Episode 338 Sabina's Healing FBA2C After HELLP Syndrome + Lack of VBAC Support

The VBAC Link

Sabina is one of our VBAC-certified doulas from Canada and is sharing her peaceful FBA2C today. While free birth comes with its own risks and benefits, we know that many women feel drawn to this option when they have no support or do not feel safe birthing any other way as Sabina did. We want to share all types of births after Cesarean and honor all stories!

The way Sabina trusted in her body and in the physiological birth process after a traumatic experience with HELLP syndrome is truly inspiring.

Among the many important messages from this episode, Meagan says: “If you are a provider listening and you perform C-sections, please, please hear what we are saying today. What you say to us while we are on the table in the most vulnerable position… impacts us. Every word that comes out of your mouth, please think about it. Please think about it because it impacts us…I’m getting emotional because I remember my provider talking crap like that and saying things like that. It impacts us longer than you will ever, ever know and it will impact us for every future birth.

Please, providers. Please, please, please from the bottom of my heart, I beg of you. Watch what you say to people.”

The VBAC Link Blog: VBAC with Preeclampsia

Needed Website

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

Full Transcript under Episode Details

Meagan: Hello, hello Women of Strength. It is Meagan and I’m so excited to be recording wtih you today. You’ve probably been listening all summer but I’ve actually not been in the recording studio all summer. I record up until May until my kids get out of school then I take June and July off so I can be with my kids and save you guys from the screaming and the dog barking and all of that in the background.

It’s August and we are back in the studio and we have our friend, Sabina. Hello.

Sabina: Hello.

Meagan: I’m so excited to have her on today. You guys, she is one of our VBAC-certified doulas which is so exciting. She is also a mama of three. She is a FBA2C. Okay, you guys. F is a new one. We haven’t been sharing a lot of F. We’ve had H and V and breech B so what does F stand for?

Sabina: F stands for free birth which means I did not have any kind of provider with me during my pregnancy or during my birth. I just did it all by myself.

Meagan: Yep, you did. Sometimes I feel like it’s a mother-led pregnancy.

Sabina: Yes. Yes.

Meagan: This is something. We’ve talked about this a little bit before we got recording. The world, when we look at free birth, frowns deeply upon it. It’s not for everyone.

Sabina: No.

Meagan: That’s why a good majority doesn’t. However, I think it’s important to share these free birth stories. They are still beautiful stories and it doesn’t mean because you didn’t have a provider that your story doesn’t deserve to be heard, right?

Sabina: Right.

Meagan: I think that it’s also important to talk a little bit about the fact that so many people are not getting the support. You’re going to tell us a little bit more about why you chose free birth, but the world as we know it is not VBAC-supportive in many ways, in most ways.

Sabina: Still.

Meagan: Yeah, as we know. You are in Canada, right?

Sabina: Yep.

Meagan: We know that there are some hurdles there too. Even here in Utah, over the last 10 years of me being a doula and having babies of my own, I’ve watched the VBAC support wane and actually wane in the less-ideal way which is really unfortunate.

We have a lot of people who try. They try and find the support. They try and get what they deserve. You deserve support. Women of Strength, no matter who you are or where you are, you deserve support. Most people who choose to free birth ran out of those options and decide that they are still going to do what’s best for them. That is what Sabina did and I’m excited for her to share her stories.

In addition to free birth, we have some other little things in there. HELLP syndrome, if you’ve ever heard of HELLP syndrome you guys, or if you haven’t ever heard of HELLP syndrome, we’re going to talk more about that and what that looks like, the symptoms and things like that, and what it could mean.

Then larger babies and then yeah, I want to talk a little bit more about VBAC doulas too because we love our VBAC doulas. I don’t know. Are you serving right now?

Sabina: I am, yeah.

Meagan: You have a new babe, but you are. Okay, if you are in Canada– and where are you again?

Sabina: I’m in Ottawa.

Meagan: Ottawa. Okay, you guys, give her a call. You can find her on our website at thevbaclink.com/findadoula.

Sabina: I don’t have a website but my Instagram is @letsdoulathisvbac.

Meagan: Let’s doula this. We will make sure to tag her so just go to today’s Instagram or Facebook and find her.

We do have a Review of the Week so we will jump into that and then get into your beautiful stories.

This review is by mitaya. I don’t know. I think it’s probably an abbreviation. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a name but it says, “I vote this place on over the speaker in every OB/GYN office.” I love that. It says, “I cannot even begin to describe what an encouragement these podcasts have been for me. I have completely binged on these in the past few weeks and they have grown my confidence for my up and coming baby. I cannot stop sharing everything I am learning and even helping to encourage first-time moms on how to educate themselves to avoid a Cesarean in the first place.”

Ding, ding, ding. We’re actually going to have an episode about that, y’all. So if you’re ready to share an episode with a first-time mom, it’s coming up. “Thank you so much for this no-B.S., truth-declaring, and empowering platform that I know has encouraged so many more than just myself. Keep being amazing. I can’t wait to share our story in just a few short months. All of my love.”

Thank you so much for your review and I hope that you had your VBAC and had a beautiful birth. If you are still listening with us, let us know. Give us a shoutout on my email or on Facebook or Instagram.

Meagan: Okay, Ms. Sabina. Are you ready to dive in to these beautiful stories?

Sabina: I am.

Meagan: Let’s do it.

Sabina: This is surreal because I’ve been picturing this whole pregnancy how I would talk about things if I was on the podcast. Every time I had a symptom, I thought about how I would say it on a podcast so it’s very cool to actually get to do it.

