E118: My Birth Stories Part 1

Birth stories can turn into life stories fast, and I’ve realized mine explain more about my work than any resume ever could. I’m Angie Rosier, and I’m finally sharing the first three births that shaped me, not as perfect highlight reels, but as honest, complicated, empowering hospital labors that taught me what support really means.

We start with my first pregnancy in the late 90s: intense nausea while working and finishing college, picking an OB for all the wrong reasons, and taking a hospital childbirth class that makes me feel strong. Then my water breaks with meconium-stained fluid, contractions ramp up, and I find myself deep in back labor, leaning hard on my husband’s counterpressure and a nurse who actually believes in unmedicated birth. I also talk about an episiotomy done without my permission, how fast labor can still feel endless, and why early breastfeeding can feel like the most helpless responsibility even when everything is technically “normal.”

My second birth is slower and simmering, full of waiting, home labor, a tub that feels like magic, and that sudden shift when the waters break and transition hits like a wave. The third pregnancy brings a curveball: I discover I’m pregnant while marathon training and decide to run anyway, then go overdue and decline induction. That third, textbook nine-hour labor includes a nurse who becomes the kind of support I didn’t even know to ask for, and it leads straight to the moment someone tells me, “You should become a doula,” launching the career I never knew existed.

If you care about unmedicated hospital birth, natural childbirth preparation, labor coping tools, breastfeeding realities, and what great nursing support looks like, you’ll find something here to take with you. Subscribe for the next part of the story, share this with a friend who loves birth stories, and leave a review telling me: which moment in labor do you still remember most clearly?

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Show Credits

Host: Angie Rosier 
Music: Michael Hicks 
Photographer: Toni Walker
Episode Artwork: Nick Greenwood 
Producer: Gillian Rosier Frampton
Voiceover: Ryan Parker

Transcript

Welcome And A Personal Share

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with Andy Rosier, hosted by Birth Learning, where we help prepare folks for labor and birth with expertise coming from 20 years of experience in a busy doula practice, helping thousands of people prepare for labor, providing essential knowledge and tools for positive and empowering birth experiences.

