MY BIRTH STORY ⧸⧸ Why I didn't end up having a natural labor...
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Summary
In today's episode, we share our birth story from the day we found out we were having a baby boy! We talk about how we went into labor, what we did to prepare for the birth of our baby boy, and what we learned along the way.
Transcript
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Hello Classic Crew and welcome to today's video where we're going to be sharing our birth story.
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I hope you guys have coffee. We're both drinking coffee. It's early in the morning.
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Little man is sitting over here off to the side. He was supposed to be napping but he woke up a
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little too soon so he's going to be participating. If you hear any baby sounds that's what that is.
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He's highly distracting. I mean because he's so cute. Because he's too cute. He's too cute. He's
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too cute. So in today's video we want to share our birth story. I have been wanting to share this
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with you guys for a while but it's been it's been taking some time for us to get in the swing of
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things and find the time. Because the fourth trimester is time intense. Oh my gosh. The
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fourth trimester is real. We just passed out of it. He's 13 weeks. Oh he's yawning. He's so cute. And
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and so now that we're kind of past that I feel like we're getting into the swing of things and
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is awesome. Well we and he are getting into the swing of things because now he's better at you
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know life. Being a person. Yeah being alive. Such that he can eat regularly and effectively and sleep
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more regularly more effectively. He did great today. Yeah. Yeah. So we are really excited to share our
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birth story. I'm also going to be doing a little bit of a birth class review. So we did a birth class
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called Copa Birth with the intention of doing a natural labor. And I wanted to review it for you
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guys. If you are interested in trying to attempt a natural labor you can decide if that class might
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work for you. It's a little more affordable than a lot of other options and it's all online so you
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can so you can do it at your own pace which I really liked. So I think to begin the story we have
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to start about a week before I went into labor. So I went in for my doctor's appointment. You were able
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to come and they did fetal monitoring to see if the baby was doing well. And in that fetal monitoring
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I found out that I was contracting slightly but regularly and I wasn't really feeling it.
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And I'm just going to be staring off into the corner as far as y'all are concerned because he's dancing
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and that's going to be my default eye position. So that's why that is what it is. Because he's so cute.
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So I also got a cervical check at that appointment to see how far along I was and I believe I was
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two centimeters dilated and 50% effaced at that appointment. But because of the cervical check
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I started contracting and I was contracting every night for about a week to the point where I legitimately
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thought I was in labor a number of times and wasn't sure. And so. Including uh so at the beginning
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of that week we had gone to see the Batman the Robert Pattinson one uh not that any other one would
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be in theaters. And you thought we thought that you might be going into labor during the movie.
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Yes. And that would have made it complicated for us uh you know raising our son because he would
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have been into geek culture which wouldn't be worth it. And uh we might have to name him Robert or
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something and it'd just be all too complicated. He might be emo and goth. Terrible. Yeah. When um we
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went in for the next week's appointment I had progressed a little bit and um what cervical dilation
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and effacement mean is dilation is the opening and effacement is thinning. So the opening getting bigger
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and the cervix getting thinner. So the next day after that appointment after that appointment.
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Don't mind me. I um my legs were pretty swollen. So I will say I had pretty swollen ankles throughout
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the pregnancy. But that night I specifically remember my ankles getting more swollen and I
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turned to you and I said do you remember this? I asked you to massage my ankles a little bit to get
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some of the water retention out because my ankles were so swollen. I remember that you did that. I don't
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remember the timing. Yeah it was the night before I went into labor. And I got. That's what did?
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Well we were also doing these videos on YouTube which I will try and link. I have to find them and
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link them in this video because I think that helped to like get labor started. So uh a little bit of like
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mental context for us right. So this is the leading up to us uh to Abigail giving birth is that the week
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before we had all these uh you know false posts of oh contractions it could happen it could happen.
