I'm Lo Mansfield, your host of the Lo and Behold podcast. I. Mama of four Littles, former labor and postpartum RN, CLC, and your new best friend in the messy middle space of all the choices you are making in pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. If there is one thing I know after years of delivering babies at the bedside and then having, and now raising those four of my own, it is set.

This is the Lo and Behold Podcast.

Welcome to the Lo and Behold Podcast. I am so excited to finally be able to say that having a podcast has been a dream of mine forever. And if you already follow me on Instagram. Instagram or the occasional TikTok. I don't really post on TikTok that much, but I am there Facebook, wherever. You've probably become aware pretty quickly that brevity.

So anyways, if you don't already know me, if you didn't happen to listen to the trailer and you're just. Jumping in here with me right now. My name's Lo Mansfield. I am the mom, the nurse, the CLC, behind the Labor Mama platform, which is a space where I just spend time on social media, my website, in my online courses, educating parents, families about birth, postpartum, breastfeeding, all of the type of education that I know that you need to have a better experience, especially inside of our hospital system when we're talking about birth and all of that.

And so all of that, I think just really. Solidified how I felt about birth, and then how I felt that you should be prepared for birth based on how it went for me and what I felt was lacking and what wasn't, and all of that. And so that's actually what we're gonna get into here today. I went back and forth on how to start this podcast and honestly, I delayed even recording this first episode for a very long time 'cause I just wasn't sure.

How do we start this? How do we start telling the story of why you should stick around with me, why you may wanna spend time with me, why I am sitting here in front of you, throwing my voice out into all the noise, right? And I really just kept coming back to my birth stories. So in case you dunno, I am a mom of.

And so I just felt like if you wanna understand who I am or where I'm coming from, or why I mother the way I do, or teach the way or do or love the way I do a lot of it. Starts with that first birth story and that kind of transition from LDRP nurse who'd taken care of all these patients, sister, wife, all of that.

And I wanna reiterate again, I do not think our birth stories are what set us up for success in motherhood or good motherhood or whatever you wanna throw in front of that motherhood term. But I do think that they are foundational right to how we move forward. Forward from that place, whether that be immediately into our postpartum or if we're talking even longer term of just here's how my birth went and then this is how it really, how it impacted me for the rest of my life.

All of my subsequent birth stuffs like that. So anyways, that's a long intro. That's a long welcome. But ultimately, I'm delighted to be here and I think this first birth story is a great place to start. So when it comes to getting pregnant, my husband and I did not struggle with getting pregnant with our first baby.

It's essentially where the egg is in the sperm. Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the name. Where you do conceive and an embryo is created, but it just doesn't attach, to the uterine wall. And so sometimes you go to. Positive pregnancy test. Sometimes you won't, but often what happens is your period comes, you know, like 5, 6, 7 days late because for that briefest interval, your body was kind of, I guess the word's like hesitating 'cause that embryo was potentially there and it just doesn't attach.

So we were delighted and very excited about this pregnancy. One thing I wanna note is. My first pregnancy is a very tender space for me because it's very complicated and twisted up in the story of my mom. And if you follow me on Instagram, I've definitely shared about my mom a ton over the years, and you'll hear that more in this story.

So if for some reason, like listening to a story of a sick parent or something like that doesn't feel right for you right now, I would encourage you to just step out of this podcast and come back and listen if or when you feel ready. But that is a part of this. Story. And so I just wanted to put that in front of you if you're just in that tender space, maybe of loss or something like that.

So that's the nurse in me who just. Knows that due dates are guest dates, but I know that I was due in December because for whatever reason, I, and it was early December and for whatever reason, I thought, I will not, I'm, I'm going to have my baby in November, which makes no sense because we have no data to show that.

Anything happens when we think it's gonna happen. And first time moms of anything, I feel like often go late. And the data we do have shows that in general, the majority of us deliver around 40 weeks and three days to 40 weeks and five days, that's like average. So I don't know why I was convinced that I would have my baby in November, but I was, so there you go.

Interestingly, a lot of people ask, oh, how'd you tell your husband? You know, and I actually am maybe a weirdo. You can, leave me a comment and let me know, but I kind of kept it a secret from my husband, Kelvin, and so I think I took the pregnancy test, I wanna say like early in the morning and it wasn't positive.