First Pregnancy And Choosing Unmedicated

Water Breaks And Fast Back Labor

Episiotomy Aftermath And Breastfeeding Pressure

Second Labor That Takes Its Time

Surprise Pregnancy And Running A Marathon

Overdue Third Birth And Doula Spark

To Be Continued And Closing Message

SPEAKER_01 0:49

I am your host, Angie Rosier, and I'm always glad to spend a little time. Thanks for hanging with me as we talk about all subjects related to birth, postpartum, breastfeeding, that general time of life. So in this episode, I've been thinking a long time about doing this episode, and it's something I have kind of hesitated to do because I don't I don't really talk about this very much, although it is something that is um very important to me, very near and dear to my heart. It's not something I talk very openly about. Um, and that is my own birth stories and experiences. So today I, and this will probably be a couple episodes worth, honestly, to break it up. Um, but today I'm going to tell in short um my birth stories, if that's all right, if you will indulge me and listen to my own birth stories. They are very important to me, just as I hope your birth stories are very important to you. Um, they kind of shaped so much of my life, actually. I didn't realize it as they were happening, but they shaped so much of my professional life, um, even before it was my professional life, and um influenced me very much as a person too. So as I've been considering this story, um I guess what makes me hesitate is a lot of other things come into a birth story. Birth stories kind of become life stories. So as I share this birth story, and I guess what's what's um the private part of me has hesitated to do is um it it brings in a lot of my thoughts and feelings, and and I guess part of that is a vulnerability for me, but um, it also brings in just different aspects of my life as it does anyone's. Um, it has like some fertility interesting twists and turns in it, and um yeah, just a lot of as I'm thinking about my birth story and stories, um, a lot comes into that. So my goal for this episode is to tell you my first three birth stories, and I can do it pretty succinctly. I love to hear other people's birth stories. Um, when I do doula trainings, uh one of my favorite, I love so many parts of doula training and the interaction I get with students, but one of my favorite nights is um we take some really good time to hear everyone's birth story. There's very rarely time for me to share my own, which is so fine with me, but I love hearing other people's birth stories and they take their time telling them and a lot of um different aspects of life kind of get pulled out. So um, like I said, I don't often get a chance to share mine in that setting, but I would like to do it now. All right, so you'll learn a little bit more about me, whether you want to or not. Um, but I do have five children, and the the childbearing part of my life was a kind of a long time and now getting to be a little bit of a long time ago. But it was a huge chapter in my life for um for many years for lots of different reasons. So you're gonna learn about my culture, my background a little bit, um, my lifestyle, because that's what gets wrapped up into birth stories, which is kind of cool. So I had my first baby quite young, honestly, like very young. I didn't consider it too young at the time, but I sure do now. And I have um three of my kids are older, quite a bit older than I was when I had my first baby, and none of them have children. I'm so happy about that. But in my, you know, when when when I was doing this, I was um, which is a little more normal 30 years ago. I was 21 when I had my first baby. I was most of the way done through college. I had about a year left in my bachelor's degree. Um, my husband was done with school. He was kind of in his first job, his first out-of-college job. So I guess we felt like big kids, you know, we were ready to to um to start this venture. So we decided we would try to have a baby. We'd been married for a while, a couple years. So, see, I got married young too. Um, and we tried to have a baby. I was on regular pill birth control, as many people were at the time and probably still are. Um, that was the first and only time I've taken that type of birth control. Um, but I came off the pill. We've been married a while, and it took a few months to get pregnant. Um, enough so that I started to think like, huh, maybe, perhaps. We're that's not in our cards. And I started kind of in my brain planning my life for if I didn't have kids. And that was sad but exciting to me. I'm like, oh, cool, I'm gonna go to medical school. This will be a different journey than I'd planned. Um, so several months later, I was pregnant. And um I still had about a year worth of college to do, and it was gonna be a big year because I'd have a lot of credits and things. Never obviously been pregnant before. This was all new to me. And just a few weeks in, I get sick, like just sick, sick, sick, right? Like if my eyes are open, I want to vomit. And I did throw up a lot, nauseous all the time, and throwing up a lot, more so than