Maternal Wealth Podcast - Own Your Birth
The Maternal Wealth Podcast creates a collective space for sharing all birth-related stories. I want to acknowledge birth's uniqueness, honor its variations, and remind us of the power we hold in giving birth.
As a Labor and Delivery Nurse, I see the impact of our stories. Let's share those stories with those who come after us to prepare them for what's to come. For those who came before us, allowing them to reminisce and heal as we realize we were not alone in our experiences.
Maternal Wealth is currently streaming in twenty-five countries: New Zealand, Australia, Slovakia, Canada, Finland, South Africa, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Rwanda, Poland, India, Sweden, Germany, Puerto Rico, China, Italy, Denmark, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, Spain, Greenland, Cyprus, Tanzania and the United States.
Maternal Wealth Podcast - Own Your Birth
When Loss and New Life Collide: A Mother's Journey Through Trauma and Hope
Grief and joy are two sides of the same coin in motherhood, as Shawnee Baker powerfully demonstrates in this emotional conversation about her maternal journey. A former NICU nurse who became a mother to three children before she was 23, Shawnee's path was immediately complicated when her first husband abandoned their family when her daughter Baylie was just six days old. With courage and determination, she rebuilt her life as a single mother, creating an especially close bond with Baylie—her mini-me, best friend, and confidante.
Years later, after finding love again and deciding to expand her family through IVF at age 39, Shawnee faced the unthinkable. While pregnant with her fourth child, her daughter Baylie, then a sophomore at the University of Miami, was drugged, suffered a catastrophic accident, and spent six weeks in a coma before passing away. The devastating trauma of losing Baylie while simultaneously carrying a new life created a perfect storm of grief, stress, and medical complications that few mothers have experienced.
Shawnee shares the harrowing details of this period with unflinching honesty—the weekly ultrasounds, psychiatrist visits, medication concerns, and the constant fear about what effect her overwhelming grief might have on her unborn child. She also reveals the systemic failures that compounded her family's tragedy, including their inability to advocate for proper medical testing or transfer Baylie's care without a healthcare proxy, a critical document most parents of adult children don't realize they need.
Shawnee articulates the complex experience of maternal grief alongside the anticipation of new life and how she found the strength to open her heart again. "I would love again because Baylie would want me to," she shares, encapsulating the painful beauty of continuing to mother both the child she lost and the one she was preparing to welcome. Listen to this transformative conversation that will forever change how you think about maternal resilience, the medical implications of trauma during pregnancy, and the legal preparations every parent needs to make.
Learn more about Shawnee Baker and her advocacy for positive change on behalf of Baylie.
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Welcome to the Maternal Wealth Podcast, a space for all things related to maternal health, pregnancy and beyond. I'm your host, Stephanie Theriault. I'm a labor and delivery nurse and a mother to three beautiful boys. Each week, we dive into inspiring stories and expert insights to remind us of the power that you hold in childbirth and motherhood. We're here to explore the joys, the challenges and the complexities of maternal health. Every mother's journey is unique and every story deserves to be told. Please note that this podcast is for entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your healthcare provider for medical guidance that is tailored to your specific needs. Are you ready? Let's get into this week's episode.
Stephanie Theriault:I want to pause and read an excerpt from Shawnee's book titled A True Story: A Life Shattered, a Promise Kept, a Secret Revealed. Shawnee wrote the boundless love I had for my newborns grew even more enormous as I came to know Baylie for who she truly was, not just in her emerging adulthood but in her dying and death. I was terrified that the experience of love loss ever to love again compromise my ability . I knew I was being hardened and desensitized through the pain. Love would require me to trust my heart and step into the fire again. The challenge was immense, but I would do it for Bailey Baylie I would give this new baby a space in my broken heart. I would get past myself, open myself up to love once more and embrace this precious new life. While I suffered the greatest loss ever, I would love again because Bailey would want me to.