Right. So I came back to it and it was positive. And I sat on that for, I think I sat on it for the whole day. You know, I'm surprised I can't even remember it now. It might have even been till the next day because for whatever reason I told him on Easter and I remember standing with him in church. I think it had happened that morning, or I'd taken the test that morning.

Anyway, we're standing together at, at church and I remember just singing and thinking. I'm pregnant right now and nobody in the world knows, not even my husband, which baby makes me not sound that that nice. 'cause he should know. But I just wanted to tell him in a sweet way, not that running into their room and waking them up or whatever their room, we share a room, but it's not like you can't tell them straight away as soon as you know.

So I have these cute little cards that I've always shared with him when I've told him, because I've never told him immediately. I've always kind of then. Given him this card once I've known her, were pregnant. And I have these cards now and I keep them and they're glued to the front of our kids' baby books.

So it's kind of sweet memory. But anyways, I told him, that night and then we kind of waited for quite a while, before we wanted to tell parents and family and stuff. You're gonna learn this from me. I have no qualms with you telling the whole world the second you're pregnant. I don't care if you keep it a secret the whole time.

I think you can keep it from people. It's totally between the two of you. So, We personally, I just felt like I wanted to wait until, we'd gone to that first ultrasound and, ideally heard that heartbeat, right. And I think a little bit. Of competing emotions with that was that my mom was pretty sick at that time.

When I was, I guess technically like about five or six weeks pregnant, somewhere in there. I just found out my mom ended up in the ICU and she has a long health history of complications at this point. Cancers that she's beaten and autoimmune disease, things like that. So she was more or less, well she'd, she'd go through something really hard and we'd navigate it as a family and then she'd beat it.

So she kind of always had a little something going on, but at this specific moment, her body, she just got hit with this fungal infection, pneumonia and flu all at the same time. she had an autoimmune disease, which had made her lungs less efficient, let's say. And so the combo of this like triple infection and.

The autoimmune disease and the weaker lungs. She just ended up in the for about a month. so the day of our first ultrasound, we went in and I remember looking at my midwife, and I was, I was crying and emotional, I think before just because of my mom, and I just felt so burdened by everything going on, but of course, also pregnant, right?

And excited and. Nervous and scared, and it's just a lot of juggling emotions throughout my entire pregnancy as you'll continue to hear. So anyway, I looked at my midwife and I just told her, we really need a win today. And then she put that little ultrasound probe on my belly and we heard that heartbeat and you guys.

And I have cried every single time. But I do really remember that moment with Kelvin where it's just like, oh my gosh, we made a baby. And there is it's heartbeat. So. We got that win and I actually, my husband and I got on a airplane that day. We were planning already to fly home, see my parents, so I could spend some time with my mom in the hospital because we did not live in the same state.

Like you picture telling your parents or whoever it is you love, Hey, we're pregnant and there's cheering and hugging and all of that, and that's not quite how it went. But either way, it was a real, a joy to be able to share something so good with her in the midst of something so rough. She did get better.

She left the ICUA few weeks later. And so we'll continue to have some struggles throughout my pregnancy. I'll get there soon. But, yeah, she was out of the ICU soon and it was kind of just like normal life while I. You know, grew this baby and worked out the bedside. So I will say as I was working, there was a lot of, this interesting back and forth of being a nurse and also just being a, a mom, right?

And so there were, a lot of times I'd shoot my parents a text during that pregnancy and be like, Hey, can you just pray for me? You know, I saw something really hard at work today and it, and it was, it's just hard, right? I'm just clinging onto that a little bit or. Yeah, that kind of stuff was just, let's say, keeping me up at night more than it should type thing.

So I don't think it was miserable to be a nurse when I was pregnant. I like, I loved all the knowledge I had. If anything, it bettered my birth, it bettered my pregnancy because I felt so educated and informed and all of that. But it, there was that idea that, you know, knowledge is power, but sometimes they can also.