my other pregnancies, I think. So I'd like to eat breakfast, go to the sink, throw up, didn't love it. I was in college, I was working two jobs, I worked in a hospital operating room. I worked, actually, I think I was working three jobs. I worked in a retirement center and I worked with disabled adults in a group home. I think I quit one of those jobs, um, probably the group home one. And I was in school like full full-time. So I was busy, busy going, which helped with the sickness actually. So I was thrown up out the window the car, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. So um, I chose a doctor based on my neighbor. My neighbor said, Oh, I go to Dr. So-and-so, a male OB at this hospital. He's great. I grew up with his kids. That is how I picked my first OB. I'm like, oh, great, that sounds good enough for me. I would never do that again. Do not recommend. So I saw this doc my whole pregnancy, very standard OBB practice, and this is the late 90s. Ultrasound every single visit. As a first-time mom, I'm like, oh, awesome! I'm gonna see my baby a lot. And now I would say, no way, do I want that many ultrasounds? Um, I took a class. I took a child, regular childbirth class at the hospital, just signed up for it. My teacher's name was Buzzy. I remember that very well. Buzzy Ito. Um, she taught a great class. I don't know if it was four or five weeks. We marched off to class every week, took our pillows, were with other people. Don't remember a lot about it, don't remember the people in it. I just remember my teacher and how she made me feel about it. Like she made me feel empowered and like I had tools. Early in my pregnancy, I was young. Um, I loved running. Um, I was very athletic at this time in my life. I still enjoy athletics, but it's different. 30 years later, um, I loved a good physical challenge. And early in my pregnancy, with no other indication, I just said to myself, huh, I wonder if I could do this unmedicated. Like I presented it to myself as a physical challenge, as I would like a long run or a long hike or something like that, which I loved that kind of stuff. And I also had a friend and neighbor down the street who um had her babies at home. I'm like, that's weird. Like, who is this crazy lady? She um was, I think, pregnant with her third or fourth or fifth baby at the time. Um, and she, in the nicest, gentlest ways, like would lend me books. Um, and I just really loved what she lent me. Um, and that kind of got me thinking too. She did home birth, she was very encouraging. She, watching her be pregnant, she was positive pregnant. Like she didn't whine, she didn't complain, she walked beautifully, she held herself tall and proud. And I'm like, that's cool. So she was an example to me that I took note of and she gave me some great resources in book form. This is way before apps or um anything online or smartphones for that matter. And she at one point she offered to be my doula. And in my head, I'm like, no way. Like, first of all, what is a doula? And she's like, well, they come and just help you. I could come and help you during labor. I'm like, heck no, I don't want any more people there than necessary. Um, and but my my husband was really supportive and involved, and we had no clue what we were doing, right? We had no idea what we were getting into. Um, and I get through my I I was feeling much better after like 12 weeks, got through that sickness part, feeling much better towards the end, still feeling pretty good, um, understanding we're not sure when this baby's gonna be born, right? Well, one day before my due date, like my due date was um May 27th, and on May 26th in the evening, my husband had just come home from work. He worked about an hour away. Um, and he was I made dinner. I like made this artichoke dinner that was sitting on the table waiting for us when he got home. I think I had quit working by this point, like the week before. And it was hard like to um be in the OR. I was a scrub tech, so sometimes we do long surgeries and you're, you know, sterile, you're gloved, gowned, masked, everything. And I had to wear a lead apron a lot of the time because I was pregnant. So sometimes I remember even at my young 21 years old coming home from work and just sitting in my car for a minute because it hurt to get out. Um I'm like, oh, I just need a minute. So I worked right up until the end. I think to like, I think I'd worked till the day before, but that was my last day. Um, so I had this dinner sitting on the table and some friends came to visit him on the porch. And while they did, I was waiting for him and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go to the bathroom. And so I went to the bathroom, and while I was in the bathroom, my water broke. Like pop gush, thank goodness I was over the toilet. Um, green water. And I knew from my classes, I'm like, huh, not super urgent or scary right now, but should be clear, right? So there's meconium present. Take note. Um, and we actually had somewhere to go that night at like seven o'clock. This was 5 40. And in my head, I said also, I'm like, all right, um, we got this appointment