WEBVTT 00:00:00.009 --> 00:00:06.125 So this is for Ali interviewing Erin Higgins on May 28th, 2016 at 8:45 00:00:06.158 --> 00:00:11.826 a.m. for the creative push project. Ok. So, can you, um, maybe give us a 00:00:11.859 --> 00:00:16.977 little background, uh, between you and the father of your first child and 00:00:17.010 --> 00:00:22.355 then, like all the way back to the conception. Can I set us out? Ok. My 00:00:22.388 --> 00:00:28.375 husband and I met here in Flagstaff while I was in college. I had a best 00:00:28.408 --> 00:00:32.957 friend that moved to Flagstaff while we were in college. Um, sorry, while 00:00:32.990 --> 00:00:36.945 we were in high school, she moved here and I would come visit her on break 00:00:36.978 --> 00:00:44.307 , spring break, summer break. She came back to New Mexico for a little bit 00:00:44.340 --> 00:00:49.385 and then, uh, came back here to help her family. So I was always coming 00:00:49.418 --> 00:00:53.065 back and forth to Flagstaff. And my husband was someone that she was 00:00:53.098 --> 00:00:56.375 friends with during high school. They all hung out together, went out 00:00:56.408 --> 00:01:02.457 together and we were friends first here. Uh, we would just see each other 00:01:02.490 --> 00:01:07.076 when I would come visit and everybody would go, you know, downtown, uh, to 00:01:07.109 --> 00:01:13.605 the bars, go to the dance, uh, the, the bar and dance for the rodeo. Uh, 00:01:13.638 --> 00:01:20.337 so we were friendly, saw each other semi regular basis, but it was about 00:01:20.370 --> 00:01:24.296 four or five years before we actually started dating. I was living in 00:01:24.329 --> 00:01:29.805 Phoenix and I came up for a weekend, uh, to see my friend and we went out 00:01:29.838 --> 00:01:34.697 downtown and I was joking and I said, maybe I would see him this weekend. 00:01:34.730 --> 00:01:40.227 She goes, oh, no, he moved to Phoenix. Oh, ok. Well, maybe I'll have to 00:01:40.260 --> 00:01:42.635 find out where he's at in Phoenix and we can kind of get together. It 00:01:42.668 --> 00:01:47.305 would be nice to have a new, another friend down there. And as soon as we 00:01:47.338 --> 00:01:51.766 walked into Maloney's, he was standing there checking his coat because it 00:01:51.799 --> 00:01:59.546 was mid winter. Um, so after that, uh, we talked and exchanged numbers and 00:01:59.579 --> 00:02:06.956 started dating, uh, down in Phoenix. We moved back up here to Flagstaff so 00:02:06.989 --> 00:02:10.025 that he could help his dad with his business. His dad has a wholesale 00:02:10.058 --> 00:02:16.005 business. He wholesales to gift shops in the area and, um, within the 00:02:16.038 --> 00:02:23.025 Southwest, he imports Mexican goods and sells them. 00:02:23.058 --> 00:02:27.876 So he started, uh, helping his dad out with the business and I started 00:02:27.909 --> 00:02:33.036 work with the Department of Public Safety Crime Lab and I've been there 00:02:33.069 --> 00:02:36.017 now for 14 years 00:02:36.050 --> 00:02:40.936 and we've been here in Flags back in Flagstaff for 14 years. 00:02:40.969 --> 00:02:47.186 Um, I guess let's see what you, we waited a while to get married. We were 00:02:47.219 --> 00:02:54.085 together about six years before he proposed. And after we were married, we 00:02:54.118 --> 00:02:59.626 started talking about kids like everybody does. And um it was about two 00:02:59.659 --> 00:03:04.767 years after we were married, we started trying to have Children. Um 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:11.505 Unfortunately, my first conception was a miscarriage, uh which was pretty 00:03:11.538 --> 00:03:14.335 hard. You're super excited and you go in and you have that first 00:03:14.368 --> 00:03:20.957 ultrasound and uh there was no heartbeat for the baby. So I had to have AD 00:03:20.990 --> 00:03:28.990 NC for that. Um, my body just wanted to hold on to it and liked being 00:03:29.419 --> 00:03:37.156 pregnant. So, uh, shortly after that though, about when it was less than 00:03:37.189 --> 00:03:45.036 two months, I was pregnant with my daughter and I, uh, had her, uh, June 00:03:45.069 --> 00:03:49.596 of 2009 00:03:49.629 --> 00:03:55.737 and my pregnancy was, oh, so much fun. I had really bad morning sickness. 00:03:55.770 --> 00:03:59.225 It lasted 00:03:59.258 --> 00:04:07.258 about seven months and it was all day sickness. So, um, it was really hard 00:04:08.159 --> 00:04:15.316 to eat. Uh, smells were really hard for me to take. I could not go into 00:04:15.349 --> 00:04:19.395 the meat department at what is now whole foods. If I came anywhere near it 00:04:19.428 --> 00:04:25.476 , it was bad. Uh, there were certain things that triggered it too. I 00:04:25.509 --> 00:04:32.866 wasn't able to eat eggs. If I ate eggs, it wasn't good. Uh, hamburgers. 00:04:32.899 --> 00:04:36.555 Which is funny because my mom said she had, that's how she knew she was 00:04:36.588 --> 00:04:41.096 pregnant with all three of her kids. Um, especially after me. I was her 00:04:41.129 --> 00:04:45.887 first. Uh, she couldn't eat hamburger either at all during her pregnancy. 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:51.127 So that was a little hard. Were you, um, since you had the first 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:54.697 miscarriage when you found out you were pregnant? It's like, that's really 00:04:54.730 --> 00:04:59.257 close. Just a couple of months after AD NC. Were you like, extremely, like 00:04:59.290 --> 00:05:03.586 , nervous every day? That like, were you able to feel confident about that 00:05:03.619 --> 00:05:08.156 second pregnancy? I think where we were most nervous. Both my husband and 00:05:08.189 --> 00:05:13.137 I were the first appointment and getting in for that first appointment to 00:05:13.170 --> 00:05:20.866 see is everything ok and you hold your breath while they're doing that 00:05:20.899 --> 00:05:26.226 ultrasound because you can, you can see it in the nurse's face that's 00:05:26.259 --> 00:05:34.259 doing the ultrasound that first time. She just, uh, kind of glazed over 00:05:34.569 --> 00:05:38.265 and you knew there's something wrong and she said I'm gonna let you talk 00:05:38.298 --> 00:05:44.745 to the doctor. So, um, you know, your heart just sinks in your chest. So 00:05:44.778 --> 00:05:52.778 the first appointment was huge for us to go into and um, the first time we 00:05:53.160 --> 00:05:56.627 didn't tell our family, we were waiting and we thought ok, we'll find out 00:05:56.660 --> 00:06:01.086 and wait and see, make sure everything's ok before we tell anybody um, 00:06:01.119 --> 00:06:07.906 that we're pregnant and it was very hard after to call your family and 00:06:07.939 --> 00:06:14.127 tell them, hey, I'm pregnant but don't get excited because the baby 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:19.526 doesn't have a heartbeat. I have to go in for a procedure to remove the 00:06:19.559 --> 00:06:26.575 pregnancy. So that was, that was super emotional, especially calling my 00:06:26.608 --> 00:06:31.356 mom. 00:06:31.389 --> 00:06:34.086 Sorry. 00:06:34.119 --> 00:06:41.346 Yeah. Um, so that first appointment. We just kind of held our breath and 00:06:41.379 --> 00:06:45.656 wanted to make sure everything was ok because the whole time I was almost 00:06:45.689 --> 00:06:53.145 , what, 10 weeks when they found out I still had the morning sickness. Um 00:06:53.178 --> 00:07:00.947 , I still had some weight gain. Um, I also had another, uh, miscarriage 00:07:00.980 --> 00:07:03.926 after my daughter, which was the same and that, I think that's the hardest 00:07:03.959 --> 00:07:08.305 part as, you know, that the pregnancy is not gonna go anywhere but you 00:07:08.338 --> 00:07:14.197 still have all the symptoms and, uh, it still feels like you have that 00:07:14.230 --> 00:07:22.230 baby. Um, so we were cautious then and when they came back and said 00:07:22.649 --> 00:07:29.666 everything is good. Uh, it was a, it was a big way off at that point. We 00:07:29.699 --> 00:07:36.776 did during the pregnancy though, have a little bit of a, I wouldn't call 00:07:36.809 --> 00:07:42.606 it a scare but it was very unnerving. Uh, we did all the tests that, that 00:07:42.639 --> 00:07:46.895 they have that are out there and one of them is for Down Syndrome and I 00:07:46.928 --> 00:07:51.217 got a call from the doctor after having that test and he said something's 00:07:51.250 --> 00:07:56.877 abnormal. Uh, we need you to go in for genetic testing. 