116. My Maine Birth: Chelsea’s Journey through Home Birth, Loss, and Coming Back Stronger

Chelsea: 0:00

You are my birth photographer for the second birth and the photos from that like I don't know for me. It takes me a while to like process my birth and to understand what happened, and because there's so much emotion there and it's kind of like buried by the emotion, so I have to like sort through that first and then I can get to the story. But the photos helped me see like the concrete reality earlier, because I have that. You know, it's like, oh, that's the timestamp, that's like what happened. Then you know and that's the where this person was standing or not standing, and then just like the memory, you know, of that is being captured. So, and something that occurred to me when I was processing, it was like you hire your birth team whoever it's going to be, to like pretty much to manage your birth and to intervene usually. So they're going to change the course of your birth or to do something.

Chelsea: 1:04

But a birth photographer is like a pure witness and that's like a super high honor when you give birth, it's just to have somebody there who's like just a witness just to record it for you. So that was really special to have and I really appreciate that, Just that doing that for people as a, as a career, as a, you know, a job, because it's it's much more, I don't know, I think emotionally, like so much more important in a lot of ways than like the changing the course of birth, versus just like here's what happened, you know, here's your story, here are your photos and like, yeah, it's just very helpful, like emotionally and to process it.

Angela: 1:52

I'm Angela, and I'm a certified birth photographer, experienced doula, childbirth educator and your host here on the my Maine Birth podcast. This is a space where we share the real life stories of families and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine, from our state's biggest hospitals to birth center births and home births. Every birth story deserves to be heard and celebrated. Whether you're a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother or simply interested in the world of birth, these episodes are for you. Welcome back. This is episode 116.

Angela: 2:32

This has been a super fun week for me, because I have spent most of the last week designing photo albums for the families that I've worked with recently. In case you didn't know, when you sign up for either my Fly on the Wall birth package or my Sisterhood package, which includes birth photography and doula support, they both also include a custom maternity photo session as well as an heirloom photo album that's filled with your favorite maternity and birth photos. These are a huge hit, particularly with the older siblings, but even if it's your first baby, they're just so special To me. The digital photos are nice, but I mean you can only scroll through your phone and look at the photos, so much. That's a limited way to enjoy them. For me, really, it's about the albums and the framed prints and the canvases that really let you enjoy the images in a whole new way and for many years to come. The photo products that I offer with my sessions are the ones that I love and have of my own family in my home. To learn more about how you can work with me, head over to my website, mymainbirthcom, or you can always send mea message over on Instagram at mymainbirth.

Angela: 3:41

Today's birth story guest is Chelsea. I had the incredible honor of being Chelsea's fly-on-the-wall birth photographer for her youngest daughter, marla's birth last spring. All right, hi, chelsea, welcome to my Main Birth. Hello, so to get started, would you share a little bit about you and your family?

Chelsea: 4:04

Yeah, so my name is Chelsea. We live in Millinocket. It's me, my husband Henning, our two daughters and two cats and two dogs so a big crew. Henning and I met more than 10 years ago when we were in college in Missouri. He's actually from Germany, so we met while he was an exchange student there.

Chelsea: 4:26

And then I ended up in Maine because I got an internship at Baxter State Park. I had never been to the Northeast at all, I had never been like east of the Mississippi River, so it was like right out of college. I just wanted something short in between going. I was going back to college for my master's degree, so I wanted something in between and I yeah, I just took this random internship and it really changed my life. It changed my perspective of myself. I fell in love with Maine. I didn't stay at that time and that was actually exactly 10 years ago today, so it's like like when I was starting that job. So it's a pretty special time of the year for me, but I didn't stay here forever. So I've moved around, lived in different places, but we ended up back here in Maine and three years ago bought a house in Millinocket.

Angela: 5:18

Yeah, oh, my goodness, wow. So now to get into your birth stories, would you start by sharing a little bit about how you found out you were pregnant for the first time and your thoughts in choosing your care?