at 7. I think we can still make it. Like we can still go do our appointment at 7. Um, so I was starting to actually I called my husband and I'm like, hey, guess what? My water broke. And he's like, no way. So we kind of started, started and finished packing our bags. And while we did so, I was getting ready to go to my seven o'clock appointment with him. And as I was getting ready to go, like I felt this really warm contraction come on. I'm like, whoa, caused me to stop, lean over. I'm like, not going to that appointment. Forget it. So we canceled that appointment, told the people we couldn't come. Um, and we headed toward the hospital kind of earlier than I had planned, right? This happened, my water broke at 5 40. We got to the hospital about 7. I was four centimeters. They checked me in. The hospital's like 15 minutes away. They checked me in. They said, here, put on this gown. Um, the anesthesiologist will be in in a little while. And I, and you'll notice maybe in your births, like there's a few things that really stand out to you in your births. Lots of things are a blur, but some things are incredibly vivid. And this is one that was vivid for me. The nurse, after I said, uh, um, no anesthesiologist, thank you. I want to go and medicated, she totally stopped. Her whole body stopped what she was doing. She cocked her head to a side, don't remember which side, right or left. And she said, Oh, you're gonna try to go natural, are you? And that just fired me up a little bit. I'm like, well, yeah, I am. I'm not gonna try, like, I'm gonna do it. And yeah, I'm kind of naive to what's going on, right? Um, but I'm like, yeah, I've prepared for that's what I want. Taken classes, I feel empowered, I've read some books. This is what I want. And my reasons had grown a lot throughout my pregnancy. My first reason to myself was like, huh, I wonder if I could do that. Challenge presented from me to me. Um, and then so many other reasons came up. Better for me, better for baby, all the reasons people have, right? Um, my body can do this, like blah, blah, blah, all that good stuff. So I was right there in the thick of all of that. Um, I remember my husband had to run down to the car and get something. And he was gone for literally one contraction. It might have been five minutes. I don't know. That was a hard contraction because he was not there with me. He came back and he, we didn't know at the time, but I had really great back labor going on. So he was just massaging my back doing wildly hard counterpressure for several hours. Um, probably the baby was posterior. Um, didn't know what that was either. Thank goodness I got a new nurse. The shift change was just underway. Got a new nurse who was great, who was supportive. Um, she did not send the anesthesiologist right in. She gave us some ideas, some things to do. She brought in a bean bag I could kneel on, and that was my best position. Um, is kind of kneeling, and my husband did counterpress her. After a while, I felt an urge to push. They checked me, I was like eight centimeters, and then quickly 10 and began pushing. And pushing, I recall, was so much work. Um, again, I was into a lot of athletics at the time, and I felt like I was just doing these wild sets of squats. Every push, every contraction with pushing was like a set of squats. Um, and I'd go into this deep, strong place and I'd come out of it and I would rest. And then I would go into this deep, strong place, do a set of squats slash pushes, and then I would rest. And I remember the doctor came in. My doctor was like in Disneyland or something. The OB I had so not carefully chosen. His partner came in, who was also an older OB. Um, and he, I remember a comment, a positive one. He said, Wow, she's really strong, she has great control. Um, in hindsight, and I kind of kept a timeline of notes, I pushed for 20 minutes, honestly, 20 minutes. I didn't realize how gifted that was at the time. Like, wow, that was remarkably fast. Usually it's one to three hours pushing with the first baby. It felt a lot longer than 20 minutes, I can tell you that. And I pushed and I pushed, and I felt like I was in my own little world, not abandoned, but very internal, right? Um, and after about 20 minutes of really hard work, my baby was born. And I remember this incredible sense of relief when she was born. And I saw her. She came, I, you know, the doctor held her up. This was pre-immediate skin-to-skin time. And I, as I saw her for the first time, I felt this flood of emotion and gift. I feel like this is all the gifts of my entire life wrapped into one moment. All the Christmases, the birthdays, the everything I could have ever imagined. The greatest gift, as I just saw her. Didn't get a touch her because I didn't do skin-to-skin at the time. Um, they whisked her away. She did get sucked out pretty good. There'd been mecconium. Um, she got wrapped up pretty quickly, like a little burrito, and returned to me. The doctor did an epesiotomy without my permission. Um, I don't recall that anything was ever said, but it was very standard practice at the time in 1998 to just do epesiotomies. So he