Stephanie Theriault:Shawnee Baker is an inspiring figure a former NICU nurse, accomplished author, grief advocate and the founder of Bailey's Wish Baylie. She embodies the roles of a mother, daughter, sister, wife, friend, advocate, healer, fighter and survivor. Shawnee truly represents the essence of womanhood in all of its complexity. In today's discussion, we'll explore Shawnee's profound journey through motherhood. We'll touch on the unique challenges she's faced and how these experiences have shaped her and her family in transformative ways. Before we welcome Shawnee, I want to remind our listeners that we will be addressing the heartbreaking loss of Shawnee daughter, Bailey, a topic that Baylie deep emotional weight. Your understanding and compassion are appreciated as we navigate this sensitive conversation. Join me as I welcome Shawnee Baker to the Maternal Wealth Podcast. Welcome.
Shawnee Baker:Shani. Thank you, Stephanie. What a beautiful introduction. I feel so honored and humbled to hear you say that I'm honored to have you here with us today, thank you.
Stephanie Theriault:I would love for you to start off and share with us who was
Shawnee Baker:Shani
Stephanie Theriault:before you had children and before you became a mother.
Shawnee Baker:I always wanted to be a mother, so I was in a bit of a hurry to get married and have children. So when I met my first husband, I wasn't even out of college, yet 17. And I moved out of my parents' house when I was 19. I moved in with my boyfriend at the time. I was pregnant before I was out of school and I had a baby that we were married. I was married before I was out of school and I had a baby that we were married. I was married when I was 19. So that was a bit of a rush.
Shawnee Baker:It's a hard question for me to answer because I didn't get a lot of time to be me. I went from childhood to being a teenager, to being a mom, just like that, and I graduated as an RN. I went back and did a postgraduate program for neonatal nursing, I worked in the NICU my whole career and I had three little babies before I was 23. So that was really the start to my life was motherhood it's all I ever wanted, and what I didn't plan very well was just how challenging motherhood would be at such a young age and working full-time hours and trying to build a life.
Stephanie Theriault:You have three children early on Mackenzie, tristan and Bailey. Thinking about working time as a labor and delivery nurse, welcoming moms who've had two boys and then a daughter, the energy is different. It's warm, it's humbling.
Shawnee Baker:I'd I wish it were a more beautiful story than it is, but my pregnancies were very easy, very straightforward. for you to share with us a little bit about your birth story when you gave birth to Bailey. Although I did have babies early, for the most part they were complication-free. I delivered Bailey at 35 weeks and my husband was not Baylie to attend the delivery. It was during that time that I discovered that he had been adulterous. Through the marriage I actually learned that my first husband was a sociopath and through therapy a lot of things were revealed with his mental health. It turned out that at that time he had had over five affairs throughout our marriage and that I knew out that at that time he had had over five affairs throughout our marriage and that I knew of. And at that time he was living a second life. So I was in labor and he was at his girlfriend's and didn't show up for the delivery. He didn't show up until exactly the delivery. He knew I was laboring and my children were with a neighbor, and then he showed up at the hospital just right as Bailey was born and then he left again the Baylie morning. I was hoping he would come for the baby and she was just a delight. I mean she was beautiful and everything I'd ever wanted.
Shawnee Baker:He showed up the next morning, had a quick visit, brought the boys to me, went and picked them up at the neighbor's and brought them over and then he left again. And he left me in the hospital to look after the two little boys who were two and three, and my newborn. He left and I couldn't find him and I couldn't get a hold of him. And my family was miles away.
Shawnee Baker:We were living in South Texas, we were in San Antonio, my family was in Toronto and so I really didn't have anybody to call to come and get the children. San Antonio, my family was in Toronto and so I really didn't have anybody to call to come and get the children. So I ended up having to find out of the hospital discharge myself, and I left the hospital that day at noon and took my young family home with me and later discovered all of the terrible things that had been going on with my husband at the time. He showed up three days later back at the house and let me know that he was leaving, that the family thing wasn't for him, so he left. When Bailey was six days old, I rebuilt my life.
Stephanie Theriault:Often we Baylie about women needing the village. We need our village to help us raise our children. If you could share with us a little bit about when your husband left you went back to Canada, where you're originally from?
