WEBVTT 00:00:00.990 --> 00:00:08.990 This is June 13th at. 11 11:51 and For Solis is recording an interview 00:00:09.669 --> 00:00:16.637 with Laney Mulvaney. Um, Laney, have you received the consent form? Yes, 00:00:16.670 --> 00:00:22.157 and you consent to having your labor delivery story recorded and as as 00:00:22.190 --> 00:00:29.765 part of the Greatative Push project? Yes, OK, um, will you? 00:00:29.798 --> 00:00:35.156 State your full name. Laney Joe Mulvaney. 00:00:35.189 --> 00:00:40.366 All right, baby. Thank you for doing this. Um, could you maybe take us 00:00:40.399 --> 00:00:45.686 back to around the time when you delivered your girls and think of 00:00:45.719 --> 00:00:49.597 anything, a specific event or the time of year, anything that could really 00:00:49.630 --> 00:00:52.436 situate us? 00:00:52.469 --> 00:01:00.469 You know, it was early spring when I had my very first child and I had 00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:05.885 just previously the previous weekend had had my baby shower, so I remember 00:01:05.918 --> 00:01:10.605 that it was just it was that freshness of Arizona where it was the pool 00:01:10.638 --> 00:01:15.286 sparkled and the breeze was nice and everyone sat outside in the shade 00:01:15.319 --> 00:01:19.126 already, of course, but it was that sweet time of year when you can be 00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:27.159 outdoors in Arizona. Great, how was pregnancy for you? My, my very first 00:01:27.260 --> 00:01:31.426 pregnancy was difficult. I had at the end of the pregnancy, I had a hard 00:01:31.459 --> 00:01:37.135 time getting up out of bed. I was sore all the time. I really had a lot of 00:01:37.168 --> 00:01:41.947 the ligaments that are loosened during pregnancy. I had a lot of trouble 00:01:41.980 --> 00:01:46.706 getting up out of bed. And I had a lot of trouble sleeping at night too. 00:01:46.739 --> 00:01:51.816 So that that part of the pregnancy wasn't pretty, and I gained 60 pounds 00:01:51.849 --> 00:01:56.826 both times I was pregnant, so the doctors thought I was eating a crazy 00:01:56.859 --> 00:02:01.025 amount of food, which is not true. It just was a lot of water weight, so 00:02:01.058 --> 00:02:05.486 there weren't it wasn't it wasn't a beautiful process by any means for me. 00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:08.126 How is that emotionally? 00:02:08.159 --> 00:02:12.446 Looking back at the photos, I just can't even imagine that your body can 00:02:12.479 --> 00:02:18.846 endure that physical transformation. I don't remember being unhappy at the 00:02:18.879 --> 00:02:23.525 time. I remember thinking that this is such a blessing. I know I'm going 00:02:23.558 --> 00:02:28.245 to have a happy, healthy child, and I'm glad I get to do that, but I 00:02:28.278 --> 00:02:34.327 remember just the physical pain, but it wasn't emotional pain. So can you 00:02:34.360 --> 00:02:39.297 talk about your ideas of the labor and delivery? Like did you have a plan 00:02:39.330 --> 00:02:45.475 or how would you know thought about that process? 00:02:45.508 --> 00:02:50.207 When I initially was pregnant, I did what a lot of women do, and they do 00:02:50.240 --> 00:02:55.017 the how to have a baby class with their husbands. And I just remember 00:02:55.050 --> 00:03:00.136 sitting in that class going, I'm just sure. I knew in the back of my mind 00:03:00.169 --> 00:03:04.677 that this was not going to be a process that I ever endured. I knew from a 00:03:04.710 --> 00:03:09.457 very from the very beginning that I most likely was not going to have a 00:03:09.490 --> 00:03:16.467 vaginal delivery. I um my first pregnancy. And my subsequent pregnancy 00:03:16.500 --> 00:03:21.547 turns out both of them were frank breech, so that means that their spinal 00:03:21.580 --> 00:03:26.297 cord actually aligns with your spinal cord when their spine is usually at 00:03:26.330 --> 00:03:32.177 your stomach. So they were backwards and with head up instead of head down 00:03:32.210 --> 00:03:38.305 the entire time. So that's why I had to have both of them, C-sections. 