Classically Abby - MY BIRTH STORY ⧸⧸ Why I didn't end up having a natural labor...

00:00:00.000 Hello Classic Crew and welcome to today's video where we're going to be sharing our birth story.

00:00:10.240 I hope you guys have coffee. We're both drinking coffee. It's early in the morning.

00:00:15.300 Little man is sitting over here off to the side. He was supposed to be napping but he woke up a

00:00:19.420 little too soon so he's going to be participating. If you hear any baby sounds that's what that is.

00:00:24.760 He's highly distracting. I mean because he's so cute. Because he's too cute. He's too cute. He's

00:00:29.480 too cute. So in today's video we want to share our birth story. I have been wanting to share this

00:00:35.740 with you guys for a while but it's been it's been taking some time for us to get in the swing of

00:00:40.340 things and find the time. Because the fourth trimester is time intense. Oh my gosh. The

00:00:44.840 fourth trimester is real. We just passed out of it. He's 13 weeks. Oh he's yawning. He's so cute. And

00:00:50.860 and so now that we're kind of past that I feel like we're getting into the swing of things and

00:00:57.680 is awesome. Well we and he are getting into the swing of things because now he's better at you

00:01:03.780 know life. Being a person. Yeah being alive. Such that he can eat regularly and effectively and sleep

00:01:12.040 more regularly more effectively. He did great today. Yeah. Yeah. So we are really excited to share our

00:01:20.020 birth story. I'm also going to be doing a little bit of a birth class review. So we did a birth class

00:01:26.260 called Copa Birth with the intention of doing a natural labor. And I wanted to review it for you

00:01:33.020 guys. If you are interested in trying to attempt a natural labor you can decide if that class might

00:01:38.520 work for you. It's a little more affordable than a lot of other options and it's all online so you

00:01:43.200 can so you can do it at your own pace which I really liked. So I think to begin the story we have

00:01:48.740 to start about a week before I went into labor. So I went in for my doctor's appointment. You were able

00:01:53.620 to come and they did fetal monitoring to see if the baby was doing well. And in that fetal monitoring

00:01:59.960 I found out that I was contracting slightly but regularly and I wasn't really feeling it.

00:02:06.740 And I'm just going to be staring off into the corner as far as y'all are concerned because he's dancing

00:02:11.540 and that's going to be my default eye position. So that's why that is what it is. Because he's so cute.

00:02:17.320 So I also got a cervical check at that appointment to see how far along I was and I believe I was

00:02:24.440 two centimeters dilated and 50% effaced at that appointment. But because of the cervical check

00:02:31.820 I started contracting and I was contracting every night for about a week to the point where I legitimately

00:02:39.620 thought I was in labor a number of times and wasn't sure. And so. Including uh so at the beginning

00:02:46.600 of that week we had gone to see the Batman the Robert Pattinson one uh not that any other one would

00:02:52.360 be in theaters. And you thought we thought that you might be going into labor during the movie.

00:02:58.780 Yes. And that would have made it complicated for us uh you know raising our son because he would

00:03:03.560 have been into geek culture which wouldn't be worth it. And uh we might have to name him Robert or

00:03:09.320 something and it'd just be all too complicated. He might be emo and goth. Terrible. Yeah. When um we

00:03:16.240 went in for the next week's appointment I had progressed a little bit and um what cervical dilation

00:03:23.540 and effacement mean is dilation is the opening and effacement is thinning. So the opening getting bigger

00:03:29.960 and the cervix getting thinner. So the next day after that appointment after that appointment.

00:03:36.680 Don't mind me. I um my legs were pretty swollen. So I will say I had pretty swollen ankles throughout

00:03:44.300 the pregnancy. But that night I specifically remember my ankles getting more swollen and I

00:03:49.620 turned to you and I said do you remember this? I asked you to massage my ankles a little bit to get

00:03:54.080 some of the water retention out because my ankles were so swollen. I remember that you did that. I don't

00:03:58.280 remember the timing. Yeah it was the night before I went into labor. And I got. That's what did?

00:04:03.320 Well we were also doing these videos on YouTube which I will try and link. I have to find them and

00:04:08.820 link them in this video because I think that helped to like get labor started. So uh a little bit of like

00:04:15.540 mental context for us right. So this is the leading up to us uh to Abigail giving birth is that the week

00:04:23.720 before we had all these uh you know false posts of oh contractions it could happen it could happen.