00:07:56.910 --> 00:08:04.910 Um, so that was another big heavy sink and not that it would have changed 00:08:06.509 --> 00:08:11.976 the outcome of us having the baby, but to know that you're potentially 00:08:12.009 --> 00:08:16.717 gonna have a child that's gonna need a lot of care. Um, it's a little bit 00:08:16.750 --> 00:08:23.075 hard to fathom and take in and we just wanted to be prepared. So we to go 00:08:23.108 --> 00:08:29.296 down to have a more extensive genetic testing in Phoenix. Uh, that was a 00:08:29.329 --> 00:08:37.116 pretty huge day and they do a 3D ultrasound to really examine everything 00:08:37.149 --> 00:08:41.407 and make sure, uh, the baby is ok and you talk, sit down and talk to a 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:45.787 counselor and go over all your history, which brings up a lot of other 00:08:45.820 --> 00:08:50.875 things um, within the family because they're really looking at all of your 00:08:50.908 --> 00:08:55.576 family history, genetics disorders. That could be in the family. So there 00:08:55.609 --> 00:09:01.895 was a lot of heavy information to have to soak in and take my husband had 00:09:01.928 --> 00:09:08.375 um what's called a pyloric stenosis. Um So when he was born, his diaphragm 00:09:08.408 --> 00:09:15.566 was very tight and it wasn't allowing him to uh his body to bring all of 00:09:15.599 --> 00:09:21.336 the food in and he would spontaneously uh vomit. So when he was six weeks 00:09:21.369 --> 00:09:26.775 old, he had to have a surgery. So that was there too, which we're like, oh 00:09:26.808 --> 00:09:31.956 , great. Something we didn't really think about. Um, my grandmother has a 00:09:31.989 --> 00:09:39.989 blood disorder called thalassemia and there's two forms of it. And um, she 00:09:40.389 --> 00:09:45.015 had the lesser. So there's minor and major, she had minor, but she also 00:09:45.048 --> 00:09:50.255 had two siblings that didn't survive past the age of two because they had 00:09:50.288 --> 00:09:56.525 the major, um, the blood cells can't carry, they're, they're smaller. Um 00:09:56.558 --> 00:10:02.076 Some people mistake it for a form of um, sickle cell anemia. When they 00:10:02.109 --> 00:10:05.246 look at the cells, 00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:10.645 they end up having, being very susceptible, susceptible to blood cancers 00:10:10.678 --> 00:10:14.596 don't talk over the barking because then we'll just pause when it happens 00:10:14.629 --> 00:10:22.037 and then, ok. Ok. Um, so the thalassemia, it, 00:10:22.070 --> 00:10:28.537 um, when you have the major, you can have a lot of blood disorders, uh 00:10:28.570 --> 00:10:35.537 where uh blood cancers are more prevalent, also problems with bleeding. 00:10:35.570 --> 00:10:40.586 And so the two siblings that preceded her both died really young because 00:10:40.619 --> 00:10:47.696 of that. Um, they were in Colombia, South America. So at the time, they 00:10:47.729 --> 00:10:51.456 really didn't know what was going on and she didn't really understand it 00:10:51.489 --> 00:10:57.025 to tell us later on and tell her Children. So something that everybody 00:10:57.058 --> 00:11:02.677 kind of discovered later on in life. And I didn't even know until here, I 00:11:02.710 --> 00:11:06.706 was going to have this genetic counseling. And my mom said, oh yeah, by 00:11:06.739 --> 00:11:11.576 the way, here, here's this in your background. So we had to discuss all of 00:11:11.609 --> 00:11:16.326 that because these were all possibilities too. Um that could be going on 00:11:16.359 --> 00:11:20.515 and through the process. What we did find out is that the technician who 00:11:20.548 --> 00:11:28.548 took my blood wrote down my uh date of my last period wrong. So all of the 00:11:29.710 --> 00:11:34.807 dates that their calculations were off for what the levels should have 00:11:34.840 --> 00:11:38.275 been in the blood. 00:11:38.308 --> 00:11:44.467 Um So it was a an appointment that we really didn't need to have because 00:11:44.500 --> 00:11:52.500 of it was like a week time period, a span of time. So that was uh quite 00:11:53.058 --> 00:11:58.726 interesting and a little disturbing at the same time, but it did give us a 00:11:58.759 --> 00:12:03.125 lot of peace of mind being there going through all of that, having them 00:12:03.158 --> 00:12:09.525 really look at, um, my daughter who's now, you know, healthy, almost seven 00:12:09.558 --> 00:12:16.846 year old, um, but it did really give us that extra. Ok, everything's ok. 00:12:16.879 --> 00:12:23.025 Um, so we could continue on with that pregnancy and know that she was 00:12:23.058 --> 00:12:28.217 going to be healthy and that she didn't have any of these problems that we 00:12:28.250 --> 00:12:34.467 had looming in our, in our genes in our DNA. It's terrible that that minor 00:12:34.500 --> 00:12:39.476 mistake caused so much extra anxiety and stress. Yeah. And it was about 00:12:39.509 --> 00:12:43.557 two weeks of sitting on it from the time we found out to uh the 00:12:43.590 --> 00:12:49.525 appointment and not only were we anxious but all your family and friends 00:12:49.558 --> 00:12:55.596 who are there for you for support, it's an awkward situation. They want to 00:12:55.629 --> 00:12:59.696 be excited for the pregnancy, but at the same time knowing that you could 00:12:59.729 --> 00:13:05.936 have a problem, uh they just don't know how to handle it either. So I 00:13:05.969 --> 00:13:13.969 think for everybody it was very stressful and um mhm Very hard because 00:13:14.219 --> 00:13:19.275 pregnancy you wanna be excited. There's a baby coming and to have 00:13:19.308 --> 00:13:26.297 something like that in the mix um brings brings you down a little bit, but 00:13:26.330 --> 00:13:34.330 in the end, uh we were very relieved that we weren't gonna have to worry 00:13:35.960 --> 00:13:41.686 about some of these things anymore. We're, we're gonna get through it and 00:13:41.719 --> 00:13:47.907 it also gave us a little bit more confidence that, you know, no matter 00:13:47.940 --> 00:13:54.807 what life was gonna bring us, we're gonna meet it and 00:13:54.840 --> 00:14:01.667 it is what it is. You can't control everything and you just have to learn 00:14:01.700 --> 00:14:07.427 how to deal with it. So I think that kind of set the stage for just 00:14:07.460 --> 00:14:12.106 raising our daughter that there are a lot of things that are out of your 00:14:12.139 --> 00:14:17.717 control. Someone wrote a date wrong. Um Just looking at our genetic 00:14:17.750 --> 00:14:23.236 history, we've got a lot of stuff there in our genes. We can't control how 00:14:23.269 --> 00:14:28.395 they come together and what happens. You just have to be prepared and go 00:14:28.428 --> 00:14:36.206 from there and, and roll with it. It's not, it's not always our plan. 00:14:36.239 --> 00:14:41.765 Um, ok, so the last, before we backtrack there, um, you were saying that 00:14:41.798 --> 00:14:45.807 you had morning sickness? Yes. Were you still able to put on weight or did 00:14:45.840 --> 00:14:49.917 you lose weight? I didn't put on a lot of weight at first. I was still 00:14:49.950 --> 00:14:55.736 putting weight on, but it was slow, which is also nice because I still fit 00:14:55.769 --> 00:15:00.657 in on a lot of my clothes. I, um, was able to do this little trick with my 00:15:00.690 --> 00:15:05.167 pants on my, with a button and a hair tie to kind of give him a little bit 00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:10.755 of elastic pull. So I didn't even have to start wearing returning clothes 00:15:10.788 --> 00:15:18.788 until, oh, it was about almost six months. 56 months in is when it was 00:15:19.629 --> 00:15:25.157 like Ok. These are a little, I can't do this anymore. I'm expanding and, 00:15:25.190 --> 00:15:30.366 um, I didn't really put too much weight on until the very end. Uh, one of 00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:34.186 the funny things that I like to tell my daughter and that people at work 00:15:34.219 --> 00:15:38.967 just that was strange. Um, you have those cravings while you're pregnant. 