Or had really good boundaries around like myself and what I let kind of those anxieties do, to me, my own mind, my own body as I kind of grew this baby. The other thing that I would say that was most challenging and really was the most challenging thing, but doesn't. Obvi doesn't really have anything to do with pregnancy, was my mom.

And so I told you she got outta the ICU in the spring and unfortunately a couple months later in the fall, so I was probably like six, seven months pregnant. My mom got a new cancer diagnosis and it was lymphoma or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. And yet, I know it might seem weird that I don't know, but this was her.

Right. And so we were pretty scared when she got this diagnosis because it. It possibly just meant that, I don't wanna say that, oh, this could be the end, but we just, we knew she wasn't equipped to fight cancer again. And that. Chemo and radiation and all of that. She was pretty thin. She was pretty frail.

She'd had a hard time gaining weight after the ICU. We just knew that this was not a body that was prepped to do this big, hard thing. So that became a pretty significant challenge the last couple of months of my pregnancy, just navigating those emotions, everything that was going on with her being scared that, you know, maybe, maybe wouldn't know her, and that this.

Well. You know, losing my mom at the same time, it was, ugh. It was not easy if, because I note you guys, if I start to cry, I promise I'm not gonna cry every episode or every birth story, but some, this one is not the easiest one for me sometimes, but like I said at the beginning, I think this is all part of who I am and.

Why I care about the things I care about and the ways that I do. So anyways, sick mom. And inside of that, we'd kind of learned that she couldn't travel to see me when my baby was going to be born. My husband and I had gone back and forth on whether or not we wanted to have my mom there. We definitely wanted her to be with us postpartum.

So she was an incredible nana. And we could not wait to have her do that and be that with us and for us. So unfortunately that was part of that news. So was that she could not come out. She could not. Be with us. And so we would have to bring baby home at some point to meet her and to get to be with her.

So just another disappointment to kind of walk through. But I will say Kel and I, we were pretty sure, and then ultimately we did decide that we just wanted it to be us in the birth room. Kel and I did birth class together, and I am. So proud of him and us for doing it. I think a lot of times I got the question, you know, lo why are you doing a birth class?

Like what is it like when it's my body, not the patient in front of me, my body? What is the transition gonna feel like for me? How do I prepare my body at home? Like there's so much more to learn. So I think everybody should be in birth education, including a labor and birth nurse. Especially, you know, if it's your first baby and you haven't done it yet.

then for us equally, so was Kel. I wanted, my goal was to try to do birth on Medicaid, so at the hospital, but no intervention, low intervention and unmedicated. And I wanted Kel to be on board with that. I didn't necessarily feel like I wanted to hire doula. I felt like my midwives and the nurses who I worked with, 'cause I delivered, were.

I always say Chase. Chase that unmedicated birth. So to get Kel on board, he'd never held a baby. I mean, he had like zero experience in any of this. And to be honest, when I'd come home from work and tell him stories, he was like. Yeah, great. I'm good. I do not need to hear any of this. He works in business and consulting and just our two niches passions, worlds could not be farther apart, so I felt like it was time for him to get Yeah.

This stuff is not crunchy. It's what we should all just know. And that's why I teach all of this now in my own. Your body of birth course is because this isn't crunchy. This is our bodies, but the. A class that we took, we did a, a class with a doula with two other couples. Some of our best friends who were also having babies, and the six of us took it together and it just taught us so much about our bodies, what was happening, that it was normal, that unmedicated birth was not a weird thing.

I felt like that was super valuable for Kelvin. Like, Hey, here's the physiological process. This is all normal. It's what bodies are designed to do. We've got chemicals and hormones and systems moving around together like this. Not a single part of this is weird or strange or creepy, and if your wife, in this case me wants that unmedicated birth, then you can absolutely support her in that and know that it's.

And so I think. The, our friends we're in birth class with, I'll be honest, they are both su, all four of us. All six of us are like wildly competitive. Some of them were D one athletes at their college. So I, and all of us wanted to do birth unmedicated. So this, you can laugh at me and think that's ridiculous, but I feel like part of it was all of us thinking like.

I'm gonna do this. I'm medicated, we're all gonna do this. Right. So it was almost like, oh, and we were all due within two weeks of each other. It was, our kids all literally ended up coming within like 20 days of each other over their three births. So I felt like we were all just locked in. And Kelvin for sure.