Chelsea: 5:32

Yeah, so I've always been really interested in birth. So I think like to to get to like how I chose my care and get to that point in our lives. I've always just been super obsessed with birth and when I was a kid I would like watch cats giving birth and, like I live pretty rural, so I got to see a lot of that type of thing. I watched like birth ER shows back in the day when it would be like on cable TV. Yeah, so I just was always obsessed with it. I thought I wanted to be like an ultrasound specialist.

Chelsea: 6:05

I went to like several family members and friends, births and hospital, so I was very aware of like how it worked in the hospital setting. But in my 20s I started to have like some weird health stuff. It was nothing major, but it was just enough for me to like need to seek out help and it wasn't stuff that, like modern medicine was like giving me clear answers for, which, for me, was strange, because I'm a very science minded person. I've been a science teacher, I have science degrees, I love science and I still do, but I just didn't really understand like why modern medicine wasn't helping me. So I was living in Germany at the time. So I had the luxury of getting to like try out different clinics and stuff without having to pay a bunch of money. So I ended up in a naturopath. She didn't do anything like physically for me, there was no intervention. It was literally just like a sit down conversation that we had where she gave me advice and I followed it and I, like, was on the path to getting better. So that changed my mind around medical care and just generally like how our health works and things like that. So I got really interested in thinking about birth in that way.

Chelsea: 7:22

When I started to think about starting a family, in thinking about birth in that way, when I started to think about starting a family. So years before I got pregnant, I was already like I'm probably not going to give birth in the hospital. I get really nervous in doctor's offices. I have a lot of just general anxiety, so I try to find ways to make sure that it doesn't get spiked up. And in hospital settings doctors settings like that's a place where I can get really stressed, and so I I try to avoid them at all costs when I can. So I thought like if other animals can give birth with no issues, then humans probably can, and we always did. And of course there are cases where you need help and you need to go to the doctor, to the hospital. But if everything is fine, then it's fine. And that was kind of the mindset. I went into doing some research. So it was probably two or three years before I got pregnant that I had landed on that. I was interested in giving birth at home. I also met somebody during that timeframe who had given birth at home, so I actually knew a person. It was also while I lived in Germany.

Chelsea: 8:33

So like, fast forward, we moved to Colorado. I was working at a school. It was like really intense A lot of hours as a residential school, and then the pandemic hit. So a lot of things changed and we had already planned on getting pregnant around that time, like we're big planners, so we'd like to have like everything lined up. Here's what we want to do. So we were like I guess it's still a good time to get pregnant. It was like April 2020.

Chelsea: 9:05

So you know, I didn't really know what was going to happen, but it was like you know, we don't really have much else to do. So we started trying and that pregnancy was really quick, like got pregnant month one, and I didn't expect that to happen. I like grew up hearing a lot of stories about miscarriages because my mom had a ton of miscarriages. So I kind of thought, yeah, they can happen and it can take time to get pregnant, and so I thought we had some time and maybe we'll have a baby next summer, and this was like spring of the year before. So I was thinking like it's going to take a while. But then, yeah, it was Mother's Day, 2020. I got a positive pregnancy test and I was like, oh, this was very fitting. But I was not like yeah, I was like, oh my gosh, it's actually positive. Like like freaked out how these plans in my mind, if I was going to surprise hitting and did not. I just had to like go get him, like hey, can you please like look at this and tell me if I'm hallucinating, like kind of thing. Um, but he was excited. We were definitely super excited. But I remember plugging in the due date to like some kind of due date calculator online and I was like January, that's like really soon. Like I couldn't believe, like that it was a baby was going to come. So that pregnancy went really smoothly. This baby is now four and a half, so that was. It's not super fresh on my mind anymore, but I still vividly remember certain things. Of course it was my first pregnancy.

Chelsea: 10:45

I did a couple of interviews with different midwives in the area. This was northern Colorado, so I kind of just had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know how to pick a midwife or how any of that worked at all. It was also really weird because of the pandemic, because everybody was doing different things than they normally did. So there a lot of like all the consultations I remember were just like over zoom. But I found a midwife that had, I think I mostly picked her because she felt the most like laid back about everything and her prices were also like, I think, the lowest. So it's kind of like I didn't know what I was thinking and she was very experienced. So that was another thing. She'd been practicing for a long time so I thought, well, it should probably be a decent midwife.