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So we were in the frame a week later of oh my god can it happen already? Like just let the shoe drop
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you know. And so Abigail had looked up these videos uh exercises on YouTube go figure of how to try and get
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labor to actually happen once you're at the final end point. So we did those and then day or two later
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well and behold Abby does uh start to give birth. Yeah so I don't know if I've told you this but I
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actually had a feeling the night before. I had a feeling the night before I went into labor that
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that was going that I was going to go into labor the next day. But because I'd been kind of thinking
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every night that I was going into labor I didn't want to like say to you I think I'm going to go
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into labor tonight. So I didn't mention it. A little dash of Abby hypochondria. Well yeah I didn't
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want it to be the boy who cried wolf again. So I was like you know what I won't say anything but I
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remember I was taking a shower that night and I was like I got a feeling something's about to
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happen. So I woke up in the morning at about 5 45 and went to the bathroom came back in bed and
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was contracting and I woke you up. I woke you up and I. I'm trying to remember if it was like I think
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it was closer to like 5 a.m. Maybe it was 5 a.m. It was like 4 50. Yeah. Yeah uh what I remember it
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being is uh because you going getting up out of bed wouldn't have woken you up. No no. Uh I remember
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being woken up by you saying I think I'm like going into yeah I think I'm in labor uh or I think
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I'm having the baby and then beat then your water broke. Yeah so I was contracting for a little while
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and I didn't want to wake Jacob up until I was pretty certain that they were coming consistently
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and so that only took about 20 minutes for me to confirm and when I turned over to Jacob and said
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I think I'm going into labor uh my water broke immediately. Are you sure? Yeah. Oh yeah we're
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sure. Right exactly and for those who are curious when your water breaks people will say oh it feels
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like you're peeing. It doesn't feel like that. It just feels like all of a sudden there's like water
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that it doesn't it doesn't it you wouldn't get confused in my experience. I wasn't confused with
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the two feelings and so I um I said that we you know we figured out that this was going on so you
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pulled out the contraction timer and we started timing the contractions and we did that for an
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hour because when you call the doctor you're supposed to have tracked the timing of the contractions
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for an hour to see if they're consistent and to see if they last a good amount of time. So they're
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supposed to be like within five minutes of each other and each contraction is supposed to last a
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minute. Yes. So that was going on. It's the so-called 5-1-1. Yes exactly um which do you want to explain
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what that is? Uh you have contractions five minutes apart or more rapidly. They last one minute and this
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persists for an hour. Yes exactly and so that was what was happening. Real embarrassing if we were both
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wrong about it in the same way and then uh whatever the comments will correct them. Yeah exactly.
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So it was um that's what was going on. The idea of labor as we had learned in our COPA birth class
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which I will say we give a positive review. We really liked it. She did a really great job teaching
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it. Spoilers for the review that's going to happen within several minutes from now. Oh my goodness. Well I don't
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know. Well I don't know how I feel like it's just going to come in and out of play rather than being
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like a review at the end. Uh you will see as we discuss the labor and the delivery and the things
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like that uh whatever faculty of knowledge we have uh with this process is primarily from COPA birth
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entirely from COPA birth on my end but Abigail has always had an interest in conception and uh you know
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pregnancy and delivery and so she had background knowledge but a lot of the more intimate details of
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it in the practical side. That's all from COPA birth and so very we're very favorably disposed towards
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it. There are a few kinks but nothing that should dissuade you from buying it. It's just suggestions
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like you would have for anything for how it could be improved. Yeah but I would recommend it if you were
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looking for a natural labor class. I thought it was really easy to follow. I really liked the woman who
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was leading it. She was very um friendly. It's hers. It's uh she's the entrepreneur. So she's the
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presenter. She is your source of knowledge and she's the entrepreneur behind it. Good for her wearing
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that many crowns all at once. And a mother of five? I think she's either five or six. Yes um which is
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really cool. She produced her videos while pregnant with the fifth. I think it was the fifth. Yeah. Uh but
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just a very calm voiced nice approachable woman. And doesn't make you feel guilty if things don't go
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the natural labor route. Yes she has a very good term that she uses for like her mentality which is
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trying to have a low intervention birth. Not no intervention. So she's not ideologically
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anti-medical intervention. You know you can't do this no matter what or only you know break glass in
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case of emergency. That's the only time that you're going to be using an epidural or medical
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intervention. Instead it's women have a default ability to do this natural side. But life is
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complicated and so things can arise that make it relevant for you to have medical interventions.
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Here's the knowledge base to know how to do things naturally and to know when medical intervention is
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relevant and to know what scale of medical intervention is relevant and when and how so that you can do
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things in the most effective and at least intervening but intervening if necessary way possible.
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Which is great. That's the right mentality as far as we're concerned. Right. And her class I will also say
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is more geared towards someone who wants to have a low intervention labor at a hospital. Yes. Which was
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something that I would only be comfortable doing. It's not a it's not really a home birth kind of thing. No.
