What You Didn't Expect in Fertility, Pregnancy & Birth: Real Stories & Expert Insights

"Need is an albatross. To be needed is to wear the weight of stones across your chest . To be wanted. That is different. To be wanted by a child is the cleanest of desires. To still be wanted once the child is fed and rested; once the diapers are fresh and the snot has been siphoned from the nostril and the gas has passed through. To be recognized not just as a body, but a person, a comfort to be loved."

That's a brief snippet from the novel The Upstairs House by Julia Fine, my guest today on war stories from the womb.

In today's episode the author Julia Fine talks about how her experience with the significant challenges of the postpartum period inspired her novel, what she's learned about the experience now that's its in the past, and how she hopes it will foster a more realistic public discussion of the challenging months that most mothers encounter in the weeks just after birth. I also include the insights of a former OB who has become a postpartum coach about signs of PPD and her advice to help women manage this often stressful, exhausting, lonely period.

For extended show notes and links to Julia's work and to Dr. Patel, see:
the War Stories from the Womb website

This is a weekly show that highlights real pregnancy, birth & postpartum stories.

In today's episode Anja and I talk about one of the biggest, most oppressive misconceptions about motherhood and what you can do to free yourself from it.  We also discuss:
* how not being in control can actually be a good thing; 
* how being present makes you better able to respond to needs, including your own, and
* how the energy you bring into the room and the world has a big impact on both you and your kids.

For extended show notes with links, see War Stories from the Womb

This is a weekly show that highlights real pregnancy, birth & postpartum stories.

 
In today's episode you will hear, useful advice about what you can do if the birth you planned is not the birth you experience, a  very persuasive case for why trusting your intuition is so important and insights on how much control you have in this transformation from person to parent.

Nausea & Lethargy in Pregnancy
Mayo Clinic on NVP

Cleveland Clinic  on NVP

Pregnancy Sickness Support on NVP

Stanford Children's Hospital on NVP

Healthline on NVP

What happens in a C section surgery
Mayo Clinic on C section

Cleveland Clinic on C section

American Pregnancy on C section


Anja's book, Parent from this place: How Yoga Changed The Way I Parent

This is a weekly show that highlights real pregnancy, birth & postpartum stories.

Entering the Postpartum period is like being pushed from a cliff...it's a shocking change of circumstance, and its hard to be ready for it that first time--but with more accurate expectations??

In today's episode, you'll hear the second half of my conversation with Megan. She shares:
 how she was able to identify what turned out to be PostPartum Depression in herself given that her symptoms didn't match her sense of the condition
*a useful perspective on managing the difficult transition from one to two children and 
*insights about what she wished she'd known about her relationship with her OB before the birth of her first child.

Crohn's Disease & Pregnancy
https://www.webmd.com/ibd-crohns-disease/crohns-disease/managing-the-effects-of-crohns-disease-during-pregnancy#:~:text=Active%20Crohn's%20disease%20raises%20the,as%20compared%20with%20pregnant%20women.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/crohns-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20353304

https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/504701

For audio transcript and more, see the War Stories from the Womb website

This is a weekly show that highlights real pregnancy, birth & postpartum stories.

"I've heard somewhere that the first baby, it's like a bomb going off in the mother's world. It just totally rearranges you. It rearranges your life. "

This is a show that shares true experiences of getting pregnant, being pregnant and giving birth to help shift the common cultural narrative, away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition you can find on all kinds of media to a more realistic one. It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and release that new person from your body into the world. 

I'm your host, Paulette Kamenecka, I'm a writer and an economist and a mother of two girls. 

In today's episode, you'll hear my guest talk about what she wished she'd known before her first birth, birth that really went off the rails relative to her expectation, or mother's expectation and the norm in her very large family. The fact that her expectation didn't match up with her experience really colored her views about herself. She shares her difficult feelings, and her hard won insights after an induced labor that led to a C section, how she managed that challenge, and the ones that followed.