Meagan: Tell us all of the things. Here you are.

Sabina: Okay. I’ll start with my first birth. I was pregnant in 2019 and I had one appointment with an OB then realized it wasn’t for me. I switched to midwives and had a perfectly uncomplicated pregnancy. I’m very athletic so I was in shape working out the whole time. No symptoms of anything other than heartburn and some rib pain. We had midwives who were great and then around 41 weeks, actually on 41 weeks to the day, we had our ultrasound just to make sure everything was going well. When we got there, I started getting a lot of pain in my right side. Again, I had rib pain so I just brushed it off. It’s nothing.

I had seen my midwives the day before and everything looked good. Blood pressure was fine. We were sitting in the waiting room and it just kept getting more and more uncomfortable. I started sweating and I asked my husband if we could just step outside for a bit then I remembered one of my friends saying that when she was in labor, she would put her arms around her husband and just dangle to open everything. I tried that hoping it would relieve some pressure and I just started panicking.

My husband who was very naive at the time was like, “Oh, this is it. You’re in labor.” I was like, “No. This is not right. It’s not going away.”

Meagan: Something’s off.

Sabina: Something’s off. We went back in and I asked the receptionist if I could just go lie down. They brought me into a room and at this point, I couldn’t sit still. We called my midwife and she asked if I was prone to panic attacks and I said, “No, I’ve never had one.” They checked the baby and he was totally fine.

But my midwife was like, “Okay, I’ll meet you at the hospital.” We called the ambulance and this is where it starts to get fuzzy. I was in shock. I couldn’t remember everything but we took an ambulance and the only reason we took an ambulance was because I thought they would help but they didn’t do anything. They just waited and took me to the hospital.

I spent the ride on my hands and knees and when we got to the hospital, my blood pressure was 275/174. Again, we had just checked it the day before and it was totally normal, 121/80. My midwife was there and they asked if they could check my cervix just to see if it was a bizarre labor and I was barely a centimeter. I was still very posterior so nothing was really happening.

I do remember my mom quickly poking her head in. My husband must have called her but then they were like, “Okay, let’s do a C-section.” I don’t remember a lot. I remember as soon as they gave me the epidural, I could relax. Everything just went away. I briefly remember seeing my husband and being like, “Oh my god. We’re going to have a baby.”

I remember hearing him cry. They showed him to me the first time. I also had a cyst on one of my ovaries so they showed me that. It was kind of cool. Then in the recovery room, I very briefly remember trying to feed my son and then I told them that my vision was jumping around and I couldn’t focus so they handed him over to my husband and then I don’t remember anything else.

Basically, they never treated my blood pressure. They just–

Meagan: Wait, they didn’t do anything? They were just like, “We’ve got to get the baby out” type thing then they ignored the astronomically high blood pressure?

Sabina: Yes.

Meagan: Okay.

Sabina: Even though the baby was fine because we had just had the ultrasound and checked everything, they completely neglected the blood pressure. Obviously, it dropped when I got the epidural because it gets rid of the pain so it goes down a bit. Later, I found out that they had the medication ready, they just never gave it to me.

So as soon as the epidural wore off, my blood pressure shot right back up and I ended up having a seizure. My husband, I mean I don’t remember any of it, but my husband was kicked out into the hall shirtless holding our newborn not knowing what was going on. My parents were down the hall and heard the code blue and just knew it was for me.

Then I was just talking to my mom about it yesterday. She said that they were at the nurse’s station demanding to know what was going on. They were telling her to calm down and they just sent them to see my husband. He was in a dark room by himself with a newborn who was crying because he probably wanted to eat or whatever. He just looked like he was a ghost. He didn’t know what was going on. It was horrible.

Even to this day, it hurts knowing that that was his entrance into parenthood.

Meagan: And both of your experiences too. His entrance and both of your experiences. It didn’t start off very positively.

Sabina: No. Definitely not. I remember seeing my dad briefly and then I don’t remember anything until the next day. I woke up and my dad was there and I just said, “What happened?” He told me I had a seizure and then the first couple days, I don’t remember much. My son was in the NICU just because I couldn’t take care of him and they would bring him to me once in a while so I could feed him. My mom said she noticed that every time he was with me, my blood pressure would drop obviously. It makes sense.

She advocated for him to get to stay with me. I started breastfeeding even though I was honestly half-dead. They told my family the day it happened that the next 24 hours would determine which direction I went so it was pretty scary.

Meagan: Oh my gosh.

Sabina: Yeah. Pretty scary. We ended up getting a private room in the ICU and my son was allowed to stay with me as long as somebody else was there. My mom and husband just kept switching off. The nurses were phenomenal. Every nurse we had was great. They brought us a full cart of baby supplies because we had nothing. We didn’t even have a hospital bag but I saw every other person in the hospital. It was incredibly frustrating.

We saw residents. We saw random specialists who had nothing to do with me. We saw interns. I never saw the same doctor twice and I was there for a week.

Meagan: Whoa.

Sabina: Yeah. We kept being told by one doctor that, “Okay, if your blood pressure stays below this level for the next 24 hours, you get to go home.” Then the next day, a doctor would come on and I’d say, “Okay, it stayed below. Can we go home?” They were like, “Oh no, no, no. You’re probably here for the next several days.” It was back and forth like that and it was incredibly frustrating.

Eventually, I left against medical advice because I knew I couldn’t heal in the hospital. I knew I needed to go home. We went home with two blood pressure medications and by day two, I had to stop taking them because my blood pressure was so low.