00:03:38.338 --> 00:03:44.585 So, um, can you maybe elaborate now, you know, kind of run with it about 00:03:44.618 --> 00:03:48.346 that experience, you know, maybe when you found out about that, and the 00:03:48.379 --> 00:03:54.786 process leading up towards the cesarean. OK. The, I knew that the baby had 00:03:54.819 --> 00:03:58.666 not turned rather late in the pregnancy, so the chances of the baby 00:03:58.699 --> 00:04:05.606 turning was quite slim. And the doctor told me that if the baby remained 00:04:05.639 --> 00:04:09.606 head up in that frank breech position that a vaginal delivery was not an 00:04:09.639 --> 00:04:12.745 option, but I had known that for a long time. I just had sensed that that 00:04:12.778 --> 00:04:17.046 wasn't going to be something that I could do, and I'm not exactly sure 00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:20.805 where that notion came from, but I just knew sitting in that class that 00:04:20.838 --> 00:04:27.736 that was not going to be something that happened to my body. So As the 00:04:27.769 --> 00:04:33.015 pregnancy progressed, my feet actually became gigantic, and I could 00:04:33.048 --> 00:04:38.395 actually feel the water in my feet as I walked in my shoes. And I would 00:04:38.428 --> 00:04:42.616 wear these loafers and for some reason to this day, my children are 5 and 00:04:42.649 --> 00:04:47.166 7 years old. I don't wear the loafers, but I still have them for some 00:04:47.199 --> 00:04:52.486 sentimental weird reason, but I remember the water sloshing on the tops of 00:04:52.519 --> 00:04:56.486 my feet and then my feet kind of folding over the tops of the loafers. 00:04:56.519 --> 00:05:03.046 That's how huge my feet were. And I started going to the doctor at the 00:05:03.079 --> 00:05:09.817 end of the pregnancy, every couple of days I believe that you go. And One 00:05:09.850 --> 00:05:14.687 of the measurements when I had an ultrasound, they measured the amniotic 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:20.887 fluid, and I went from a normal amniotic fluid is about 30 to 35 if I 00:05:20.920 --> 00:05:25.156 recall correctly. It's been a long time since I've known that number. But 00:05:25.189 --> 00:05:29.986 when my seven year old, when it came time for her to be born, she was 00:05:30.019 --> 00:05:36.226 actually due on the 28th of March, and March 10th, I went in for a 00:05:36.259 --> 00:05:40.346 doctor's appointment and the amniotic fluid was at a 4, which is 00:05:40.379 --> 00:05:46.305 dangerously low. So the doctor advised me right then and there to go to 00:05:46.338 --> 00:05:51.127 the hospital and we were going to have a baby that afternoon. So I said, I 00:05:51.160 --> 00:05:54.967 think I at least want to run home and grab my husband and my stuff would 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:59.846 that be OK? And she said, yeah, grab that and then meet me there. And so 00:05:59.879 --> 00:06:03.127 in just a couple of hours, it was a whirlwind and I had driven to the 00:06:03.160 --> 00:06:08.055 doctor by myself. Because I thought it was a routine appointment and I 00:06:08.088 --> 00:06:13.495 called Jim, who was on the golf course, and said, You need to get off the 00:06:13.528 --> 00:06:17.137 golf course and meet me at home. We're going to the hospital to have a 00:06:17.170 --> 00:06:21.805 baby, and he thought I was joking and I said, I'm not, I'll meet you there 00:06:21.838 --> 00:06:25.976 in 20 minutes. So he left the golf course. We met at home and I cried the 00:06:26.009 --> 00:06:30.825 entire way. It was probably the most dangerous car ride. Because it's 00:06:30.858 --> 00:06:34.947 terrifying to think that your amniotic fluid is so low, terrifying to 00:06:34.980 --> 00:06:38.705 think that you still had, you know, 18 more days until the baby had 00:06:38.738 --> 00:06:42.586 arrived. I really didn't, I didn't have any of the clothing washed, and I 00:06:42.619 --> 00:06:46.986 just kept thinking I have to focus on the important part of this, which is 00:06:47.019 --> 00:06:51.745 having a healthy baby. And not the the washcloths clean and ready because 00:06:51.778 --> 00:06:55.745 that stuff can happen. But my mind couldn't rationalize all of that at 00:06:55.778 --> 00:07:01.906 that time. It was just this massive chaos of a storm driving down the 51 00:07:01.939 --> 00:07:07.416 freeway and And my mom, who lives in town, had met us at the house because 00:07:07.449 --> 00:07:11.937 she was going to babysit our dog at the time and she took a couple of last 00:07:11.970 --> 00:07:18.575 minute pictures of us heading to the hospital and my face was as red as 00:07:18.608 --> 00:07:23.416 red could be. It