it was gonna work. I'm like, oh my God, you set me up for a C-section? Like,

Mel (24:59.627)
Yeah.

Mel (25:13.452)
Thank you.

Jenny (25:14.62)
I didn't want to have a C-section. And unfortunately, because I had that one C-section, when I got pregnant with my twins, that was it. I could only have a C-section after that. I was never gonna be able to push. Not to mention, now that I've had to have two C-sections, I still have scar tissue. I still get, there's obviously numbness around the incision area, but I get these phantom pains sometimes in that area that is not really...

Mel (25:19.435)
Yeah, it automatic.

Jenny (25:43.648)
It's nothing but scar tissue. It's just scar tissue that's built up. And it's like, damn, like my whole life is just, you know, like, and it's fine, like whatever, I deal with it like a regular woman, but like it sucks that I was put into that situation without really being given the option of like, no, let's talk through this together.

Mel (25:59.37)
Yeah, exactly. That's the point. Like, I get it. They have to make medical decisions. And I try not to be bitter because I'm like, okay, the end result is I have a perfectly healthy baby and that's all I really cared about, but at the same time, it's just like having a true and honest discussion about what the practicality of these decisions are. We included our...

Mel (26:29.154)
desires being included in this conversation, those conversations should be happening regardless. And I remember, I remember, so I also had to be induced because my pregnancy went, I was induced at like 41 and a half weeks. And I remember, so I went over, so a typical pregnancy was 40 weeks. So I was,

Jenny (26:55.585)
Yeah.

Mel (26:58.794)
I was going over, but they had done another, like right before they induced me, they did another ultrasound and I had plenty of amniotic fluid. My daughter was still like a healthy size. Like they were estimating her to be somewhere between like six and seven and a half pounds. Like she wasn't, it wasn't like she was like an eight, 10 pound baby that had to come out right then.

Jenny (27:25.048)
Bryant.

Mel (27:26.366)
And there's plenty of fluid. So they were like, no, you're, you're in good shape. But they were like, I was like, okay, so can we just, you know, um, wait another, wait another week and see if I, if I naturally go into labor and they were like, sorry, like, I, I know this doesn't make sense, but she's like, even though you personally individually look good. Our office policy is we.

Mel (27:53.166)
you'll have to find another doctor if you want to go past this point. Because they were like, literally, they were like, we will not allow you to hit 42 weeks without being induced and or going through a C-section. And I was like, oh, and they were like, yeah, you know, just liability wise, we can't because I guess technically, like you are, you're not supposed to. But many women have, you know, have gone past that point. But just they're like, sorry, it's a blanket policy. So I had no choice.

Jenny (27:55.732)
Oh my god.

Jenny (28:11.828)
Right, there's stuff that, yeah.

Jenny (28:18.157)
Right.

Mel (28:23.206)
Um, and it was in the middle of, it was in the middle of full pandemic COVID. Like they were literally talking about Matt not being allowed to come with me. And it was like, I'm not doing this alone. Like you have to allow them to come. And, um, but anyway, long story short is just like the, your, someone also made the, the comment to me and like, ah, yeah, you were a first time mom. You were, you were.

Jenny (28:30.627)
Yeah.

Jenny (28:34.712)
Oh my god.

Mel (28:52.566)
past your due date being induced, like the chances of that actually working were really low. I remember having this moment and just being like, well, why didn't someone just say that instead of, and be honest. And I actually was angry recently because one of my closest friends, she just had her baby. She also had to be induced. But the hospital...

Jenny (28:52.964)
Oh my god.

Jenny (29:05.504)
Right. Like, be honest. Tell me that I'm headed for a c-section. Yeah.

Mel (29:22.783)
I was telling you before we started recording the hospital has a different sort of procedure. Like they approach inductions very differently and they tell their patients this is the induction itself before you go into active labor is going to be a two, three, three day process. And I was like, what? I remember her telling me, yeah, the first day we just.

Jenny (29:42.52)
Yeah, I wasn't told that.

Mel (29:45.302)
you know, soften the cervix. We don't give you pitocin until like the second or third day because your body just won't be ready and it won't, the induction won't work. So literally they tell her like, this is how we approach an induction. And she successfully had, was able to do a natural birth. And I was sitting there thinking like, damn, well, if that's the case.

Jenny (30:09.248)
I know.

Mel (30:10.966)
then why aren't all of the hospitals approaching induction in the same way? And I specifically remember like, the reason I brought up that it was in the height of COVID was because they had no room for me in the hospital. Like I was supposed to be induced two days before I was induced and they, they were like, I called, they were like, call this number. It's a maternity and labor ward.