I did, let's see, the first time I did. Primrose oil pills, I would poke a hole in them and then insert them in the vagina every night. I think I started that around 37, 38 weeks. I drank the raspberry leaf tea. I did not eat dates. You guys, I know that's like so big and I teach about it and talk about it, and we talk about all of these tools inside of your body your birth, including the ones I've never tried.

Yeah, it's a, it's one of my favorite things. It is the thing I think to birth prep long before tea or pills or whatever, all of that stuff, I have to say, I have to caveat, of course I did with, you know, midwife approval and just checked in and kind of did the, Hey, can I start doing the things? And you know, my midwives are probably pretty traditional midwives.

They're like, yeah, do whatever you want, you know, within how safe boundaries. And so those were the big things I did at that time. But I know I told you that I. Thought babe would come early without any reason to think so. But I also wasn't obsessed with it, if that's the right word. I, it wasn't like I started doing the mile circuit every day, or lunches or squats.

I actually never had my cervix checked until we got into labor. Yeah. I just, I was prepped and ready and for some reason thought that I would go a little bit early, but other than that, I. I would say I felt pretty chill if that I'm not maybe always a chill person, but in that, I don't remember being too worked up about anything, but definitely was doing a little bit to, to get ready.

One thing I can say is that I worked all the way up until the baby was born. I know sometimes you hear nurses or other. Professions as well. They'll take off a week or two before, but we got no maternity leave at work. We just got, we could use our disability and then FMLA, nothing was paid, so I did not wanna use, you know, a day of leave until my baby was born.

We'll be about 39 weeks, so that'll probably feel nice to have Thanksgiving off. So the day before Thanksgiving was my ended up being my last shift. And I worked so funny to me, 14 hours, and I wanna say I was 39 and zero days pregnant. So obviously if you've been 39 weeks pregnant, you know you are pretty uncomfortable and pretty ready.

But I worked 14 hours and you guys, I did it with joy. I felt so amazing this. Pregnancy. And the reason I worked 14 hours is because right at shift change, this mom walked in and she was having a precipitous birth, which means really, really fast, right? And it was her third baby and you know, the charge nurse.

And everyone's looking around 'cause shift change. We're getting ready to go home. And it's like, this woman is about to have a baby who's gonna take care of her. And so I said I'd stay and I'd deliver her and then go home. After that. And so we did, and we had a beautiful birth and she went really quickly.

So the next day was Thanksgiving. We spent it with some friends and their family. Everyone made jokes about me the whole day, like, oh, don't have the baby on the floor. Ha ha ha. You know, everyone likes to make those kinds of jokes when you're really pregnant. But I felt nothing like zero indication of going into labor at all.

There were, I do remember there were dates on the charcuterie board, the thank for Thanksgiving and, Kelvin. Was telling me to eat, eat them. You know, maybe it'll do something. So I think I ate one or two. I hate dates. We'll talk about that some other time. So I think I choked down one or two as if that would do anything, which spoiler two dates at 39 weeks won't.

You know how it goes. Right? I woke up and I actually felt like I had to. Pee. And so I got up, which is, you guys know, duh, that's normal when you're pregnant. So, got up, went pee, laid back down. And then, I wanna say like 15 minutes later, I thought, oh, weird. I have to pee again. And it and truly like nothing else going on, I just thought like, oh, my bladder feels full, got up, peed again.

And so at that point, I think I thought, oh. I think these are maybe contractions. That's why I keep feeling this. Got back in bed, laid down and had another one like 15 minutes later. And I know everyone says sleep. And if you are a student in my course, I will tell you the same sleep. But guess what I did not do.

I did not sleep. I did not sleep at all. I got up 'cause I at that point was like. I can't, I'm so, I'm distracted, right? I might be in labor and I need to know if I am, not that you could do a darn thing about it. But, so I got out of bed and I do at some point, I started tracking. The first contraction I started tracking was at oh oh 26.

You know, I'd woken up and those were 15 or 10 minutes apart, and then it was eight, and then it was seven. And then they were six. I mean I've not had a labor since that one. That was as textbook as my first one when it came to labor pattern and what felt real and all of that. And they did continue to get painful.

