Tanya:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the show. If you happen to have missed season one episode 12, I suggest you go back and have a listen before listening to this one. For those of you who are not going to do that, I totally get it. Most of the time when I find a new show, I just jump right in and don't look back. So I do. I totally get it. So just to recap for those of you that are like me and are not gonna go back and listen my guest today is Rachel mask and she is a very talented athlete gymnast CrossFitter she actually does jujitsu competitively. She's a CrossFit level, two coach. She's a pregnancy, a postpartum athleticism coach, which is the main reason I brought her on today. But most importantly, she's a certified professional midwife who attends out of hospital births both at birth center and at home she'll correct me if I'm wrong about that, but I believe that to be the case the birthing center is in Meridian, Idaho at new beginnings birth center.

So when she was on the show, back in March, she was pregnant with her first baby and was suffering from hyperemesis. So we talked about that experience quite a bit. And we also talked about why coaching and midwifery are so well aligned for both of us. Basically we shared a soap box for the better part of an hour, but you know what, it's one of my best performing episodes to date. So I'm guessing that means you guys found this interesting. So with that said, I've brought her back to tell her birth story and to update us on her return to fitness. I'm particularly interested to hear what about her own experience was possibly unexpected or what may have challenged her beliefs or changed her perspective? Because while I don't believe for a minute, for example, that someone has to have a baby in order to be a good midwife, it does provide perspective that you just can't get any other way. So I'm interested to hear how having a baby as a midwife may have changed her and also how rehabbing her body in the postpartum period may affect how she works with others in the future. So we'll slowly unpack this. Rachel, thank you so, so much for joining me today.

Rachel:

Thank you for having me back. I really enjoyed our first conversation and I'm excited to talk again today.

Tanya:

Awesome. Well, we're super happy to have you all right. So how have things been before you jump into your birth story? Just curious how you've been

Rachel:

Really incredible, the happiest I've ever been. And I, I feel like the most balanced, just finding that groove with motherhood, with marriage, with midwifery, it's a lot of S

Tanya:

<Laugh> sure is

Rachel:

That's awesome movement and another one there's movement in there too. So yes. Yeah. I'm finding my groove and I'm really enjoying the postpartum period. My little guy is four months old and it's really been an incredible time. I think part of that is in contrast to a very challenging pregnancy, as you mentioned, I had hyperemesis GRA Adar. So for those who don't know, that's excessive nausea and vomiting. And for me, it lasted all the way through to labor. So every day of my pregnancy from about four weeks of four weeks gestation to 39 weeks, I threw up every day and I felt so much better afterwards that now it just feels like, wow, this is great. I'm doing awesome. <Laugh>

Tanya:

I can't remember if I ever asked you this before, but did you ever watch the Amy Schumer special?

Rachel:

I did after you recommended it. Yeah, I did.

Tanya:

What did you make of that? Because it's so rare for someone to be like both of you, which was start in with the vomiting stupid early and carry on all the way to the end, right?

Rachel:

Uhhuh <affirmative>. Yeah. I, I think that, you know, she obviously offers a unique perspective with all that humor and really there are times where you just kind of have to laugh about it or it's hard to get through it, it, it just, it can be so all encompassing and really in some ways, so dark it's nice to be able to laugh about some of it, cuz there are times where you're like, okay, this is a really comical moment. You know, we have to kind of appreciate that, that I'm throwing up in a Chick-fil-A bathroom, you know, that I'm like gonna trying to figure out or, you know, wherever it's it's happening, cuz that just is life and you have to laugh about it sometimes.

Tanya:

Wow. Wow. All right. Okay. So, you know, jump in and, and tell us your birth story. And of course, if that means you need to provide some details around the time leading up, feel free. I want you to just tell your story as completely as you could possibly tell it.

Rachel:

Okay. Sounds good. It's a, it's a really great story to tell. I had an incredible experience. We decided my husband and I decided that we wanted to have a homebirth with midwives. We knew that for a long time leading up to even before we conceived our son. And so we proceeded with that plan and we worked with licensed midwives here in Idaho and had a really wonderful experience throughout the pregnancy. It was our goal to treat ourselves as much like first time parents as possible and not as a professional midwife and her husband. So we took childbirth classes. We hired a doula. I even listened to birth podcasts and listened to positive birth stories. Even though as a licensed midwife, I have attended hundreds and hundreds of births over the last 12 years of being a midwife. I just felt like I couldn't get enough positive stories.

So at night I would take an up some salt bath and I would listen to birth stories and just try to continue to affirm what I already knew, which is that birth is normal. When you have a low risk, healthy pregnancy, typically things go well and just really wanting to continue affirming that. And that really helped me go into the experience with a lot of confidence. Even though I have seen my share of, you know, complications and have seen loss, I just chose to trust that my body knew what it was doing and I addressed the fears, but then moved on from them and just chose to approach birth from a place of confidence and trust.

Tanya:

Can you tell me a little bit more about what you mean by addressing the fears? I think our listeners who may be experiencing these feelings might be thinking exactly what I just said to you. Like tell me more, how do you address those fears?

Rachel:

Yeah, I think it's an it for me it was felt more natural to just be like, no, no, no. Like that won't happen to me. And that's what a lot of people would tell me if I tried to kind of go there with, well, what if I'm that person who transfers? Cuz I have a long, long tiring birth and I want an epidural or what if I'm the person who doesn't dilate past this many centimeters and people would say, oh, that won't be you. It's like, well we don't know that. Yeah. So how can I, how can I, how can I process this? So what I did was I kind of went through worst case scenario all the way through even to making like a, an actual birth plan, a written birth plan in case the hospital transfer in case of, you know, needing a medical intervention in case of C-section, here are my, my wishes and my preferences and trying to come, come to it with a place of, I like this language of commitment rather than attachment.

So rather than having like attachment to this particular plan, being, you know, committed to the idea of a a physiologic birth and I made the birth plan and I talked with AR doula and my husband about what my concerns were and just vocalized everything and then made a plan in case those things happened. And then I found that once the plan was in place, I could kind of let it go. I wasn't thinking about it anymore because I had already planned for it. So that helped me to just have a, a really practical written birth plan and my doula and my husband and my midwives all knew about it. And then it was like folded and set aside and I could then shift my focus and fill my mind with positivity and under and understanding that birth almost always goes very well. But it did help me to have a plan.

Tanya:

That's awesome. One thing I'll cut this line from the thing went later. You're I love your energy, but something about your, I think it's you talking with your hands, I think you're hitting either the wire or your phone and I'm getting like the noise, so yeah, I don't know exactly, but I don't necessarily want it to get too far from your mouth either, so totally. I don't know. So whatever you need to do, I just wanted to tell you before we got too far into it,

Rachel:

Less hands. Got it. <Laugh>

Tanya:

I love it. I'm a big hand talker too, so. Okay, cool. Alright, so that is super cool. All right. Carry on. I don't wanna interrupt too much except where I wanna get more out of you

Rachel:

<Laugh> sure, sure. Okay. So we had two due dates. We had an early ultrasound that had me due at the end of March and then based on my period and my conception, it was more of like beginning of April. And so we discussed with our midwives using the later date, because as a first time, mom, I knew I was more likely to go over. And I thought that mentally, that would help me to just kind of set my sites later. And then I told all of my friends and family that my due date was two weeks after that, late due date.