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:45.186 My craving was for celery with cream cheese or some kind of cheese, spread 00:15:45.219 --> 00:15:50.255 laughing cow cheese on it. I just wanted to eat celery, especially those 00:15:50.288 --> 00:15:57.616 first three or four months. And my daughter, she loves celery that she'll 00:15:57.649 --> 00:16:03.316 , she'll sit down and eat a whole bunch of, of celery. It was funny. I 00:16:03.349 --> 00:16:08.417 went to her school and she, I help was helping the teacher with lunch in 00:16:08.450 --> 00:16:12.677 the classroom. They had a field trip and she came back with her tray and 00:16:12.710 --> 00:16:18.967 half of her tray was celery stocks like, well, you've like celery for a 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:24.677 while and orange juice. I can't, no, I can't drink orange juice. Um, I 00:16:24.710 --> 00:16:31.576 have a total intolerance for it with the acidity. It makes me very sick. 00:16:31.609 --> 00:16:37.616 And while I was pregnant with her that's, I just wanted orange juice and 00:16:37.649 --> 00:16:42.446 it was very hard because I'd smell it and it was something I just crave. 00:16:42.479 --> 00:16:46.936 So I might take a drink and be like, hey, I hope this isn't gonna make me 00:16:46.969 --> 00:16:50.807 too sick. I'm like, well, I'm already sick from the morning. So I guess 00:16:50.840 --> 00:16:57.976 we'll see. Um, but she loves orange juice too. She just, if we let her, 00:16:58.009 --> 00:17:05.107 she would drink a gallon of it in a day. So, those little things, um, are 00:17:05.140 --> 00:17:10.016 out there looming too and kind of, I find it funny later on to find out 00:17:10.049 --> 00:17:16.216 what she likes and what, um, she has this natural tendency too and I find 00:17:16.249 --> 00:17:20.216 that I had those cravings. Uh, the other one was green chili. I'm from New 00:17:20.249 --> 00:17:25.325 Mexico and I make a lot of foods with green chili in it. And especially 00:17:25.358 --> 00:17:31.605 the last three months when I, um, really to stop the morning sickness was 00:17:31.638 --> 00:17:37.717 tapering off. Going away. I just wanted to eat green chili and pinto beans 00:17:37.750 --> 00:17:45.750 , tortillas. And, uh, sh, she loves those too. So it's, um, I think, kind 00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:55.526 of neat to kind of see how in the womb they already start putting some of 00:17:55.559 --> 00:17:57.565 their, 00:17:57.598 --> 00:18:01.315 some of that, some of their likes are already coming out. And it's just 00:18:01.348 --> 00:18:04.406 amazing to me. 00:18:04.439 --> 00:18:11.637 Um, was there anything about pregnancy that surprised you? 00:18:11.670 --> 00:18:15.097 Oh, 00:18:15.130 --> 00:18:19.897 I just, I, I don't think, I think the biggest surprises were those little 00:18:19.930 --> 00:18:25.065 things that were someone else would see as a tragedy like the first 00:18:25.098 --> 00:18:31.256 miscarriage. Um, it not being, you know, everybody I knew you got pregnant 00:18:31.289 --> 00:18:35.186 , you went in, you had your ultrasound, you had your pictures, you came 00:18:35.219 --> 00:18:41.436 back and everything was good and to be one of those people that's in that 00:18:41.469 --> 00:18:47.266 minority and that's not your first experience. That was like a wake up 00:18:47.299 --> 00:18:53.305 call that it's not the same for everybody. And, uh, we all have a little 00:18:53.338 --> 00:18:58.006 bit, a different experience from it. And it also set the stage for the 00:18:58.039 --> 00:19:06.039 rest of the pregnancy to not expect things. Um, and not to take advantage 00:19:06.880 --> 00:19:13.127 either of the little things. I think the movement of her while she was, um 00:19:13.160 --> 00:19:18.325 , in the womb was maybe a little surprising. She's very active and to be 00:19:18.358 --> 00:19:23.676 sitting, you know, watching TV, and you see this movement across your 00:19:23.709 --> 00:19:28.916 belly like, whoa, what just happened? I told my husband, it reminded me of 00:19:28.949 --> 00:19:33.825 alien when you have, they have something growing inside of them and it 00:19:33.858 --> 00:19:38.746 just moves it, she would move a leg or an elbow or something and you would 00:19:38.779 --> 00:19:43.967 see it ripple across your stomach and it's just such a different feeling 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:48.476 and it's something that, you know, my husband couldn't relate to because 00:19:48.509 --> 00:19:52.936 he's, he's not there. He doesn't have that experience. So it's like you 00:19:52.969 --> 00:20:00.906 want to share it too and let them experience and it's hard to tell people 00:20:00.939 --> 00:20:06.575 about that and especially, you know, a man and what you're feeling and how 00:20:06.608 --> 00:20:10.217 it, how it's uh kind of affecting you. And you're like, whoa, there's a 00:20:10.250 --> 00:20:15.926 person growing inside of me and they're moving a lot even though like I 00:20:15.959 --> 00:20:19.906 expected um certain changes, you know, that are like kind of textbook. I 00:20:19.939 --> 00:20:23.617 was still surprised when they happened to me, like my nipples getting dark 00:20:23.650 --> 00:20:28.627 or like certain physical things like, you know, just experiencing that 00:20:28.660 --> 00:20:34.127 movement and everything. It's, that transformation is incredible. Yes. It 00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:40.347 , it is very incredible and it's so 00:20:40.380 --> 00:20:46.857 amazing to think of what's happening inside of you. Um Something else that 00:20:46.890 --> 00:20:53.045 did uh surprised me is how much I could feel and what she was doing, I 00:20:53.078 --> 00:20:59.426 would joke that I thought she was picking at the placenta because I feel 00:20:59.459 --> 00:21:06.887 these little sharp pinches while I was uh working. And after she was born 00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:13.006 , when I would uh I breastfed when I would feed her, she would pinch the 00:21:13.039 --> 00:21:16.127 back of my arm and she still pinches like when she gets nervous, she 00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:20.897 pinches and I was like, see, I told her she was in there pinching, she's 00:21:20.930 --> 00:21:25.825 pinching something and she, yeah, she, she still, she'll pinch your hand 00:21:25.858 --> 00:21:28.607 when she gets nervous, she'll pinch her, she'll stand there and I can tell 00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:35.266 she's very nervous and she's pinching herself. But um I know she was doing 00:21:35.299 --> 00:21:41.305 that while she was uh growing inside my womb. I could feel it and I'm not 00:21:41.338 --> 00:21:45.857 quite sure exactly what she was pinching, but she was pinching 00:21:45.890 --> 00:21:49.647 actually. Can you hear her hand movements? So sometimes when they hit the 00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:56.717 table, you have to be careful with that. Um OK, so you're at six months 00:21:56.750 --> 00:22:02.206 and then you go from 6 to 9. And can you tell us about that process? Did 00:22:02.239 --> 00:22:07.266 you prepare for the birth? Yeah, we took the you know, the birthing 00:22:07.299 --> 00:22:14.226 classes and my, my husband and I, and went into that. It was interesting 00:22:14.259 --> 00:22:17.226 because one of the nurses we found out went to high school with my husband 00:22:17.259 --> 00:22:22.825 , small town and her husband, uh went to high school with him and they 00:22:22.858 --> 00:22:28.585 lived right behind us, literally next door neighbors. So that was, you 00:22:28.618 --> 00:22:31.387 know, interesting and to know that you have someone that you can go talk 00:22:31.420 --> 00:22:36.506 to if you have concerns or questions and the lab labor and delivery nurse. 