Meagan: Whoa.

Sabina: Obviously, I made the right choice. It got to the point where I could hardly get out of bed and I was so lethargic because of the blood pressure being so low.

Meagan: Your body truly was responding. It was in that flight/fight mode where you’re probably so tense the whole time you were there. Your body was not able to even try to recover.

Sabina: Yeah. I mean, that was our first week as parents. It was in the hospital. Eventually, we got moved to the labor and delivery ward but still, we were not home. We weren’t comfortable. We were bored because we were just there and then we’re seeing everybody and their uncle at the hospital coming in because I was a unique case. It was super frustrating.

I do want to mention with the HELLP syndrome that my kidneys were failing. I had swelling in my brain. I had to get one MRI or two CTs or the other way around. I only remember one of them.

Meagan: Your liver obviously.

Sabina: Yes, yeah. My liver was definitely not ideal.

Meagan: That was the start of the pain.

Sabina: Yeah, again, I thought that was the rib pain.

Meagan: Kind of up there.

Sabina: I was perfectly healthy. Yeah. I was perfectly healthy. I had worked out that morning.

Meagan: Wow.

Sabina: I felt totally fine. It was very sudden.

Meagan: Did you have any other symptoms like headache, blurred vision, swelling, nausea?

Sabina: Not until after that pain. After the C-section, my vision was jumping.

Meagan: Yeah, you said.

Sabina: Yeah. I couldn’t focus and then the next two days, right here on my head on the right side had severe pain. Nothing would help. They were giving me pain meds and stuff and nothing was helping so eventually, I just stopped taking them. But beforehand, there was absolutely nothing. They didn’t test my blood or urine because it wasn’t routine to check it at that time and they had no reason to check it but it was very, very sudden and very severe.

Because they didn’t deal with the blood pressure, I still wonder to this day if they had dealt with it or tried.

Meagan: Given you magnesium or something.

Sabina: If it wouldn’t have been as severe of a reaction or a problem.

Meagan: Yeah.

Sabina: It’s very frustrating to look back. Of course, after that I had PTSD but I didn’t know that I had PTSD and the support wasn’t really there. My midwife was like, “Well, of course, you’re going to have some hard times,” but that was kind of it. That was the only support I got. My sister actually was pregnant at the same time and was due a month later. She got induced because she just went past her due date and I was so upset when she was in labor because I was so jealous.

It’s a horrible feeling because you’re happy for them but I was just so jealous. My midwife came over that day. Again, there wasn’t really much support surrounding that. It was just like, “Yeah, that’s normal. Move on.” My sister ended up getting a C-section just because she got the cascade of interventions. It was a typical story.

For the next year, it was extremely difficult mentally. Any time I tried to talk to somebody about it, it was always like, “Well, you have a healthy baby,” so trying to justify that everything was worth it because the baby is healthy. Again, I didn’t tell my family how much I was struggling but anytime like for example, I would talk to my mom about it and be like, “I missed all of those moments with him like the first night. I wasn’t with him at all.” She would always say something like, “Well, he was taken care of,” because she was there. I’m super grateful that they were there, but it would crush me inside because–

Meagan: But not by me.

Sabina: It should have been me. All of those moments should have been me. Then toward my son’s first birthday, we were talking about his birthday party and again, my sister did not mean anything by this because she just didn’t know what I was going through but she was like, “Well, you didn’t really give birth so we’ll call it his removal day.”

I just played it off like it was fine, but my insides just crumbled.

Meagan: That would impact me. That just made me have a little bit of an ick. I’m sure she didn’t mean any harm by that, right? But that just gave me the ick.

Sabina: Yeah, she didn’t mean harm at all.

So I just would play these things off and smile and nod sort of thing, but inside it just crushed me.

Meagan: I’m sorry.

Sabina: I never thought that I would have a C-section. You just don’t think that’s going to happen to you. His first birthday was really hard and then after that, I just started looking forward to the next one which was good but also not good because I didn’t really do any healing or recovering. I just was like, “Okay, it’s done. Let’s move on.”

So my second birth was in 2021 and it was more of a classic unsupportive provider scenario. I went with the same midwife because she was amazing during our first birth and I had a lot of trust with her. She was amazing but she told me I needed to see high-risk as well.

I went to see the high-risk doctor and he did not want to see me. He just was l​​ike, “You are a pretty low high-risk because it happened so late in your pregnancy. Take baby aspirin. Get some extra ultrasounds. We don’t need to see you.” I said, “Great. That’s perfect. I don’t care.”

But my midwife was like, “Nope. You need to see him every month if you want to continue with us.”

Meagan: Was that the protocol of their staff or was that just her opinion giving her comfort of you seeing an OB?

Sabina: Yep. I think it was her comfort because she said that then if something did happen, we had him on hand sort of thing.

Meagan: Okay.

Sabina: I still wanted a home birth. I wanted a home birth with my first. Obviously, it didn’t happen so I still was totally comfortable. I knew it wasn’t going to happen again. We were going to take every precaution but my midwife was like, “Nope. It’s too risky because you are a VBAC and you’ve had that happen, we can’t support you in a home birth.”

Again, I didn’t know all of the red flags at this time and I just trusted her too much to think otherwise.

I pretty much left every midwife appointment crying because any time I had tried to be positive and be like, “Okay, well if I can’t deliver at home, I’ll deliver at the hospital,” they’d be like, “No. You can’t deliver at this hospital. You have to go to a higher-level hospital.” Those were the ones where I stayed in the ICU for a week so I didn’t want to go there.