Tanya:

Love it. So

Rachel:

That way no one was bothering me. And it really worked really well to the point where, when I went into labor at 39 weeks and four days, everybody thought that I was really, really early when in fact I wasn't, but that was really nice. And I would recommend that to first time moms just give people a due window, a due season, or add a couple weeks on there. That was really great. And yeah, as a result, labor really surprised me because I had totally talked myself into I'm gonna go to 42 weeks. So when I didn't, it was really surprising and I was in a bit of denial, but I was actually going into labor. Yeah,

Tanya:

I, I like denial when someone's going into labor. Yeah. I advised that frequently <laugh> and in part it's because when I went into labor, I was not a midwife yet when I had my only child. I was that person who stupidly got too excited about being in labor and started pulling out all the tricks way too early. Yeah. So of course I learned from experience, this is one of those things. When I said, how has your experience changed the way you will practice? I look at this as one of those things that I could only learn from having had a baby mm-hmm <affirmative> and I very actively tell people, as I'm sure you do, like something in the, in the realm of ignore your labor for as long as you can. Exactly. If the baby just falls out, God bless you. Because the rest

Rachel:

Of us had

Tanya:

To work really hard to get our babies out. Like that's one of my standard lines. Yeah. And it comes from my own experience. So yeah, those are really great moments of learning that really we can only get from the experience.

Rachel:

Yeah. And I was so committed to that idea of ignore. Ignore that again. Totally in denial. So my labor started at seven 30 on a Sunday night, my husband and I were having dinner with my sisters and their husbands. And I had my first contraction. It was about 7:30 PM. And I actually made a comment to my sister. I said, do you wanna feel what a Braxton Hicks feels like? Like this is what a practice contraction is and my husband interjected, but it's not a real contraction. Just so you know, like he's telling my sister that, you know, these are just warm up contractions. We've got weeks left. <Laugh> that's right. I worked on him too. So I really thought this is just normal. End of pregnancy contractions. And we had dinner and I was pretty uncomfortable. Eating my, I ate a huge T-bone steak <laugh> that was my like final meal ate.

I mean, I ate a lot of meat. I ate more than my husband by a long shot and I was uncomfortable through dinner. Just felt contractions periodically my back felt kind of achy my pelvis, my legs just kind of squirming a little bit more. And we, my husband and I had talked about in these last couple weeks of pregnancy, I'm really committed to going to bed early and getting as much rest as possible. So this family dinner, we're gonna call it at like eight 30. We're gonna get out of there and get home so I can go to bed. So, you know, within an hour or two, we were on our way out, we're driving home and I'm having contractions still. And I'm thinking, I can tell that these have some sort of frequency. I don't know what it is, but there there's a pattern here.

So I just started glancing at the clock kind of noting the time that these contractions are happening going, oh, wow. Yeah. They're about every six minutes lasting, maybe 30 seconds. But I didn't mention anything to my husband. We listened to music. We talked on the drive home and then I'd had, I'd had bout of contractions about a week prior and getting into a warm Epsom salt bath had really calmed it, everything down pretty quickly. So I thought I'll do that again tonight and it'll make everything go away. And my husband noticed that, you know, I was uncomfortable. I told him I'm having some of those contractions again. So I'm just gonna get in the bath and like make sure that things kind of calm down, but it definitely felt a little different. And I had this thought, I went to go to the bathroom and I thought, wouldn't it be funny if I had bloody show?

And when I wiped, there was bloody show on the toilet paper. And that was when I had that, oh my gosh, this is it. And it wasn't even, maybe this is it. I just thought, yeah, this is gonna lead to something. I don't know when, I mean, it might be two days from now that we have a baby, but this is the start of the real deal. And I was debating whether to tell my husband, cause it was bedtime, you know? And I thought, I don't want us both to be up. We need to go to sleep. And I'm worried if I tell him he's gonna be too excited. So I was in the bath and contractions are still coming. They're not slowing down. If anything, maybe getting a little stronger. And my husband asked me, are the contractions still happening? I said, yep.

Just get, get your stuff ready for work for tomorrow. You know, we're gonna go about our lives. And then I asked him, you know what, when I do go into labor, would you like, do you wanna know? Like I gotta get a heads up or would you rather that I wait? And he said, no, I would wanna know. I said, well, do you think it would keep you from sleeping if it happened at night? No, I don't think so. So I said, okay, well, my contractions are about every five minutes and I have bloody show. And the look on his face was priceless, cuz he was so excited, but he was really trying to play it. Cool because he knew that's what I wanted. We gotta ignore this, gotta go to bed. So yeah, we tried to go to sleep. He actually did fall asleep and I, I fell asleep for a little bit.

I actually took a sleeping pill <laugh> I was so committed to the idea of going to sleep like these are yeah. You know, five, six minutes apart. They're short. I can totally either sleep through this or sleep between. So we got in bed, I took that sleeping pill and the contractions just started ramping up pretty quickly. My husband was trying to time them and I told him, don't time them go to bed. But over the course of the next couple hours, I kept having to get up and go to the bathroom. Pretty soon. I was flipping over onto my hands and knees pretty instinctually just because it really was uncomfortable to have a contraction on my side. And I thought, for sure, I was just being a big drama queen. I thought mm-hmm <affirmative> this is early labor. It's gonna last for, you know, two days.

And here I am having to change positions pretty soon. I'm vocalizing moaning through the contractions, swaying my hips. And then the contraction would end and I'd think what a baby, oh my gosh, I have to be able to rest through these it's too early. But things were just progressing a lot faster than I knew. And my husband was tuning into that. He kind of started timing. Contractions suggested we call our doula. This was about midnight. So things have been going since seven 30, but we're now getting more active. So contractions about three minutes apart, lasting a minute. And I'm definitely working through them, but feeling okay in between. So I was using that as my gauge or my excuse for why we didn't need to tell our doula. And I said, I'm fine in between. Look at me, I'm talking to you. I'm fine. You're

Tanya:

Like, I'm not entirely in labor land yet.

Rachel:

Yeah, exactly. So just, just pump the breaks. Let's, you know, we, if this is gonna last for a day or more, I don't want my whole team exhausted. And he was able to find a way for us to get the doula there. And that was because our dog needed to be dropped off at my sister's house. And he said, well, I don't wanna leave you alone while I run the dog over to your sisters. And I thought, I don't really wanna be alone either. These contractions are, they're pretty, pretty intense. And I wanted him there. So I said, okay, call the doula so that she can be with me while you take the dog. And that's how <laugh> he ended up getting the doula to come, even though I wasn't sure that it was time to her about an hour to get there. I think she arrived maybe about one or two in the morning. And I was, I was pretty out of it. I was trying to explain that I wasn't out of it, but I couldn't form proper sentences. So I labored mostly on my bed, on hands and knees in the dark. And I tried to like listen to my hip, no birthing app at one point. And it drove me crazy. Even though I listened to it a lot in pregnancy to help me fall asleep. It just was not working for me in labor.