was repairing that. Um, I got my burrito baby and started nursing her. She did great. She latched on really well and nursed great. Um, I worked at this hospital in the OR, and um, this baby, oh, important to note, she was born at 11:30 p.m. Remember, my water had broken at 5.40 p.m. I didn't know this at the time, but that also is remarkably fast, right? So that's like, I don't know, six hours of labor or less on a first baby, 20 minutes of pushing, pretty fast. Um, and I didn't realize how fast that would be. So take her home. She breastfeeds great, great breastfeeder. I mean, there's engorgement and stuff in the beginning. One of the most helpless feelings of my life um was getting breastfeeding underway, and there was no big challenges with it. It was actually quite fine, but just the pressure I remember of having this tiny baby and the responsibility to keep it alive, to feed it when that seemed impossible and there was no milk and um and it was difficult. And and my other babies were much easier to breastfeed. But I don't recall getting help. Things ended up working. She breastfed for you don't even want to know, a long time, over three years. Um, but uh that experience changed me, right? It like I learned from that experience. I'm like, wow, I can do pretty amazing hard things. And I s appreciated so much for the first time the body of a woman. Like the woman's body is phenomenal. It's so incredible what it can do. And I have one of those, and I appreciated that so much. Um, so anyway, we uh moved after a while. Um, I did not love being pregnant, the sickness and stuff, and I loved running and I couldn't. I actually felt pretty good running while I was pregnant. I didn't feel sick while I was running, but not eager to do that again. Um and so we have this little girl, she turns one. She sometime when she was one, um, I got pregnant again. I never went on that type of birth control again. Um we we used condoms, things like that, but I never went on official birth control after that first uh part of um my fertility journey. So this, I mean, shocker, you know, we got pregnant again without really trying to, and that was a hard decision for me to make to want to get pregnant because this being sick and just I didn't I didn't love it. Um, but I got pregnant. The second baby was born 27 months after my first. So I've moved cities. Um, my first was a girl, my second is a girl as well. I had a friend, a high school friend who I love dearly. I'm in a new city, and I'm like, who do you have your baby with? She said, Oh, Dr. So-and-so at this hospital. I'm like, oh, okay, that's good enough for me. I did it again. However, upgrade this time, okay, this is a general statement, but an upgrade in my mind, it's a female OB instead of a male OB. I'm like, okay, female OB. We've had an upgrade there, that's cool. Um, she, I wouldn't have picked her again, probably. Actually, I did pick her the third time, but um she was great, you know, the office is good, nothing remarkable, nothing spectacular. Um, pretty standard. I was sick again a little bit longer, but now I have a toddler to dash around with. Um, and we at this time in our life uh were living kind of a unique living situation. Um, I minored in gerontology and we were living with an older gentleman. I worked in rest homes and retirement homes and things. And so our our part of our job that time was to live with this older gentleman in his home and take care of him. So we did his yard work, his housework, his cooking, his shopping, um, and just lived in his basement and he just became part of our lives. And this was a job we kind of signed up for, but we said, well, we won't have any kids while we live here. Um, but we did. We stayed there for five years. Um, we fell in love with him, couldn't leave him. Um, so turns out we did have another baby or two while we live there. So we're living with this guy, have this kind of job taking care of him as well as my little baby at that time. Um, I have a due date now of August 28th. And uh it's hot, right? It's hot in the summer. I was enjoying my care well enough for my OB. Um, and I remember, you know, just being hot and pregnant. I would I still ran through a lot of this pregnancy. I was running a lot. I was training for a marathon when I got pregnant with her. I was doing, you know, high miles every week. Got pregnant unexpectedly, like as in, I wasn't seeking or trying to get pregnant, but not, you know, not not a disappointment, but um it stopped my marathon training. So uh we get to the end of this pregnancy. I took a class again. I loved birth classes. I took a natural tar both class at I think the hospital that I was gonna be delivering at. And to me, that's just a treat. Like just treat yourself and set aside some time and effort to prepare for this. So my husband and I took a class, although we'd done it before. Um nothing spectacular about my OB. She was great. Um, and I get to that day before my due date again, and we we were kind of shopping, getting some things ready, doing a little nesting and stuff. And while we were shopping, I'm feeling these contractions, right? I'd