For extended Show notes, See War Stories from the Womb

This is a weekly show that highlights real pregnancy, birth & postpartum stories.

Today my guest experiences pain in her everyday life for years after pregnancy. And then finally, after an exploratory surgery gets a diagnosis she's been waiting for.

In today's episode you'll hear how Kayshaun, a nurse turned businesswoman who is a mother of four, uses the pain and trauma from her four complicated pregnancies to help other people find their voice and consider natural remedies to things like fibroids and endometriosis. What follows is the second part of our conversation, as well as some insights about preeclampsia from Dr. Jellen, the Program Director of maternal fetal medicine fellowship and associate professor of psychology and obstetrics at Johns Hopkinsa professor of obstetrics and gynecology.  We return to Kayshaun's story, as she's describing the consequence of carefully investigating her fibroid situation as she's trying to avoid a hysterectomy.

See Extended Show Notes

This is a weekly show that highlights real pregnancy, birth & postpartum stories.

Hi, Welcome to War Stories from the Womb: In this episode, you'll hear how my guest rejected her doctor's insistence on a hysterectomy, and saved her own life.

Today you'll hear how my guest learns to trust her body and advocate for herself--a critical skill in any medical procedure, maybe even more critical in childbirth; she had four births and each was visited by something unexpected that required her to develop these skills.  She also shares how alternative medicine, in particular, acupuncture, helped to relieve chronic pregnancy-related pain when no western medical approach worked.  We are also joined by the Program Director of maternal fetal medicine fellowship and associate professor of psychology and obstetrics at Johns Hopkinsa professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Jellen, who shares insights about preeclampsia .  who shares insights about current theories and approaches to preeclampsia. What follows is the first part of our conversation.
See Extended Show Notes.

This is a weekly show that highlights real pregnancy, birth & postpartum stories.

In this episode, you'll hear how Kekua managed when her experience really shoved her expectations for her second birth off a cliff.

Tune in to hear how Kekua manages many surprises in the birth of her second child. The number of things that go a bit sideways almost makes her story sound like a sitcom script, but the way she sticks the landing, in the end is what's truly impressive. We'll pick up our conversation where Kekua is talking about the slow return of her body, a body she recognizes after the birth of her first child.

This is a show that shares true experiences of getting pregnant, being pregnant and giving birth to help shift the common cultural narrative away from the rainbows and roses depictions you can find on social media, and other media more broadly, to a more realistic one (which might include rainbows and wreckage?).  It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and deliver them into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and the mother of two girls who had far too many surprises on my own path to motherhood.

Today's topic is one that doesn't see much daylight, to the detriment of everyone who has kids: the struggle to manage an unwanted pregnancy. There are any number of ways to respond to an unexpected pregnancy, and in today's show, you'll hear about an uncomfortable but very real response; one that I'm guessing is not uncommon, but is a perspective we rarely hear because the only culturally acceptable response is Joy; you have to be joyous. But that expectation is wildly unrealistic. Having a child is a life changing event, and on the cusp of such an event, any number of reactions can occur. In part one of my conversation, listen to how my guest managed these uncomfortable feelings.

For more extended show notes, see: http://warstoriesfromthewomb.com/

This is a weekly show that highlights real pregnancy, birth & postpartum stories.

This is a show that shares true experiences of getting pregnant being pregnant and giving birth to help shift the common cultural narrative away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition you can find on social media, and other media more broadly, to a more realistic one.  It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and deliver them into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and the mother of two girls.

In this episode Aliza, a doula and marriage coach, shares ways to manage contractions...she also talks about some important strategies to help you get a birth closer to the one you want; everyone who has been through birth knows that it's really the baby who is driving the process, but there are things you can do to potentially impact your experience, and Aliza talks about some of them here, as well as other doula secrets.

For extended show notes, see: https://warstoriesfromthewomb.com

This is a weekly show that highlights real pregnancy, birth & postpartum stories.