Tanya:

What, what about it? Like, did you find it? Like, what about it? Was it just annoying? Cuz you're like, ah, this is acting like I'm supposed to be able to get all Zen and I can't do it. Like what, what was the thought? Oh,

Rachel:

I think that the pace, it was like too slow for how intense things felt. And it was also distracting. Like almost like having someone talk to you during a contraction. Mm. I didn't want someone else's voice mm-hmm <affirmative> so I, I just wanted my own moaning. The only sound I wanted to hear was myself. I didn't even want my husband talking to me. So I think it was just too distracting. It made the pain feel worse. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> to have her voice in my head. <Laugh>

Tanya:

Got it. And up until this did work up until this point was there no one was touching you, right?

Rachel:

No. Yeah. My husband would kind of rub my back in between contractions, but I was moving quite a bit like swaying my hips back and forth and kind of a tough, I think it was tough to put pressure on my back cause I was moving and I wasn't even able to articulate, Hey, push here, do this. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so just having his presence was great. That was reassuring to me, but I was pretty much doing it on my own, you know, I didn't feel like I really needed anything else. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and then when my doula came, she started to do the double hip squeeze and some SACL pressure and that felt incredible mm-hmm <affirmative> so I thought, oh, I didn't really didn't really realize that I needed that until I had it. And now please don't stop. <Laugh> that feels so good. So when she arrived, I was attempting to labor on the toilet and that was miserable.

Contractions just felt a lot more intense sitting down. So I would instead I would be sitting on the toilet in between and once the contraction came, I would go get down onto my hands and knees and kneel over the tub or I would stand and kneel over the sink, but kind of leaning forward was really helpful and moving my hips. But yeah, just, I was laboring in the dark and it was very quiet now it's, you know, yeah. Two or three in the morning, it's dark outside. I started getting really warm just before I would be hot during contraction and then cold in between now I was just warm. So I took off my shirt and my doula was fanning me. I was vocalizing a lot and our doula suggested, you know, let's give the midwives at least a heads up call. So we, they, they got the heads up call and then within about 20 or 30 minutes, our doula said call them to come like it's time.

And of course in my head, I'm going, no it's too early. And I tried to express that, but again, I, I couldn't even form a proper sentence. I was just so out of it already really in labor land. But I, there was a part of me that was just worried that it would last a long time and I didn't want everybody to be tired. But I was glad that she called the midwives cuz things just continued to get really intense. We weren't prepared the home, wasn't ready for our birth because we were thinking we would go another couple weeks. So my husband was rushing around in between contractions getting things going. So every contraction, he somehow managed to be there with me. But then in between he was in inflating, the birth tub hanging twinkle lights and birth affirmations. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> gathering my snacks and my electrolyte drinks changing the, the bedding, you know, double make the bed with the waterproof waterproof mattress protector and then rushing back, you know? So every two to three minutes he's getting his little break to run and do things. And they, he was doing like

Tanya:

Crossfit sprints

Rachel:

In between. <Laugh> absolutely functional fitness at its finest. Hell yeah. <Laugh> yeah. So my midwives arrived about three 30 I think. And they checked my vitals and listened to the baby and I was really relieved that they were there. I remember feeling a lot of peace having them there. And the next thing kind of requires a little bit of an explanation. So throughout my pregnancy, I mentioned really wanting to fill my mind with positive birth stories. And it occurred to me that, you know, as a midwife I've attended it's over a 500 births. I don't know the exact count, but 500 or so out of hospital births. And I thought about all these incredible experiences, all these beautiful births and things that I had learned through the mothers that I'd cared for as a midwife, all these lessons and resilience that my clients had taught me over the, over the years.

And I wanted a way to somehow have that as like a physical representation in my birth space. So I, I took to writing out the name of every mother that I'd caught a baby for and kind of made it like an art project. I'm not a very artistic person, but sort of had their name swirling in different colors across this paper that I wanted to hang in my birth space so that I could see that. And remember birth is normal and be reassured of that and be able to draw strength from all these moms. And I wasn't even sure if I would utilize it, cuz that happens sometimes, you know, moms prepare for things in their birth. They don't even end up using it. They swear, oh, I'm gonna have a water birth. And then they hate the water or I'm gonna, I have this beautiful playlist.

They don't even touch it. In fact, we had prepared a playlist and at one point my husband said, do you want me to play it? And I said, no, it's playing in my head. <Laugh> so I, I had music in my head, you know, just mentally songs. I was kind of humming and that were playing in my mind, but I didn't wanna hear it externally. So just one of those funny things that crazy laboring women say like, no, the music's in my head. <Laugh> okay, crazy. You're hearing voices. But anyway right after the midwives got there, I had asked to get in the tub and so they had prepared the water for me. And when I came out into our living room, first of all, it was transformed into a beautiful birth space, thanks to my husband. But I noticed the, the sheet, the paper with all the names and I walked over to it and I placed both of my hands open against it.

And I read the names and just honestly started remembering births, remembering these mothers and their strength and fortitude. And it truly shored me up and gave me strength. I was surprised when I looked back, I thought, wow, I didn't know that it would be that powerful for me in labor, but it really did give me that oo right as I was going into transition. So I got into the water. I hadn't been checked. And that was kind of, that was one of my requests was unless there's a, a clinical indication, I don't see the need to have cervical exams unless we feel like it would change the course of action or it's needed at some point. But in terms of just a way to measure progress, I there's other ways we can do that and I don't need that information. So we were just going off of my contractions that the pattern longer, stronger, closer together.

And my behavior, you know, as I was becoming more and more like more drawn inward, not engaging with people, vocalizing my, my movement and sounds so that's what we were going off of to gauge progress. And so I could, I could tell that I was getting closer and my team could as well. And as I got into the water, it was kind of a tricky time because my contractions increased in intensity so much at that time, the water really didn't do much for me. And I remember being so excited thinking, oh, it's the midwives epidural. The water's gonna feel so great. And then I had my first contraction in the water and I thought, this is it. Are you kidding? This is all the, this is all the pain relief I'm gonna get from the water I almost got out. And I thought, let's just give it a little bit of time.

And then honestly, I was just too out of it to really think about doing anything different. I was just approaching each contraction as it came, some contractions, I was kneeling leaning forward. Sometimes I would kind of recline back or be on my hands and knees or squatting. There was a point where I even got into like a deep lunge, which I thought was really interesting because no one coached me to do that. But somehow my body knew it needed to do that. And maybe that's because the baby was, you know, rotating and changing position and that was, was helping. But somehow my body knew to do that and left undisturbed. I was finding these different positions on my own without anyone telling me, Hey, Rachel, lift this leg, do this. Now try that. I was just moving instinctually. I got really warm. So my husband was doing all the cold wash cloths, sips of cold water had the little fan on my face, was being very encouraging.