Shawnee Baker:Yes, how did you use your village when you were 23 years old with three little kids back, of course, I called my mother and sister immediately and were very supportive of me. My mom wanted me to come home, bring the kids and come back home, and I would stay with my mom and dad until I got back on my feet. So that's what I did. I went back to Toronto and I was with my mom and dad for about a month and then I landed a job at the Hospital for Sick Children in downtown Toronto, which is a world-renowned hospital. It's an excellent facility and I was able to get my career back on track with the help of my mom and my sister and my village, and start all over again as a single mom.
Stephanie Theriault:Frequently in your book you reflect on the bond between you and Bailey.
Shawnee Baker:Yes. So Bailey being the youngest of the three and the only daughter, we Baylie a bond like no other. Bailey was so much like me, but it was really easy for me to connect with Baylie. The boys had different interests, interests that I wasn't as familiar with, and Bailey ended up being a rider. I had been an equestrian earlier on, when a Baylie young was girl, and so we had that in common. Bailey wanted to be a doctor, I was a NICU nurse. We had so many things in common and Baylie along so well. We were best of friends, and as Bailey grew funny because people would ask Bailey who her best friend was,, that only became stronger. It was kind of funny and she would say her mom. People would ask Bailey who her best friend Baylie and she would say her mom.
Stephanie Theriault:As Bailey grew from what I read in the book, Baylie as a family, you decided that she wanted to attend Baylie in Miami, which was far from you. How was that decision for you as a mom letting your daughter go when you had such a strong bond?
Shawnee Baker:It was extremely difficult, but that was something she had on her dream board. She wanted to go to the University of Miami. She had dreamt of that school. She was a rider. They had a good equestrian team and she loved the sun. She was a beach kid. She wanted to be on the beach all the time. I knew that's where she needed to be. Interestingly, she was accepted to quite a few schools and she ended up with a scholarship for the University of Miami, which made it even harder to say no to. So that's where she ended up. We struggled with it. We struggled because she was far from home. We struggled because we were afraid of the dangers in the city. But it was a good school, had a good reputation for high achieving kids. They had a really good program for her to go into the med school program. It was everything she wanted.
Stephanie Theriault:Before Bailey moved to Miami for school, your family had surprise not so much of a surprise pregnancy Right. Tell us about Baylie Bailey took to you being pregnant and then she was going to be a big sister.
Shawnee Baker:So when I met my husband, scott, he had not Baylie children. I met him when I was 39 and he asked me if I would consider doing it again. And I mean, I was really taken back at the time and I thought, oh my gosh, I don't know if I can, how can I do this? I felt like I was too old, I had missed that opportunity. But at the same time I was a mom. That was what I did. I loved being a mother.
Shawnee Baker:Part of me felt like I'd missed out because of having children so young and my first husband and his adulterous behavior and being a single mom at such a young age. I missed out, gosh. I worked so many hours. I really didn't get to enjoy my kids when we were young. So this was an opportunity for me as well and I jumped at it. I talked to the kids about it. I talked to Bailey about it and she was super excited. She wanted us to have these kids and she was just so thrilled that we were going to Baylie to have a family. So we did IVF and I was pregnant with Savannah when Bailey was um. She got her first year as a freshman at the University of Miami. Then I was pregnant with Savannah that May, and then Baylie was that summer she was going back into her sophomore year that they started life.
Stephanie Theriault:So you and I connected through a Facebook group, Upper East Side Moms, and you touched upon wanting to share your story about loss and life intertwined and how that presents in women, how trauma presents when we're pregnant and delivering. Why do you want to share that story and if you could fill us in with what loss you were having as you were going through bringing new life into the world.
Shawnee Baker:It's interesting because I was a member of the Upper East Side group and my husband had lived on the Upper East Side. We had been down there. We spent a lot of our member of the Upper East Side group and my husband had lived on the Upper East Side. We had been down there. We spent a lot of our weekends in the Upper East Side because my husband had clients in the area we were working down there. I met a lot of his clients and a lot of friends. I started a company.