Chelsea: 11:35

And yet there was a lot of stress during that pregnancy because of the pandemic and I was switching jobs. We moved. Colorado had a really massive wildfire that year so we lost the area where we would go hiking. We couldn't go there anymore so we would try to travel to other places, but it would be super crowded and sometimes the air quality was bad. I remember as it got closer into the winter it got a little bit better.

Chelsea: 12:02

But then I was like, getting further along in my pregnancy Teaching was just crazy too at the time. Like I was like I have no idea what I'm doing and like I'm doing all these different weird things that I didn't train for because, like online, offline, getting quarantined and just crazy like switches. So that wasn't ideal and I didn't have any leave, so I couldn't just take leave, which I wish I could have been able to do. But other than that, I was super relaxed about things. I did get some ultrasounds. I just could not grasp the fact that I had a baby in my body, so it was like I really held on those ultrasounds as like proof that, okay, this is a baby growing in me, like not some weird alien or something Um. So that was, uh, probably the extent of like, um the medical. I didn't even I never stepped into a hospital or anything.

Chelsea: 13:01

I just went into like the midwife's um's little office that she had and I made the mistake of telling people my exact due date, which I learned that lesson that time because it drove me insane. I kept getting bothered by co-workers saying, okay, like looking at their watch every time I walked through the door, like you got two weeks left, you've got like counting down the days and and then my due date of course came and passed and I wasn't really like worried about it. But it was kind of a weird time for my due date because my birthday was coming up. So I was really fixated on like is the baby going to be born on my birthday or after my birthday, I don't know. It was like a interesting like overlap of dates and my birthday came and went, so that was like five or six days past my due date and co workers were getting so annoying. And that's when I say I wish that I would have just told them like February or or I could have just taken off of work and not gone entirely, because that was just annoying. It's just like I don't want to think about this. It's. You know, I'm trying to relax, I'm trying to.

Chelsea: 14:16

I did some like hypnobirthing classes and but I was like I have no idea what labor is going to feel like I've been a runner for many years and I always felt like I could really plan for runs because I could practice, I could go out and do so. I've run some marathons and I'd go out and do 20-mile runs and be like, okay, well, six more is a marathon and that's what I'm going to experience. But with labor, it's like I have no idea I can't practice labor. It's like I have no idea I can't practice labor. I have no idea what it's going to feel like and I have no idea how to handle that.

Chelsea: 15:09

So, yeah, that made me pretty nervous that I couldn't anticipate what it was going to feel like, and so it's kind of fixated on that. It really explained exactly what's happening in each phase of labor and like different breathing techniques and some of the just like the calming information, like statistics around labor and birth and pregnancy and how it normally goes and what's normal and how. Like in this hypnobirthing course was very focused on home birth and like how safe it was and and so those things. Like I felt really calm and confident about that part of it, just not how I was going to be able to handle labor, which maybe a lot of people will feel that way and I think I still feel that way, even if I went into like a third pregnancy.

Angela: 15:43

But just tell me how many miles is the labor gonna be?

Chelsea: 15:46

yeah, right like just somebody tell me like how many hours I'm gonna have to have this kind of contraction or how close together they're gonna be, or you know, it's like who knows, it's always different. Um, so I finally let's see got up like I just remember it was a Monday night, which was my due date, was originally a Wednesday, and in Colorado at least, back then they can't home birth, midwives can't attend home births past 42 weeks. So I was kind of like, looking at this timeframe, like what's going to happen if I get to that point? So I remember I had my 41 week appointment, which was on the weekend, and so my due date was supposed to be the next Wednesday and I was like I don't have that much time left right, like what's, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm not going to the hospital. I've never even been to these hospitals before. And then she started talking to me about like, did you take ovulation tests? I was like, yes, I was very closely tracking my cycle. I hadn't been on birth control for years before I got pregnant, so I had been closely like tracking my ovulation and fertility so I knew exactly when I ovulated and it was very convenient for us because it pushed my due date forward. When she looked at that, so she's like oh, you've got four more days. But she was so relaxed about like you're going into labor. We're not going to talk about the hospital, we're not talking about that happening, but you're going to go into labor. It just doesn't happen that you don't go into labor at some point. So she was kind of like very relaxed about these things.