My doula was doing some massage and pressure on my back when she could reach me in the water. And I was just doing, you know, one contraction at a time. At a point I got pretty tired and started to fall asleep in between contractions. And then I would be, I would wake up to a contraction which was really intense. So I had the thought, okay, maybe I need to like really stay awake, you know? And, and then I can anticipate the next contraction so that it doesn't catch me off guard, but I knew that by doing so I would be holding tension, waiting for that contraction and I needed to relax. So I chose to just let everything go. One of my affirmations was add nothing extra. So just let the contraction, you know, be as big as it needs to be, but don't add anything with my own effort.

Just let it move through me. So I relaxed, you know, just kind of became limp in between would rest my head, close my eyes and sometimes fall asleep. And then the next contraction would come. Pretty soon I started feeling a building pressure in my bottom and I thought, okay, I think baby's coming down. So I, I actually reached in and felt the baby's head with my fingers and I could feel that there was a little bit of cervix still. I didn't consciously check myself, but I could just tell, okay, that's cervix. And rather than assessing it for a dilation, very formally, I just told myself, okay, you still got work to do that's okay. And just kind of went back to it. But then, you know, that pressure was increasing. At one point I could feel the bag of water's bulging like a little water balloon. So that was pretty exciting to feel that. And then I started to feel the baby's head kind of coming under my pubic bone and rocking back and forth. A lot of moms get really frustrated at that point cuz they feel the progress of the baby's head moving under and then it gets sucked back up mm-hmm

Tanya:

<Affirmative>.

Rachel:

And so I was aware that that was happening and there was a couple points where it occurred to me that, oh, I could be pushing for a long time. This could go on for a while. But then there was like a, another part of my brain that would take over and say, but it's not gonna take a long time. It's going great. And I would almost midwife myself through those moments.

Tanya:

I knew that's what you were about to say.

Rachel:

<Laugh> yeah.

And it, it didn't feel so much like a tug of war. I was worried about that. Okay. As a clinical provider, am I gonna be assessing every moment of my own labor? And there were parts of me that like, that would kind of pop up, but then I would, the, the other part of my midwife brain would just sweep right through that and encourage myself. And I was talking out loud to myself at points and you know, telling myself you're doing so great. You're doing awesome. At one point, my list app thought I was talking to her. So she said, can you repeat that? And I said, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to my body. <Laugh> so just like really in a good place in a, in a really good place. And I even thought at a few points, this is going really, really well <laugh> and I still felt like I was able to be in my, be in that part of my, of my head where I wasn't thinking too much.

And if I did start to think again, it was like, I, I could kind of, I moved through that. Okay. Without it being a struggle or too much of that tug of war, which was really a wonderful experience. And so at the point when I was feeling baby's head kind of going forward and back forward and back, I even thought to myself, okay, we probably have about 20 minutes. Cause I was thinking just based off of experience, it's about 20 minutes of that forward and back forward and back. And that's about what it was. And I was really quiet at this point. I had gone from making some pretty big loud noises through contractions. And now on this kind of pushing phase, which in all lasted about an hour, I was very quiet. Wasn't really responding to anyone wasn't speaking at all. And wasn't vocalizing, there's some video footage and I barely make a pee.

You can almost not tell I'm having a contraction. Just very small grunts at the peak of the contraction. It was very gentle. No one was coaching me on how to push my body was just doing it instinctually. And pretty soon I felt the sensation of crowning and that was intense for sure. There's a reason why people call it the ring of fire. And I, I supported my own peroneum, you know, just kind of holding the baby's head with my hand and my team. They knew I was pushing, but they didn't realize I was that close because of how quiet I was. And honestly, nobody was staring at my crotch, like watching every contraction and every moment and it was dark. And so no one was measuring my progress in that kind of way. And so when the baby's head started to kind of slip out, I said out loud to the room baby and my husband was kind of like, is she just saying that?

And I said, I feel a little bit of hair. And my husband brushed hair off of my neck thinking I was talking about myself and I said, no, the baby. And everybody kinda looks and realizes, oh, the head, it was just born. So the head was born and I have, I was holding the baby's head in my hand. We didn't know if it was a boy or girl. And we had that little pause in between that, that, that contraction and the next, and it was really amazing. I kind of had almost a moment of clarity to be able to like, feel the baby's hair. I said, I feel the baby's ear. And then I thanked everyone for being there. Oh. So I, I like could really see my team. And I said, thank you all for being here. I love you so much. <Laugh>

And then I knew one more contraction. So I was talking to the baby and I said, good job, baby. One more contraction, just one more. And then on the next contraction, I let out a pretty big grunt to deliver the shoulders. And the baby was born into my hands. I brought the baby up onto my chest and the baby started crying and of course I'm crying and I'm talking to the baby good job, baby. And my husband's right there. And there was probably a minute where we're just talking to the baby and noticing features before we even saw if it was a boy or a girl. So then at that point we look and we see it's a boy and I exclaimed, we have a son and I'm just bawling my son, my son with him at my chest. And he had let out his first cries.

And then he's just alert and looking at us. And we had probably 20 minutes where we just got to look at him and enjoy him. I had opted to get a shot of Pitocin within a minute of birth, knowing that I was pretty depleted in my pregnancy from hyperemesis. I also was anemic and I had an iron infusion in my third trimester and I felt pretty strongly that my body would not tolerate a hemorrhage. And so my husband and I did the research and a shot of Pitocin within a minute of birth has really good success at reducing hemorrhage. So that gave us all, I think, some confidence and some room to be in that moment without being as concerned about my bleeding. Cause I had had that shot, which was really, which was really nice, cuz we just were able to soak up that time.

After about 20 minutes, my sister cut the cord when it was finished pulsing and then I opted to give baby over to dad. So I could kind of focus on the placenta, which I then delivered myself. <Laugh> mm-hmm <affirmative> I just did some, some cord traction kind of got into a squat and helped facilitate the birth of the placenta. And then my midwives helped me out of the tub and into my bed and we got back skin to skin with baby and he latched really quickly nursed vigorously on both sides without any problems. After about an hour, the midwives did his exam right there in our room everything at the foot of our bed. So we could see he was weighed and he was actually eight pounds, five ounces, which is pretty good size considering I threw up most of my food for nine months.

Yeah. Crazy. yeah, but I was at eight pound. I was eight three. My husband was seven 15 when he was born. So we're like, we're probably gonna have an eight-ish pounder. That's kind of what we were and yeah, the midwives, you know, monitored us helped me get cleaned up. After a while I took a shower, they, they brewed me tea and brought me snacks and it was just amazing. The sun was coming up at that point. So he was born at, yeah, he was born just after six in the morning. So it was a 11 and a half hour total labor. And I would say, let's see it would've been about six hours of that was more of the active labor and about an hour of pushing. So really quite short for a first time mom, but I felt like it was enough time to present challenge.