They weren't, at first, they were that noticeable twinge, and then it started to be a little bit painful, and then it started to be clear like, oh, I'm definitely in labor. These are six minutes apart, and like I have to get up off the couch. I had turned on. Friday Night Lights. Shout out for Friday. Night Lights.

Just sway or breathe or something to get through them. And so obviously at that point I'm going, okay, this is, this is probably, you know, real, when do, when should I wake up? Kelvin? Like kind of start having the true conversation in your head of what to do and what does this all actually mean. And I would also say that.

At kind of at some point in that morning when these contractions got closer, the pain was real. It was also when I feel like I made this switch from nurse to to mom or like nurse to to woman in labor because up to that point I had been a little more clinical, right? I'm paying attention to my contractions.

I don't have time to be a nurse. I'm not interested in being a nurse anymore. I'm just a woman trying to have a baby. And so that was about the point when I woke up Kel, it was about 6:00 AM so I'd done labor for, you know, six or so hours on my own and he slept. I went in the room, said, Hey, I think I'm in labor.

I. He flipped the covers back and said, okay, great. Get back in bed. Which makes us laugh now because our, our birth instructor had said, you know, try to get her to rest, try to get her to rest if she's in early labor. But he didn't know I'd been up for like five hours at that point. So I tried to lay down, had one contraction.

It's like, hell no, absolutely not. I am not laying in this bed. So I got up, he got up, up and yeah, we just started laboring together at home. We probably did a couple hours of labor. He tried to get me to eat some food. He called our parents and let them know. 'cause I was sure when I had checked myself prior, I was like four to five centimeters and had had some bloody show and stuff.

I don't know, doing one of those things you can do together when you're laboring at home. And I remember I felt a contraction that was, I did not feel pushy, but there was a fullness. To it. Like, whoa, the baby just dropped. Like something felt different than it had those prior six, seven hours or so. And I said, I think we should go.

And Kel did again, what our birth instructor had taught and said just, you know, like. Chill for a minute, hear her out and then kind of question her. Not in a negative way, but just like, are you sure? Especially because if the desire's unmedicated birth, it's great to stay home as long as you can. Right? And so he just kind of said, are you sure?

This is stressful and anything. So anytime I'm saying, let's go, he is more than ready to get in the car and get to the hospital. So. We jumped in the car, rode to the hospital. I won't tell you the whole story, but we have this dumb story about the seatbelt, which he forced me to wear. So I was super pissed at him because it was so uncomfortable and I tried to ride in the backseat, but he wanted to be buckled.

And it was, yeah, a miserable car ride as it can be. So my guess is baby, I was getting close to transition or something in the car. So pretty uncomfortable, pretty unhappy. And we had about a 25 minute drive, so we made it not the end of the world, but not my favorite part of the whole story. And when we got onto the unit again, I delivered where, I worked.

Just in case like, just knowing all those things brings you a lot of peace. And so we walked in, everybody knew I was coming and we get to the front desk and I don't know if I had thought about anything up to this point, but in my head. Now when I look back, I think, why did they not just put me in a room?

I obviously said I'm coming in, I'm in labor, but I'm a first time mom. You gotta remember this, right? And so big deal. Yeah, I'm a nurse, but also. First time moms often may come in and think, you know, oh my gosh, this is real, this is horrible. And they, it's possible they can be two or three centimeters. They just don't have a gauge for what real labor is.

And I looked at him like, are you kidding me right now? I mean, I feel like I was shooting fire at him and he kind of cringe 'cause it's not his choice, he's just doing the front desk and he's like, yeah, they want you in, you know, blah, blah, blah room. And I was so livid that they were triaging me because I knew I was in labor based on what I felt.

Obviously I checked my own cervix like. But they still triaged me, so they put me in triage. They come in. Sweet. Sally was my labor nurse. She's one of my faves from work. She actually used to work in Australia and now, so she, and then now works here in the us. So she came in to see me. She asked, she could check my cervix.