00:22:36.539 --> 00:22:41.097 And um I think during that time, just the starting to actually put on 00:22:41.130 --> 00:22:43.906 because I didn't gain a lot of weight in the beginning because of the 00:22:43.939 --> 00:22:51.939 morning sickness. Those last three months were pretty hard. Uh seeing how 00:22:52.380 --> 00:22:57.156 much your body changes then and even looking at, I think it wasn't until I 00:22:57.189 --> 00:23:02.736 looked at pictures and looked back at the pictures where I'm like, oh, wow. 00:23:02.769 --> 00:23:08.276 Uh I look like I'm swollen everywhere. Um Because that was something else 00:23:08.309 --> 00:23:14.186 that did happen very, very end. I ended up with preeclampsia. Uh but it 00:23:14.219 --> 00:23:22.219 came on uh very fast, you know, one week, ok, next week not OK. Uh That 00:23:23.439 --> 00:23:26.276 was in that period where you're going to those weekly visits right before 00:23:26.309 --> 00:23:34.309 you have the baby. And um yeah, just to see those little changes in a 00:23:34.539 --> 00:23:37.656 photo where you're like, OK, I didn't realize it then, but maybe this was 00:23:37.689 --> 00:23:42.206 already starting. Um because my face looks swollen, I'm like, can your 00:23:42.239 --> 00:23:48.166 nose swell because my nose looks really big in this picture. And my, when 00:23:48.199 --> 00:23:52.597 my mom first saw me after having her that she came in and she's like, oh 00:23:52.630 --> 00:24:00.196 my gosh, you are very swollen everywhere. And to have that, you know, 00:24:00.229 --> 00:24:06.686 feeling, um, that you don't normally have is a little, can be a little 00:24:06.719 --> 00:24:09.266 disturbing, 00:24:09.299 --> 00:24:16.565 but we did go through, you know, just, we even started earlier than that 00:24:16.598 --> 00:24:22.656 accumulating baby things. One of the stores here in town had gone out of 00:24:22.689 --> 00:24:27.406 business in early on in the pregnancy. So we bought a few things from 00:24:27.439 --> 00:24:35.439 there just to be prepared. And um we started getting the furniture and 00:24:36.759 --> 00:24:42.857 getting the crib ready. And uh something that did also happen in, in that 00:24:42.890 --> 00:24:48.186 period was we had an offer on our house, which I did not want to sell 00:24:48.219 --> 00:24:53.877 because I'm like, I'm at the end of this pregnancy, I don't wanna move, 00:24:53.910 --> 00:24:58.535 but a realtor was calling everybody in our um neighborhood because we were 00:24:58.568 --> 00:25:02.746 over in the town homes. She had a client that was going through a divorce 00:25:02.779 --> 00:25:08.305 and he wanted to be in the town homes because they were close to his kids. 00:25:08.338 --> 00:25:13.656 Um his ex-wife had a house just a couple streets over. So he was really 00:25:13.689 --> 00:25:21.647 wanted to stay close and he also worked near here. Um, but we, you know, 00:25:21.680 --> 00:25:24.976 we're like, we're comfortable, we're gonna have a baby. We don't need to 00:25:25.009 --> 00:25:27.706 move right now. 00:25:27.739 --> 00:25:31.206 And then we found out there are some problems with our town home. We 00:25:31.239 --> 00:25:34.877 already knew there were problems with the roofs. Uh, they did not put them 00:25:34.910 --> 00:25:38.946 on correctly. They didn't put any water barrier. So we had a lot of 00:25:38.979 --> 00:25:43.176 leaking in the winter time with the snow 00:25:43.209 --> 00:25:49.285 and we had an ho a meeting and they told us that it was worse than they 00:25:49.318 --> 00:25:53.367 thought and we were gonna have assessments and they didn't know when they 00:25:53.400 --> 00:25:56.916 were gonna be fixed. And on the way back, my husband and I looked at each 00:25:56.949 --> 00:26:01.785 other and went like, do we want to deal with this with a newborn and 00:26:01.818 --> 00:26:08.506 starting a new family and maybe we should sell and move into a new place 00:26:08.539 --> 00:26:15.785 bef before and we're on a big time crunch at that point. That was uh more 00:26:15.818 --> 00:26:20.867 seven, I think I was at seven months then. So we did, we sold the house 00:26:20.900 --> 00:26:28.209 and I actually, we moved into our house here two days before I had mckenna. 00:26:28.449 --> 00:26:30.449 So did the preeclampsia, did it change your, your vision of what the birth 00:26:32.608 --> 00:26:37.377 experience is gonna be, what they want to induce or doing? Yes. So the 00:26:37.410 --> 00:26:41.555 concern that I had at the very, it changed everything. I had a concern at 00:26:41.588 --> 00:26:46.717 the beginning of the pregnancy. When we went to talk to our doctor, it 00:26:46.750 --> 00:26:50.436 wasn't my normal um 00:26:50.469 --> 00:26:55.555 doctor that I went to, she, the doctor I had been going to, she had just 00:26:55.588 --> 00:27:01.877 recently dropped her obstetrics portion of her practice and was just doing 00:27:01.910 --> 00:27:07.967 the gynecological. So she had to refer me to someone else. And when I told 00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:14.026 her I was, we're going to be trying to have a baby. Uh So she referred me 00:27:14.059 --> 00:27:18.867 to another practice in town and where she thought the doctors were really 00:27:18.900 --> 00:27:23.196 good, it was a little difficult to get in there because the doctors are 00:27:23.229 --> 00:27:29.276 really good and everybody wants to go there. I did get to, I didn't get to 00:27:29.309 --> 00:27:32.717 getting to see the first doctor I wanted. But one of the concerns I had 00:27:32.750 --> 00:27:38.107 because there's another practice in town. They were, they 00:27:38.140 --> 00:27:42.295 rotate you through doctors during your pregnancy, you may not always have 00:27:42.328 --> 00:27:46.097 the same doctor and I wanted to make sure I had the same doctor all the 00:27:46.130 --> 00:27:51.035 way through and who would be there when I had mckenna. And so when we went 00:27:51.068 --> 00:27:55.226 in and I talked to them, you know, they did that there. And my doctor said 00:27:55.259 --> 00:28:00.006 there's only one time where I will not be here. I have a vacation planned 00:28:00.039 --> 00:28:07.666 , but it's not near your, it's far enough from your due date. Don't worry 00:28:07.699 --> 00:28:13.717 about it. I will be there. So when I went in for my appointment and my, my 00:28:13.750 --> 00:28:19.295 blood pressure was pretty elevated. It was 00:28:19.328 --> 00:28:22.847 me and which really concerned him because my blood pressure was always 00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:29.887 really steady over the pregnancy and he came in and he took my blood 00:28:29.920 --> 00:28:34.676 pressure. So that's when I knew there was something up and it was, it's 00:28:34.709 --> 00:28:41.006 pretty high. I don't remember the bottom number, but the top was 164 00:28:41.039 --> 00:28:45.325 which I usually run about 1 10/70 00:28:45.358 --> 00:28:51.045 ish. So he said, um, I'm gonna send you over to the hospital. We're gonna 00:28:51.078 --> 00:28:53.857 do some testing. 00:28:53.890 --> 00:28:58.785 Uh, this is right before lunch. I was supposed to be picking up lunch for 00:28:58.818 --> 00:29:03.156 all the ladies at work because of where I was going. And I went, oh no, 00:29:03.189 --> 00:29:05.986 because they were teasing me and they said you'll probably end up having 00:29:06.019 --> 00:29:09.065 to have the baby today because you're gonna pick up lunch for us. 00:29:09.098 --> 00:29:14.467 Something's gonna happen like, ah, don't say that. So, yeah, I had to 00:29:14.500 --> 00:29:19.565 call them and tell them I'm going to the hospital, they're gonna do some 00:29:19.598 --> 00:29:23.377 more tests on me and he wanted to check and make sure since my blood 00:29:23.410 --> 00:29:27.946 pressure went up so rapidly from one week to the next, he wanted to check 00:29:27.979 --> 00:29:32.956 and see if anything else was affected. So my liver and kidney function and 00:29:32.989 --> 00:29:40.989 so I went over and um, I drew blood and I had to give my urine sample. 00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:47.266 They ended up having me change and put one of the hospital gowns on. So at 00:29:47.299 --> 00:29:51.877 that point I'm there by myself because I also told my husband, he, this 00:29:51.910 --> 00:29:55.426 was one of the only appointments that he had missed. He was coming with me 00:29:55.459 --> 00:29:58.736 to all the appointments I'm like, they're just gonna check and make sure 00:29:58.769 --> 00:30:03.847 everything's ok. We don't have anything to worry about. We're still 2.5 00:30:03.880 --> 00:30:10.075 weeks before her due date. It'll be fine. Don't worry. I was concerned 00:30:10.108 --> 00:30:18.108 because my ankles and legs started to swell the day before and they were a 00:30:19.068 --> 00:30:23.805 little bit swollen for the last month of the pregnancy, but not like this. 00:30:23.838 --> 00:30:30.295 They were, they were huge. I told them I had tinkles because my leg just 00:30:30.328 --> 00:30:35.676 went straight down. So I knew that was a problem. And then the blood 00:30:35.709 --> 00:30:39.607 pressure on top of it. And the doctor came in and he sat down and he said 00:30:39.640 --> 00:30:44.196 I got your test results back and he said, you know how I told you that I 00:30:44.229 --> 00:30:51.486 would be here no matter what for your pregnant, for your delivery. Well, 00:30:51.519 --> 00:30:58.335 here's the deal. You have liver function, being affected, kidney, kidney 00:30:58.368 --> 00:31:01.476 functions being affected and it's happening really fast. So I want you to 00:31:01.509 --> 00:31:07.117 have the baby today we're going to induce and I'm going out of town. This 00:31:07.150 --> 00:31:12.835 is the weekend. So I just kind of stared at him for a second and he's like 00:31:12.868 --> 00:31:17.217 , do you