And for me to experience labor, it wasn't like it was one hour long and it just felt like I was totally caught off guard. So I was really pleased with the length. It was all through the night, so I was tired, but of course you get that adrenaline and you're just so excited. We were highest kites. So happy the midwives left after a couple hours, they, you know, gave us our instructions and they did postpartum care in our home over, over that next week. So they came to see us and our doula came to see us and our chiropractor came to adjust me and the baby, our lactation consultant. So we had lots of wonderful in-home care and that first week, but yeah, that birth, we were just over the moon. It was the best night of our lives. We were so happy when we finally fell asleep and took a big nap with the baby. We woke up and we were starving. We had a friend bring us burgers and fries and I didn't throw it up for the first time and months. And I just felt so good. My nausea was instantly gone with the birth. I threw up in labor at one point. And that was the last time I threw up. I haven't thrown up since, which was just really remarkable after the year I had.

Tanya:

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. A couple questions. Yeah. How was your perineum?

Rachel:

I had a first degree laceration that I, I opted not to have sutured. I actually asked to see it. So I said, can you bring me a mirror? Let me assess it. <Laugh> so definitely had a little midwife moment and it was so superficial that I, and it was well approximated. So wasn't you know, gaping or causing any problems wasn't bleeding. So I just said, let's leave it, let it heal on its own. And yeah. So yeah. First degree tear.

Tanya:

And the other question is about your chiropractor. Yeah. Was your chiropractor more for you for your baby? Both of you.

Rachel:

Both of us. Okay. Yeah. So we have a really wonderful chiropractor here. Shout out to Dr. Annak. She's got 20 years of experience. She's Webster certified. So she really specializes in pregnancy, but also newborn and pediatric. So she offers for patients that are established in her care to come to the home really, as soon as you'd like to have an adjustment for baby and for a mom. So I got adjusted first and then my son was adjusted and he was just wide eyed and quiet, really alert, kinda looking at her, very calm. It's really pretty relaxing to watch a pediatric chiropractic adjustment. It's very gentle. It kind of reminds me of infant massage. So, so for those who are like chiropractic care, like cracking babies necks, it looks very different than what it would look like on an adult. And it's yeah, very, very, very gentle. So we both were adjusted about 12 hours after the birth.

Tanya:

Very cool. I'm actually having a chiropractor on in a few weeks. Cool. So you, you may be aware of this person because it's a, she also makes breastfeeding and pumping brass, Carly CASI. She's a CrossFitter and a pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach. So she'll be on soon talking about chiropractic care and fitness in the postpartum period as well. So kind of cool. I'm glad that you mentioned that because one of the, I was just working on, you know, organizing my thoughts for her show before we got on. And one of the things I wrote down that I wanted to talk about was that so many people, so many of my own clients express so much fear about chiropractic care and I really wanna understand more why that is and what we can maybe do to dispel some of those myths mm-hmm <affirmative> that are out there because it's so wonderful. And I love that you commented on how gentle it is and you equated it to infant massage. I tend to think of it looking a little more closer to cranio sacral in a way, because it's so gentle. So anyway, regardless of how that all plays out, I think that's a memo I want everyone to hear is how gentle that can be. And that we have great needs. The baby was just, you know, kind of tucked in there real tight <laugh>

Rachel:

Yeah.

Tanya:

And goes through a lot of movements to get out and what we go through for nine months. Right. Absolutely. So that's, that's awesome. All right. So let's change gears a little bit. Yeah. And let's talk a little bit about, take me through how you felt physically in the day in the early days postpartum and when you started making time and space for yourself to check in and like, just take me through you. We, we both already know what this process looks like, but I want our listeners to hear what the process of physical recovery with the goal of re re-engaging in physical activity and exercise looks like for someone.

Rachel:

Yeah. So I felt amazing. I would say the first, maybe 36 hours I was just on a high I wasn't nauseous I could eat. And then all the soreness kind of set in. I definitely did too much in that first 36 hours, even though I felt like I was doing nothing. I still was sitting more than I was laying down. And even though our visits from family were short, they were frequent. And so I learned a lot there. And my husband helped me to kind of navigate that where we ended up really just kind of not accepting visitors at all. And that was a much better move for us. So I, I definitely felt pretty sore in my Parum, especially that was the, the biggest issue I had developed pretty severe hemorroids in my pregnancy from all of the vomiting, as well as some some stress incontinence.

So I would, every time that I threw up, I would pee and I worked with a pelvic floor physical therapist, but ultimately it was just so hard to counter that, you know, when I was throwing up five, 10 times a day, it just was too difficult. It was just so much demand on my pelvic floor. So everything felt really swollen and tender. And I ended up on day three, I did a telehealth visit with my pelvic floor PT and she gave me some exercises to be doing at home. Mostly just kind of waking up my core, getting things. Re-Engaged kind of understanding how to activate my muscles again and just simple things I could be doing at home. I didn't think much about returning to, you know, fitness or any kind of activity. I just really worked on lying in for a good two weeks.

We didn't leave the house for two weeks. My husband was off of work. So it was really just us in our little bubble. And he took care of everything. I, I nursed and worked on, you know, establishing a good supply of milk for my son. And he made sure that I got one or two baths every day to soak my muscles. And I had gotten that adjustment from my chiropractor. And then around the two week mark, we went, that was our first outing was back to the chiropractor for another adjustment. But I focused a lot on just resting and then nutrition, just eating a lot of wholesome foods and hydrating like crazy, cuz that breastfeeding thirst is real. Oh yeah. Oh my goodness. Never been so thirsty. And then of course just resting as much as we could. And even if I wasn't sleeping, I would just tell myself just rest.

Even if you can't sleep, just close your eyes and rest your body. So that was the first two weeks. I didn't try to go on any walks or I, I had ideas of things I could do. I know like Brianna battles who created the pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach certification. She has a really great resource on six exercises for the first six weeks postpartum. Some things you can start in the very beginning and I just rested. I thought I might do those things and I didn't, I just, I just rested and ate and nursed and really worked on the, on establishing that bond with my son and my husband.

Tanya:

Awesome. I love that. And that's, that is in line with my general advice. You know, like people who are a little anxious to get back to it, I'm often trying to slow them down a little bit. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but even people who present as someone who I might think will be that way, usually the second, the baby's out and you realize how little sleep you're actually gonna get and how much work is going into breastfeeding and just like waiting out the time to feel better. Most people kind of realize that those first two weeks there's not a whole lot to do. Right. Yep. So that's, that's great. That sounds really good. All right. Carry on.