Shawnee Baker:I left nursing, I left the NIC when I started a sleep consulting company and parent coaching and I was working with families at the time on the Upper East Side and a lot of my work was about the reaction of the baby when connected to the mother, so having that sixth sense, if you will, where the baby picks up on the mother's emotion and can detect anything that's going on with her. If mom is having anxiety, the baby doesn't sleep and we see this all the time. But ladies are just so attuned to her in that couplet relationship. Then, taking a step back, and there was actually this incredible that I took with Dr Gabor Matt. That course was on trauma for the mother during pregnancy and there's a film called In Utero which I don't know if you've seen, stephanie. It's fabulous and it's about that baby resting in the cortisol and the adrenaline of that mom and experiencing trauma in utero. As the mother was experiencing trauma, so they did a lot of film where they had been through difficult times and how that programmed the baby's brain.
Shawnee Baker:So here I was going through this horrific experience with Bailey. We believe she was ruptured. She got away from them and at that point was texting her friends letting her know that she couldn't use her phone anymore. Something was terribly wrong. She couldn't figure out how to use the app to order an Uber for herself, which she had used all day, and she let them know that the boys really wanted her to drink the water really badly. They kept pushing her to drink the water really badly. They kept pushing her to drink the water.
Shawnee Baker:So through this ordeal, bailey proceeded to walk three miles in the pouring rain She asked the girls to send her Baylie help to come get her. downtown Miami. There was no way to send help for her. She said you have to come get me. But you know, just part of my foundation is that there was no way to send her help and we just that safety net isn't there. Foundation was that there was no way to send her help and we just that safety net isn't there. There was a preventable solution but it just wasn't. It just didn't show up for those girls or for Bailey. So they guided her on FriendFinder and followed her and watched her walk into traffic where she was hit and probably sort of died that night Baylie she was in a coma for six weeks. At that time we were on a sailboat and we got a call. We went down to Miami and stayed with Bailey at her bedside for six horrific weeks of just witnessing her body going through such horrible procedures and torturous recovery, trying to recover and Baylie the end we had to let Bailey go.
Shawnee Baker:But the trauma that I was experiencing as a mom, as a pregnant mom with my daughter during these six weeks, watching this tragedy unfold in front of me Baylie ultimately losing my daughter, my mini-me, my best friend, my, everything, my whole world, I was just thrown into this absolute whirlwind of emotion, grief, fear, unbelievable fight or flight, unbelievable just off the chart, the amount of cortisol that I had surging through me for six weeks and beyond. I was really fearful of what was happening to my unborn child. I was 18 weeks pregnant. I ended up delivering three months after Bailey's funeral, so the care for me became quite intensive. I was having contractions throughout all of this because of the level of stress I was under and they felt that Baylie could possibly lose the baby. So I was going in for weekly ultrasounds. I was seeing a fetal medicine specialist as well as my OB, so I had three appointments a week. I also was going in to see a psychiatrist. They were trying to manage me ahead of time, trying to figure out if one could I cope through this grief and trauma while carrying the baby and what would happen once I delivered, because they highly anticipated postpartum depression and possibly psychosis.
Shawnee Baker:At that point they put me on medication. I was on citalopram, I was on Ambien and then I was actually on a third medication, which is a post-traumatic stress disorder, to try to prevent nightmares and heart palpitations that were happening, all of which is contraindicated. I mean citalopram, yes, but Ambien is contraindicated in pregnancy, and yet I couldn't sleep. I was a mess and so, collectively, the three physicians agreed that that was the better option of all of it. I mean, they didn't really know what to do with me. There's not a lot of literature on that level of stress and trauma in North America with moms.
Shawnee Baker:I'm losing my grown child and we were in the middle of a legal battle. We didn't have a healthcare proxy for Bailey so we didn't By the time we got the order from the police, it was out of Baylie's blood, so that was very stressful. the right to advocate for her to have drug testing done to see if her roofies were in her blood. We were never able to get justice because the drug had dissipated. We were not able to get medical records to send for a second opinion because we didn't have a HIPAA waiver or a healthcare proxy as such.
Shawnee Baker:Bailey had a significant brainstem injury, for which her old measures had been taken. She perhaps should not have lasted six weeks. We didn't find that out until we to BaylieBoston her four and a half weeks into it, where they told us that this bleed was so bad and they didn't know how that was missed in Miami. But it was missed again. Had we had the paperwork, we would have been able to get that second opinion. We would have known in week one where we stood on her prognosis. These things compounded the stress of losing my daughter, the grief.