felt Braxton Hicks and stuff, and I read books again and just, you know, spruced myself up for, you know, in my brain for all of the things ahead of me and prepared I wanted to do unmedicated again. Um, and while we were out and about, I'm like, oh my gosh, I am having contractions. And while they're very far apart, they are pretty regular. So they started in the afternoon, as best I could tell. And they kind of persisted through the night, but really spread out. Um, and they lasted for kind of a long time, honestly, all through the night, slept sort of mostly. Um, It was a gosh, what day of the week was she born on? She was not a Sunday. I think she was a Tuesday. Um but kind of go through the night and things are getting a little bit more serious. Now we have a little kid to think about, right? So we had my mom come over and um take her. You know, my mom hung out for a little bit and then took her with her while we were laboring at home. I remember getting into the bathtub at home and thinking, ah, this feels so good. I don't want to leave. I don't want to get up and get dressed and get in the car and drive to the hospital. Like, I wish the doctor could just come here, but that's unreasonable. So we made our way to the hospital, different hospital, different town than our first one, and got there. I think it was four centimeters again when I arrived. Um and labor just kind of tinkered around. It wasn't crazy intense. My first one was kind of fast, so I was expecting this one to be as well. All in all, from the time labor first kind of started slow, it was about 23 hours later she was born. Um she was born in the afternoon, so the middle of the day, which was kind of great. Things kind of just petered along until the very end. And I was progressing. I had a really great nurse, like an awesome, awesome nurse. Um, and I remember I was in the bathroom, kind of leaning on the railing. My husband was with me, he was great, and my water like pop gush, it broke. It was about eight centimeters, and things changed dramatically at that point. And I remember the nurse saying, Oh, okay, your water broke, why don't you come on over and we'll see where you're at? Just come on over to the bed here. She said it like I could do it, you know, like I could just waltz on over to the bed. And in my brain, I remember thinking, like, oh my gosh, you've just asked me to fly to the moon. Like, I can't get over there because things had changed so quickly. So my husband helped me waddle over there. I leaned on him, went over to the bed. Um, she checked, and the baby was imminent, like very, very close. And I remember things getting incredibly intense. And my best coping was a hard stare into my husband's eyes. And he just stayed right with me, super present, um, made it to the bed. They called the doctor, um, and she came in, and this must have it was a Sunday. This was a Sunday, Sunday afternoon now, and I remember thinking some irrational thoughts, as people often do in transition. Because I was transitioning very quickly, and in my very best thinking, I thought, I am leaving. When she gets here, I am going to get up and walk out the door. They can finish without me. I am not doing this anymore. Um, she arrived and put a gown over her. She always was wearing a nice suit with pearls and heels. Um, this was the year 2000. So she put a gown on over and she said I could go ahead and push, and I did not want to. I remember last time that was a lot of hard work. I remember it seemed to last a long time, although it was only 20 minutes. I'm like, nah, I remember that. It was hard. I don't want to do it. So I kind of resisted. Um, and my husband kind of said to me in a sweet little impatient way, he's like, Angie, she's right there. Just push. Like, oh, really? She is. Okay. Um, so I pushed, she was born. It was pretty awesome, unremarkable, unmedicated. They placed her on me. Um, she also nursed really well right away. Um, normal recovery, breastfeeding a lot easier this time. Pretty great. So I now have two little girls. They're 27 months apart. Um, life goes on. They're adorable. I love it. I'm taking care of this elderly gentleman, being a mom to my little girls. My husband's getting his career underway. He decides to get a master's degree. He's working on that. Um, and I'm training for another marathon. This was, you know, a couple years later. I trained for a couple marathons at this point. Um, I was training for one one particular year, had everything all mapped out. Um, I mapped out my periods so that I would not, I wouldn't want to know I wouldn't be on my period at a particular time, which the marathon would be, right? Not looking to get pregnant. Again, that decision to become pregnant was very hard for me because I got sick and I couldn't run. Um, I didn't love what to do to my body. I love delivering the baby. I loved having babies being a mom and stuff, but just that decision to like, oh, let's make life hard for a little while was hard for me to make. So I'd um had a hard time making a decision to be pregnant. But I was training for the smarathon, my miles were high. I think I was at