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

Today's guest sailed pretty smoothly through the process of starting a family--she got pregnant relatively easily, carried her pregnancy without too many hiccups and gave birth in a way that wasn't too far from her expectation--and then she hit a breastfeeding wall, which likely contributed to her experience with post partum depression.  Now she's focused on helping women build a better relationship with their bodies.  She clearly articulates the mental and emotional struggle so many of us experience as this process transforms our bodies into something new we've not experienced before, and aims to guide women to a more compassionate understanding of all the amazing things our bodies do. Today's episode is a little different from previous episodes because not only do we talk about my guest's experience, but because of the work she does, we also discuss the press and pressure of postpartum expectations many women have, and talk briefly about one route out of what can be a really challenging fourth trimester. 

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

 This episode could be titled "Overcoming: a guide".  My guest overcame the challenges of premature birth, and a fourth degree tear, and a misdiagnosis, and a fistula and a stoma. Having had so many elements of her life overturned by her experience of birth, she was reborn in a way, as a complete badass tackling every physical thing that previously induced fear in her. She's challenging all the ideas that have created limits on her life and in the process, raising awareness and money for others who have experienced birth trauma and changing our perception of what life with a stoma can look like. I'm also lucky to include the medical insights of a fantastic OB, who happens to be the co founder of an organization called Beyond Fistula, helping women in Kenya who are working to overcome their own challenges with obstetric fistula.

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

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

If you look at birth over time, it used to be the case that women were always attended at their births by other women, and sometimes midwives, and these births happened at home. In the 1930s american women moved those births into hospitals, in part to pursue effective pain relief and the allure of more safety--but for a good decade it was not actually safer to have births in hospitals. And over the next 50 years the process of childbearing became more heavily medicalized--with benefits: lower maternal mortality rates and less pain in delivery. But by the 1980s, in part to push back on the increasing rate of C sections, doula's started to attend women in the hospital--they were trained attendants who had been to other births and could advocate for a laboring women who was too involved in the process of birthing to also be involved in all the decision making...

Studies suggest that doula's can have a very positive effect on a woman's experience and today I'm excited to talk to a doula, both to hear about her birth experiences and her work.  And in fact, in this case, my guest became a doula in large part in reaction to her first birth experience...

for more extensive show notes, see: https://warstoriesfromthewomb.com

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

In this episode, my guest tells her own story of pregnancy and she shares her experience of being a surrogate for another family.  It is, as you can imagine, a very involved process in part because it involves IVF, which always sounds to me like a full time job. Despite the fact that the pregnancies were relatively straightforward, there are challenges along the way, like postpartum depression, which can make other issues that come up more daunting to manage and we discuss those, too.

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

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

If I had to use one word to describe today’s guest i’d say driven, or maybe fierce--truly, and maybe it’s because of these personal attributes that her life in the world doesn’t match the predictions you might make if you looked at her health status on paper. She was born with a neurodegenerative disease that dramatically affected her mobility--she’s never walked and has been wheelchair bound for almost her whole life...and despite the challenges this kind of condition invites, she’s a school psychologist and importantly for this podcast, had a baby. In general, in the medical community, time and time again doctors have told me that pregnancy is an enormous stress test on anyone’s body--to have her condition and successfully manage a pregnancy is next level. And although lots of people enter pregnancy underestimating how it will effect their body, today’s guest had no such luxury. 

Listen to her inspiring story

We also include the insights of a fantastic neurologist.

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

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

Today's guest encountered her own set of surprises in pregnancy and birth.   Because she gave birth almost two decades ago, she didn't have easy access to the overwhelming amount of information that's available now, we had kids before the iPhone was a thing and before the internet was the endless warehouse of information it is today, but she forged her path to parenthood, without immersing herself in the baby and parenting books that we had access to and learned a lot from the process itself. Another thing to know about Julie: she is a radio personality, which means, among other things, that she’s charismatic, she can talk and she’s got a voice like butter.

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

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

If you have the slightest bit of doubt about the complex chemistry needed to inspire an embryo to develop into a baby, a casual stroll around the details of IVF will quickly disabuse you of that notion. Today’s guest set out to get pregnant a few years after she’d turned 35 and pretty quickly turned to IVF.  Agreeing to IVF is agreeing to become a science project. Because she so deeply wanted children, she willingly gave all the blood samples, took all the shots, attended all the appointments that are required to re create this complicated chemistry… Through it all she had her eye firmly focused on the goal: babies...and was ultimately rewarded with two beautiful children. Listen to her inspiring story.

We also include the insights of a fantastic OBGYN.

For extended show notes: See https://warstoriesfromthewomb.com/

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

Today's guest went into pregnancy without many expectations about what the process would be like. This openness likely helped her and her partner negotiate the challenging things she had to manage in delivery and the postpartum period.  After her first birth, the baby encountered an issue that landed her in the NICU, and a few days after her second delivery, my guest wrestled with some scary postpartum issues, sending her to the ICU. Now a few years out from those experiences, everyone is thriving. Listen to her inspiring story.

I also include the insights of a high risk OB.

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

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

The challenges of pregnancy and birth can be useful mentors for future parents. Today’s guest learned something significant from each of her three birth experiences. The first taught her that she’d need an advocate in birth given that it’s such a powerful and vulnerable experience. The second taught her that trust could be restored in a situation when a real partnership was at work, and the third taught her about physical limits and flexibility. Her experiences also encouraged a career change, from a police officer to a trauma practitioner. Listen to her inspiring story of growth.

We also include the insights of a fantastic OBGYN.

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

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

There are three reasons to tune into today’s episode: first, it is a chance to see pregnancy through the eyes of an OB who is both the emotional individual experiencing what we all experience when we try to grow our families, and someone endowed with much more experience and information than most of us. Second reason: when you hear the story of a fully trained OB, who has seen how pregnancies and births can progress in a multitude of ways, but still cannot control her own experience it’s a powerful reminder that (spoiler alert) no one can control this experience. And finally, three, Dr. Ghofrany has a significant following on instagram for a reason: she’s a great combination of articulate, charismatic and warm, and, it turns out, a particularly resilient person who shares her challenging, beautiful and inspiring birth story

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

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