was every emotion that I'd ever felt in my life, I think 00:07:23.449 --> 00:07:28.736 it just rode itself in red across my face that during that time. And we 00:07:28.769 --> 00:07:33.616 headed to the hospital and I did not know if I was having a boy or a girl. 00:07:33.649 --> 00:07:37.467 And that was something that we had said that there are not very many 00:07:37.500 --> 00:07:41.305 great surprises in life anymore and we really wanted to wait. And then as 00:07:41.338 --> 00:07:47.825 soon as Jim was with me, I felt much more at ease that there was, I had a 00:07:47.858 --> 00:07:51.926 partner in this process and I just kept thinking, we're going to finally 00:07:51.959 --> 00:07:55.786 find out if we have a boy or a girl. And then I started focusing on that 00:07:55.819 --> 00:08:01.697 instead of the The the turmoil and the fear of, um, you know, just having 00:08:01.730 --> 00:08:05.616 that little amount of fluid, which is dangerous for the baby because then 00:08:05.649 --> 00:08:10.226 they can't breathe and. But it was 00:08:10.259 --> 00:08:15.296 Let's see what else. You talk about the literal experience. So then we got 00:08:15.329 --> 00:08:21.507 to the hospital, right? And I remember them putting in the IV and I had to 00:08:21.540 --> 00:08:26.067 focus outside the window and I found this crack on the building that I 00:08:26.100 --> 00:08:30.947 really zoned in on because the IV hurt so terribly bad and I don't know if 00:08:30.980 --> 00:08:34.946 she just was not professional at it, but I thought, oh my gosh, if I can't 00:08:34.979 --> 00:08:40.755 handle this, there's no way I could have pushed out a baby. And the Then 00:08:40.788 --> 00:08:47.326 Jim got in his gown and it was a rather rapid. It wasn't a check-in and 00:08:47.359 --> 00:08:52.326 wait. It was we got there, I got in the bed. Jim got his gown on and we 00:08:52.359 --> 00:09:00.359 went down to the room where they did the C-section. So, um, and then they 00:09:00.840 --> 00:09:05.765 strap your arms down so you can't move your arms and I kept remember I saw 00:09:05.798 --> 00:09:09.287 the IV and I thought, gosh, I hope they can stop bumping that. That hurt 00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:16.145 so bad. And um Before that, actually though, they had you lean over to put 00:09:16.178 --> 00:09:20.066 the epidural in, or the spinal block, I think is what it's called for a 00:09:20.099 --> 00:09:24.525 C-section. It's an actual block, so you feel nothing from the waist down, 00:09:24.558 --> 00:09:27.807 and then they strap your hands down and then give you the oxygen mask and 00:09:27.840 --> 00:09:33.196 then the gown goes up. So the the sheet so that you can't see what's going 00:09:33.229 --> 00:09:38.086 on down there, and then they bring the husband in. And I believe at that 00:09:38.119 --> 00:09:44.186 time, that's when they put in your catheter. And then start prepping the 00:09:44.219 --> 00:09:49.936 area. And what I remember at that time was that you know I could I felt 00:09:49.969 --> 00:09:53.667 like there was a lot of motion back there, but I couldn't see anything and 00:09:53.700 --> 00:09:57.307 I kept thinking about, you know, pay attention to the man behind the 00:09:57.340 --> 00:10:02.307 curtain and just thinking about how sad it was that I actually couldn't 00:10:02.340 --> 00:10:07.907 see my child arrive on the planet, but um my husband actually took a 00:10:07.940 --> 00:10:13.456 really pretty killer video that so I did get to see it. And what I 00:10:13.489 --> 00:10:18.775 remember about that was that they would set a clock from the time that the 00:10:18.808 --> 00:10:22.736 iodine that they did the iodine wash and then they just waited and waited 00:10:22.769 --> 00:10:27.667 and waited and I felt like those minutes just seemed to the seconds were 00:10:27.700 --> 00:10:31.255 hours. I thought, let's just start the process. Now what if the amniotic 00:10:31.288 --> 00:10:35.657 fluid is a 2? Let's go. You made me rush, and now you rush. And that was 00:10:35.690 --> 00:10:41.866 that was just a weird length of time. And then Um, as Jim starts videoing 00:10:41.899 --> 00:10:47.686 the the birth, um, he has the cut in the incision and you can see some of 00:10:47.719 --> 00:10:52.307 the the blood and obviously there's very little fluid, so that not a lot, 00:10:52.340 --> 00:10:55.826 you know, when a