like 23 miles um for my long runs, and I loved to check my pulse before a long run. And I'd get up early, do my long runs on Saturdays, um, get up at like 4 a.m. and I'd check my pulse before I kind of did my rituals to get out the door running. This one particular week when I was doing 23 miles, my pulse was 72. I'm like, that's odd. Usually it's in the 40s. Like, why is my pulse so high? Hmm, didn't think much of it. Went on my 23 mile run. It's a good run, getting close to this marathon. And I knew my period should be coming up, right? I'm like, all right, where is it? It's not supposed to be happening. The week of the marathon didn't come, it didn't come. And I'm like, ah, you've got to be kidding me. Like, really? Um, so I took a pregnancy test. I was pregnant. Um, didn't plan for it, didn't decide it. Um, I mean, not a shocker, right? We're not using the best forms of birth control by choice, but we were, you know, using birth control. And I perhaps crazy, I was 27 at the time. I'm now 27 years old. Is that right? No, 25, 26. Anyway. Yeah, I think I was 26. Um, at this time, almost 27. So uh I decide, no, don't try this at home. But I decide, like, you know what, I've done all these long runs pregnant. Um, what's one more? I was in tapering mode now anyway. Um, so I decided to run this marathon. And I did. I ran this marathon. It was my best marathon. I felt great. Um, I ran a good portion of it with this cute man, little older man, who had had a kidney transplant, like within the year before that. Um, I did secretly share with him that I was pregnant. Like, hey, um, you know, and I think I was about seven weeks when I ran the marathon. I was terrified because I get really sick um pretty early on. I was terrified about running pregnant and sick and doing a marathon that way. And I did not, miracle of miracles, I did not get sick until the next week. Um, so I ran the marathon, did well, um, felt great. Don't try this at home. Um, and then I got sick right after that, right? So this is another little girl. This is another baby girl. Um, and I'm just loving being a mom to these little girls. I'm going to the same female OB, same hospital. I like their clinic. Um, I've done two unmedicated births now. A little bit different than some people's where my first was short and fast, my second was kind of longer and drawn out. Not terrible by any means, but a little bit untraditional. This third baby um planned to go unmedicated again, right? Um, and I'm sick for longer at this point, right? So I just kind of when I get pregnant, I just kind of sit on the couch for weeks. And I feel so bad for everyone around me, right? Like my poor husband has to do a lot. I feel terrible. Um, I just stare out the window, just making it through the day. Cause I'm just, if your eyes are open, you feel like throwing up all the time, right? And I did a fair bit of it. Um, that went away, but it lasted a little longer than the first and second time. I love the middle part of being pregnant, you know. Um, so we get close to my due date, and the other two I'd gone one day early. So I'm like, this is great. I kind of have a pattern. Well, this particular baby did not do that. She waited and waited and waited till after her due date. And my OB, my female OB, said, Hey, I'm going out of town, such and such a date. I can induce you, or I can strip your membranes, or we can whatever. I'm like, no, thanks, I'm good. And I just politely said, no, thanks. I just I the what I remember is like, I do not want anybody to do anything to my body. I'm good. Um, so oh my OB was out of town. I knew that, I didn't care, and I started to believe that I would be pregnant forever. That I would just be pregnant, remain this way. This is my new state of being. I'd have to get used to it. Um, irrational thoughts at the end of pregnancy. And at eight days past my due date, uh, I was sleeping. It was a Sunday going into a Monday. I was sleeping at night, and apparently I started like moving and groaning, I guess, in my sleep. And my husband, we took another class. We did, we took another class at a different hospital, a natural childbirth class, because I like to treat myself to that. And we'd read the books and done the, I think we had some hypno-birthing stuff going on with this one. Um, this was the year 2003 now. And my husband's like, All right, it's okay. Go ahead, breathe through this one. And I was dreaming, and I'm like, why is he waking me up telling me this? Like, if I am in labor, leave me alone. I'm sleeping. And um, I don't think I'm in labor, but I was. I was in labor. This was the most textbook of all my labors. It lasted nine hours. It started gradually, it built up. It was kind of the middle of the night. Um, we labored in bed for quite a while, two or three hours. It progressed. I got up, walked around. I now have two little girls for somebody to come and get. Got in the tub again. Oh my gosh, I love in the tub. I wish my doctor could just come to me. Why do I have to get dressed and leave the house? I don't love that. We're still living with this elderly gentleman um who is just so sweet to our girls. Like