You know, Sally's incredible. I love her. I love her so much. So she's like, cool, let's have a baby. And she's very chill, honestly. Sally could have caught my baby, no problem. And I would not have worried a single bit if no one else was in that room. So they got us admitted for real labor, and got us into our real room.

We started an iv. I had an IV that birth. And then, yeah, we just labored in the room for a couple hours. , Things were moving quick for our first time. Mom, nobody really bugged me. Nobody really. Like put or expected anything of me. We did a 20 minute monitoring of baby for the first 20 minutes in triage.

And then after you get that, this is pretty typical for everyone. So this would be true for you too. Probably if you go into a hospital, you have to monitor about 20, 30 minutes when you first get in or get admitted or get there, however you wanna say that. And then they can pull it off and then do intermittent monitoring if everything's looking great.

If you listen to all my birth stories, I'll share all the rest of 'em later, but hands and knees on the floor is my jam, and it's where I end up every single birth. Like my pictures from my birth often look the same because it's like there she is on hands and knees on the floor again. So hands and knee on the floor, things were moving pretty fast.

And I will say in the back of my head, that kind of nursey part was saying, this is. Too fast for a first timer, like you're not as far as you think you are. 'cause I started to feel pushy. And at this point I'd been in labor fully for about nine hours. And if you guys know the average first timer, you know, they're usually in labor like 18 to 24 hours, if not longer.

Is this possible? And then the flip of that is, if this is not, if we're not close, I don't know if I can do this. You know, if I'm still seven or whatever. And so I asked her to check me and Kel jumped up to go to the bathroom and I was on the floor 'cause I was in hands and knees. So I just flipped over really quick and laid down so she could check me.

And she said, oh, you know. This is so great. You're 10 and your bag of water is still bulging and it's right there. If you want, I can break it or I can just leave it and you know you can keep going. And I said break it, please break it. Like to me, I felt like it's time. Let's have this baby now. I kind of wish I would've tried to have an in-call birth, but whatever.

Again, like picture, I'm just flat on the floor on this mat. And the baby, there was meconium, unfortunately. So it's just poopy, meconium water everywhere. And all of this is happening in, you know, 90 seconds, right? So Kelvin comes outta the bathroom and the mid and every, everyone's not frantic, I don't wanna say that, but there's, you know, water everywhere and they're saying you're complete.

And I'm trying to get up off the floor. And everyone kind of looks at Kelvin like. She's 10 centimeters, you're gonna have your baby. And he's kind of like, what? I just went to the bathroom and, and now I'm okay. We're having the baby. Like I left for two minutes and everything changed. And so I wanted to be in the bed.

Up to that point I had thought, uh, yeah, I just, I wanna deliver in the bed. That's where I feel good or I think I'll feel good, or whatever. And so. I got in the bed. Kel helped me kind of get in the bed and then I was ready to push. Definitely there was no, no passive descent or anything like that that I was interested in.

Which is probably true for a lot of us when we have that first babe or if we're kind of trying to tune into our body and how it feels to actually push well. And then the next contraction I pushed. Let's say, well, I did it, I did a good job and babe came down and I'm telling you, I felt that baby like, come all the way down.

'cause you really have to kind of push through that fullness and get past that point. And she's like, Hey. Look at Kel. Look at Kel. 'cause he was on one side and Sally was on the other. And she's like, look at Kelvin. And I remember him staring down at me like, you're good. You can do this. You're okay. And it was like being anchored because at that point I just, I think I would've backed up and said, I'm outta here.

For whatever reason, what I was feeling was way too much for me. And so next push. It was the true, like saying, fine, I'm, I'm gonna push past this. The only way out is through. And she was born with the next contraction and we were going to have ke deliver and he, the midwife said, Hey, come here, like babe's coming.

Do not move that leg. And so I wouldn't let him actually like kind of go around the bed and grab, but, uh, midwife delivered, babe held her up. We did not know what we were having. So kind of held her up for Kelvin for him to tell me it was a girl, and then just laid her right on my chest. And I gotta tell you guys, you, I'm sure you've heard the term or someone will tell you, nobody gets a trophy for unmedicated birth. And I will tell you that just in that moment, I was so delighted that Kel and I had done this thing together. And I think I would've been delighted either way if like, whatever way she'd been born or if I'd gotten an epidural or something else had happened.