00:04:29.220 So we were in the frame a week later of oh my god can it happen already? Like just let the shoe drop

00:04:35.980 you know. And so Abigail had looked up these videos uh exercises on YouTube go figure of how to try and get 0.58

00:04:45.400 labor to actually happen once you're at the final end point. So we did those and then day or two later

00:04:52.780 well and behold Abby does uh start to give birth. Yeah so I don't know if I've told you this but I

00:05:00.880 actually had a feeling the night before. I had a feeling the night before I went into labor that

00:05:05.280 that was going that I was going to go into labor the next day. But because I'd been kind of thinking

00:05:09.660 every night that I was going into labor I didn't want to like say to you I think I'm going to go

00:05:13.520 into labor tonight. So I didn't mention it. A little dash of Abby hypochondria. Well yeah I didn't

00:05:18.140 want it to be the boy who cried wolf again. So I was like you know what I won't say anything but I

00:05:22.500 remember I was taking a shower that night and I was like I got a feeling something's about to

00:05:26.500 happen. So I woke up in the morning at about 5 45 and went to the bathroom came back in bed and

00:05:32.080 was contracting and I woke you up. I woke you up and I. I'm trying to remember if it was like I think

00:05:40.220 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

00:05:45.740 being is uh because you going getting up out of bed wouldn't have woken you up. No no. Uh I remember

00:05:50.680 being woken up by you saying I think I'm like going into yeah I think I'm in labor uh or I think

00:05:57.960 I'm having the baby and then beat then your water broke. Yeah so I was contracting for a little while

00:06:06.000 and I didn't want to wake Jacob up until I was pretty certain that they were coming consistently

00:06:10.860 and so that only took about 20 minutes for me to confirm and when I turned over to Jacob and said

00:06:15.220 I think I'm going into labor uh my water broke immediately. Are you sure? Yeah. Oh yeah we're

00:06:23.040 sure. Right exactly and for those who are curious when your water breaks people will say oh it feels

00:06:29.000 like you're peeing. It doesn't feel like that. It just feels like all of a sudden there's like water

00:06:34.240 that it doesn't it doesn't it you wouldn't get confused in my experience. I wasn't confused with

00:06:39.380 the two feelings and so I um I said that we you know we figured out that this was going on so you

00:06:47.680 pulled out the contraction timer and we started timing the contractions and we did that for an

00:06:51.920 hour because when you call the doctor you're supposed to have tracked the timing of the contractions

00:06:57.740 for an hour to see if they're consistent and to see if they last a good amount of time. So they're

00:07:02.540 supposed to be like within five minutes of each other and each contraction is supposed to last a

00:07:07.580 minute. Yes. So that was going on. It's the so-called 5-1-1. Yes exactly um which do you want to explain

00:07:15.300 what that is? Uh you have contractions five minutes apart or more rapidly. They last one minute and this

00:07:23.920 persists for an hour. Yes exactly and so that was what was happening. Real embarrassing if we were both

00:07:30.160 wrong about it in the same way and then uh whatever the comments will correct them. Yeah exactly.

00:07:35.340 So it was um that's what was going on. The idea of labor as we had learned in our COPA birth class

00:07:42.640 which I will say we give a positive review. We really liked it. She did a really great job teaching

00:07:46.980 it. Spoilers for the review that's going to happen within several minutes from now. Oh my goodness. Well I don't

00:07:52.000 know. Well I don't know how I feel like it's just going to come in and out of play rather than being

00:07:56.260 like a review at the end. Uh you will see as we discuss the labor and the delivery and the things

00:08:03.380 like that uh whatever faculty of knowledge we have uh with this process is primarily from COPA birth

00:08:11.700 entirely from COPA birth on my end but Abigail has always had an interest in conception and uh you know 0.96

00:08:18.560 pregnancy and delivery and so she had background knowledge but a lot of the more intimate details of

00:08:24.560 it in the practical side. That's all from COPA birth and so very we're very favorably disposed towards

00:08:31.040 it. There are a few kinks but nothing that should dissuade you from buying it. It's just suggestions 0.99

00:08:36.720 like you would have for anything for how it could be improved. Yeah but I would recommend it if you were

00:08:41.160 looking for a natural labor class. I thought it was really easy to follow. I really liked the woman who 0.88

00:08:46.740 was leading it. She was very um friendly. It's hers. It's uh she's the entrepreneur. So she's the

00:08:52.600 presenter. She is your source of knowledge and she's the entrepreneur behind it. Good for her wearing 0.70

00:08:57.580 that many crowns all at once. And a mother of five? I think she's either five or six. Yes um which is

00:09:04.840 really cool. She produced her videos while pregnant with the fifth. I think it was the fifth. Yeah. Uh but

00:09:10.660 just a very calm voiced nice approachable woman. And doesn't make you feel guilty if things don't go 0.92

00:09:19.360 the natural labor route. Yes she has a very good term that she uses for like her mentality which is 1.00

00:09:26.400 trying to have a low intervention birth. Not no intervention. So she's not ideologically

00:09:31.880 anti-medical intervention. You know you can't do this no matter what or only you know break glass in

00:09:38.260 case of emergency. That's the only time that you're going to be using an epidural or medical

00:09:42.240 intervention. Instead it's women have a default ability to do this natural side. But life is 1.00

00:09:50.520 complicated and so things can arise that make it relevant for you to have medical interventions.