he was their um third surrogate parent, kind of um, just an awesome, awesome guy. So my mom came, picked up the little girls, we went to the same hospital. Um and labor this time, I was laying on my side in the bed a lot. I wasn't walking around. I wasn't, um, but that was my best method and mode that time was laying still, and I would find incredibly powerful focal points, sometimes out the window, sometimes a spot on the garbage can. Not even kidding you, just looking at the corner of the garbage can. And this is a hospital I have since done many, many, many, many births in as a doula. And I was not a doula yet at this point. This is a turning point, however, right here and right now in my life when I became a doula. Um, so as I've done births in this room, in the room I had my second daughter in, which is kind of fun. And I had um a really great nurse. My husband was doing his best to help me, but it wasn't, I wasn't loving it. Like everything he tried, I'm like, eh, not that, not that. Um, don't do that, don't touch that. Like, and he was trying, but I wasn't loving it. But my nurse was phenomenal and she was able to offer a little bit of labor support. This labor, like I said, was about nine hours, um, pretty standard. Um, and it got to where I could feel that pushing urge to come on, and I let them know. I said, hey, you know, this, you know, we're getting close. Um, and I was I tried to be further along when I got there. I was closer to six centimeters when I arrived at the hospital this time. Um, went to eight in a fair bit of time, not super fast. And then, you know, it was pushing time. They brought in a doctor, a younger doctor. This doctor, for the first time, did not break down the bed when I had had a baby. My other two older school OBs broke the bed down, did stirrups, put my legs up, and things like that. This doctor just sat on the bed, and I kind of liked that. I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool. Um, and pushing happened. I was kind of on my side for this one, which I liked. Um, baby was born, came up on me. She nursed great, nursed right away. My kids all nursed for a really long time. Um, a really good hospital birth. Unmedicated again. Um, pretty great recovery, got back to running within just a few weeks. Um, and now I have three little girls, right? And we're living with this cute older gentleman. Well, he was now getting closer to the end of his life and had a CNA coming in a couple times a week to help him shower and bathe. Shh, this particular CNA who I saw. We were friendly with each other. Her kids would come sometimes, play with my kids, we'd chat. While I was pregnant, she never said a word to me. But after I had my baby, um, we got chatting about my delivery and stuff, and she said, Oh, you've done it on medicated, that's cool. If you like that kind of thing, um, you should become a doula. This was 2003, and I'm like, what is that? Never heard of it. Um, but actually, I did, right? My first delivery, I'm like, oh yeah, I've I didn't know any doula's, but I did have somebody offer um a few years earlier to be my doula. And that was a very unusual role at the time. So she kind of piqued my interest. I said, okay, I'll I'll take this training you're talking about. So went to the training. Um, it was a three-day training from a pretty incredible person named Holly Richardson. Um, and I piqued my interest. I kind of liked birth anyway. Um, I would believed in natural childbirth and empowered birth. Um, and that kind of started my path on doula work. Began a career I never knew existed. I couldn't imagine the life that I have now at that time. Um, but I was curious, I'm like, I want to see if this will work. Let's give it a go and see if it'll work. And it went. Um, it took a while to build up business and stuff. And I have these three little girls who I just loved. So they at this time they were five, three or almost two and a half, I guess. So that a second two are 30 months apart. Um, and at newborn, and they were just the cutest things, and I had this little three-girl life for a quite a long time. So I'm gonna pause my stories here because um there is a shift, and I will continue that in the next episode. But these are my first three births, unmedicated in hospital, three little girls. Life is pretty good. Um, and I kind of like the pathway I'm going on. So we'll wrap up these stories here to be continued next time. Thanks for indulging me in my birth stories. Um, and please reach out, as always, as we end this, please reach out to someone and make a human connection. Um, if there's someone you've been thinking about, if there's someone you haven't talked with for a while, somebody you'd like to connect with, please do so in person, online, a phone call, um, however that is. We are important to each other, we need one another, and human connection is important. Thanks for being with me and indulging birth stories. I will continue these next time.

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Episode credits will be in the show notes. Tune in next time as we continue to explore the many aspects of giving birth.