Chelsea: 17:26

I was a little bit uncertain about her as I got towards the end of my pregnancy, unfortunately. I started to feel like I'm not sure she's the right person to be in my birth space. I think she might have been. I don't want to speak for her, but maybe she was stressed. The pandemic stressed everybody out. She did end up not, she's not a midwife anymore, so she retired like in between then and now. So maybe she was like at the end of her career and was just like done with the sleep deprivation. I don't know what exactly went on with that, but I started to feel like she was a bit disconnected or something. I just was like I don't know like, but she had a student with her that I really loved and I felt like I did want her to be at my birth and she had doula experience so she was very connected emotionally and would say things to me like hey, what, what relaxes you? Or um, what do you think you're going to want when you're in labor from the people around you and was asking questions like that. So that was helpful for a first time mom.

Chelsea: 18:33

But I went into labor right after that 41 week appointment. It was a Monday night. I got a little leak while I was eating dinner and it was a little bit of wetness in my underwear kind of thing. I had no idea what it was, so I just went to bed. I didn't like stress about it. It was nothing, it was like a tiny amount.

Chelsea: 18:53

Started having contractions that night, took the day off of work. Finally the next day, like still had not stopped working, I didn't go into work, was thinking okay, I'm in labor, and then labor stopped. So I just hung out at home that day and then that night I had more contractions. I was actually up a lot of that night and then the next morning I was like fully in labor, regular contractions, just at home. It was a sunny, really cold Colorado winter day. It was like a very gradual increase of contractions, so they were pretty spread out and over a very gradual amount of time they get closer and closer together.

Chelsea: 19:35

By midday, I remember, I couldn't really think about what I was doing or I was really focused on like just breathing and I was walking around a lot of my house. The midwife came and she was like, oh, you've got like probably another seven hours. I didn't want any cervical checks at all, like my entire prenatal care. But I wasn't really sure then like about birth, and so then I asked her if she would do one um during that that visit, because I thought I don't know it. One during that that visit because I thought I don't know. It's so funny because it's like, yeah, I know it's not going to give me any information that I need right now, but whenever I'm in labor I'm like sure maybe you'll tell me something I need to know right now, of course. So I think that was maybe a part of. It was like, oh, you're not dilated, dilated that much. You've got a little while and I will say she was right. I mean I was in labor.

Chelsea: 20:29

For the rest of the day it got more and more intense. It got to the point where I was like, oh my gosh, when is this going to be? Oh, like I just could not wrap my head around what was happening to my body. It was like just so intense and I just really remember like the sun being on my face and it was like the afternoon sun and just being like, oh my gosh, this is like the most intense thing I've ever done. And just like Henning sitting next to me and I'm just like how can he just be sitting there so calm, like while this is going on inside my body, so calm, like while this is going on inside my body. But it was just us at home. So I think you know it was just like intense, but it just happened normally. I felt pretty calm overall, like safe, I guess, is the word.

Chelsea: 21:20

And then, I think sometime around seven or 8pm, the midwives started to show up. I was like totally lost track of time. It was pitch black upstairs. I started getting sweaty, taking off my clothes, kind of thing, and I remember looking at the student midwife and saying like I'm not getting a break. Where's the break? Like there's no break between contractions. It was like back to back to back contractions. It was a lot of contractions, contractions.

Chelsea: 21:40

It was a lot of contractions and my first was born around 1030 at night. So it was kind of like the whole day, I guess, about 15 hours of labor and I was in all kinds of different positions and I've noticed this with myself both of my birth. They just like end up on my back on my bed. I was just like I want to get on my bed and I don't know, I like lose control of my legs, so I'm like I have to. I have to like get off of my legs at the very last like thing and and with her this was really interesting because of the contrast between my two births she just like flew out. I think there's this thing called like fetal ejection something there's like a term for it where you don't push Reflex yeah.