Meagan: Triggering.

Sabina: Yeah, and that’s where I had to go for the high-risk too. I was going there once a month and then 2-3 times a month toward the end of this hospital where we had been through all of this trauma. Eventually, I asked if I could do the appointments over the phone because you’d get the ultrasound then you’d have to wait 2-3 hours to see the doctor because they were always so behind.

I checked my blood pressure. I was just like, “Can you just call me?” That was fine so it made it that much easier. Yeah. Eventually, my midwife said that if everything was fine by a certain point, she would talk to the OB at the hospital that I wanted to deliver at and see what they thought.

Ultimately, they said I had to transfer to OB care if I wanted to deliver there. It was stupid. Again, another red flag. I had to be induced and yada, yada, yada. There were all of these stipulations and everything needed to be what they needed.

We saw the OB once and I did not– we were in and out in 5 minutes. I did not like it. She could not have cared less about me. It was very obvious. My midwife said that starting at 38 weeks, we should try and do stretch and sweeps every few days to get things going before my due date.

Meagan: She really wanted you to have a baby before that 41-week mark.

Sabina: Yes, exactly. She was more scared than we were. Even my husband wasn’t as scared and he is a very anxious person.

Yeah. We started doing the stretch and sweeps and again, I should have refused but you don’t know what you don’t know at that point. I found The VBAC Link when I was 37 weeks so I wish I had found it earlier so that I could have done the course and saw all of these red flags and had taken things into my own hands.

Eventually, we kept going in to get induced but we got sent home because there were no beds. Again, I was like, “Why are we doing this then? I’m obviously not high on their priority list.” Eventually, we went in. They broke my water. We waited to see if anything would happen and nothing did. They started Pitocin. For the first 6 hours on Pitocin, I was able to handle it but my husband and I were so uncomfortable in the hospital room mentally, physically, and emotionally. We didn’t want to be there. We were never in the room alone so we couldn’t be ourselves because there were strangers there.

I eventually asked for the epidural. I told my midwife that if I asked for the epidural, try everything else first, then do the epidural. As soon as I asked for the epidural, she was just like, “Okay, let’s do it.” No pushback, so that was super frustrating as well.

We got the epidural then 2 hours later, a different OB came in, checked me, and was like, “No. You are not dilating. It’s not working. You need a C-section.” Again, I didn’t know this at the time, but she said there was no progress but I had dilated a centimeter. I had fully effaced and– yes, fully. Not just a little bit. Fully effaced.

Meagan: If everybody could see my face right now, I’m like, what? That’s not change or progress?

Sabina: Then my cervix had come forward too.

Meagan: Big changes all around.

Sabina: Big changes. Big changes, just not fast enough for this doctor. I knew it wasn’t necessary. I waited for my midwife to come in and fight for me and she just went along with it. I was like, “What? No.” I didn’t know I had the right to just say, “No, I’m not doing that.” Neither did my husband.

Meagan: Even though you had the right, it’s still very hard.

Sabina: It’s very hard.

Meagan: It’s a very difficult thing to be like, “Actually, no. I’ve got two medical professionals here telling me what I should do but I think no and how do I say that?”

Sabina: Yeah, and you’re already in such a vulnerable state then there is all that negative energy too which really affects me. I’m a highly sensitive person so energies really affect me.

Meagan: You were proof in your first birth too. As soon as that doctor walked in, I could feel that negative energy. I knew she didn’t care about me. She wasn’t in this job for the right reasons. I bawled and my husband tried to comfort me. He was like, “It’s going to be different. We’re going to remember everything. We know what’s happening this time.” I just kept saying, “Yeah, but we don’t need it. The baby is fine. I’m fine. It’s just not necessary.”

Anyway, eventually, we had the C-section and I just laid there on the table sobbing. I did obviously remember everything but I was just miserable. I was pumped full of every drug so I was exhausted. I think it really affected the bonding experience between me and my baby. That first night with my son, I wanted him constantly. I wanted him on me. I didn’t want anyone to take him with her. I wanted her to sleep separately so I could sleep which is very unlike me. I really think all of the Pitocin and everything blocked my natural hormone releases.

While I was lying on the table, my husband and the baby got taken away to the recovery room and I was just trying to rest. The OB was like, “So do you want more kids?” I was like, “Yeah.” She was like, “Well, they’ll all have to be C-sections,” while I was laying on the table after sobbing that whole time. It was just horrible.

Meagan: I don’t want to interrupt you but I do because I want to point out to everyone that especially if you are a provider listening and you perform C-sections, please, please hear what we are saying today. What you say to us while we are on the table in the most vulnerable position– some of us are strapped down to a table– what you say to us impacts us. Every word that comes out of your mouth, please think about it. Please think about it because it impacts us and it impacts us longer– I’m getting emotional because I remember my provider talking crap like that and saying things like that. It impacts us longer than you will ever, ever know and it will impact us for every future birth.

Please, providers. Please, please, please from the bottom of my heart, I beg of you. Watch what you say to people. Okay, sorry. Keep going.

Sabina: That’s okay. I totally agree with you. The lack of bedside manner, especially for VBACs because when you’ve gone through a C-section, even if it was planned or whatever, it still can be traumatic and they just don’t get it. She even told me, “I had 3 C-sections. Once your baby is out, you won’t care how it happened.” It’s like, good for you but not everybody is the same as you. Maybe you don’t care about birth experiences but lots of women do. It was super frustrating.