normal delivery happens, there's a lot of fluid and I 00:10:55.859 --> 00:11:03.616 obviously had very little. So I Watching the video now, I just realized of 00:11:03.649 --> 00:11:07.456 all of the pressure that I felt on my body and what that really was, and 00:11:07.489 --> 00:11:12.976 it was human hands pushing this 6 pound baby, which is kind of tiny, but 00:11:13.009 --> 00:11:18.616 out of a 3 or 4 inch incision. So it's pretty miraculous that there are 00:11:18.649 --> 00:11:22.486 little pieces of rubber that can bend in that crazy way to get out of that 00:11:22.519 --> 00:11:29.836 tiny little incision. And You know, I could only hear Jim talking to me 00:11:29.869 --> 00:11:34.537 about it. I couldn't see anything and I remember him saying that, oh, 00:11:34.570 --> 00:11:40.066 there's an arm. Oh, there's and then he's like, what is it? And you can 00:11:40.099 --> 00:11:42.787 see because they're Frank breech babies that they just look like a little 00:11:42.820 --> 00:11:47.836 tube of sausage and their legs are, you know, back up over their ears and 00:11:47.869 --> 00:11:55.255 they just are and having the The baby come out and I remember this 00:11:55.288 --> 00:12:01.346 terrible feeling on my right side. And it was, it hurt so bad and I 00:12:01.379 --> 00:12:03.986 thought, how come I'm feeling this? And then when I actually watched the 00:12:04.019 --> 00:12:09.816 video later, I could see that it was the nurse who was actually pushing 00:12:09.849 --> 00:12:13.866 the baby from the top so the doctor could grab from the bottom and it was 00:12:13.899 --> 00:12:18.907 kind of like this internal external tug of war. And I remembered like, 00:12:18.940 --> 00:12:22.025 she's going to break my ribs. 00:12:22.058 --> 00:12:24.586 I didn't know what it was, but I thought it was going to break my ribs and 00:12:24.619 --> 00:12:29.986 it was actually the nurse pushing the baby out through. That little hole 00:12:30.019 --> 00:12:36.826 Just wild to think about that that can happen. 00:12:36.859 --> 00:12:40.505 And then when they, 00:12:40.538 --> 00:12:44.486 when they flip the baby over and they say, you have a little girl, and 00:12:44.519 --> 00:12:47.765 that's all I heard and I couldn't see anything yet, but it's on the video 00:12:47.798 --> 00:12:52.206 , so I'm glad that I actually have that as my archive that I got to see 00:12:52.239 --> 00:12:57.525 something. But then they take this little tiny 6 pound thing way over on 00:12:57.558 --> 00:13:02.976 the other side of the room. And you don't get to see it, hold it, feel it 00:13:03.009 --> 00:13:09.037 , can't hardly even hear it because the cry is so so weak. And I just 00:13:09.070 --> 00:13:12.566 remember her looking so saying to myself, one, I can't believe that I have 00:13:12.599 --> 00:13:17.297 a daughter. That just sounds, it didn't come naturally at the time. And 00:13:17.330 --> 00:13:23.157 then to see that because she was so early, um, 00:13:23.190 --> 00:13:26.596 She was so early and because it was a C-section baby, they come out and 00:13:26.629 --> 00:13:31.885 they're covered in that Vernex still, which is that waxy. Um, coating on 00:13:31.918 --> 00:13:35.755 the baby that actually diminishes as the baby goes as the baby progresses 00:13:35.788 --> 00:13:41.246 and comes to be full term. So she was just covered in this white waxy 00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:45.375 material, and I thought, they better get that off of her. That's it seemed 00:13:45.408 --> 00:13:52.525 very alien-esque. Not not a cute, healthy baby being born into the world 00:13:52.558 --> 00:13:58.177 that you see on the movies. It was very down and dirty and in the trenches. 00:13:58.210 --> 00:14:01.417 I can't believe what I'm seeing. I can't believe that came out of my body 00:14:01.450 --> 00:14:07.807 type of thing. 