want me to go out there? So you can scream or he's like, don't 00:31:17.250 --> 00:31:25.097 punch me like, well, it is what it is. I mean, I can't change it. So he 00:31:25.130 --> 00:31:30.367 said this is the doctor that's on call, which I hadn't seen before and 00:31:30.400 --> 00:31:34.226 he'd be in the come and talk to me later and he would take care of me and 00:31:34.259 --> 00:31:40.986 get me to start the whole process and then he was gonna have to leave. So 00:31:41.019 --> 00:31:49.019 that's like the beginning of, of the delivery and it seems like it went 00:31:49.930 --> 00:31:57.930 downhill from there. Nothing I expected, uh, for that, which again, we 00:31:59.630 --> 00:32:06.805 knew going in, it's not our plan and it definitely wasn't my plan for the 00:32:06.838 --> 00:32:12.877 rest of that, uh, delivery. I think it was. 00:32:12.910 --> 00:32:20.910 No, it definitely wasn't your typical um delivery for most people. So 00:32:22.949 --> 00:32:25.535 there are some people at work that were getting ready to have kids. They 00:32:25.568 --> 00:32:28.565 told they, they asked how it was. I'm like, I'm, I'll wait until you have 00:32:28.598 --> 00:32:34.676 yours and then I'll let you know because if I tell you my story, you may 00:32:34.709 --> 00:32:39.506 not wanna go and have a delivery because the preeclampsia was the least of 00:32:39.539 --> 00:32:45.847 the problems. Can we pause one second? 00:32:45.880 --> 00:32:51.996 As soon as the doctor told me that they were gonna have to induce me 00:32:52.029 --> 00:32:58.006 because the preeclampsia came on so quickly and was already affecting my 00:32:58.039 --> 00:33:06.039 organs. They didn't want to have anything happen um to my daughter or me 00:33:06.650 --> 00:33:10.887 because it came on so quickly. He said, normally we might put you on bed 00:33:10.920 --> 00:33:18.696 rest and try to keep you uh from delivering for and until you get closer 00:33:18.729 --> 00:33:23.877 to due date, but you're already 2.5 weeks away. The baby looks really good 00:33:23.910 --> 00:33:30.075 on the last ultra ultrasound. Her lungs should be developed by now. So I 00:33:30.108 --> 00:33:36.256 feel comfortable inducing you. He said I don't feel comfortable having you 00:33:36.289 --> 00:33:42.246 wait at this point because it's come on so quickly and your organs are 00:33:42.279 --> 00:33:50.279 affected, we could lose both of you pretty fast. So, in my head, I'm, you 00:33:50.890 --> 00:33:56.676 know, trying to take it all in, but at the same time I'm going ok, first 00:33:56.709 --> 00:34:00.097 of all, I didn't tell my husband to come. he's going to kill me that he's 00:34:00.130 --> 00:34:03.176 not here right now. 00:34:03.209 --> 00:34:08.615 Uh, my parents were gonna be coming, but not for a couple more days. My 00:34:08.648 --> 00:34:13.235 mom's gonna be upset over this and then there's the girls, they're all 00:34:13.268 --> 00:34:18.215 sitting there waiting for lunch and it's never coming. 00:34:18.248 --> 00:34:22.615 And it's so funny what you think of and because you're trying to kind of 00:34:22.648 --> 00:34:28.807 take it in and I'm a planner. So this definitely not planned. So the first 00:34:28.840 --> 00:34:33.186 thing that goes through my head is I've gotta make a list of things that I 00:34:33.219 --> 00:34:39.146 need to do. Where do I start first? And so it didn't really sink in the 00:34:39.179 --> 00:34:46.834 severity of the whole situation and how bad my blood pressure was and how 00:34:46.867 --> 00:34:54.015 that was gonna affect, uh, the whole delivery. Um, until I think later 00:34:54.048 --> 00:34:59.456 when I actually was checked into the hospital and got all of, you know, 00:34:59.489 --> 00:35:04.287 those ducks in a row and made sure, you know, I called my husband told him. 00:35:04.320 --> 00:35:06.336 So 00:35:06.369 --> 00:35:14.106 they're admitting me to the hospital. This is why you may wanna come. Uh 00:35:14.139 --> 00:35:22.139 it's gonna be, you know, a couple hours but see what you can do. Get here 00:35:22.519 --> 00:35:25.336 which he was super, he was super upset. He's like I knew I should have 00:35:25.369 --> 00:35:27.986 been there. I knew I should have come with you. You shouldn't be there by 00:35:28.019 --> 00:35:34.936 yourself right now. So it's fine. Do what you gotta do and um go get the 00:35:34.969 --> 00:35:40.856 bag because we had our bag already packed and ready for the hospital 00:35:40.889 --> 00:35:45.166 and take care of. We have take care of our dogs. We have two beagles, it's 00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:49.836 like get them situated, we'll have someone come over and take care of them 00:35:49.869 --> 00:35:55.086 and then you know, the next step would be, you know, call, call parents 00:35:55.119 --> 00:36:00.546 and let them know that what's happening. 00:36:00.579 --> 00:36:04.626 So as soon as he got in and we got checked into the hospital, I, I think 00:36:04.659 --> 00:36:08.546 then it kind of sunk in and I'm like, oh, ok, we're, we're doing this, 00:36:08.579 --> 00:36:11.885 we're gonna have a baby and then they started explaining the process and 00:36:11.918 --> 00:36:16.385 what was gonna happen. Um because of the high blood pressure, they put you 00:36:16.418 --> 00:36:21.747 on magnesium sulfate. Uh so that you don't possibly have a stroke while 00:36:21.780 --> 00:36:26.425 you're giving birth. So that's a little scary to have that realization. 00:36:26.458 --> 00:36:30.356 But at the same time, I think 00:36:30.389 --> 00:36:37.327 just my gut feeling was everything's gonna be ok. Don't panic, don't worry. 00:36:37.360 --> 00:36:40.046 I think my husband, 00:36:40.079 --> 00:36:44.546 I was more panicked, more worried. My father-in-law came to the hospital 00:36:44.579 --> 00:36:51.456 and my best friend who lives here. And, um, my father in law was so he 00:36:51.489 --> 00:36:54.997 didn't show it while he was there. 00:36:55.030 --> 00:36:58.816 But we didn't know this until afterwards, he stayed out in the hallway the 00:36:58.849 --> 00:37:06.017 whole time because he said I looked so bad. He was so scared that 00:37:06.050 --> 00:37:11.526 something was going to happen. So he couldn't bring himself to leave, uh, 00:37:11.559 --> 00:37:18.006 and just wanted to make sure that everything went well. And considering I 00:37:18.039 --> 00:37:23.885 didn't have her until 230 in the morning, he was there for quite some time 00:37:23.918 --> 00:37:29.425 waiting out in the hallway like, oh my gosh, but he even talks about it 00:37:29.458 --> 00:37:36.436 still that it really scared him to, to see me because of my coloring and 00:37:36.469 --> 00:37:41.126 how I looked and then to hear what the doctors were saying. So I, I think 00:37:41.159 --> 00:37:49.159 for me, I was more at ease with it and just had this sense of, 00:37:49.780 --> 00:37:56.006 you know, it's everything's gonna be ok, we're gonna be ok. This is we're 00:37:56.039 --> 00:38:01.646 having the baby. Um I haven't had a baby before. So for some people, this 00:38:01.679 --> 00:38:07.405 is how it goes. Others that I knew. I know it's easier for some harder for 00:38:07.438 --> 00:38:12.356 others. I've had friends that have been in labor for three days. My 00:38:12.389 --> 00:38:18.865 sister-in-law had just had my niece and she was in labor for three days 00:38:18.898 --> 00:38:23.827 and then they had to do an emergency c section. So, you know, you have the 00:38:23.860 --> 00:38:28.365 stuff in the back of your head. And we had always as part of our birth 00:38:28.398 --> 00:38:33.445 plan that they have, you set up when you do the birthing classes. It had 00:38:33.478 --> 00:38:38.327 always been me and my husband's opinion, do whatever you have to do to get 00:38:38.360 --> 00:38:43.655 the baby here safe. That means Cesarean section. Fine. That means we have 00:38:43.688 --> 00:38:49.885 to induce and have her early fine. You do what you need to do so that 00:38:49.918 --> 00:38:57.635 she's here safely and to keep, I guess, minimal 00:38:57.668 --> 00:39:01.945 problems from occurring, uh, during the whole process, you know, what you 00:39:01.978 --> 00:39:06.577 can, what's in your control? Did you have any, um, reactions to the 00:39:06.610 --> 00:39:14.610 magnesium? Yes. Well, it, it just made me so tired. So it's similar to 00:39:14.688 --> 00:39:20.885 taking Benadryl for me where it just makes me drowsy. I kind of felt a 00:39:20.918 --> 00:39:26.925 little, you know, buzzed, not completely there. Some things, sometimes it 00:39:26.958 --> 00:39:32.546 was hard to talk because of it. You know, it's this heavy duty muscle 00:39:32.579 --> 00:39:39.227 relaxer and that was, I think, hard for my husband to understand and I 00:39:39.260 --> 00:39:44.526 have a biology background. So a lot of the things that the doctors were 00:39:44.559 --> 00:39:48.977 saying, I understand the mechanism and how they're working in the body. It 00:39:49.010 --> 00:39:55.807 had a lot of classes in human anatomy. I was looking at becoming a doctor 00:39:55.840 --> 00:40:01.486 myself, uh, when I was going through my undergrad. So some of the stuff 00:40:01.519 --> 00:40:07.566 didn't scare me like it did my husband. It made sense, but it also made me 00:40:07.599 --> 00:40:11.497 know that the process was gonna be a little bit harder than magnesium 00:40:11.530 --> 00:40:19.017 sulfate because it relaxes your muscles and uh your arteries and your 00:40:19.050 --> 00:40:24.945 veins to help prevent the stroke that is also affecting the birth process. 