We stayed one night in the hospital and then left. Of course, the PTSD came back. The midwives all tried to tell me that the C-section was necessary because her hands were up over her face so she wouldn’t have come out anyway but their stories weren’t the same so I realized that they were lying and were just trying to justify that it was necessary.

Meagan: Yeah. That’s unfortunate.

Sabina: Yeah. The PTSD came back and I it got to a point– I can’t remember how many months my daughter was but I was visiting with a neighbor and I was talking about my experiences and I was like, “Next time, I’m going to have a VBAC. I’m going to do whatever it takes to have a VBAC.” She was like, “Why would you even try that?” I was like, “What do you mean?” She was like, “Well, there’s the risk of rupture so why would you even do that when you could just have a C-section?” It broke me.

I came home. I bawled to my husband and a few days later, I was still really upset about it. He didn’t know how to help which is fair and he was just like, “Maybe you need to see a therapist.” I’m sure there are some out there, but I couldn’t find any that fit here and therapy is not something that I thought would help me. I know it helps lots of people so I started looking up my symptoms and things. I found out that it was PTSD. It got to a point where I was like, okay. I need to fix this for myself.

I took The VBAC Link Course which already was super helpful just because I felt empowered going forward. I knew that my potentially both C-sections weren’t necessary but definitely the second one. I knew the risks and benefits of having a vaginal birth after two C-sections. I had all of the proof in front of me. Then it also pushed me to become a doula. I’ve always wanted to be in the birth world. I became a nurse to work in obstetrics but then left nursing after 4 years because it just wasn’t for me. I was like, “This is what I’m meant to do.”

I wish I had known about doulas for my other two births. I took a doula course and then I took The VBAC Link Doula Course and within a month of starting my doula page, I already had a VBAC client who reached out which was super exciting. She got in with the midwives that I had, with the particular midwife that I had. I was like, “Okay. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe I can teach her about VBACs.” The first appointment, she was great apparently then after that, it was constantly, “Well, you have this so maybe we should do a hospital birth or you have this.” Every time she saw them, they were trying to push her to a hospital birth.

She ended up having a free birth with me which was really cool.

Meagan: She did? Really?

Sabina: I told her from the get-go, “If that’s something you want, I’m here for you. I’m totally comfortable with that.” Her original plan was just to maybe not call the midwives unless she felt something was wrong but then after some of those appointments, she was like, “No. They’re not coming. We’re not calling them. If we need help, we’ll just go to the hospital.” Yeah. She had a free birth and it was awesome. It was great to be there. I was 14 weeks pregnant at the time so it was great for me.

I actually met my doula a year before we even tried to conceive because I wanted to be prepared. She wasn’t a VBAC doula, but she was newer and very open to the idea of having a home birth after C-sections. We became friends to the point where I actually attended her birth 3 months before she attended mine.

Meagan: Oh my gosh, so cool.

Sabina: Yeah, when I got pregnant with this one, I pretty much knew right away that I wasn’t going to have a provider. It wasn’t for me. I did apply to the midwife groups but every one of them either refused or said I was on the waitlist but I wasn’t. As soon as they saw I wanted a home birth after two C-sections, that was thrown out. I mentioned it to my husband once and then the second time I mentioned it, he was fully on board which was mentioned.

Meagan: Really? Because you said he was anxious about things yeah.

Sabina: Anxious, yeah. But I had been educating him along the way too with everything that I learned. Any time I told him stories of other women who had difficult births or my client who was having these horrible appointments, he would get angry too so yeah. He really had become pretty educated on the topic which was amazing. He was very comfortable with our doula as well. He was like, “She’s really knowledgeable.” We had a plan in place for if there was an actual emergency and if I wanted to transfer for whatever other reason.

We had it set up and most other things I felt like I could handle myself unless it was one of the few very serious emergencies. My mindset going into this birth was amazing. I read daily affirmations to myself before bed and then I would listen to her heartbeat. I could hear it with a stethoscope around 15 weeks so every night I would listen to her heartbeat and I just felt so connected and so in tune with my body and my intuition which was something that kept getting shut down with my other births I found.

It was the most stress-free pregnancy. We didn’t do any tests. We got a couple of ultrasounds just because I like seeing the baby and I’m a very visual person but that was it. Both me and my husband were like, “This is amazing. We’re just living our lives normally and not these stipulations and all of these worries being pushed on us.”

I was checking my blood pressure but I just eventually was like, I don’t really feel like I need to do this. It was very low. It was 90/50 for most of the pregnancy so I was like, I’m fine. I was still taking the aspirin just as a precaution but that was it. I wasn’t in a rush. I wasn’t like, baby has to be out at a certain time. I was just like, let’s let things happen because we didn’t get that opportunity with the last two.

I had my mucus plug start to come out around 39 weeks and 4 or 5 days which was very exciting but I told my husband that it doesn’t really mean much. Things are happening as they should. A couple of days later, the bloody show came out as well. Again, I was like, “We are fine. This could be going on for weeks. Whatever.”

Then that night, so it was actually the morning of my due date, I had prodromal labor. I started feeling contractions and of course, I got excited but it started I think at 4:00 in the morning. I just sat there and breathed through them. They weren’t intense. They were very easy to get through then me and my husband got everything ready when he got up then it stopped. I was like, “Okay, whatever. My body is just practicing.” For the next week or so, the mucus plug kept coming out throughout the week just in little bits. I didn’t have any other contractions until– I have it written down here– the night of July 3rd into the morning of July 4th so probably 10 hours. I had prodromal labor overnight then it stopped as soon as I got up in the morning.