Rachel:

So yeah. We also had some, some things we were working on with breastfeeding. I kind of had to downregulate my supply. I had quite a bit of milk. We had to work on that with a lactation consultant. And then my son had his tongue and lip ties both revised at three weeks postpartum. So we were kind of working through some of those hiccups as well. And then once that was all kind of cleared up, we're about three weeks postpartum, my husband's back at work. And that's when I have to start doing things more on my own. So I'm, you know, taking care of things around the house and having to get to appointments by myself. And so it was just kind of navigating that. I still really, wasn't very interested in resuming a lot of activity and I kind of looked at it as I want to prioritize my bond with my son as the most important thing, breastfeeding, rest and nutrition.

I feel like if I can get those things as like, as solid as I can, then I'll have a solid foundation to put exercise on. And so I just would check in with myself about every week to see how are we doing on those other four things. And is it, do I feel ready to add another piece? Cause the way I look at it is there is a point as a mother, you know, you make sacrifices, like I'm going to set aside an hour to exercise and I'm not gonna be actively like with my kids. Maybe it's my husband is watching my son and I go and I spend an hour exercising and you might say, well, you, you know, that's an hour. You could be with your son and it's that precious time. How could you leave? There's a point where you make a sacrifice because I want to be healthy for him.

I wanna be my best self. I'm a practicing midwife. I need to be my best for the clients. But I found that there was a point in that really early postpartum where it felt like that was not an appropriate kind of sacrifice. I felt like something else would have to give where I, I hadn't figured out breastfeeding enough yet. Like we weren't solid there yet. I'm really not sleeping much at all. And like, I don't think that I can add that, that challenge. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> it felt like, Hey, exercise should be for the most part, a deposit in your bank account. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> this feels like it would be a withdrawal mm-hmm <affirmative> I would be like taking and I don't have enough yet to give for exercise. It's gonna be taking something away from one of these other areas. Like I would be, I'd be, you know, missing an opportunity to spend some time cooking some nutritious food or missing an opportunity to rest or having to like do something funky with breastfeeding where maybe I'm trying to like hurry up and nurse and get out the door.

And it was just too early. It just felt too early to me. So I saw my midwives and my pelvic floor, physical therapist. I was cleared to return to, to activity right at that magic six week mark, I had been bleeding, I would say I bled pretty much like a, a medium to light period for about two weeks. And then I just spotted for several weeks, probably up until about that six week mark, I just spotted. And that was definitely a criteria where I knew as long as I'm still bleeding in any way, I don't feel comfortable returning to exercise or adding any challenge. But then even at six weeks when I was quote cleared, I was told my diastasis was very minimal. Not even a finger width, but a fingertip with pretty good approximation. I was not having any pelvic floor symptoms.

So even though I had had that stress incontinence in pregnancy, in my postpartum, if I sneezed or coughed no issues at all, right, it was all cleared up. And my internal exams with my pelvic floor PT were wonderful, good, you know, good strength, but also being able to relax my muscles. And yet I still felt like I needed more time because I was still thinking about those other pillars. So again, bond breastfeeding, sleep and nutrition. And I just kept checking in with myself and it was about eight weeks postpartum that I thought, I feel like I could add an extra piece. My, I feel ready to try something. <Laugh> I don't know what it's gonna look like. It probably won't be much, but I'm ready to add a little bit of challenge. So it was eight weeks postpartum that I first put on athletic wear and went to the gym with any intention of moving.

And I started very, very slow. So my approach definitely was that progressive overload. One of my, like a perspective that I have that I share with my, my clients that I coach as a fitness instructor throughout your pregnancy, you find yourself needing to modify more, the further into the pregnancy. You get, you just have to continue to make adjustments and where you maybe started, if you were say like 10 weeks pregnant to where you are at nine months pregnant, it looks very different. So you just kind of keep modifying things more and more and more to that end of pregnancy. And then I look at that end of pregnancy as kind of a starting point and work your way backwards. So I kind of started with things, things I was doing around nine months postpartum. So really no deliberate core work at all.

I wasn't doing planks and sit ups. It was too much demand that might have looked like more of I'm laying on my back and I'm breathing with my diaphragm and I'm visualizing, pulling my, you know hip bones together and I'm engaging my core and doing my rehab. And then I'm on the bike a little bit, you know, pedaling at a pretty slow pace or I'm doing some farmer's carries walking pretty slowly. But just being very deliberate with my movement and I was watching for the three PS mm-hmm <affirmative>, which you are the one who brought that to my attention and I love it so much. So do I have pressure? Do I have pain? Do I have peeing so watching for those things, but then also monitoring for anything in the 24 hours that would follow.

Tanya:

Yes. Ma'am thank you for saying that.

Rachel:

Yeah. Cuz I was finding, okay. These things feel great right now, but it could be that in two hours I'm like, holy cow, cuz like there's a rock in my vagina, what is happening? So I watched that really carefully too.

Tanya:

Cool. Awesome. Loving it. Oh my God.

Rachel:

And I just, you know, I started really slow. I did some like hip and glute activation with some resistance bands. Honestly I started a lot of movements with a PVC pipe and then I would move to like an empty 15 pound bar, then an empty 35 pound bar, just kind of re drilling movement patterns. And so

Tanya:

Tech technique

Rachel:

Focused. Yep. Technique focused for sure. And again, just implementing a lot of the same modifications I had used in pregnancy. I was very aware of my breath. This was huge in helping me kind of control my pace. So I made sure if there was any movements that required me to hold my breath, I knew that that was too much challenge at that point. So I made it really until very recently, so about oh 14 weeks postpartum like four, four months or so. No, no breath hold at all. That would make sure that I could exhale through the challenging part of the movement so that I could make sure that my pelvic floor was at its strongest point. So for those who are listening on an inhale, our pelvic floor, relax on relaxes and on the exhale it has that recoil or contraction, so it's better supported.

And so I would just make sure that as I was moving, I was very conscious of my breath. And if I found myself holding my breath, I knew this is too much challenge for my body right now. And I continued working with my pelvic floor, physical therapist beyond six weeks. So she was also getting me exercises to rehabilitate my core very deliberately from the inside out, working to use my deep core muscles, not just the muscles that show, not just like our six pack muscles, but deep in our core, working on activating. Those was huge. So yeah, lots of breathing through the entire range of motion, working on what we call the 360 breath. So breathing wide into my diaphragm, into my ribs, not just breathing down into my pelvic floor, that was huge. And I was also very aware of positioning from pregnancy, for example, like the classic rib flare, you know, where mm-hmm, <affirmative> our with our growing belly ribs start to flare up.

Just being aware that there might be some tendencies that were from my pregnancy or some compensations from postpartum, for example that posterior pelvic tilt, we hold our babies kind of drawing our hips forward or shoulders are more rounded from nursing. So I was really careful to look for those compensations and try to rehabilitate those areas and create, you know, strength in those, in those spots. And then I mentioned really deliberately choosing not to do direct core movements. So sit ups toast, a bar fluter kicks and also high impact. So running jumping rope box jumps just were an absolute, no, there's some really good research that supports not returning to high impact movement until six months postpartum mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I plan to just continue to substitute those movements until closer to six months. And then my intention would be that slow introduction.