00:40:24.978 --> 00:40:32.736 So they can induce and tell your body to um the cervix to open up your um 00:40:32.769 --> 00:40:37.066 abdomen to have the contractions. But at the same time, you have this 00:40:37.099 --> 00:40:45.037 other drug in there, telling your body relax muscles relax. So it, I think 00:40:45.070 --> 00:40:51.486 lengthens that whole process and makes it a little bit different um, than 00:40:51.519 --> 00:40:57.057 most people have because then they have to give you more stimulating drugs 00:40:57.090 --> 00:41:02.827 for the birth process like plain, which um they try to, we're trying to 00:41:02.860 --> 00:41:09.816 avoid and that wasn't progressing the way that they wanted to. So they 00:41:09.849 --> 00:41:15.006 gave me a gel to open up the cervix and start the induction at about two 00:41:15.039 --> 00:41:21.115 o'clock in the afternoon and, um, kind of waited to see what was gonna 00:41:21.148 --> 00:41:25.756 happen and that wasn't really progressing the way that they liked to, to 00:41:25.789 --> 00:41:32.655 see. So they did another one and that still didn't help. So then they 00:41:32.688 --> 00:41:38.247 started, um, they may have given me a third doll and then after that, then 00:41:38.280 --> 00:41:43.217 they said, OK, we're gonna go to the plain and the contract, they broke my 00:41:43.250 --> 00:41:47.675 water and the contractions had started before they gave me the Pitocin and 00:41:47.708 --> 00:41:50.967 they asked me if I want an epidural at that point. And I'm like, oh, at 00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:54.635 least I can handle this this is fine, but that's also part of the 00:41:54.668 --> 00:41:59.497 magnesium sulfate that they give you. Those contractions aren't as intense 00:41:59.530 --> 00:42:07.530 , um, as they normally would be during the birth process. So I wasn't 00:42:07.659 --> 00:42:13.816 feeling them the way that they could be. So I told him, let's wait, let 00:42:13.849 --> 00:42:18.066 him go because there was other women there. They're like, he'll come to 00:42:18.099 --> 00:42:23.477 you maybe the next or even one more. And I'm like, oh, that should be fine. 00:42:23.510 --> 00:42:27.037 I'm, I'm ok right now. I, I can handle it. And then they gave me the 00:42:27.070 --> 00:42:35.070 Plato and it really pushed those contractions over the edge. And I had, 00:42:35.550 --> 00:42:39.836 had a friend who had told me she had, she had to be induced and that the 00:42:39.869 --> 00:42:46.526 Pitocin just put her on edge with the con contractions. And it was pretty 00:42:46.559 --> 00:42:51.986 intense. And I was like, well, that's a kind word for it. Intense 00:42:52.019 --> 00:42:56.756 because it, it was, it took it to a whole new level that I, I wasn't 00:42:56.789 --> 00:43:01.727 expecting. I knew you were gonna have pain but you don't know in your head 00:43:01.760 --> 00:43:06.767 , you can't con conceive that pain because you don't have anything to 00:43:06.800 --> 00:43:11.506 compare it to yet. So that's when I told my husband, like, get me the 00:43:11.539 --> 00:43:14.646 epidural. No, 00:43:14.679 --> 00:43:20.856 so they can come in here. So I did have an epidural and um af shortly 00:43:20.889 --> 00:43:26.896 after the epidurals when they wanted me to start pushing. And I've been to 00:43:26.929 --> 00:43:31.276 this point, you know, the, it was just the nurse coming in, checking on me 00:43:31.309 --> 00:43:38.227 and um making sure everything was ok and checking to see if I was dilating 00:43:38.260 --> 00:43:45.086 where, where I was. I don't think that I had seen the, I think I maybe see 00:43:45.119 --> 00:43:50.767 , saw the doctor one time in between. So the rest of the time it was just 00:43:50.800 --> 00:43:54.695 there with the labor and delivery nurses and they were taking really good 00:43:54.728 --> 00:43:59.856 care of us and making sure everything was good. Um, even before then they 00:43:59.889 --> 00:44:05.497 found out I did not have lunch, it was about 430 I find them like I have 00:44:05.530 --> 00:44:08.267 to eat something. Can I eat something? Because I knew once you get past a 00:44:08.300 --> 00:44:13.517 certain point, they're not gonna let me eat anything. So they were super 00:44:13.550 --> 00:44:18.517 good and snuck me in a cheeseburger and some French fries. Uh, so that I 00:44:18.550 --> 00:44:22.626 could kind of continue on. I don't think I could have done it without 00:44:22.659 --> 00:44:27.445 having any food, but I know that they do have, you know, that's a big 00:44:27.478 --> 00:44:31.606 thing because if you have to go have ac section or have, have to go in for 00:44:31.639 --> 00:44:36.557 some kind of a surgery, they don't want you eating. So I was thankful for 00:44:36.590 --> 00:44:44.590 that. And then the, the, I, I just think it was, 00:44:44.949 --> 00:44:48.695 it seems like looking back 00:44:48.728 --> 00:44:53.945 that you feel like this loss of time while you're there, like it's this 00:44:53.978 --> 00:44:58.646 black hole and you don't have a concept of where you're at or what time it 00:44:58.679 --> 00:45:02.896 is. Especially once they started, uh, the plain and then you get that 00:45:02.929 --> 00:45:07.146 epidural and then you start pushing, 00:45:07.179 --> 00:45:15.179 I felt like things were kind of in slow motion and I didn't realize how 00:45:15.619 --> 00:45:23.619 much time had passed, uh, from that first, um, dose of the plain. And then 00:45:24.869 --> 00:45:28.006 when you do find out you're like, oh, my gosh, I've been doing this for 00:45:28.039 --> 00:45:33.736 how long, what, uh, because I pushed for almost 3.5 hours. And from the 00:45:33.769 --> 00:45:38.046 first time that she told me she, they could see the head. It was, it was a 00:45:38.079 --> 00:45:45.807 while, it was a couple hours of pushing. And I finally got to a point 00:45:45.840 --> 00:45:52.256 where I had to, 00:45:52.289 --> 00:45:58.845 I got to a point where I grabbed my husband and, and the nurse and I told 00:45:58.878 --> 00:46:05.727 her I am exhausted. I can't keep pushing. I know you said her head's there. 00:46:05.760 --> 00:46:11.956 But how much longer am I gonna have to have to push? And at this point, 00:46:11.989 --> 00:46:16.126 the doctor and I think this is where I was concerned about having the same 00:46:16.159 --> 00:46:22.115 doctor all the way through. My doctor knew this is what we wanted. If you 00:46:22.148 --> 00:46:26.997 have to cut, cut, if you need to do ac section, do ac section, whatever 00:46:27.030 --> 00:46:34.307 you need to do, do it. And having a new doctor who didn't really have that 00:46:34.340 --> 00:46:38.595 interaction with me, even though he could read your chart, see what was in 00:46:38.628 --> 00:46:45.756 there. I don't know that he had the time to, to check all of that and 00:46:45.789 --> 00:46:49.365 there's a different 00:46:49.398 --> 00:46:54.445 culture here in Flagstaff with birthing. We, we joked with it with our 00:46:54.478 --> 00:46:58.467 labor and delivery nurse in our classes. 00:46:58.500 --> 00:47:03.646 It's very natural. No one wants any drugs, no one wants you to interfere. 