I tried doing the Miles Circuit and both times it stopped the contractions so I was like, okay. Whatever. At least I know how to stop them.

Meagan: Sometimes Miles Circuit does stop them because a lot of the times prodromal is a positional thing. Baby is trying to figure it out so the Miles Circuit helps with position and if it moves baby, it can stop them.

Sabina: Yep. I was a little bit frustrated that day because I was like, I’m losing sleep now. I don’t know if I should rest during the day because I still could be weeks away from giving birth. I was like, “We need to stay busy. We need to have plans for every day just so I don’t feel like I’m rushing.”

Meagan: Take your mind off of it.

Sabina: Yeah. We kept busy that day then we were sitting after dinner. Around 8:00 PM I started feeling them again and I was like, “Great. Another night of no sleep. Okay, whatever.” The second night I had them, they were stronger than that first time but I could still breathe through them and stay lying down. That night they were even stronger which is odd because usually prodromal labor is the same.

Meagan: It’s monotone, yeah.

Sabina: But these ones, I couldn’t lay down which was really frustrating because I was so tired. I had to keep getting up. I tried doing the Miles Circuit and it didn’t help so I was like, “Okay, I guess I’m going to stay awake all night.” In the morning, I got up and I was waiting for them to stop. I tried to have a hot shower and they were still going. It was 10:00 in the morning at this point and the other ones had always stopped at 8:00. I was like, “Okay. Maybe this is something.” My husband was like, “Get Jess here.” I was like, “Well, I’m fine though. I don’t need the help.”

But I texted her to let her know what was going on and then for my husband’s sake, told her to come because I knew he needed that comfort. We called her and we called our friend who was going to come watch the kids. For the whole day, I was contracting and dealing with it beautifully. I was breathing through it no problem. I was excited every time I got a contraction. I wasn’t timing them because I felt like that was stressing me out. I felt like they needed to be a certain length and a certain time apart. I stopped timing them and it was just really nice.

Our friend was taking the kids swimming. Me and my doula were mulling around the house and she would play with the kids too. It was like we were all just hanging out. It was so peaceful. Then around 4:00, she does reflexology, my doula, so she got me to lay down and did some acupressure stuff on my feet. While she was doing that, I had a really big contraction and after that they pretty much stayed. I think that was the shift into active labor.

My husband made everybody dinner which was nice and I was just in the kitchen picking up the food while going through contractions. Eventually, the kids went to bed and our friend left. At this point, it was 8:00 at night. I had the TENS machine on. I had been going back and forth from the toilet because the toilet is the dilaton station. Any time I had to go to the bathroom, I would stay there for 4-5 contractions.

Again, I was still fully in control and mentally fully aware. I was happy in between contractions so around 9:30, I decided to get in the tub because they were still increasing. My husband and doula were both there. My husband and I really got to connect during this labor and he was so present. I had asked him after my previous births if he was proud of me. He was like, “I don’t know if I would say proud.” He didn’t mean it negatively, but it just hurt that he wasn’t.

So throughout this labor, anytime I looked at him, he’d tell me how proud he was of what I was doing or he would tell me how amazing I was and it was just so nice. He could hold me and we could just be ourselves without feeling the pressure of people watching. So then around 10:30, transition hit.

I struggled. I was so mentally tired because I hadn’t slept in three nights of no sleep and my mental strength had been what was keeping me going the rest of the time. I was struggling. It lasted 3.5 hours so it was a long transition. Of course, I had the moments of “I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough” or whatever and my doula just went, “Okay, if that’s how you feel then we need to talk about the alternative.” I was like, “No.” I shut it down. I can do this. We’re not going anywhere so that was great. All she needed to say was that one thing.

I felt my water break at 12:30 which was amazing because I’d never felt that before and it gave me that push then a couple of contractions later, my body started pushing on its own which again, was amazing. It was very intense and I just couldn’t stop it. Every time I got a contraction, I couldn’t stop myself from pushing so I just went with it. I could feel her. I reached up inside me and I could feel her head around 1:40ish which was so incredible. How cool is that?

So a couple of contractions later, I could feel her crowning, and my husband– I sat up and my husband was like, “Oh my god. I can see the hair.” He was so excited. It was adorable. It took me another 20 minutes to get her head out. I had a lot of pressure in my back and on my right side so I was like, “Maybe she’s posterior,” but I didn’t know. Once her head came out, she wasn’t posterior.

Meagan: Was she looking sideways a little?

Sabina: I think she was asynclitic because all the pain was on the right and I ended up tearing only on the right side so I’m pretty sure she was crooked. Her head wasn’t really coned either so that’s what I’m assuming. That’s my guess anyway.

Meagan: Yep. Coming down a little wonky.

Sabina: Her head was out. I got to feel her. We didn’t know the gender of this one either which was very exciting. We were 99% sure it was a boy so I kept referring to her as “it”. “Oh, I can feel its ear. It's turning.” I felt her turn too which was cool. My doula took videos. In the video, right before she came out, I said, “She’s all gooey,” which is crazy to me because I thought it was a boy but in the moment I said “she”. It was very cool. I’m pretty sure that was all intuition.

Meagan: That is crazy.