Freaking did this, and I am a badass. I hope you feel that, and I hope you own that. And you don't let anyone talk you down from that ledge because we were both so, so delighted that we had done this thing together and, and I don't want that to take away from, obviously, we had this beautiful, healthy baby on my chest.

But we, we were, we were holding both those next 30 minutes, hour as we started to meet her, hold her, both of us doing our skin to skin, all that. We definitely just kept looking at each other like we did it. Oh my gosh. We did it and it, and it was a mutual thing and a mutual point of pride in both her and what we'd done.

It is phenomenal. And so I felt like Kelly and I really felt that phenomenal ness. I know that's not a real word. Okay. But I felt like we really felt that in that moment. And here is. The coolest part about all of this. So you guys, obviously I've told you all about my mom and how hard and broken and messy everything had been.

Just knowing that she came on that day. I just calling my mom and getting to, to say she's here. My mom, I still remember, she's like, but it's my birthday. Like, yes mom, it is. How do you like, sorry to my sisters. You can't ever trump this birthday present. But just from my mom to have that experience, you know, on her last birthday for my.

Girl to share it with my mom. You know, they never got to share it in real life. And I could get lost on that and you don't need to hear me do that right now. But it just set felt like such a gift, especially, once she was gone too. Like how sore, how cool that that's how it all worked out. Because I'll have to tell you, when I was pregnant, I never for once thought, oh, this baby will come on my mom's birthday.

I know that we felt like all of our friends around us are they're so joyful and they're excited, and then they had their babies. Both my friends did it unmedicated as well. Our little crew did it. And, you know, so those friends had their babies and they're all delighted. And I'm over here, you know, struggling with my mom and this loss, and then she actually did pass away.

And so postpartum was ugh, complicated and, and it felt pretty lonely and isolating. So I. Think ultimately, I would just encourage you if for whatever reason your pregnancy feels hard and heavy, just as much as it feels joyful, like you're not alone in that, it doesn't mean that this story won't be good and beautiful too.

You know? So if that's you, I just, you know, you're not alone in that. Okay. I just want you to hear that too. then ultimately. You can kind of see so much of, of that experience just instilled in me. I'm, I'm, I mean, I hope you can hear it even in my voice, this passion and love for, for what our bodies are capable of, what we can do as a team and with our partners too.

I. Of maybe the hospital birth class, which we did not do ours, or, go outside of maybe a book or a friend and, and intentionally learn and turn yourselves into a team that has the same vision and has the same goals for, for what birth can look like. And so that's what the Labor Mama platform came from is.

Holy cow, we, we need more than what we're given. And now that I'm a nurse and a mother, I can see all these gaps and I'm gonna fill them. And so that's what I'm doing with my birth courses at ultimately, I hope that's what I'm doing here with the podcast, right, is we're just dropping knowledge in your head all the time, empowering you, giving you those little me too moments as well, so that you just feel.

And so I think the value of learning with and being with someone who says, Hey, this is hard. Hey, here's all the things that might come up that are actually kind of crap, but also here's how you can navigate them and here's some tools for you. That's, yeah, that's just what we all need and that's what we all deserve.

And Kel and I found that in our own birth education and chase that, and now it's just an absolute. Privilege for me to, to get to share that with you. And honestly, I kept applying it. I had three more babies after this one, and I'll share those more later. So. You can tune into those at another time and I can kind of cross reference all of these so you guys can listen to all of them if you jump in later.

So thanks so much for giving me the space to share mine today, and I look forward to talking with you and being with you again in the next episode.

Thank you so much for listening to The Lo and Behold Podcast. I hope there was something for you in today's episode that made you think, made you laugh or made you feel seen. For show notes and links to the resources, freebies, or discount codes mentioned in this episode, please head over to lo and behold podcast.com.

If you aren't following along yet, make sure to tap, subscribe, or follow in your podcast app so we can keep hanging out together. And if you haven't heard it yet today, you're doing a really good job. A little reminder, opinions shared by guests of the show or their own, and do not always reflect those of myself in the Labor Mama platform.