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So with that in mind we called the doctor and uh on the morning that I went into labor
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and my doctors were not on call that weekend. So we actually ended up getting set up with a different
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doctor who we loved. She was amazing. She was a complete pro. Awesome. So our doctor very nice guy
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competent all those things but there's a real big difference and I our doctors in his late 30s early 40s
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something like that. I would say like 40s. Yeah it's hard to tell. He's got very smooth skin.
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Yeah. Uh but the woman who was on call was in her 60s and she is I hate that internet phrase uh you know
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x person is just built different or like you know they were just built different back in the day. Yeah.
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But to adopt that phrase that I hate so you know really I should hate myself um this woman is of
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that medical generation that's just built different. Yeah. Like just absolute mix of the right kind of
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intensity but also really doting bedside manner. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of younger doctors like
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gen x doctors or millennial doctors it's like you either get clinical sterile no bedside manner
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or you get basically a hippie. Right. Who wants to be your friend. They like haven't figured out the
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balance yet. Of authority and also warmth. Yes. And this woman absolute pro. And the thing that I
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thought was really cool about her was that she also didn't like baby you. She treated you like
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you're gonna do this. You're gonna be great. I just loved it. It was very inspirational to me. I was
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like okay let's do it. So when we called that morning um and you told her that my water had broken
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and that my my contractions were coming regularly she just said go to the hospital right away and
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skip triage just go to the birthing ring birthing room which is the best. And she called ahead to set
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us up for that. Exactly. And having to go in for to a triage room is just kind of annoying so
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that was really awesome was that we were able to do that. So we went straight to the hospital. I mean
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we packed up. I did not have early labor of like oh I think I'm contracting. This is slow. And then it
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builds and builds and builds. Which can be a multi multi-hour uh stage. Yes. Of labor is this early
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one. Hey and I was I was so excited. We were prepared. We could play some video again. We could watch some
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shows. We could watch movies. I have everything in the world to try and lightly distract you and you're
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like. Right. Yeah it's like you're supposed to start with distraction. Uh I woke up and was
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immediately in active labor. Like I'm in pain. This is intense. It was yeah it was moderate pain
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compared to what came later. Oh yeah. It was moderate pain. Like she could function. It was like oh
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give me a second. Okay as you were saying kind of like if you were getting flashes of headache but
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they weren't like roosting. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say it was like probably a four a four on the pain
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level to start. Really? To start? Yes. Wow. Well because I couldn't because the thing they always say is if
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you can't talk through your contractions. Oh yes. And I couldn't talk through my contractions. You could not.
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Compared to what came later and this is the fun part of Abby's labor story. Yeah. Um yeah. So let's
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continue. So we get to the hospital after having packed up my hospital bag and Jacob's bags and we
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pull in. We get put into the into the room. I ask for a um a nurse that can work with somebody who's
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doing a natural labor. We brought a birth preference rather than a birth plan. That was something that
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was recommended in the birth class which was really smart. Everyone really liked that it said
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birth preference on top. Yes. Everyone liked that. People really appreciated that. We had our preferences
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but did not have like an ideological predisposition of I I will not work with you if you do not accede
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to my demands. Right. It's not the approach that we took. No. And so we met the doctor. I came in at
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so we got into the hospital probably around 8 8 30. Yeah. The doctor came in and introduced herself
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and what I really appreciated was that we told her we were trying to do an a natural labor and she
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basically said you know I totally respect that and if that's what you want to do that's great
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but don't blame yourself if you have to get an epidural. Epidurals are also really positive and can
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be really helpful. They can and the two things that she said that gave me some perspective was it can be
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easier on the baby because as the mom you're not holding your breath you're not straining you're not
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stressed because you're not in as much pain and the baby can handle that a little bit better if
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you're not the one struggling and number two it puts you more in control which seems like it would
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be the antithesis of what's going on but you're more clear-headed so you can make better decisions
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and better choices. Yeah. And when she said that it just allowed me to say okay if this becomes necessary
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I don't have to blame myself which it did become necessary. Yeah. So what ended up happening is
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that at a what was it four centimeters I think I may I must have not I know I was progressing regularly
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so I probably was at three centimeters when we got there because by four centimeters I was in
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extreme. Yeah. So I'll take over this section of the story here. Yes. The camera briefly died but we are back.