Chelsea: 22:30

She just, yeah, I didn't push at all. And there was an assistant midwife there that I had only met once before my labor, so I didn't have a lot of conversations with her. We definitely talked with my other midwife about stuff like coaching to push and which is something I had learned in my hypnobirthing that I did not want. So we had that conversation. She was like, oh, I don't do that and she doesn't. She didn't, but her assistant was doing it. So that was super annoying Because you know, I don't know, in labor it's like your, your brain's not working right, you're not able to be like no, actually that's not right.

Chelsea: 23:06

Like your prefrontal cortex is off, I think. So you're like not thinking consciously about hey, stop saying that, stop doing that. So like the influence of her telling me when to push was really confusing because I'd feel in my body like I don't need to push, like my body's doing it. But then she would be like really push, push, push, okay, okay, you can push now, and it was just like, no, I don't need to push. But yeah, you came all out like in one contraction, head to toe, and was on my chest and it was like, oh, it's a baby, like I was like I had no, I, my brain could not register that it was a baby, um, so that was like a really mostly like a good memory for me of everything and some little annoying things like like the pushing, coaching to push, and just kind of like I don't know the disconnect a little bit from that.

Chelsea: 24:05

The primary midwife, but the student like they cleaned my house. I mean they totally like you know it was like 2am by the time they left made sure that we were all like clean and cuddled up in bed and you know it was super cold that night and you know, so it's like being out until 2 am on a freezing cold winter night making sure that all of my bedding was clean and all of the birth stuff was picked up. Because I remember waking up the next day and being like, wow, my house is so clean and it doesn't look like anybody gave birth here. But yeah, euni was a little like six pounds something. Um, she just felt so tiny. She's a tiny little baby and, yeah, that that's. That was my first birth. The postpartum period was really calm and nice because of the pandemic, like that actually made the postpartum period really nice, because nobody bothered us and there was nowhere to go and nowhere to be, um so yeah, yeah, that's amazing.

Angela: 25:08

Just not even wanting to go out because nothing's open.

Chelsea: 25:12

Yeah, there was no pressure. We didn't have any other kids, just chilled at home, had a lot of food that we had prepped beforehand and um, it was breastfeed. The breastfeeding stuff was interesting the first time. For me it was not like the most straightforward, but, um, we got the hang of it and she was fine. She gained a ton of weight in the first month, like her newborn the month one. Pictures are hilarious because she just got so chubby, but she ended up breastfeeding for almost two years. So, yeah, it went pretty well after that.

Angela: 25:46

Oh, that's awesome. Was there something that came up where they had called an ambulance for some reason?

Chelsea: 25:52

I can't exactly remember it was um, that was a comment that the midwife made. So the the very like last part of my labor, like right before she was born, there were just like a couple of contractions where I think they expected that they were going to be more productive, but they weren't. And then she just kind of made this comment like okay, you got to push the baby out now, or I'm calling the ambulance. It was just like a very like it made no sense at all in that moment because the baby was coming out, and I think for me it was like clearly, you know, there is no end to the contract. It was like continued, my uterus was continuously contracting and it was just a matter of like moments before she came out. So, yeah, it was just like a a weird. No ambulance was called or anything. It was just one of these weird like power play kind of comments. It felt like like I don't know, I didn't understand the purpose of it and there was never, um, and never, you know, never like a debriefing of birth or never any kind of like here's what happened and here's like why, here's what happened and here's like why, here's what I think about the birth, or you know. And so I remember asking myself questions like was it normal? Like was there some reason why the midwife was like saying that kind of thing or asking me. She would ask me questions like postpartum appointments, Like do you think you'd ever give birth at home again? She's kind of asking me these questions like almost like she assumed that the answer was no, or I was just feeling really self-conscious, I don't know. It was just kind of like a weird, I think, way to talk to somebody who just gave birth at home. I was just like I don't know, I just gave birth at home.

