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

Today we hear from a woman whose experience ran the gamut from infertility, on the brink of IVF, to smooth pregnancies, quick births, and difficult miscarriages.

Throughout this process she learns:
* important lessons about the limits of her control over the complicated process of growing another human
* the joys of outrunning medical predictions that pregnancy would be very hard to achieve. 

What follows is the first part of our conversation.

Link about inductions
https://evidencebasedbirth.com/evidence-on-inducing-labor-for-going-past-your-due-date/

This week I finish my conversation with Darla.
She has another uneventful pregnancy, that ends in a bang--
* An unintended home birth
*Significant challenges when-- in the early thick of Covid-- Darla has to jump through hospital hoops shortly after delivering a baby.

We pick up where we left off last week. Darla reflects on her first birth with appreciation, and is gearing up for the next birth, in a different setting.

More on recurrence of retained placenta
 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14767058.2019.1688294
https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijgo.14800

To find more about Darla:
Website:

howtoaffordeverything.com

Socials:

instagram.com/my_finansis

youtube.com/@my_finansis

Today we hear from a mother of two who has a degree in public health and was trained as a doula before her first pregnancy.
She didn't expect her water to break the way it did
She didn't expect a retained placenta or the hemorrhage that followed 

and thanks to both her resilience, and the skillful work of her doula, that experience was followed by a second pregnancy and birth.

She also shares great tips about managing the chaos of postpartum with a whiteboard
What follows is the first part of our conversation

Doula care is currently covered by insurance in 21 states:
https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/challenges-and-strategies-in-expanding-non-traditional-pregnancy-related-services-findings-from-a-survey-of-state-medicaid-programs/#:~:text=Endnotes,reimbursed%20through%20a%20bundled%20payment).
To find more from Darla:
Website:

howtoaffordeverything.com

Socials:

instagram.com/my_finansis

youtube.com/@my_finansis

In today's episode I finish my conversation with Jennifer, the Doula in Reno

She shares how she managed all the complications of her daughter's tenuous condition: 
* Born with RDS, a lung condition that has a high mortality rate

* How lessons learned from that experience shaped her willingness to go on to foster babies who came into the world with other compromising circumstances
 
and 

*How her experience in the hospital that first time led her into birth work. 

We pick up where we left off last episode. Jennifer is in the hospital after birth waiting to hear about the fate or her fragile newborn.

Today my guest, a DOULA and birth worker, talks about her challenging experience with INFERTILITY:
* All the minor surgeries
* How hard it was to manage at the age of 19 more or less alone
*How challenging it was to go through a regrettably similar process with her grown daughter

and how she managed the twists and turns of both the pregnancy and the birth, which included HYALINE MEMBRANE DISEASE (aka RDS) and a PDA.

Unequal Investment in Women's Health: Nature, 2023
https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-023-01475-2/index.html

PDA: Patent Ductus Arteriosis
www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/patent-ductus-arteriosus-pda

Connect with Jennifer:https://doulainreno.com/

In today's episode I finish my conversation with Kim about her experience, both having kids and becoming a sleep coach. 

NOTE: I should mention upfront that we talk about a full term still birth and how Kim managed that very challenging experience.

She also shares WHAT MAKES BED SHARING SAFE OR UNSAFE (generally speaking) 

and gives TIPS about what's generally considered NORMAL FOR INFANT SLEEP and WHY WE SEE DISRUPTIONS IN SLEEP even after things have been going well!

We pick up where we left off last week. Kim is talking about the benefits of starting to understand what cultural anthropologists and others define as normal sleep patterns for infants.

AAP Guidelines
https://safesleep.mo.gov/american-academy-of-pediatrics-recommendations/#:~:text=Infants%20should%20be%20placed%20in,position%20as%20soon%20as%20possible

Academic work that contest elements of the AAP Guidelines
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/153/4/e2023064675/196919/The-Tension-Between-AAP-Safe-Sleep-Guidelines-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Connect with Kim
Website: https://intuitiveparentingdc.com/

The Responsive Family Sleep Podcast: https://intuitiveparentingdc.com/podcast

https://www.instagram.com/intuitive_parenting_dc/

https://www.facebook.com/intuitiveparentingdc

In today's episode I speak with a woman who worked in the field of mother and infant health before she became pregnant.

She shares the challenges she encountered in her birth--going from a planned birth center birth to a C section, what she might have done differently in that process,

and how she managed that challenge.

She also shares what led her to become a holistic sleep consultant, a story continued into the next episode.

You can find Kim here: https://intuitiveparentingdc.com/

The Responsive Family Sleep Podcast: https://intuitiveparentingdc.com/podcast

https://www.instagram.com/intuitive_parenting_dc/

https://www.facebook.com/intuitiveparentingdc

 
And some references for infant sleep:
Dr. James McKenna’s work and Baby Sleep Info Source, a wonderful website out of the UK: https://www.basisonline.org.uk/

Kim's blogpost on infant sleep:
https://intuitiveparentingdc.com/blog/2018/7/6/developmentally-appropriate-sleep-expectations-birth-to-age-5

In today's episode I finish my conversation with Shri.

She shares her experience of birth, and the things that made postpartum a challenge--in particular Covid and the isolation it involved

She shares the ayurvedic approach to both the preconception period, and to postpartum to help restore balance in the body

including topics on:
movement
stress management
food/herbs in the postpartum

We pick up where we left off last week, with lessons Shri learned from her experience of a stroke before she got pregnant.

To find More from Shri:
you can check out her website: https://vivabyshri.cohere.live/about
Her Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/vivabyshri/
and her Facebook Page :   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554924608066

In today's episode I speak with a woman who had her whole life turned around by an unexpected health crisis when she was in her early thirties.

She shares

*what she did to reclaim her health
* how it influenced her fertility and pregnancy journey
* the wisdom she gained in this effort to regain her health and her life
* insights from the ayurvedic approach to life

 What follows is the first part of our conversation

You can find Shri at her:
Website : https://vivabyshri.cohere.live/about
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/vivabyshri/
Facebook Page :   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554924608066

This is the THIRD and last part of Amy's story. 

In this episode she talks about 
* the importance of accurate ultrasound in utero 

* her experience of navigating a surgery on her newborn

* the challenges they encounter in the hospital 

* her son's amazing recovery. 

This is a beautiful story of overcoming, and what she learned in the process. We pick up where we left off last week. Amy is talking about an organization that works to draw attention to the important work of sonographers--in particular focused on congenital heart issues