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So we get to the hospital at about 8 30 we get through uh all the administrative stuff we're in
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the room by about 9 15 9 30 and then you know things are happening pretty much at the same pace
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Abby has to kind of contractions that make her go and then continue and that's about three centimeters
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dilated up to about four centimeters dilated and then around 11 this is like the labor labor really
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begins because Abby is really starting to be in pain and her pain is intense and so Abby's pain is like
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blinding and she's concerned she's like sweating I don't think I could do this I don't think I could
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do this and and we were trying different positions I was trying all of the breathing techniques and
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we wanted to do the natural labor because we had our concerns about the epidural as I was mentioning
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before and so it's around this time period you know maybe 11 30 that her doctor comes in seeing Abby's
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reaction and noting that it was off in the sense of it shouldn't be this much this early and she checked
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Abby's uh the hand gestures a bit much but you can leave it in uh she checked Abigail's uh face
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and dilation and noted that she was only at about like five centimeters and Abby was in screaming pain
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from the very check itself and then also from the contractions and the doctor again was knowing
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that's to be clear I didn't actually scream I don't think I think I was like ah but I didn't I didn't
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well to me sorry that to me is screaming Abigail's not doing blood curdling shrieks but like you know
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I mean I was moaning and that's not what it was but like ow ow ow ow ow to me that's screaming pain
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fair enough fine uh shouting shouting um but she was knowing that you should not be in that kind of
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pain just from the mere fact of me checking you that's off and we'll come to that later in the
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story um but yeah Abby was in like blinding pain and the level of pain you know they have that idiotic
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pain chart zero to ten how could you possibly rate your pain try um it seemed from our estimates that
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and the doctor as well that the level of pain Abigail was in was the level of pain you would
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experience in so-called transition as the baby descends from up in the womb through that they're
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called stations the level the baby would be in so that the baby is actually primed to then start to
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pass through and be born that's like when like the real real pain begins yeah it's between seven and
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ten seven and ten centimeters yeah so I was at four she was at four and experiencing that equivalent
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level of pain that's like the birth video pain that you may have seen in health class or in real life
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if you had your child children already um but that was so often so strange and I and this is regrettable
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to say I didn't know if Abigail was being a baby about it or not and if Abby was just overreacting to
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an expectable level of pain that's like what women normally experience like is it worth it for you to
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get the epidural just on this basis because we really want to do that natural birth and no one
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had encouraged that in us uh you know we're not my own thing it was Abby's own thing uh her mom was
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like you don't get a medal for doing it like this the doctor of a very similar disposition kind of
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temperament to your mom basically had the same turn of phrase um we don't like there are certain
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elements of like the female youtuber world where like that actually would be something you get a
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medal for right right you know more of the trad world and stuff like that that's not what we are
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that's not what Abby is she has her own video and content out there about trad versus classic like it
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we're not people who are trying to shun modernity in that way and needed to have home birth that stuff
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some people approach it that way that's not it was just me trying it I wanted to see if I could
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and and she had emphasized to me don't let me take the epidural frivolously right so I'm trying to be
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her advocate here I'm I'm trying to be her counsel here her attorney now um so I'm I'm trying to talk
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it out with her while she's in this blinding pain are are you being a baby or are you or like is this