00:09:55.160 Here's the knowledge base to know how to do things naturally and to know when medical intervention is

00:10:00.300 relevant and to know what scale of medical intervention is relevant and when and how so that you can do

00:10:07.260 things in the most effective and at least intervening but intervening if necessary way possible.

00:10:14.080 Which is great. That's the right mentality as far as we're concerned. Right. And her class I will also say

00:10:18.560 is more geared towards someone who wants to have a low intervention labor at a hospital. Yes. Which was

00:10:24.460 something that I would only be comfortable doing. It's not a it's not really a home birth kind of thing. No.

00:10:29.080 So with that in mind we called the doctor and uh on the morning that I went into labor

00:10:34.760 and my doctors were not on call that weekend. So we actually ended up getting set up with a different

00:10:40.060 doctor who we loved. She was amazing. She was a complete pro. Awesome. So our doctor very nice guy

00:10:46.960 competent all those things but there's a real big difference and I our doctors in his late 30s early 40s

00:10:54.360 something like that. I would say like 40s. Yeah it's hard to tell. He's got very smooth skin.

00:10:59.360 Yeah. Uh but the woman who was on call was in her 60s and she is I hate that internet phrase uh you know 0.57

00:11:10.540 x person is just built different or like you know they were just built different back in the day. Yeah.

00:11:15.480 But to adopt that phrase that I hate so you know really I should hate myself um this woman is of 1.00

00:11:22.200 that medical generation that's just built different. Yeah. Like just absolute mix of the right kind of

00:11:28.880 intensity but also really doting bedside manner. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of younger doctors like

00:11:35.880 gen x doctors or millennial doctors it's like you either get clinical sterile no bedside manner

00:11:42.420 or you get basically a hippie. Right. Who wants to be your friend. They like haven't figured out the

00:11:47.480 balance yet. Of authority and also warmth. Yes. And this woman absolute pro. And the thing that I

00:11:54.580 thought was really cool about her was that she also didn't like baby you. She treated you like 1.00

00:11:58.980 you're gonna do this. You're gonna be great. I just loved it. It was very inspirational to me. I was

00:12:04.060 like okay let's do it. So when we called that morning um and you told her that my water had broken

00:12:08.680 and that my my contractions were coming regularly she just said go to the hospital right away and

00:12:15.440 skip triage just go to the birthing ring birthing room which is the best. And she called ahead to set 0.91

00:12:20.240 us up for that. Exactly. And having to go in for to a triage room is just kind of annoying so

00:12:24.340 that was really awesome was that we were able to do that. So we went straight to the hospital. I mean

00:12:30.200 we packed up. I did not have early labor of like oh I think I'm contracting. This is slow. And then it

00:12:37.760 builds and builds and builds. Which can be a multi multi-hour uh stage. Yes. Of labor is this early

00:12:44.120 one. Hey and I was I was so excited. We were prepared. We could play some video again. We could watch some

00:12:49.600 shows. We could watch movies. I have everything in the world to try and lightly distract you and you're

00:12:54.700 like. Right. Yeah it's like you're supposed to start with distraction. Uh I woke up and was

00:13:00.340 immediately in active labor. Like I'm in pain. This is intense. It was yeah it was moderate pain

00:13:07.520 compared to what came later. Oh yeah. It was moderate pain. Like she could function. It was like oh

00:13:11.760 give me a second. Okay as you were saying kind of like if you were getting flashes of headache but

00:13:16.940 they weren't like roosting. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say it was like probably a four a four on the pain

00:13:22.940 level to start. Really? To start? Yes. Wow. Well because I couldn't because the thing they always say is if

00:13:27.200 you can't talk through your contractions. Oh yes. And I couldn't talk through my contractions. You could not.