So I'm not gonna go out and run a mile the first day it might be jogging a hundred meters and then walking a hundred meters and that's, you know, you do two rounds of that, and then we're gonna monitor for symptoms and wait a day. And then we're gonna add a little bit more. So it's a very slow process, but my mom always told me that slow and steady wins the race. So that's my, my motto or in the pregnancy postpartum athleticism world. We like to say intention now for intensity later. So that's really been my mantra and really it's just been probably in the last week. But I've been gradually really increasing my weights to find more of a challenge in my, in my loading. So that hasn't been, I haven't really been trying to like go heavy, but that's just been something I've kind of started adding in in the last week or so, and again, still monitoring her symptoms.

Tanya:

And have you had any?

Rachel:

I have actually. So it took a while for it to show up. What I have experienced is some of that, like the fullness in my vagina I wouldn't call it like a, a painful pressure, but just like a little bit heavier on movements that require me to absorb impact. So I've noticed it on clean and jerks. So when I clean the weight to my shoulder and catch, and then when I go to then push it up overhead and also on push presses, mostly when I'm bringing the weight down to my shoulder. So it's absorbing impact mm-hmm <affirmative>. So with that, I've been playing with some different strategies some things in my, my positioning and in my, my breath, but ultimately what I'm noticing is a symptom threshold. So I'm good for a while. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, you know, 10 reps or something mm-hmm <affirmative> and then as I get more tired, the symptoms start showing up. So I'm finding that it's easiest for me to control it by reducing my reps or my weight.

Tanya:

Oh, I love it. This is exactly the way I talk to people about approaching this. So using double unders as the example, or just even single unders whatever, just jumping rope mm-hmm <affirmative> right. So it's that, it's the case that someone might feel good for some number of reps. Yep. But there's that point where you cross over and so you have to be able to have this like conversation with yourself. Okay. Eight was the magic number. I need to bring it back to five, let's say, and nobody's saying that there's some magic formula and I think that's where people get really hung up is they want something so specific and it's like, whatever the number was, bring it back a bit, bring it back as much as you want and then take a break. Yep. And go with that lower number again. And then the question is how many times can you do that before your symptom threshold happens at the fifth rep instead of the eight. So now, you know, okay. I've got five reps with a 32nd break five times and I feel great. That's what we're looking for. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> what I remind people all the time is that it's okay to experiment. It's okay. To hit your symptom threshold. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> once or twice while you're finding it. It's not okay to bust through your symptom threshold over and over and over again. Right. So no matter what

Rachel:

Movement you're doing exactly.

Tanya:

You're just trying to find it. If you don't try to find it, you don't know where it is.

Rachel:

Right. Exactly. And I did have to try a couple different strategies to find what work cuz again, it was like, okay, well we'll try adjusting position. We'll try adjusting my breath. And that was sort of helpful. But the biggest help was finding that the threshold of, of reps and being able to reduce it or know when I need to take a break. And then I'm just trying to kind of work up to, to more mm-hmm <affirmative> have, have more stamina, but I think one thing that people expect, especially in the CrossFit world where people are so used to just gunning it, you kind of turn off your brain and you just go. And it's a really great feeling. It's super fun to just be able to push yourself and not think about it. But the reality is that in that immediate postpartum, it's just not really possible to totally turn your brain off and just go and you kind of have to be okay with taking that approach of experimentation.

And even if it means it takes twice as long, or you have to stop and adjust and maybe do a different movement, unload your bar, whatever that is. I just, I have to approach things like that right now. Like the intensity will continue to come. But right now that that intention does require me to be a lot more aware of what I'm doing. And that's just, that's just where I'm at right now. Someday I'll be able to just shut it off and go. I that'd be really fun, but right now we're not there. So it, it can be frustrating. I think I I'm in a good head space with it, but I know that a lot of people would be really frustrated by that. Just having to be so aware and so mindful. And then, oh, I have to adjust it or I have to take a break again.

I don't wanna put, put the bar down. I just wanna bust through this and be done, but I'm trying to rebuild from the inside out so that I can have the ability to have sport and athleticism through my whole life. Not just in this period of my thirties right now, I wanna be doing something when I'm 50, 60, 70, I don't know what it will be, but it's been gymnastics and softball and jujitsu and CrossFit and weight lifting. And I'd love to try new things for my whole life. I, and I wanna have that perspective that I'm building something now so that I can continue to move and I don't wanna get so shortsighted that with this one workout and feeling competitive that I have to finish it in a certain amount of time. So it, it is a mental adjustment. Gotta really slow things down for sure. And be very aware and be willing to yeah. Make, make adjustments as you go.

Tanya:

Yeah. Cool. Okay. Here's another question for you. Have you experienced in this time that you sounds like you started working towards recovery around six weeks was partum you're four months now, have you had times where you planned to go to the gym? You thought you knew what you were gonna do, but you had a rough night and you said, you know what, I'm just gonna call it. We're not going today because my cortisol's already out the roof from lack of sleep and I don't need more cortisol from this workout. So like have you had that?

Rachel:

Yeah, that's kind of back to that, like deposits or withdrawals where I just have to be honest with myself, is this going to be more harm than help? Is this gonna be a withdrawal from the bank account or a deposit? And sometimes it's even just trying to get out the door at a certain time, like, oh, I wanna make it for the eight 30 class, but my son wants to cluster feed and or wants to be held for his, his nap. And I just choose to prioritize that and say, you know what, we'll go a little bit later. Like, we'll just have to change the plan. Or it will, or it looks different or where I've brought him. This happened more in the beginning when we were really still trying to figure out feeding and he was nursing more frequently where, you know, he would wake up and be crying in the middle of the workout and I just had to stop and nurse him, and sometimes I was able to finish the workout. And then there were some days where I couldn't, for whatever reason, maybe we had somewhere we had to get. And so I just didn't finish it that day. And I just sat there and nurse and I watched the class finish the workout and I sat there in breastfed mm-hmm <affirmative> so yeah, I've had to keep a pretty open mind about that too. Just yeah. Prior priorities for me. Yeah.

Tanya:

Good. I want people to hear these stories of people working through this, because I think in just sitting back and listening to you talk because you are coming from a place of great knowledge, I know it's harder for people for whom they may not have this bodily experience or the vocabulary for it, but in just in just listening, they're getting a little bit more and they're getting ideas of ways to approach this. I think it's really beautiful. So as we move towards wrapping up, I wanna remind you of the things that I wanted to hear from you the most. And we'll take them kind of one at a time. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I'm really curious for you to tell me, you know, one or two as they come to you, whether it's about your pregnancy, your birth, your postpartum recovery back to that idea of what did you find that was really unexpected, that challenged your beliefs or that changed your perspective as it pertains to how you work with people moving forward. So looking at the whole spectrum of everything you've been through,

Rachel:

I, I, this feels like a interesting observation, but I think that hyperemesis for me was a gift because I had to adjust my mindset so early in my pregnancy, I always wanted and always thought I would be that person that worked out through her whole pregnancy. And I honestly thought even as a pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach, this will be such a great time to get a bunch of footage and photos of me working out that I can use for my clients. I could build this, you know, I had this whole like business plan mm-hmm <affirmative> and then I wasn't able to work out in the way that I wanted to, but I feel like it was such a, a gift because it just showed me how short these seasons are. Pregnancy is such a short season. And even this immediate postpartum is so brief in comparison to my whole life.