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real or what's going on and I was like I need the epidural and they brought the epidural in
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the doctor did it in like two seconds it was amazing yeah it was very quick but Abby was in
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the same the kind of pain that she had like bend overs that they could access her spine to uh give
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the epidural yeah and even that shift in position because it wasn't the optimal position Abby was like
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in blind pain it was not great and I remember thinking I wanted to try and describe the pain of a
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contraction and I think the best way I can remember it because your brain really does wipe it away which
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is amazing is it's not like super sharp it's like imagine a dull pain that like throbbing but
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it's hard to imagine it being super amped up but it's like that amped up to the highest degree I
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don't know that was not what I was expecting necessarily and that's what it felt like so
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they gave me the epidural and it did lessen the pain but it was not it went from like an 11 to a 6 I
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would say I was still in pain yeah no you were still in quite a bit of pain so uh you know this
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is about 1 p.m uh to give you the time codes again and so she's still in quite a great deal
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of pain and she starts to progress she starts to dilate more and more and then she gets up to
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what like eight nine yeah yeah eight nine pretty quickly after that and so the pain ramps up and
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so she's back to that same level pain that she was in nine again when she first got the epidural so
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we were like debating it and she was gonna get a second dose of the epidural uh my terms might be a
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little bit off here but we were concerned about it being too much and she wouldn't be able to feel
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anything so first she got like 60 percent of the second dose and it was not working enough and so
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she got the other 40 percent and even with a second full dose of epidural she um she still by the
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time that she was like delivering uh our boy uh in like that full level of pain that she was experiencing
00:22:07.520
before it was crazy yeah and i pushed for two and a half hours yes she pushed for two and a half hours
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so he was born at about 454 yeah four i was gonna say 450 precision so he was born about which is
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exactly 12 hours pretty much from when i started going into labor yeah and he uh the reason i had to
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push for so long was that his head was like this and a baby's head when it's being born should be like
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this well should be down by the way there's a spider spider he was turned he was sunny side up
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inside but he did he didn't rotate as he was coming out rotated no no no you're getting confused i'm
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getting confused so he was he rotated his whole body as he was coming out so that he was born the
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correct way he was born anterior but his head position what i'm talking about is his head position
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a baby's head oh yes neck flexion his neck was flexed like this as he was coming out of the
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birth canal because of that my doctor had to reach inside of me and pull his head down and what she
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told me that's what that was that's what that was for and she said to us afterward had you not had an
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epidural you would have had a c-section because i would not have been able to reach inside of you
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and pull his head down because the pain would have been too blinding based upon everything else
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indicated by the cervical checks or every other kind of in manual inspection that the doctor
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needed to perform throughout the process but it also like i think even if i didn't have the problem
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i had which we will explain now um it would be hard to reach into side of some a woman giving labor
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giving birth without medication i don't know about that yeah um so the reason that i was in so much
00:23:57.220
pain was because i had decided i wanted to try to do something called perennial massage which is to
00:24:02.120
basically stretch out the area in advance of labor and get it prepared so that it will stretch
00:24:07.940
easily during labor stretch out because stretch out implies that it will last yeah elasticity as well
00:24:14.440
so just keeping it stretched and keeping it like soft and elastic is the idea so that when you're in
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yeah so when you're in labor that area will stretch even evenly and you won't have tearing
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some people counsel perennial massage so that the area can more naturally stretch and it will not
00:24:31.360
either tear nor be so strained that an episiotomy would be relevant which ideally right oh if that
00:24:37.460