00:13:31.520 Compared to what came later and this is the fun part of Abby's labor story. Yeah. Um yeah. So let's

00:13:41.380 continue. So we get to the hospital after having packed up my hospital bag and Jacob's bags and we

00:13:47.760 pull in. We get put into the into the room. I ask for a um a nurse that can work with somebody who's

00:13:54.520 doing a natural labor. We brought a birth preference rather than a birth plan. That was something that

00:13:59.340 was recommended in the birth class which was really smart. Everyone really liked that it said

00:14:03.100 birth preference on top. Yes. Everyone liked that. People really appreciated that. We had our preferences

00:14:07.180 but did not have like an ideological predisposition of I I will not work with you if you do not accede

00:14:15.000 to my demands. Right. It's not the approach that we took. No. And so we met the doctor. I came in at

00:14:22.560 so we got into the hospital probably around 8 8 30. Yeah. The doctor came in and introduced herself

00:14:29.120 and what I really appreciated was that we told her we were trying to do an a natural labor and she

00:14:36.820 basically said you know I totally respect that and if that's what you want to do that's great

00:14:41.360 but don't blame yourself if you have to get an epidural. Epidurals are also really positive and can

00:14:47.500 be really helpful. They can and the two things that she said that gave me some perspective was it can be

00:14:53.240 easier on the baby because as the mom you're not holding your breath you're not straining you're not

00:14:58.280 stressed because you're not in as much pain and the baby can handle that a little bit better if

00:15:02.500 you're not the one struggling and number two it puts you more in control which seems like it would

00:15:08.660 be the antithesis of what's going on but you're more clear-headed so you can make better decisions

00:15:13.740 and better choices. Yeah. And when she said that it just allowed me to say okay if this becomes necessary

00:15:19.780 I don't have to blame myself which it did become necessary. Yeah. So what ended up happening is

00:15:26.360 that at a what was it four centimeters I think I may I must have not I know I was progressing regularly

00:15:32.660 so I probably was at three centimeters when we got there because by four centimeters I was in

00:15:38.400 extreme. Yeah. So I'll take over this section of the story here. Yes. The camera briefly died but we are back.

00:15:45.940 So we get to the hospital at about 8 30 we get through uh all the administrative stuff we're in

00:15:53.720 the room by about 9 15 9 30 and then you know things are happening pretty much at the same pace

00:16:00.240 Abby has to kind of contractions that make her go and then continue and that's about three centimeters 0.98

00:16:06.340 dilated up to about four centimeters dilated and then around 11 this is like the labor labor really

00:16:13.080 begins because Abby is really starting to be in pain and her pain is intense and so Abby's pain is like

00:16:22.900 blinding and she's concerned she's like sweating I don't think I could do this I don't think I could

00:16:28.760 do this and and we were trying different positions I was trying all of the breathing techniques and

00:16:35.020 we wanted to do the natural labor because we had our concerns about the epidural as I was mentioning

00:16:40.220 before and so it's around this time period you know maybe 11 30 that her doctor comes in seeing Abby's

00:16:45.660 reaction and noting that it was off in the sense of it shouldn't be this much this early and she checked

00:16:53.900 Abby's uh the hand gestures a bit much but you can leave it in uh she checked Abigail's uh face

00:17:01.600 and dilation and noted that she was only at about like five centimeters and Abby was in screaming pain 1.00

00:17:09.100 from the very check itself and then also from the contractions and the doctor again was knowing

00:17:14.020 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

00:17:18.840 well to me sorry that to me is screaming Abigail's not doing blood curdling shrieks but like you know

00:17:25.040 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

00:17:31.620 fair enough fine uh shouting shouting um but she was knowing that you should not be in that kind of

00:17:39.420 pain just from the mere fact of me checking you that's off and we'll come to that later in the 0.99

00:17:44.760 story um but yeah Abby was in like blinding pain and the level of pain you know they have that idiotic 0.99

00:17:52.340 pain chart zero to ten how could you possibly rate your pain try um it seemed from our estimates that 0.81

00:17:59.260 and the doctor as well that the level of pain Abigail was in was the level of pain you would

00:18:04.360 experience in so-called transition as the baby descends from up in the womb through that they're

00:18:10.120 called stations the level the baby would be in so that the baby is actually primed to then start to

00:18:15.560 pass through and be born that's like when like the real real pain begins yeah it's between seven and

00:18:21.400 ten seven and ten centimeters yeah so I was at four she was at four and experiencing that equivalent

00:18:27.560 level of pain that's like the birth video pain that you may have seen in health class or in real life

00:18:34.160 if you had your child children already um but that was so often so strange and I and this is regrettable

00:18:41.240 to say I didn't know if Abigail was being a baby about it or not and if Abby was just overreacting to 0.82

00:18:47.800 an expectable level of pain that's like what women normally experience like is it worth it for you to 1.00

00:18:53.700 get the epidural just on this basis because we really want to do that natural birth and no one