Jenny (30:23.611)
Mmm, I remember that.

Mel (30:35.062)
And they were like, sorry, we just, we really don't have any hospital beds right now for you. So my induction was pushed another two days. Um, but I remember them. I went through the induction then ended up after 15 hours of labor, no epidural. I went, they gave me the epidural and then I had a C-section and cousin, you're supposed

Mel (31:00.502)
Well, you remember, you were in the hospital, I think like a couple of days, right? After your C-section, they were like, oh, you're healthy, the baby's healthy. I was literally out the next day because it was COVID. They were like, we have to get you out of here. Like, and again, I'm grateful for that. But again, there seems to be these policies. It, it just, all of it together. When I heard my friend's story, I was like, okay.

Jenny (31:05.749)
Yeah.

Jenny (31:13.772)
I know, totally, it was.

Mel (31:26.482)
Inductions obviously don't have a blanket policy. It's going to depend hospital to hospital. And then circumstances change the way they handle it because seriously, I mean, C-section isn't treated like a major surgery, but it is. I mean, we're completely cut open. There's risks of clots and strokes. And I was thinking afterwards, I was like, I probably shouldn't have left the hospital before 24 hours. Like, like literally I was there.

Jenny (31:29.784)
Right. Yeah.

Jenny (31:41.453)
But it is.

Jenny (31:54.684)
No. You're not supposed to. Yet.

Mel (31:56.178)
I think less than 24 hours post-surgery. And again, I get it. It was COVID. They wanted to get healthy patients out. But still, it just kind of shows, I think that your experience and the way procedures are approached is going to definitely depend patient to patient, but also hospital to hospital. Cause then we could have had a very different induction process had we been at my friend's hospital versus where we were.

Jenny (32:24.601)
Oh, I know. I know. Well, it is fresh. Well, so that I was going to tell I was going to say it and I was trying to keep it in my head while you're chatting with my son. They tried to push me out 48 hours later. And I happened to know my insurance in and out and I was like, no. And I said to them I was like, my insurance covers a five day stay.

Mel (32:26.666)
You know, and that's frustrating to me.

Jenny (32:50.328)
post C-section. I was like, so I'm getting a five-day stay here so I can recover properly. And they were, I remember they were like, well, and actually with my son's birth, I was lucky because it wasn't a busy time apparently. And I had this really nice single room to myself. You were there. You were there.

Mel (33:07.922)
there. I flew in for our listeners. I had just gone to graduate school and that's the reason I'm, I was in Florida to begin with and then we ended up staying. But I remember flying in as soon as you were getting induced and I got there right after your son was born. And then I stayed with you in the hospital and I brought my suitcase. They were like, I remember your nurse being like, are you moving in? I was like, I'm here. Aunt Melissa is here.

Jenny (33:25.603)
Yeah.

Jenny (33:37.024)
It was poor, poor Melissa. It was, it was really nice. Sweet. It was, I got really fortunate and I had great insurance at the time, which also was a whole other, whole other, whole other situation. But in any case, my insurance coverage at the time was really good. And I knew it covered a five day stay at the hospital. And I told them that and I was like, and I, my doctor came in and she was like, you can go and I was like, no, I don't want to, I'm telling you, I want to stay here for a couple of days until I feel like.

Mel (33:37.602)
But you really did have, we had a really nice suite.

Mel (33:46.258)
A whole other. Yeah.

Jenny (34:05.836)
we hit that five day mark and I have had some time to recover because as soon as I go home, I'm going to have to go back to real life. And if I go back to real life right now, that means cooking, cleaning, doing all the regular stuff. And I need to, I just had surgery. So she, um, she okayed it. She put in that my blood pressure was a little high and she, she snuck me into the system. So I was grateful for that. For my twins, they had to have, um,

Jenny (34:34.848)
They had, I forget what the term is, what's the yellow skin?

Mel (34:39.291)
Oh, uh...

Mel (34:42.358)
John is. Thank you. You see this is when we record at 6 o'clock in the morning. It takes a minute. Yeah.

Jenny (34:50.599)
jaundice. So they were in sunbeds for a couple of days. And I only stayed for, I think, three days with them because I had my son at home. So I was like, I need to get all the babies into one spot so I can take care of everybody. But I didn't have any actual recovery time because like, let's also take note, I thought of this as well. Honey, if you need to watch your phone, go in the other room.