works it'd be nice you avoid a tear or avoid the need for a well what amounts to a medical tear
00:24:43.000
medical cut on it and everyone's happy and you just had to do a little massage but not everyone was
00:24:48.720
happy because it's not that easy in our case and this was the source of our pain or what ended her
00:24:54.180
pain what ended up being the case was that i had had tears prior to even starting labor i had internal
00:25:01.160
tearing because because i had attempted attempted perennial massage and that meant that all of my
00:25:07.260
contractions from the beginning were very painful because i had internal tearing now internal tearing
00:25:12.940
happens during labor but it usually doesn't happen until later in the process when you're actually
00:25:18.140
getting you know your body is is stretching so that the baby can come out and you usually have
00:25:24.560
them also during the pushing stage i had them from the first moment before any of this began because
00:25:31.360
they occurred like a week or two in advance of the uh labor and so when uh abby had done the
00:25:40.820
perennial massage she's like oh this hurts a bit huh and we thought oh you know that's just the way it
00:25:47.000
goes whoever has done a massage stretch on this region of the body before like that's not a thing
00:25:55.120
that occurs in daily life so yeah okay uh some pain along the way that's like mild but there and then
00:26:03.420
nothing was felt afterwards right it's not like it was lingering not as if you had felt or noticed
00:26:08.760
the tear it was just oh happened at the time that pressure was applied oh okay i guess that's part of the
00:26:14.300
territory um so when he was born yeah it was not and so when he was born i had a the spider's back
00:26:21.980
oh i had and he is doing an ambush very slowly so that's why i was in so much pain and thank god for
00:26:28.640
the epidural in many many ways i'm very grateful for it i was able to deliver him like vaginally which
00:26:33.960
is great but he came out and they put him on my chest and i was just in such pain that i really
00:26:39.000
couldn't like take that moment in and i remember just saying like can someone give me something so
00:26:45.980
they ended up giving me another epidural so i had they gave me an epidural to do the to do the
00:26:51.240
stitches oh i didn't even know about that because i was focused on the baby yes at that point jacob was
00:26:56.700
like in it with the baby and i was in it with the stitches because i was gray he was adorable i thought
00:27:04.140
babies were i knew that they were like not a normal uh flesh tone when they come out i just
00:27:10.720
didn't realize gray specifically yeah which is a little scary looking yeah well you know he wasn't
00:27:15.940
moving the exact second he came out he started to move a few seconds after and so just i was so um
00:27:23.680
i was petrified when that happened to take a step back they knew he was fine because he did great
00:27:29.180
throughout the entire labor his heart rate never dropped even a beat he was like doing wonderfully
00:27:34.400
throughout which was really comforting for us oh um so i guess this is a little bit out of order
00:27:41.000
but uh i want to describe my involvement no i want you to so one thing i will say is that the epidural
00:27:47.960
did take more on one side of my body than the other so my left leg was entirely numb i really
00:27:54.060
couldn't like move it and my left my my right leg was dead but my left leg was still like getting
00:28:03.220
feeling in it so now you can say what your involvement was and then let's push it so i
00:28:06.520
can feed this boy yes so just throughout the labor especially as it became uh not just active but like
00:28:12.560
really the intense stages from the epidural and my post 1 p.m on uh as abby was really pushing her
00:28:20.460
right side of her body was just dead and so the nurses were wonderful the staff at the hospital
00:28:25.440
was just absolutely fantastic and professional also a very nice facility but i was in it to win
00:28:30.800
it and so i was um putting the ice pack on her head i was lifting her right leg and putting it into
00:28:37.260
the stirrup each time that she uh was going to be doing a bout of pushing and i was the one who like
00:28:44.860
from the doctor's instructions counting down and like giving like that push time time time time push
00:28:52.820
keep pushing keep pushing like and uh the doctor gave pretty nuanced instructions for the manner in
00:28:58.540
which her physical effort was to be made you know don't push like in your head push down in your body
00:29:03.840
don't like tense up up here in this way and hold your breath in this aspect but like keep the muscle
00:29:09.120
movement going so i was helping to coach with that and not in like a stupid make work way like a union
00:29:15.820
job like oh you know we need someone to plug in the lights and no one's allowed to plug in the lights
00:29:19.580
except dad because that's dad's job oh see he gets a role no i was uh quite involved uh so yeah i was
00:29:26.500
responsible for that right leg he was and he was you were so wonderful i was so grateful you were there
00:29:31.540
you did really i really helped me i thought i would be squeamish about it all and i was very much they
00:29:37.920
brought in a mirror and they watched and jacob was like wow it wasn't the mirror the mirror was at my
00:29:43.300
insistence for you because i had the right leg and i was like oh oh i could see it oh it's happening
00:29:48.720
because it was taking not forever but it was taking hours and you were in so much pain so i was like
00:29:54.000
so what's happening here is it moving like and yeah yes it was it was moving in fact and that is
00:30:00.600
that is the very beginnings of the top of a child's head uh arriving which is so great and so i was so
00:30:06.840
enthusiastic and happy about that so i asked that the mirror be wheeled over so that abby could see
00:30:11.580
to encourage her like see you're doing the work it's working it helped and then it became like
00:30:16.860
unnecessary no i said yeah exactly i said it's good for me to know that it's there and i can see his
00:30:21.640