00:14:07.840 --> 00:14:13.307 How about the um recovery process and then once the baby was born. They 00:14:13.340 --> 00:14:19.547 were stitching you up or you know how does. Seeing that Jim's obviously 00:14:19.580 --> 00:14:22.706 focused on the baby now, so I don't know exactly what's going on down 00:14:22.739 --> 00:14:29.015 there. I don't know anything about the afterbirth or the placenta. I have 00:14:29.048 --> 00:14:36.407 no clue what happened. Um, I do remember feeling After the first pregnancy 00:14:36.440 --> 00:14:41.515 , very itchy in my face because of the drugs, and the second pregnancy, I 00:14:41.548 --> 00:14:47.446 had a violent reaction to the anesthesia and I vomited for 6 to 8 hours, 00:14:47.479 --> 00:14:51.596 so I didn't hold the baby. I would try to nurse and then throw up and try 00:14:51.629 --> 00:14:58.436 to nurse and then throw up and it just that was and I remember Jim walking 00:14:58.469 --> 00:15:04.986 around the room with the baby crying Genevieve, the youngest crying. And I 00:15:05.019 --> 00:15:11.145 just thought, I'm so sick. I can't hold the baby and I just I just wish 00:15:11.178 --> 00:15:17.917 for silence. I can't rest. I can't recover. And it was a pretty, that was 00:15:17.950 --> 00:15:22.657 a hopeless feeling that I couldn't help her. I couldn't help Jim and I 00:15:22.690 --> 00:15:27.496 couldn't help myself. I just laid there and tried not to throw up again 00:15:27.529 --> 00:15:33.787 and again and again. But the first pregnancy, we nursed right away. She 00:15:33.820 --> 00:15:39.515 had hiccups right away. It was adorable and very sweet. And then the 00:15:39.548 --> 00:15:45.076 second pregnancy, the second day was much better for me. But the exact 00:15:45.109 --> 00:15:49.076 same thing happened where it was low amniotic fluid for Genevieve and it 00:15:49.109 --> 00:15:55.037 just happened like that and right to the hospital. But I was smart enough 00:15:55.070 --> 00:15:59.157 to have Jim with me that time because then I, I had known that something, 00:15:59.190 --> 00:16:03.076 once you feel the water sloshing in your feet, you know that the fluid's 00:16:03.109 --> 00:16:06.787 probably going to the wrong place. 00:16:06.820 --> 00:16:10.746 How was the scarring process and all of that afterward? The first 00:16:10.779 --> 00:16:17.885 pregnancy, I had a huge colloid scar, and the same doctor did my second 00:16:17.918 --> 00:16:23.686 delivery. And she noticed that that scar tissue had colloided quite 00:16:23.719 --> 00:16:28.297 severely, so she actually put a steroid cream in there the second time and 00:16:28.330 --> 00:16:32.297 cleaned it and did a scar revision since she was there anyway, which was 00:16:32.330 --> 00:16:36.775 nice. So the first one was not pretty, and the second one turned out 00:16:36.808 --> 00:16:40.476 better. So I figured I might as well stop while I'm ahead. But was it 00:16:40.509 --> 00:16:45.116 painful, like take care of your child and having had a C-section or how 00:16:45.149 --> 00:16:51.326 was that not a problem? I, you know, I, I didn't feel that it was. I The 00:16:51.359 --> 00:16:57.196 part that bothered me the most was the changing on the diaper station 00:16:57.229 --> 00:17:01.787 because I would bump myself and that was quite sensitive. But if I would 00:17:01.820 --> 00:17:04.986 change her you know anywhere else that wasn't didn't have, it just rubbed 00:17:05.019 --> 00:17:10.825 , it was just the right height. So that was painful. But the, you know I I 00:17:10.858 --> 00:17:15.217 just had a really terrible feeling that the pain pills were not making me 00:17:15.250 --> 00:17:21.726 as astute or Knowing what was going on, so I just started taking Tylenol 00:17:21.759 --> 00:17:24.756 and Motrin and stopped taking any pain pills, and then I just walked to 00:17:24.789 --> 00:17:31.236 the hospital floors with the baby and then we got to push her around which 00:17:31.269 --> 00:17:37.276 it was good, but I think because I got up walking with the first child so 00:17:37.309 --> 00:17:41.035 soon, I had very few problems and I think I had more problems with the 00:17:41.068 --> 00:17:44.676 second child because I was so sick that I didn't get up and start walking 00:17:44.709 --> 00:17:47.736 around right away. So it was just they were just very different 00:17:47.769 --> 00:17:50.065 pregnancies and the pregnancies themselves couldn't have been more 00:17:50.098 --> 00:17:56.117 different. One was very sweet craving and one was very salt craving, and 00:17:56.150 --> 00:18:00.877 they ended up both being girls. So I don't think that those those wives' 00:18:00.910 --> 00:18:04.156 tales have any truth. I think every pregnancy is different, just like 00:18:04.189 --> 00:18:07.825 every child is different. 00:18:07.858 --> 00:18:13.545 I think that's great. Thank you so much for talking with us today. I think 00:18:13.578 --> 00:18:16.500 that was a perfect way to end.