Jenny (35:12.928)
Um, when you after you have the C section, like again, major surgery, your abdominal was just opened up. You're kind of sent home with like, good luck. You have this tiny baby now. Good luck. And I'm like, wait, but there's no like, there's no, there's no time for me to heal because you have to jump up for a baby in the middle of the night. And I mean, some people there, some people have it where like they have people on hand, they have

Mel (35:27.254)
Yeah.

Jenny (35:42.192)
at home care that maybe they can afford. Like if you can, great, but there's a lot of us that don't have that. And you have to take care of your baby. So you're sent home, still trying to heal yourself and deal with your own stuff, but now you have this other life. So of course you're gonna put yourself to the side and care for this new life. You're not gonna think about how I should be trying to heal. You're gonna just like rough it until you can like not have to rough it anymore. Yeah.

Mel (36:04.087)
Yeah, no.

Mel (36:07.434)
And in your case, you had a one-year-old and two newborns.

Jenny (36:11.342)
I want your old Antwins.

Mel (36:15.082)
And I remember, wasn't it, and they were like, oh, try not to lift the baby too much in the first few days post-season action. I'm like, and Matt was great. He really was like super dad, hands-on. Like I didn't, the first, I think it was like the first, like three or four days, he was like, he would jump up in the middle of the night and everything. But with two, like how do you even do that with a set of twins and...

Jenny (36:15.22)
Again, I'm not.

Jenny (36:20.565)
I can't even.

Jenny (36:40.972)
But, I will say...

Mel (36:42.862)
Like, even if your husband wanted to be like, no, I got it. Oh yeah, I literally don't have enough hands. Like.

Jenny (36:48.928)
I will say that like in the early days, Chris would get up with me because I was like, there's too many. I was like, I don't know what to do. I was like, I'm freaking out. So he would get up and help me. And especially because the girls were so teeny, like one was a little over five pounds and one was just under five pounds. They were so small in the beginning and it was just very scary. So he would get up with me, but that also caused other complications because he works in the construction industry. And...

Jenny (37:17.74)
You can't call out sick in construction because they'll just fire you. So like I had to be, and you know, people used to bug me and be like, oh, well, he should get up with you. You guys should take turns. And I'm like, he works in construction. Like I don't need him being tired at a job where he could dismember himself. Like, no, like, are we kidding? So everybody has their own, you know, unique like challenges to this kind of, this, you know, bringing home a baby and all that.

Mel (37:21.018)
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jenny (37:45.596)
Some people have it a little bit easier than others, but like, you know, the stories are all important because there are these really big differences in like how we're set up after having a baby. It just gets very complicated very fast.

Mel (38:05.366)
Yeah, and I think it's important, again, this felt a little bit like a ramble session on our personal experiences, but I think one of the takeaways that we're trying to drive home is that more people need to be discussing this because that's the way it becomes a priority to make changes in healthcare, to the healthcare system.

Mel (38:31.254)
And I think it's contributing to there are active movements now to advocate for women's healthcare, especially prenatal and postnatal care. And women are now looking at the disparities of healthcare, of prenatal care, postnatal care, our, you know, pregnancies, deliveries, looking at the disparities head on.

Jenny (38:39.436)
Yeah.

Jenny (38:53.537)
See you.

Mel (39:00.81)
and bringing them out into the open and discussing this. So that's, even though our contribution is small, that's what we wanna do as well.

Jenny (39:02.549)
Yay, you can watch the-

Jenny (39:06.18)
Can you show it? Yeah. You want to show it? Yeah. I can't find my slacker shirt.

Jenny (39:16.26)
Sorry about that. Everyone's waking up, just so we all know. Sorry, guys. Everyone's waking up, so I'm sorry if that was, I'll see if I can edit that out. We're running out of time. The kids are waking up. And Melissa's right. It was a little bit of us sharing our experiences, but the reason for that was we actually do want people to know if you had a bad experience or you had something to say. You know what, you're not alone in this. We all are having these experiences and no one's talking about them. And...

Mel (39:17.238)
Yeah, no.

Mel (39:23.714)
we're running out of time, people!

Mel (39:41.975)
Yeah.

Jenny (39:45.74)
The onus is not on us as individuals to fix this problem. The onus is really at the institutional level and at the federal level with pulling through new regulations, new guidelines, putting this out there and get more research and giving women options and educating women early on. Like, oh, it's not just, oh, you have your period and then you have a baby. Well, there's a whole lot.