head and know he's coming out but i can't see myself pushing because the visual of myself like
00:30:28.820
tearing and stuff like that like that that was hard to to swallow yeah um but he was born he was
00:30:37.860
healthy they sewed me up for an hour and a half yes which meant i didn't really get to hold him for
00:30:43.600
the first hour and a half because of the terrors that were exacerbated by the you know physical
00:30:49.060
trauma of delivering a baby on top of the terrors so he was i did i got to hold him immediately after
00:30:55.680
but then i didn't get to hold him again until they were done with the stitches because they wanted
00:30:58.540
to make sure that you know if i was in you know in pain or something i would drop him yeah and then
00:31:03.740
i got to see the placenta you did get to see my best description of a placenta it's like i really
00:31:10.040
thought i was going to be just completely about all the uh in andrew clavin's terms the gore of
00:31:17.220
pregnancy which i i like that term uh and he said of himself in his like autobiography you know like
00:31:22.840
um he was just completely like immersed in the gore of pregnancy in the sense of like he was in
00:31:28.580
it he was massively participatory like there's and the same thing for me and that it was not the case
00:31:34.200
that uh i or anyone else would have thought that that would be the way i'd be in advance so i don't
00:31:39.340
know it was it was very special um but a placenta is wild man it looks like if you combined a liver
00:31:45.720
like beef liver with a jellyfish yeah it's really crazy looking they showed us it was really cool with a
00:31:50.200
six foot three ukrainian woman doctor who was a very thick accent who was super not doctor nurse
00:31:56.360
who's super nice and she's like you want to see it yeah sure it's like you'd think i'd have a better
00:32:00.780
eastern european accent to be able to do after being a russian major but no but what's really
00:32:06.220
amazing about the whole story because you know 12 hours from beginning to end and i would say
00:32:11.260
so what i want to say that's funny about it is that after it happened right after it happened i was
00:32:15.640
like oh my god that was horrifying but looking back on it even within a couple of days i was like
00:32:22.300
first of all i was very lucky overall really really lucky the epidural was helpful and i was it was very
00:32:30.560
quick labor and he came out healthy and i really didn't have any problems recovering afterwards yeah
00:32:38.140
um so they gave you an estimated time of eight weeks because of all the tearing yeah yeah normally it's
00:32:43.840
six weeks is the recommendation or so we were told eight weeks what abigail was given because of all
00:32:49.580
the stitch work that had to be done but her recovery was absolutely on pace and occurred 100
00:32:57.520
so yeah even like four or five days after he was born i was taking walks yeah but the the thing about
00:33:04.600
it is that labor is hard but it's not i i think that what's important to remember is a your your hormones
00:33:13.500
and your brain erased how hard it was but b it's so short they faded in a lot of ways it's erased i
00:33:22.760
feel like i don't even remember and i'm like yeah i could do that again i could do that five more times
00:33:26.560
if you had asked me the next day later and though like the handful of weeks right after
00:33:31.200
it had started to fade a little bit but it was very present for you and then by now yeah apparently
00:33:36.400
it's like i'm just gonna do this again yeah it's fine well we had resolved on that but now it's like
00:33:41.300
without any sense of physical hesitation and it does it's like you're fine it's like it's gonna
00:33:46.080
be okay and your body knows what it's doing and the doctors are there to help you thank god
00:33:51.900
and i'm probably gonna get an epidural and the spider is back on the thing so yeah yeah he's
00:33:58.000
retreated he didn't want these hands but i was gonna say something else about labor which is just that
00:34:04.740
the it's very short and that's the thing to remember it's like you can do anything for just
00:34:11.120
that short amount of time there's a a great tolstoy short story called how much land does a man need
00:34:17.720
and uh there's just a a little phrase in it that the main character who's it's it's like a parable
00:34:24.660
it's not meant to be positive but he says you know like a moment's pain for a lifetime's gain
00:34:29.440
he says that while like mowing or doing something with land to acquire massive amounts of acreage
00:34:36.040
and that he dies of a heart attack while doing it so you know he's not a positive example but it's
00:34:39.760
like uh it's like a weird crypto socialist anarchist tolstoy short story towards the end of his life so
00:34:45.420
okay fair enough but just that phrase a moment's pain for a lifetime's gain i think i said something
00:34:50.120
to that effect to you during the process because i like the turn of phrase and it's true and it's you
00:34:55.140
get this amazing human which is like the best thing ever it is the single most important thing
00:35:00.980
that you'll ever do is have children and i don't need counter examples from anyone who's saying oh
00:35:06.540
x person didn't have kids and they did an amazing wheelchair no stop being pedantic the most important
00:35:11.180
thing a person will do is have a child and i mean what will you ever do for any other person
00:35:19.400
that could possibly be as in uh your father's gonna cringe impactful and important to them
00:35:26.600
as your role as parent to a child like if you want to serve others if you want to be like a nice person
00:35:32.400
and do good things for other people raise a happy healthy child who can love the world and is capable
00:35:39.780
of doing good things and be strong and sovereign and do nice things for themselves and others like
00:35:43.520
it's that's the greatest act of love and devotion to man that you can have and it is absolutely world
00:35:48.920
changing uh yeah i like to say that time did not exist aside from the stuff i was saying earlier
00:35:53.820
about time time did not exist before we had a child in the sense of now time exists in that there's no
00:36:02.400