00:18:58.880 had encouraged that in us uh you know we're not my own thing it was Abby's own thing uh her mom was

00:19:04.480 like you don't get a medal for doing it like this the doctor of a very similar disposition kind of

00:19:09.280 temperament to your mom basically had the same turn of phrase um we don't like there are certain

00:19:15.920 elements of like the female youtuber world where like that actually would be something you get a 1.00

00:19:22.380 medal for right right you know more of the trad world and stuff like that that's not what we are

00:19:28.900 that's not what Abby is she has her own video and content out there about trad versus classic like it

00:19:34.000 we're not people who are trying to shun modernity in that way and needed to have home birth that stuff

00:19:41.420 some people approach it that way that's not it was just me trying it I wanted to see if I could

00:19:45.580 and and she had emphasized to me don't let me take the epidural frivolously right so I'm trying to be

00:19:54.160 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

00:20:01.440 it out with her while she's in this blinding pain are are you being a baby or are you or like is this

00:20:07.080 real or what's going on and I was like I need the epidural and they brought the epidural in

00:20:10.980 the doctor did it in like two seconds it was amazing yeah it was very quick but Abby was in

00:20:15.700 the same the kind of pain that she had like bend overs that they could access her spine to uh give

00:20:22.540 the epidural yeah and even that shift in position because it wasn't the optimal position Abby was like

00:20:28.640 in blind pain it was not great and I remember thinking I wanted to try and describe the pain of a

00:20:35.280 contraction and I think the best way I can remember it because your brain really does wipe it away which

00:20:40.360 is amazing is it's not like super sharp it's like imagine a dull pain that like throbbing but

00:20:48.320 it's hard to imagine it being super amped up but it's like that amped up to the highest degree I

00:20:54.920 don't know that was not what I was expecting necessarily and that's what it felt like so

00:20:59.460 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

00:21:05.980 would say I was still in pain yeah no you were still in quite a bit of pain so uh you know this

00:21:11.340 is about 1 p.m uh to give you the time codes again and so she's still in quite a great deal

00:21:17.940 of pain and she starts to progress she starts to dilate more and more and then she gets up to

00:21:23.740 what like eight nine yeah yeah eight nine pretty quickly after that and so the pain ramps up and

00:21:30.240 so she's back to that same level pain that she was in nine again when she first got the epidural so

00:21:36.840 we were like debating it and she was gonna get a second dose of the epidural uh my terms might be a

00:21:43.580 little bit off here but we were concerned about it being too much and she wouldn't be able to feel

00:21:48.640 anything so first she got like 60 percent of the second dose and it was not working enough and so

00:21:54.320 she got the other 40 percent and even with a second full dose of epidural she um she still by the 0.97

00:22:01.520 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 1.00

00:22:13.180 so he was born at about 454 yeah four i was gonna say 450 precision so he was born about which is

00:22:20.320 exactly 12 hours pretty much from when i started going into labor yeah and he uh the reason i had to

00:22:26.920 push for so long was that his head was like this and a baby's head when it's being born should be like

00:22:34.900 this well should be down by the way there's a spider spider he was turned he was sunny side up

00:22:42.480 inside but he did he didn't rotate as he was coming out rotated no no no you're getting confused i'm

00:22:49.800 getting confused so he was he rotated his whole body as he was coming out so that he was born the

00:22:58.800 correct way he was born anterior but his head position what i'm talking about is his head position

00:23:04.300 a baby's head oh yes neck flexion his neck was flexed like this as he was coming out of the

00:23:10.340 birth canal because of that my doctor had to reach inside of me and pull his head down and what she 1.00

00:23:16.980 told me that's what that was that's what that was for and she said to us afterward had you not had an

00:23:22.060 epidural you would have had a c-section because i would not have been able to reach inside of you 0.73

00:23:27.140 and pull his head down because the pain would have been too blinding based upon everything else

00:23:31.060 indicated by the cervical checks or every other kind of in manual inspection that the doctor

00:23:38.540 needed to perform throughout the process but it also like i think even if i didn't have the problem

00:23:44.440 i had which we will explain now um it would be hard to reach into side of some a woman giving labor 1.00

00:23:50.600 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 0.61

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

00:24:20.700 yeah so when you're in labor that area will stretch even evenly and you won't have tearing

00:24:26.000 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 0.96

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 0.61

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 1.00

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 0.99

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 0.95

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 0.96

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 0.99

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 if you would consider subscribing to my substack newsletter where you'll get access to a ton of

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

00:41:29.500 my next one bye

Classically Abby - June 22, 2022

MY BIRTH STORY ⧸⧸ Why I didn't end up having a natural labor...

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