Mel (40:01.646)
more research.

Jenny (40:13.28)
in between getting your first period and having a baby that could cause challenges becoming pregnant, challenges during pregnancy. There's health issues that you might not be aware of until you get pregnant. There's so much to it.

Mel (40:27.998)
And again, the thing that we always drive home is to advocate for yourself. And if someone is listening to this while they're pregnant or before they're pregnant, you'll be able to arm yourselves better with more information. And let's just say someone we know it's able to… it has to go through an induction. Well, they're going to know, hey, listen, I want to hold off to the pototion for…

Jenny (40:32.474)
Mm-hmm.

Mel (40:54.614)
24 hours, give me a little bit more time for my body to prepare. That's something that you and I were just completely, you know, and not saying that we don't have personal responsibility in that, but these are not conversations that your OBGYN is going to have with you. You need to initiate that conversation and we didn't know better to do that because nobody is talking about that.

Jenny (41:02.177)
unaware of, yeah.

Jenny (41:12.484)
Mm-hmm.

Jenny (41:18.892)
Right, exactly, exactly. So I think like the big key takeaway here is, you know, again, if you're not pregnant, even if your friend is pregnant, you have to advocate for yourself. And this is obviously across all women's health related issues. You have to be the voice for yourself because no one's going to speak up for you. You have to do it for yourself. You have to take responsibility. You have to make that choice because…

Mel (41:35.958)
because no one's gonna speak up for you. No.

Jenny (41:43.988)
Otherwise, you will just go down a path where you're being guided and you might not like where you're being guided to and you don't want that. Um, I do.

Mel (41:50.038)
And you should always know your, come armed with knowledge and then know your options because neither of us knew our real options. Yeah.

Jenny (41:58.752)
Right, exactly. And I do also want to say, like, we shared our personal experiences. We shared a little bit of information that we found online. But I do want to just mention, again, like, Melissa and I, even though I've worked in health care for forever, we're not health care professionals. So these are really our opinions and based on personal experience and experiences of our family and friends around us. If you are, even if you have an inkling that I think I want to talk about this, talk to your doctor. Talk to a health care professional. Get somebody.

Mel (42:12.534)
No.

Mel (42:26.774)
Absolutely.

Jenny (42:28.04)
that you know that you trust, even if it's not your doctor, if it's somebody that you know that is a healthcare professional, talk to them and get their vibe on it too. It's important to do that. It's critically important to do that.

Mel (42:40.054)
And I also wanted to note, it doesn't take away from our appreciation. I'm extremely grateful. I had really great maternity nurses that were absolutely wonderful for me. So it doesn't take away for our appreciation for the healthcare that we did receive, that the standards for medical care in this country are better than some places.

Mel (43:07.37)
in the rest of the world, we're very much aware of that, but we still, again, it's a balance. You still have, you're still able to have these conversations, ask the hard questions to your doctor and initiate conversations that you might not have otherwise, unless you are sort of kind of armed with this knowledge.

Jenny (43:20.51)
Mm-hmm.

Jenny (43:26.228)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So we did go a little rogue on our topic today. We went a little off our guide, but we both felt like it was important to share what we've been through because again, it's just not really discussed. And especially the obesity factor, I know that's not discussed because I was embarrassed by it. I'm still embarrassed by it, but I'm putting it out there to you guys because I want people to hear this and I want people

Mel (43:32.203)
Why is this more-

Jenny (43:56.436)
It's real. We all feel like it's not just you. Like, don't be embarrassed. Don't be ashamed. There is no shame factor here. Not with us. So thank you guys for tuning in with us this week and listening, bearing with us with the my child background noise and my coughing. I appreciate it. You can find us. I gotta get these guys out the door for school. So you can find us on Instagram.

Mel (44:16.425)
Real women here. We are real women here.

Jenny (44:24.948)
at Still Roses Podcast. And then, you know, we're pretty active on there. And if you ever want to email in a topic request or even your feedback, we really appreciate the feedback that you guys have been giving us, StillRosesPodcast.gmail.com. And soon to be, once Melissa doesn't have a rough week, our website will be forthcoming.

Mel (44:43.85)
Yes, no, that is happening. That is at the top of the priority list. So I'm thinking we'll be able to launch the website when this episode drops. So stay tuned for that. We'll give you more details on the next episode, but that is coming. We're really excited about that.

Jenny (44:54.22)
Yes, yes. Stay tuned for that. Thank you all and have a great week.

Mel (45:06.006)
Yeah, bye.