Sabina: I had a 3.5-minute break between when her head came out and the next contraction then on the next contraction, I pushed 3 or 4 times. I felt her come out. I sat back and got to pull her up to my chest. I just looked at my husband and I was like, “We did it. We did it. She’s here.” His reaction was everything. I don’t think he realized she was out because I had been moving around so when I sat back I think he thought I was just readjusting then all of a sudden, I pull her out. He had a huge smile on his face. He put his hands on his face because he couldn’t believe it. He started bawling and it was just, oh my god, incredible.

She cried. The second I took her out of the water, she squawked and was moving around and everything. It was the best moment of my life. It was everything and even though it felt like a dream because I was so tired and of course, you’re in shock that this actually happened, but it was incredible. She was totally healthy. I got to feel her cord pulsing. I didn’t even get to see the placentas with the other two even though I wanted to so then we just stayed in the tub for a bit. I was extremely sore.

Once that initial high wore off, I was like, “Holy crap. My crotch.”

Meagan: I just had a baby.

Sabina: I was like, “My crotch hurts.” My husband ran the other tub for us and we got to see the gender too which was super fun and a big shock to both of us. I got up to switch over to our shower tub and I was like, “Oh, there’s a little bit of pressure.” I grunted and the placenta came out which was very cool because I didn’t get to experience that the other two times. We went to the other tub and I got to do the placenta tour by myself. I got to let her latch by herself. I love those videos of babies finding the nipple themselves so I let her do that.

She was coated thickly in vernix. For a 41-week baby, it was super thick. I think it was intentional for me because I always wanted that gooey baby and she was extremely gooey. I have photos of it all over my face, all over my nose. It was just everywhere. Yeah. Then we transferred to the bed. We got to cut the cord. I made a little cord tie because I hate those plastic chip clip things. I made her a cord tie and I got to put that on. When the kids woke up in the morning, they just got to come in the bedroom and she was there so it was the best.

My doula was great. She did counterpressure and she helped my husband any time he was having moments of panic. At one point, I said, “What’s taking so long? Is she stuck?” That’s his trigger. For some reason, he’s terrified of the babies getting stuck. You can see in the video that he looks over to my doula all panicked. I didn’t know because she just calmed him down without me knowing which was great.

Sabina: I did tear. When I was in the tub, I looked down and I saw something floating. I was like, oh is it gunk? But it was a piece of my inner labia that had ripped off.

Meagan: So what did you do about that? Did you let it heal naturally? Did you do the super glue thing?

Sabina: I’ve never heard of the super glue thing but I wouldn’t have tried that.

Meagan: Yes, super glue. There are some midwives here in Utah, birth center and home birth midwives who when there’s a little bit more tear that would maybe make them say, “We need to do some stitches but not too bad,” they would superglue it. It’s pretty minor, but they would superglue it.

They just say that it causes more trauma to put a needle in, a needle in, a needle in, yeah.

Sabina: I originally told myself that if I tore, I would just let it heal, but I couldn’t actually figure out where it attached to. We even got a mirror and we were trying to figure out where it had actually ripped off of so I was like, “You know what? We’re going to have to go in.”

There’s a really small hospital about 20 minutes from us. We went to the emergency room and told them, “I just gave birth. I don’t have midwives. I need to be stitched up.” They sent us to the OB unit. The doctor really took his time and he stitched up every little tear that he saw which I didn’t really want but I didn’t know any different. At one point, I asked, “How many stitches are you putting in?” He was like, “You’ve kind of got a zig-zag tear up.” That was part of it and then beside my urethra. “I’m trying to fix it but I’m also trying to make it look aesthetically pleasing.” I was like, “Okay, I appreciate that. I want it to look decent afterward.”

We did have some issues with her. They wouldn’t leave her alone even though we didn’t want her looked at. There was one doctor in particular who just really caused a lot of problems and threatened to call child services and stupid stuff like that. In hindsight, I would have just let them call child services because she was perfectly healthy and they would have come here. They did end up coming here even after we did what they wanted and she was like, “Why am I here? This is so unnecessary and such a waste of my time.” In hindsight, that’s what we would have done.

Anyway, the stitching was fine then we came home. I healed. The stitches were the most uncomfortable and sore part. With everything else, I healed relatively quickly. I was back to working out just after two weeks which I know is very quick.

Meagan: Whoa, that’s really quick.

Sabina: That’s just me. I did that with my C-sections too.

Meagan: You felt really good.

Sabina: After the C-sections too, I was back after two weeks with light stuff. I worked my way up. I didn’t just go back to the intense stuff. My husband even said that it was the best experience of his life and he would gladly do that again over what we had been through. It was amazing. It was amazing.

Meagan: I’m so happy for you. I can see the joy. I can see this cute little one right here. Oh my goodness. I am so happy for you.

Sabina: Thank you.

Meagan: I’m happy you had that support. You had that team. You even had support for your kids. You had everything planned out and I’m so, so, so happy for you.

Sabina: Thank you. I should point out too that she was our biggest baby.

Meagan: Was she?

Sabina: Our other two were 6 pounds, 14 ounces and she was 8 pounds, 5 ounces. Of course.

Meagan: Okay, that’s definitely a lot bigger of a baby. I wanted to talk about that too. It’s actually going to be in another episode where we are talking about big babies. Did people ever comment on your pregnancy like, “Oh,” and did that ever impact you like, “Oh my gosh, maybe I’d have too big of a baby?”