Chelsea: 27:51

I'm not really thinking about that right now, but I did get to talk to the student midwife who was there like a couple months after I gave birth and she gave me like her insight and it was really helpful. Helpful because she was just really like your birth was beautiful, it was normal. You know, everything was safe, Like there was nothing concerning was normal. You know everything was safe, Like there was nothing concerning, you know. It just gave me that peace of mind of like okay, there was nothing alarming or strange that I needed to like keep in mind or for next time. Or I think sometimes I don't fit into the home birth box that people like to create, like the people who home birth and the people who don't home birth. I think sometimes I'm not really in that stereotype and so it kind of confuses people. But I don't think there's really a box for that. It's everybody's different and we have our own personal preferences, and I just like to give birth at home because it feels like the best option for me.

Angela: 28:45

So yeah, exactly. Usually. Wherever a woman feels safest is where they're going to choose to give birth.

Chelsea: 28:52

Yeah, yeah, I totally, I totally agree with that and so, and that looks different for everybody, so yeah.

Angela: 28:59

So now would you share about when you found out you were pregnant for the next time?

Chelsea: 29:06

Yeah. So this is when Maine comes back into the picture. So when she was nine months old, we moved to Maine again and we she was about. So it was like probably a full year at least after we moved back we had already settled in to our house we live in now. So we thought we were just going to wait until she was two just to give her a good solid two years of full-on mom and dad before trying for another. But when we bought our house and got settled in, we were like, no, we're ready, let's just start trying.

Chelsea: 29:41

And I had it in my head, I think I don't know. It's like when you have one experience, you kind of expect that to happen again and again. Like we're planner type of people, so we like want to be able to predict what's going to happen, and we grasp onto that a little bit too much. So I was thinking like, okay, it's just gonna be the same thing, hopefully, like I'm gonna. You know, you never know. You can just get pregnant the first time, and like that's it. And so I think I was hoping for that, but it took a while. I don't know if it's coincidence or not. I had my cycle back. I was still breastfeeding, but I had my cycle back. So I thought I'm gonna get pregnant, like you can get pregnant without your cycle. So, of course, like I have my cycle, I should not have any issues, but I did. I didn't get pregnant until the month after she 100% weaned. So I feel like it had something to do with that. But and she like completely self-weaned it was just kind of like she woke up and forgot about it one day yeah, it was like a month before she turned two, but the month after that we found out we were pregnant. So it was about six months of trying, which for us felt like a long time. Like there's like whoa, you know, why is it not happening? Like over and over and over again, and that, you know six months is probably nothing in the perspective of like people who really try for a long time, but it can feel like forever if you're like anticipating it every single month and then you have to do the whole like okay, as soon as I start my period, I'm like back to square one, thinking about the next you know fertile cycle and it just becomes this obsession. That for me, got pretty unhealthy, I think, because I was like why isn't it not happening like and there's something going on and we had just moved. So I I started thinking like there's something wrong with my house, like am I having health issues now Because I'm a little bit older? Like my gosh, my anxiety was just like cycling like so bad at that point. And then I, so we got pregnant. We're super excited finally happened, and I'm trying to remember this was more than two years ago now. So I'm trying to remember like the sequence of events.

Chelsea: 31:52

I'm not sure exactly what came first. I didn't have like a care provider or anything, but I really wanted an ultrasound. So I went in for a really early ultrasound. It was like seven or eight weeks and it was just at like a free clinic type of place because I just didn't have any buddy like that I had signed up with as my care provider and they couldn't find heartbeat. So there was a pregnancy. They couldn't find the heartbeat. I didn't really trust them and I didn't want to believe that there was no heartbeat and it was early. So I was a pregnancy. They couldn't find the heartbeat. I didn't really trust them and I didn't want to believe that there was no heartbeat and it was early. So I was like I'm just going to try to go somewhere else. So then I go to the Indigo Diagnostics to get like a more official report and unfortunately there was not a heartbeat for that one, so that confirmed. And unfortunately there was not a heartbeat for that one, so that confirmed.

Chelsea: 32:48

And so that was just this huge like I don't know it's. It was just kind of like you know, I found out at four weeks that I was pregnant. So I already had been thinking about pregnancy and birth and baby number two for like almost like a month. So that's a huge letdown, even though you're like so early along. It's like yeah, but I've known this for a month and like I was getting really excited about it and starting to plan things and so and it was like it really threw me. It really I've never I've been a very lucky person. I've never had like super bad luck kind of things happen to me like I've had a lot of just like a good life, I guess I've just I've always felt like I've gotten like the the good straw, I guess, like in life, like I've just not had to deal with a lot of big things. So that was probably the first time that like a big thing, sad, traumatic, like didn't work out the way I wanted it to happen to me, like that, and I can get some pretty bad like health anxiety sometimes, so that that came into play with that.