00:47:03.679 --> 00:47:08.037 And she said sometimes that interferes and puts the baby at risk and 00:47:08.070 --> 00:47:12.217 we're like, well, we're not those people. So even on my birth plan to 00:47:12.250 --> 00:47:17.017 begin with just to mess with her, we put everything possible that we knew 00:47:17.050 --> 00:47:21.046 would set her off and she just laughed and we're like, uh, Tess is the 00:47:21.079 --> 00:47:26.666 most important thing is that she gets here. Ok. So he didn't know that. 00:47:26.699 --> 00:47:32.776 And he, I think was trying to keep everything supernatural and let it go 00:47:32.809 --> 00:47:39.767 on its own. But he did finally get to a point. And he said, ok, 00:47:39.800 --> 00:47:44.517 uh, you have this band of tissue that we can't stretch because they were 00:47:44.550 --> 00:47:49.296 trying to stretch it with their hands, which that's when you're very happy 00:47:49.329 --> 00:47:54.925 , you have an epidural because she did part of it without the epidural, um 00:47:54.958 --> 00:48:00.506 , which is no fun. And 00:48:00.539 --> 00:48:06.307 he, he said that tissue just doesn't want to get, we can't, we can't get 00:48:06.340 --> 00:48:09.546 her out and I don't want it to affect her. She's been in the birth canal 00:48:09.579 --> 00:48:14.256 for a while and her head's been there for a while. So he said I can cut 00:48:14.289 --> 00:48:18.296 you and she'll come out right away. He said, we can have you keep pushing 00:48:18.329 --> 00:48:21.376 and hope that you tear 00:48:21.409 --> 00:48:28.376 if you don't want me to cut you, um, we can try, which I think they had 00:48:28.409 --> 00:48:33.655 tried but it wasn't working either. The suction, we can do that again. And 00:48:33.688 --> 00:48:38.695 I told them just cut me and my husband's like, wait, wait, wait, what do 00:48:38.728 --> 00:48:44.865 you mean? So he had some concerns because when you talk about that and, 00:48:44.898 --> 00:48:48.776 and the way that the doctor put it, he did say we, we just want to cut you. 00:48:48.809 --> 00:48:51.227 My husband was like, wait, you're gonna cut, what, what are you cutting? 00:48:51.260 --> 00:48:56.166 Why are you cutting her? He, it wasn't registering to him even though he 00:48:56.199 --> 00:49:01.267 had been through all the classes and knew what could happen. It wasn't 00:49:01.300 --> 00:49:05.396 registering to him what they would be cutting and what they would be doing. 00:49:05.429 --> 00:49:08.997 But the, and the doctor said, well, I know if I, if I cut her and we're 00:49:09.030 --> 00:49:12.247 just gonna cut this tissue and he explained it a little bit more to my 00:49:12.280 --> 00:49:16.865 husband and he's just like, he's like, she'll deliver like, like that. And 00:49:16.898 --> 00:49:23.456 I told him you would have told me this 2.5 hours ago. Um, because, uh, it 00:49:23.489 --> 00:49:27.796 was about an hour in where they could see her head. Uh I told you to cut 00:49:27.829 --> 00:49:34.425 me then and he said, ok, we'll cut, we'll go for it. And yeah, as soon as 00:49:34.458 --> 00:49:41.477 he, uh, did that cut, she was right out and 00:49:41.510 --> 00:49:47.175 then that's the point where you. I think my husband thought, ok, it's over. 00:49:47.208 --> 00:49:50.456 But I knew, ok, we still have to deliver the placenta. So they gave you, 00:49:50.489 --> 00:49:54.017 give you a second to rest and they went and checked her and we knew she 00:49:54.050 --> 00:49:58.026 was good and I got to see her and they went and gave her, you know, wiped 00:49:58.059 --> 00:50:06.059 her down and we're checking all her vitals and that's, uh, the doctors 00:50:06.429 --> 00:50:12.557 sitting down there and I could tell there was something else going on and 00:50:12.590 --> 00:50:20.590 he, he took a little moment and he said, ok, um her temperature was uh a 00:50:20.918 --> 00:50:26.717 little low because the magnesium sulfate also affects the baby. So they 00:50:26.750 --> 00:50:32.695 wanted to get her and warm her up and just make sure she was ok. Um 00:50:32.728 --> 00:50:36.247 because they knew it would affect her and then he said it's gonna make her 00:50:36.280 --> 00:50:42.057 a little sleepy and we're gonna bring her over here. I'm trying to deliver 00:50:42.090 --> 00:50:44.467 your placenta. 00:50:44.500 --> 00:50:52.500 I needed to do a couple pushes again, which I did. And he's like this is, 00:50:54.050 --> 00:50:58.436 it's like I ok, I have to talk to you. This is not going well. And at this 00:50:58.469 --> 00:51:03.865 point, my epidural is starting to wear off and 00:51:03.898 --> 00:51:11.026 he starts to explain that my placenta isn't delivering and he is going to 00:51:11.059 --> 00:51:14.606 have to pull it out. 00:51:14.639 --> 00:51:21.017 So I think even more disturbing was watching my husband his face because 00:51:21.050 --> 00:51:29.050 now I have a doctor reaching in with his hand to pull out my placenta and 00:51:29.148 --> 00:51:33.436 then also explaining to us at the same time while he's doing it, I have to 00:51:33.469 --> 00:51:37.456 get it all. He's laying it out in a tray 00:51:37.489 --> 00:51:42.816 because if I miss a piece, you can have internal bleeding and that's not 00:51:42.849 --> 00:51:49.945 good, we'd ha you'd have to have surgery. So we're like, ok, make sure you 00:51:49.978 --> 00:51:55.546 get everything. But as my epidural is wearing off and he's doing this, I 00:51:55.579 --> 00:52:00.666 felt like I was climbing up to the ceiling. This was even more intense 00:52:00.699 --> 00:52:03.017 than the contractions. 00:52:03.050 --> 00:52:08.577 And then to see my husband making his faces and he's standing there 00:52:08.610 --> 00:52:13.506 squinting and wincing. He's like he goes over to the doctor and he's like 00:52:13.539 --> 00:52:17.135 , do you, do you really have to keep doing this because it really looks 00:52:17.168 --> 00:52:22.686 like it's hurting her. And I said, no kidding. It is. But, and then he 00:52:22.719 --> 00:52:30.077 said, yeah, if we don't get it, it's very bad news. So he's like, it won't 00:52:30.110 --> 00:52:35.296 take that much longer. I think I've almost got it all. Maybe you should go 00:52:35.329 --> 00:52:42.086 take, go look at the baby. So, uh he, he kind of took a moment but then he 00:52:42.119 --> 00:52:47.756 stood, stood there and held my hand and we waited till they got all of 00:52:47.789 --> 00:52:53.405 that out. And then they had to sew up the uh Piot toy, which was an 00:52:53.438 --> 00:53:00.066 experience when you have all that pain meds worn off. Um The stitches were 00:53:00.099 --> 00:53:08.099 not fun at all. So you again, I don't think you, you don't think about 00:53:08.869 --> 00:53:14.095 that stuff when you're going to have a baby and then when it happens, it's 00:53:14.128 --> 00:53:18.287 a whole new experience and 00:53:18.320 --> 00:53:25.175 a different, you know, kind of sense of pain and, and you get an 00:53:25.208 --> 00:53:31.057 appreciation for other women who have gone through it and had to do it and 00:53:31.090 --> 00:53:37.247 knowing that, ok, this has happened, but I still know it could be worse. 00:53:37.280 --> 00:53:43.146 I've heard worse, but at the same time you don't wanna, you, you know 00:53:43.179 --> 00:53:48.425 that this is, this is how it was for you and you kind of take it in and at 00:53:48.458 --> 00:53:55.767 the end, you have this beautiful little baby. So it makes it worth it. 00:53:55.800 --> 00:54:00.467 Were you able to nurse and everything or do, do you not want to? I was 00:54:00.500 --> 00:54:05.146 able to nurse. So that was another concern. My blood pressure even after 00:54:05.179 --> 00:54:09.945 having her was still high. They need to leave you on the magnesium sulfate 00:54:09.978 --> 00:54:15.905 until it comes back down because even after having the baby, uh, you can 00:54:15.938 --> 00:54:21.997 still have that stroke afterwards because of the high blood pressure. 