Sabina: I honestly instinctively knew it was going to be our biggest baby because I knew that I was going to deliver vaginally. With the other two, their heads were in the 5th percentile and they would have slipped out. I knew it was going to be challenging and I knew that I was meant to have the biggest challenge that I could basically. She was very fluid-filled so she lost over a pound after birth. She dropped down to the low 7s so I don’t know if the vernix had anything to do with that, but I looked the exact same as the other two pregnancies, maybe even smaller. It just looked like I had a soccer ball stuffed up my shirt. I was not big at all.

Meagan: Okay, okay. That’s good.

Sabina: Yeah, we never really got comments about a big baby or anything. 8,5 is big but not crazy big.

Meagan: It’s not but it’s bigger than 6 pounds. So many people are being told, “Oh my gosh. You’re so big.” All of these things. Don’t let people get to you, Women of Strength. Believe and understand that your body is going to make the right-sized baby.

Sabina: Yep, exactly. Just because you’re big doesn’t mean your baby is big. You could have lots of fluid. It could be how you’re carrying. It’s all so silly. The ultrasounds are silly.

Meagan: Torsos.

Sabina: Yeah, exactly. If you have a shorter torso, you’re going to stick out further which makes sense. I weighed myself before and after birth just out of curiosity. I had gained 18 pounds during pregnancy and I lost 16 of it with her coming out. So 16 pounds of baby, fluid, and placenta is a lot.

Meagan: That is a lot and that’s amazing. People have a hard time bouncing back like that. You just bounced back right after the baby was born.

I also wanted to talk about HELLP syndrome a little bit because there are people who worry about it happening with future pregnancies. You had mentioned that your provider was like, “Well, you are a low risk because it happened so late in pregnancy.” According to the Preeclampsia Foundation, HELLP syndrome, there are two L’s in this and is it hemolysis?

Sabina: Hemolysis?

Meagan: I’m like, I never know how to say that.

Elevated liver enzyme levels so that pain that she was describing in the beginning was her liver. It was her liver. Anyway, we’ve got symptoms of blurry vision, pain or sharpness in that upper-right middle part of the belly, headache– and she mentioned it was on her right side but these are things that are common with preeclampsia. A headache, blurry vision, overall not feeling well, fatigue, sweats– I only had one client who had HELLP but she had night sweats. She would wake up and was just Iike, “I just was so wet then I would feel yucky.”

Sabina: I had a lot of that in the recovery of HELLP syndrome. I was very sweaty at night.

Meagan: Very, very sweaty at night, yeah. Super nauseated that continues to get worse. Nose bleeds are kind of a weird thing but that can be a symptom and they can have a hard time stopping. You keep getting nosebleeds. And seizures. They are the last and most serious and weight gain and swelling.

Sabina: Yeah, the major one.

Meagan: But according to the Preeclampsia Foundation, women who have had HELLP syndrome in previous pregnancies have a 2-19% chance of getting it again. 2-19% is pretty low.

Sabina: That’s the range.

Meagan: Women who experience HELLP before 29 weeks of gestation in their first pregnancy may have an even higher risk though. So where your provider was like, “It was 41 weeks,” you had a lot of a lower risk. Just know if you have had HELLP syndrome, could you get it again? Yes. Will you get it again? Maybe, but your chances are lower than if you got it earlier on.

Sabina: Yeah, and there are a lot of precautionary things you can do to prevent it.

Meagan: That’s what I was just going to say so we can talk about that. If you’ve had HELLP syndrome, and even just preeclampsia, what are some things? You mentioned aspirin. What are some other things you did to try and avoid it in future pregnancies?

Sabina: As I mentioned, I’m a very active person so obviously a healthy lifestyle in general is going to help but then we did a lot of extra urinary tests and blood work. Even if you have no symptoms, it can still show up in those tests so maybe if we had done blood work for me or a urine sample, we would have known ahead of time. Those are really the only ones I did to help prevent it. Then I checked my blood pressure twice a day at home which was excessive but with all of the pressure from my providers, I just felt like I should.

Meagan: I think it’s warranted for sure.

Sabina: Yeah. It was a good way to monitor. Sometimes it would go up slightly so you’d be cautious and then if it went back down, you’re like, okay it’s fine. It was just a one-off thing. Like I said, with this pregnancy too, I did all of those things other than the tests. I took the aspirin. I stayed healthy. I made sure I was well-hydrated the whole pregnancy.

Meagan: Yes. I was going to say hydration.

Sabina: Yes, that’s a hard one. It’s something I struggle with on a daily basis.

Meagan: I know. I struggle and I’m not even pregnant. That’s why I love our Needed hydration packets from our Needed partner and it helps me because hydration is so hard.

Sabina: It is.

Meagan: Hydrate. Make sure you are watching out for those symptoms. If you’ve had it, don’t hesitate to call your provider or take charge of your care. Thank you so much again for sharing your beautiful stories. I really appreciate you so much. I’m trying to think if we’ve had a free birth, an intentional free birth.

Sabina: You’ve had one and I’ve listened to it.

Meagan: Have we had one?

Sabina: You’ve had one and it was Ashley Winning.

Meagan: Oh, duh. Of course. Yes.

Sabina: She was the first one who I had ever had of a free birth then I found Free Birth Society after that so she started me down this path.

Meagan: Yes. Oh, she’s so great and she’s in Australia. Definitely someone to listen to for sure. Okay. Well thank you so much and congrats and we’ll talk to you later.

Sabina: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This was a dream come true in so many ways.

Meagan: Oh, it makes me so happy that you’re here. And remember if you’re looking for a doula, go find her. Her link will be on today’s episode.

Closing

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