Chelsea: 33:53

Like what's going on with my body? Why am I having this miscarriage? I didn't understand what. Was you know something wrong with me? And so I went to the doctor because I wanted to know, like what do they tell you when you have, when you're in this situation? It was so weird, like I'm still pregnant, I still have like the symptoms, but they're telling me that I'm not. I mean, you know, the heartbeat's not there. So what, what is this like in between space? So I went to the doctor and they said you know, here's your three options Do nothing, wait for it to happen by itself. You can take medication or you can do like surgery, which they were like we don't recommend the surgery piece because your body will probably take care of it. So I just left and was like I'm just gonna see what happens and just trust my body.

Chelsea: 34:43

And it was pretty quick after that that I miscarried and I was like glad that I was able to do that at home and didn't have to like have any intervention. It was very smooth and kind of like with pregnancy and birth. Every miscarriage can look different. So within like six weeks I get pregnant again and that pregnancy I waited a little bit longer to get an ultrasound but I was super anxious. I was just like I need to see what's going on, if I'm going to have another miscarriage or not. And unfortunately it was another non viable pregnancy so it was like within a couple of months again being told like you're not, you know, you can have another miscarriage. That one was a lot harder because it wasn't as clear. It was like like what they call a blighted ovum, so there's no like embryo inside of the sack. So then you have to go in again to confirm that it's a miscarriage. And I guess my body just likes to hold on to the pregnancies because I just I didn't have any signs or symptoms of losing the pregnancy until I was like technically would have been like 12 weeks pregnant, but it didn't develop beyond five weeks.

Chelsea: 36:03

So it took me a really long time to miscarry that pregnancy on its own and I didn't intervene until I kept bleeding. I didn't intervene until I kept bleeding, like I found out I was pregnant in May, miscarried sometime in June, and then I bled until August. So it was like the longest process and I couldn't stand it anymore. It was like I am done with this, like why am I still bleeding? Why I don't want to deal with this anymore. Like throwing in the towel I know my body can probably take care of itself if I would be more patient, or whatever. Like throwing in the towel, I know my body can probably take care of itself If I would be more patient or whatever. But I'm just done. I'm done losing blood. I'm done like worrying about this.

Chelsea: 36:44

So the doctor offered me a DNC, so I went and got that and actually that was really helpful for me. I did not like that I did. I did not like the process of it. You know they sedated me and like the whole kind of surgery process which, oh my gosh, made me so anxious going into it. But afterwards, like I felt super normal, I felt really good. So it was like the best decision for me. At that point I wish I would have known a little bit more Apparently, like this type of miscarriage does tend to take longer to resolve itself. So if somebody would have told me that like hey, this type of miscarriage is different. Maybe your risk is higher for prolonged bleeding or for retained tissue. That's what I ended up having was retained tissue that they had to go in and get out for me, and luckily it was really not that severe, it wasn't a big deal.

Chelsea: 37:39

But those two experiences shifted my mindset going into my next pregnancy. So I was just much more anxious about all the possibilities and things that could happen. I was still very set on home birth. Luckily my miscarriages were early. So I kind of had this thought, this, this process of thinking of like if I can get past a certain point in pregnancy, I'll be in the clear. That was just my way of coping with it. But I did think like something might be wrong with me, right, like I might have another miscarriage and if I do, I don't know what I'm going to do, if I'm going to even have any more kids, because this is not something I want to repeat over and over again. So I kind of had it in my head like I'm going to give it one more try, and the doctors always say to. If you have three or more miscarriages in a row, then you might have some fertility issues, but if you have two or less in a row, then you're probably fine to keep trying. So they just say, okay, move on, heal from the miscarriage, give yourself a little bit of time and then you're good to go to try again. So I mean, we were not preventing getting pregnant ever because we were trying to have another baby and we just thought, you know, if it happens again, we'll just see what happens and we're just going to trust what happens. So I thought we always make fun of this period of time.