pausing your role with a child right it's not like oh okay i can't really be a parent for you
00:36:08.680
in some relevant way and do what you need in this section of your life right like zero to six months
00:36:15.220
of your life listen i'm not in a good position to be doing that right now no you have to be immersed
00:36:20.240
all the time doing it time exists whereas prior to having a child or that kind of responsibility
00:36:25.720
time doesn't exist you live in an eternal present you know career okay but you could have a new career
00:36:32.320
you could start a new job whatever like your life can stop and start in any direction in any way
00:36:37.040
then and you can uh faff about for decades even uh but once you have a child your moral responsibility
00:36:44.880
to that child never has an off day yeah and so just time keeps marching on and you can't pause any
00:36:52.520
moment in their life to appreciate it more so newborn stage be there for it or you don't get it
00:36:57.960
yeah although i will say yeah don't be hard on yourself especially with a first child because i'm
00:37:04.560
realizing now that like going into my my next child things might be different but don't be hard
00:37:10.960
on yourself if you don't like the newborn stage the newborn stage is so hard and you are so exhausted
00:37:17.140
the photos in your mind of newborns of like oh it's like a puppy or like oh it's like a baby it's so cute
00:37:24.060
it is really cute in those little snapshots of your mind but the day-to-day of taking care of a newborn
00:37:30.260
is really overwhelming when you've never done it before and when you don't know yet that it has an
00:37:36.300
end point yeah and when you've had a child before i assume with your next child i've heard from other
00:37:41.120
mothers that your next child you're like oh i i can get through this because i know that it's going to
00:37:45.620
get easier but with a first child you're like no this is just it like it's just going to be like
00:37:50.260
this forever the comparison that uh we used earlier on as we're going through the stage to like have
00:37:55.500
perspective is uh you know like teenagers aren't experiencing greater heartbreak than people who
00:38:01.360
are actually full grown and having real relationships it's just that teenagers have no sense of scale or
00:38:06.640
proportion or experience with any of the stuff that they experience and so to them oh my first little
00:38:13.680
girlfriend we dated for a month broke up with me and then they listen to fallout boy and they spiral
00:38:20.140
and it's the worst because they have no sense of when things end or how it gets better or anything
00:38:24.640
like that so too like teenager heartbreak and fallout boy is it with a uh first time mother and all that
00:38:31.560
goes into caring for the newborn and we should probably make another video about things that make
00:38:39.020
having the newborn harder versus easier but from our position right we talk a lot about being classic
00:38:45.260
and family and we are making moves towards fulfilling even more of that yeah like moving to florida and being
00:38:51.260
your family there but it definitely was harder and still is more difficult that um we're not around
00:38:59.580
a deep-rooted community of family or other people where all the kids are around and your mom or my mom
00:39:07.180
can help or even your sister yeah um and things along those lines and it's it definitely would make the
00:39:12.560
newborn stage easier so you know we have lots of thoughts on that and i want i think what we'll don't
00:39:17.060
be a nuclear family be an extended family exactly you did do a podcast on i did on my sub stack
00:39:22.060
shameless plug uh i will i think what we want to do next is do a video um about answering your guys's
00:39:30.740
questions about the fourth trimester yeah that'd be great i think that'd be fun and if i don't say
00:39:35.040
so myself and i think that we should wrap it up here so i can feed this little boy yes he's been
00:39:40.260
very patient and he's now asleep but he should not be he should be eating so abby is very fastidious
00:39:45.540
about his uh amount of sleep and his feeding schedule and everything like that and it's not
00:39:50.160
from some hyper-focused in fake sense of optimizing the baby so that it's nutrient no it's if you want
00:39:58.120
to have a better time with your child sleeping consistently and through the night and like not
00:40:03.120
fussing up to like a 10 uh here i'm on i'm on the screen now up to a 10 then you got to put in that
00:40:09.180
prep work to like manage his sleep manage his feedings and the timing so that you know your
00:40:14.620
effort is only ever like a four consistently versus like oh i won't worry about it now oh it's a zero and
00:40:19.860
then i have to experience a 10 frequently so like yeah no we're really really blessed he's a good
00:40:25.020
sleeper he's a good sleeper but also we've put in a lot of effort and he's already pretty much
00:40:30.560
sleeping through the night which is really amazing it has been for a little bit of time and so it's like
00:40:34.660
yeah and a moment's pain for a lifetime's gain again comes up in terms of like deal with that
00:40:39.860
prep work and that leg work of like scheduling and things like that so that you can profit from oh
00:40:45.860
the baby can stay down for this time that's a very big thing it's not for some uh fake
00:40:51.220
unprovable reason of like optimized health no it's it's real results this is science people
00:40:55.820
so thank you guys so much for watching our birth story slash also our thoughts about parenting
00:41:00.780
and the copa birth review i hope you guys enjoyed it thank you guys so much for watching if you're
00:41:06.980
not already subscribed to my channel make sure to do so and hit that notification bell i would love
00:41:10.980
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00:41:14.740
exclusive content including my book club my podcast and weekly articles and if you'd like to
00:41:19.940
follow me on social media it's at classically abby absolutely everywhere if you'd like to follow my
00:41:24.280
husband on twitter it's at roth the patriot thank you guys so much for watching and i'll see you guys in