And I've been in athletics my whole life. And so to think about even a year and a half or two years of more deliberate rehab and rehab is not that much time. So the gift is that I feel like postpartum, I've been surprised at how easy going I've been and how flexible, but I feel like building the bond, the breastfeeding, the nutrition and the sleep has been such a it's worked so well for me. I am excited to see how I can like share that with other, with my clients moving forward and really encourage that because it's just been really incredible to not have that pressure of performance and of returning to my former self. So I don't know if that really answers it, but again, it's like hyperemesis was a gift, cuz it got me to slow down and recognize how short the season was.

And then it changed my perspective on how I rebuilt and having that foundation has, I've never regretted building that foundation in those first eight weeks. It has only served me well. And I think I'm coming back stronger. I, I think that women have that there's that, that opportunity to come back stronger because when you rehabilitate and you slow down and you can recognize weaknesses, you can work on that deep core engagement and kind of slowly rebuild. I, I just don't think you're gonna come back weaker when all is said and done. So that's been cool to experience firsthand and I'm excited to see how that shows up in my work as a midwife and as a coach.

Tanya:

Yeah. It sounds like not that you were ever going to be rigid because I think the beliefs that we both hold about how to approach this are in essence, the opposite of rigid, but it sounds like that little bit of athlete brain that you might have brought to this just got knocked outta you early on because of the hyperemesis. And so now you've had a vastly different experience than the one you believed you understood mm-hmm <affirmative> so it's, this is again coming back to going through something personally, as opposed to just learning it academically, for lack of a better word gives you this sense of, okay, this is one way, the way I always understood that I learned from someone else mm-hmm <affirmative>, but there's this complete other way that I have experienced. And now I can see an even broader spectrum of possibilities of how to individualize for my clients as a midwife, all the way segueing into that weird gray zone that we live in as both coaches and midwives on that all the way into when you are actually wearing your coach hat. So that's super cool. And you know, I'll needle you one last time just to see if you can do it. Is there anything that you will do differently as a midwife or as a coach because of your experience that's like really concrete or did it not happen that way for you? And that's okay if there's not an answer to that.

Rachel:

I think that I have a lot more grace now understanding you'd think I would already have believed this, but you can do all the things, right. And you're still dealt cards that you didn't want. I think I worked really hard on my preconception health, really hard <laugh> and I had a very challenging pregnancy and I ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. <Laugh> mm-hmm <affirmative> for nine months and was very, very sick, even though I did quote everything right. And even in my pregnancy, I still really tried to do everything the right way. And I feel like I just got, I got really lucky and I am very blessed to have a, a wonderful birth and an easy postpartum, but I think that I just, I have more grace now understanding that even if you do it all, all the right things, you just don't, you you're dealt cards, whether it's in, you know, pregnancy for your birth, for your breastfeeding journey, for your return to fitness.

And so I do feel like I have a lot more grace and understanding there's I've had opportunities already. There's a lot of moms having babies at our gym right now. And so I'm watching and walking through a lot of like a lot of moms through postpartum and not everyone is choosing to rehabilitate in the way that I did mm-hmm <affirmative>, but I'm recognizing, and having grace that like fitness means something different for different people. For me, it, it wasn't the most important thing. I had a lot of really great support at home and I had a lot of resources to be able to build this beautiful foundation, but there are people who have breastfeeding struggles who have postpartum depression who are single mothers, or have, you know, they don't have the same partner support, lack of finances or resource versus, and I've seen that for some people, fitness is like, it's a mental health piece and I've, I've equated it.

Like if someone took you off your antidepressant and that was like your only thing you had, if fitness was your antidepressant and they took that away from you, how eager would you be to get back in there? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and get moving after you have your baby mm-hmm <affirmative> and I just had this flip because I was watching kind of from a place of judgment. Cause I felt like I was rehabilitating so appropriately. And then recognizing that a lot of that is privilege from where I just, I have a lot of resources and I had we planned the pregnancy, you know, within this committed, loving marriage. And we had the financial resources, we set aside money to have our lactation consultant and our doula. And I have some of that knowledge too, just from being a midwife, but not everybody has that. And so I pretty quickly realized that some of these moms I was watching that were like returning to fitness in a way that I didn't feel like was appropriate.

I thought to myself and it really helps me when I start getting all up in arms about why are you doing that? What if someone took away an antidepressant, you know, and was like, you can't have that right now for, for six weeks postpartum until six weeks postpartum or longer. Like, is it, what do I not know about the behind the scenes? It's just really helped me not to be so judgemental about each person's process. Yes. I believe that there are, you know, benefits to doing a slow approach, but I know that for some people, the benefit there might be a risk that I don't understand and that benefit isn't as strong as the, the risk would be if they didn't start exercising because that's how they manage their anxiety. So that's just kind of the story I make in my head to help me. But it's just, I just different perspective. So I think I'll do things differently just because I know that not everybody has all the resources that I did so that that's gonna be very different in coaching and in midwifery from now on,

Tanya:

That was a really beautiful answer. I'm really glad that I know you one final time, you, you really put that it's a broad answer, right. And I did have it in my head that I wanted you to like, give me these little specifics, but that's me. And I really appreciate the way you just expanded upon that in a way that can apply to anything and everything. It's really beautiful. I really thank you so much for sharing your story and your expertise and your perspective. Those are three very separate things and you just brought all of them together so nicely. And I'll tell you the thing that you added to this conversation that I'm going to keep with me now is your four pillars. I love the way you say that. I say all of those things, but you just put it together. So concisely <laugh> and I will be using that one for now on. So I am grateful for that. Thank you so much for coming back.

Rachel:

Oh yeah. It's been great. It's always fun to share the birth story and it's been great to have an opportunity to reflect on my return to fitness cuz you know, it's easy to just kind of get in it and be going through the motion. So it's good to slow down and kind of think about being deliberate and reflecting on how far I've come in. Just a few months. It's been a very intentional process and honestly, a lot of people, I think they mean it in a nice way when they say, oh wow, look at you. Just bouncing back. And I think if you only knew <laugh> the deliberate sacrifices. Yeah. I am really trying here to bounce back, you know, and people just think that it's so easy. Like you're just squeezing in your old leggings, but like no, this has been a really deliberate process. And I think it, it, it can be like, I, I, I hope that more people as a result of listening to this, think about how to structure that early postpartum period in a way that like they do have a foundation to build off of. And it's not just bouncing back. It can be really deliberate, progressive steps that get us to a place where we are stronger than before we had our babies. That's my goal. I wanna be a stronger woman, a stronger mom, a stronger athlete as a result of these experiences.