00:54:22.030 --> 00:54:27.327 So it wasn't until about 430 in the morning where finally got to go to a 00:54:27.360 --> 00:54:31.425 room and rest and 00:54:31.458 --> 00:54:36.896 they, you know, continually monitor your blood pressure at that point to 00:54:36.929 --> 00:54:42.467 make sure that it's coming down and mine wasn't, it was still, it actually 00:54:42.500 --> 00:54:50.106 got even higher. Um, even the next day in the afternoon to the point where 00:54:50.139 --> 00:54:54.106 , you know, we have all these visitors coming, you have the grandparents 00:54:54.139 --> 00:54:59.017 wanting to come and see the baby and the nurse had to make everybody leave 00:54:59.050 --> 00:55:03.827 after taking my blood pressure. She's like, no, she's too high. It was 100 00:55:03.860 --> 00:55:11.860 and 76 like over 100 and 10. And she's sued everybody out of the room. 00:55:14.539 --> 00:55:18.756 And I think that something else that was on top of that was they, we're 00:55:18.789 --> 00:55:26.057 hearing a, a murmur with my daughter's heart. So they were bringing a 00:55:26.090 --> 00:55:30.756 specialist in. So you have that to, to, to look at, they didn't know if it 00:55:30.789 --> 00:55:35.977 was just because up here in Flagstaff 00:55:36.010 --> 00:55:41.646 that there's a hole that takes a while to close after birth, it takes a 00:55:41.679 --> 00:55:45.626 little bit longer here. Um, because of the altitude. So they didn't know 00:55:45.659 --> 00:55:49.655 if that's what they were hearing or if that she possibly had, um, 00:55:49.688 --> 00:55:55.695 something wrong with the, the heart valves and needed to have more 00:55:55.728 --> 00:55:59.706 attention. So we did end up having to have a specialist come in to look at 00:55:59.739 --> 00:56:05.635 that. So that's also there with you. And I think adding to a little bit of 00:56:05.668 --> 00:56:11.146 stress in the blood pressure. So trying to really give myself time to rest 00:56:11.179 --> 00:56:16.675 after was a little difficult with the, the preeclampsia and the blood 00:56:16.708 --> 00:56:23.686 pressure and then she was very sleepy, drowsy from the magnesium sulfate 00:56:23.719 --> 00:56:31.135 and she didn't want to eat at first. Uh, so we had to have a specialist 00:56:31.168 --> 00:56:37.166 come in to help with that. One of the, um, lactation specialists from the 00:56:37.199 --> 00:56:40.856 hospital came in to talk to us because the other thing that happened too 00:56:40.889 --> 00:56:45.155 because of the medication is my milk wasn't coming in as quickly as it 00:56:45.188 --> 00:56:53.188 should have. So that was another experience. We had to have a formula at 00:56:53.409 --> 00:56:57.936 first because my milk was there, but it wasn't enough. And then it was 00:56:57.969 --> 00:57:02.327 also getting my daughter to eat because she was so tired, she didn't want 00:57:02.360 --> 00:57:08.865 to eat. So she really wasn't sucking the way she needed to. So we had to 00:57:08.898 --> 00:57:16.195 hook up a little tube to uh formula bottle and then have her breastfeed 00:57:16.228 --> 00:57:23.477 with the tube, um, that first day and a half, maybe two days. And then it 00:57:23.510 --> 00:57:30.796 seemed like it was better. So it's again another just unexpected thing 00:57:30.829 --> 00:57:37.477 that you get to experience and it's like, well, whatever we need to do to 00:57:37.510 --> 00:57:44.646 get her to where she needs to be and it worked and she was, she started 00:57:44.679 --> 00:57:49.997 kind getting coming out of it after that, uh, medication started kind of 00:57:50.030 --> 00:57:55.396 pushing out of her system too, but they had to keep me an extra day in the 00:57:55.429 --> 00:58:02.486 hospital. Uh because of the high blood pressure and they really do want 00:58:02.519 --> 00:58:08.166 you to get home to be in your own environment to be with the baby. I think 00:58:08.199 --> 00:58:14.845 maybe I should have been in the hospital another day. Um maybe even on the 00:58:14.878 --> 00:58:18.956 magnesium sulfate another day, 00:58:18.989 --> 00:58:24.307 the blood pressure was a problem. The first 00:58:24.340 --> 00:58:28.635 at least three weeks after I had her when I went home, it took a long time 00:58:28.668 --> 00:58:35.066 for it to get back to normal. But the other, the flip side of that is, you 00:58:35.099 --> 00:58:38.876 know, you're breastfeeding, you don't wanna be, if you're on some 00:58:38.909 --> 00:58:46.909 medication, then you baby can't breastfeed. So if you wanna try to keep 00:58:47.360 --> 00:58:52.006 there, the doctors are trying to weigh that the benefits of breastfeeding 00:58:52.039 --> 00:58:59.227 versus how bad is your blood pressure? Do we need to medicate you so that 00:58:59.260 --> 00:59:07.260 you go straight to formula? And that will be that. So you, I think those 00:59:07.539 --> 00:59:15.539 first few weeks as a parent you're taking that into and you suck it up and 00:59:15.668 --> 00:59:19.416 wait and see and looking back on it like, you know, it probably really 00:59:19.449 --> 00:59:23.445 should have been on some medication, 00:59:23.478 --> 00:59:28.787 but we're here, it was fine. It just took a lot longer for that recovery. 00:59:28.820 --> 00:59:33.497 And I think it's hard when you're a first time parent taking care of 00:59:33.530 --> 00:59:41.530 yourself those first few weeks especially and taking the time to rest and 00:59:42.148 --> 00:59:46.586 let your body recuperate from everything. It's not in your nature. You 00:59:46.619 --> 00:59:54.057 just wanna go and take care of that baby and put them before yourself and 00:59:54.090 --> 00:59:59.095 again, looking back and like, oh, well, that probably wasn't the best 00:59:59.128 --> 01:00:06.307 decision for myself, but we made it through it and uh like I said, it took 01:00:06.340 --> 01:00:10.706 a while but the blood pressure came down and things kind of settled and we 01:00:10.739 --> 01:00:17.236 got back to normal. We did have more with the heart murmur that 01:00:17.269 --> 01:00:24.206 my daughter is so tiny. She's just petite. Um, it's, they think because of 01:00:24.239 --> 01:00:30.486 that you really hear everything from her heart when they listen to it. Uh 01:00:30.519 --> 01:00:35.026 , we had to go and see a specialist, um, even after a year because they 01:00:35.059 --> 01:00:43.059 could still hear this murmur there. But the car, the pediatric cardiac 01:00:43.228 --> 01:00:48.365 cardiac specialists, he, he was like, she doesn't have any fat on the 01:00:48.398 --> 01:00:54.356 front and it echoes on her. So she, she's normal, she's fine. But we did 01:00:54.389 --> 01:00:58.095 have that too where you still have these appointments that you're going to. 01:00:58.128 --> 01:01:02.316 These little tiny scares here and there where you have to worry is 01:01:02.349 --> 01:01:07.635 everything OK? And at that point, I still think it's a lot of listening to 01:01:07.668 --> 01:01:12.787 your gut that it's gonna work out, it's gonna be fine. 01:01:12.820 --> 01:01:16.695 So when you reflect back on this experience, like, what are your thoughts 01:01:16.728 --> 01:01:21.626 and feelings? Is there a way you can, you know a word or phrasing of words 01:01:21.659 --> 01:01:29.659 that kind of reflects that the, the whole experience, 01:01:30.369 --> 01:01:36.066 I think it's very intense, 01:01:36.099 --> 01:01:39.557 but at the same time gratifying 01:01:39.590 --> 01:01:46.936 and overwhelming definitely this, you have just this whole overwhelming 01:01:46.969 --> 01:01:51.416 feelings of emotion the whole time, especially when you sit back and think 01:01:51.449 --> 01:01:54.256 about it because as you're going through it, you don't always have the 01:01:54.289 --> 01:01:57.316 time to feel. 01:01:57.349 --> 01:02:02.486 But when you look at what you've gone through and when you look down at 01:02:02.519 --> 01:02:09.796 that baby. Yeah. It's just this overwhelming joy, overwhelming relief, 01:02:09.829 --> 01:02:15.865 overwhelming, 01:02:15.898 --> 01:02:21.175 I just, uh, even fear because you, you have that going through your whole 01:02:21.208 --> 01:02:29.208 body and you just release it and let it go and see what you have at the 01:02:29.329 --> 01:02:35.486 end. And it's a just, I think the whole birthing process just a release of 01:02:35.519 --> 01:02:39.316 emotion, period 01:02:39.349 --> 01:02:45.706 and feeling all of those things that you're gonna feel all throughout this 01:02:45.739 --> 01:02:53.739 child's life and joy. being scared, relief, 01:02:53.969 --> 01:02:55.945 pain. 01:02:55.978 --> 01:03:03.146 It's all kind of there in that first state and it just takes over you and 01:03:03.179 --> 01:03:09.345 then you let it go and I think it sets you up for childhood, for your, 01:03:09.378 --> 01:03:15.796 your baby and knowing that, ok, I've already had all of that. I'm probably 01:03:15.829 --> 01:03:20.517 gonna have it again, but it's gonna be in steps and stages. I think the 01:03:20.550 --> 01:03:25.945 birthing process you just have it all at one time and then it's just this 01:03:25.978 --> 01:03:33.666 huge release. So, you know, we keep 01:03:33.699 --> 01:03:37.445 going back and reliving some of those things when we have little 01:03:37.478 --> 01:03:42.166 milestones happen or when something comes up or someone else has a baby 01:03:42.199 --> 01:03:47.526 and you talk about the whole experience with them and you also at the same 01:03:47.559 --> 01:03:54.327 time find out, ok, I'm not alone in what I experienced and it brings, I 01:03:54.360 --> 01:03:58.037 think people closer together too. 01:03:58.070 --> 01:04:03.909 I think that was a great ending. Yeah. Excellent. 00, no.