Chelsea: 39:08

After the second miscarriage, when I had the DNC and before I got pregnant for the fourth time, I felt so good. I was like I climbed Katahdin, I was like lifting weights every day. It was just I don't know. I had some kind of like fresh air in my body, I guess, because like the miscarriages were over and I was like replenishing myself and but it was very short, it was probably like a month and I got pregnant again. So that's when Marla's pregnancy started was right after those two.

Chelsea: 39:44

So, as you can imagine, I felt pretty anxious. I was wondering if another miscarriage is coming. I didn't go straight to like home birth midwifery care, didn't go straight to like home birth midwifery care, I actually just went straight to an OB because I had it so much in my head that I was going to have another miscarriage and because I had such different miscarriage experiences where one needed no intervention at all and it was totally fine, went through the whole process without anything and I felt good. The second I ended up throwing in the towel. So I was like, you know, I'm just gonna go get an ultrasound, go to the you know, see what kind of things come up from the initial like first trimester test, and then go from there.

Chelsea: 40:32

And I went into the first ultrasound and I demanded for an early one. I was probably like one of those patients that they're like, oh, good grief, cause I was like the earliest, and they're like we don't do earlier than eight weeks, and I was like no, no, no, the doctor says I can do seven weeks. And so I fought them on that because every day was like anxiety, like I just need to get past this point where I know I have a viable pregnancy and then I can see whether or not I'm going to have a miscarriage or I can continue planning on having a pregnancy. So that's why I was so focused on getting like the earliest ultrasound because I wanted that. Just that little. Okay, there's a little heartbeat, pregnancy looks normal.

Chelsea: 41:15

My mom had a lot of atopic pregnancies too. So I just always had that kind of thing in my head. Like you know it, it didn't happen to me, but it doesn't mean it's going to happen to you, but it's just a matter of like okay, can like breathe now? So they even tried to call me the day before and reschedule that ultrasound. Like you're not eight weeks yet. I was like I know we've had this conversation, like I'm coming and you're not canceling this.

Chelsea: 41:41

Yeah, so I I got my earliest as I could get ultrasound at the time and I was so convinced that it was going to be a miscarriage. I mean the moment that I was sitting there waiting for them to start the ultrasound, that's when it like came to me that like, oh gosh, like dread. You know it's not going to go well and you know the ultrasounds maybe made it a little bit more of a harsh experience, because it's just this like yep, you're having a miscarriage, like it's very sudden. It's not like a very physical experience. So the physical experience really helped me process the miscarriages. But that weird information that you're getting like it's contrary to what you're experiencing. So I could totally see myself in the future doing the opposite, like not getting ultrasound and just waiting to see if my body does something or not. We'll see. It just depends on like state of mind, you know.

Chelsea: 42:42

But that ultrasound was very helpful because it was a healthy pregnancy heartbeat, everything looked normal, so it was a huge relief I was able to breathe. Like unfortunately, I go to I have a really nice therapist and she helps me understand anxiety and she's like it does this like spike thing and then you get some kind of relief. I also have OCD, so it's like the OCD relieves it but then it spikes again and if you keep relieving it it keeps spiking and what you have to do is like go through the emotion so it just like gradually goes down. In that case she was very supportive of me going and getting these ultrasounds. She's like I think you should just try to decrease your anxiety right now as much as you can and not wait for it to like naturally go down, because it's a very special circumstance. It's not just like general life. This is like pregnancy and life and death, and so I did get like a handful of ultrasounds in the first trimester, just to get that heartbeat confirmation.

Angela: 43:45

And then I'm sure you're probably worried about feeling, you know, excited about that pregnancy because you had been let down. Yeah, yeah, so that was yeah, a lot of it.

Chelsea: 43:56

for me it was like I just want to know if I need to plan for pregnancy or plan for miscarriage, because those are two very different experiences and knowing about my body, that it doesn't. You know, I think it's different for everybody, probably for every miscarriage too. But I know sometimes miscarriages just happen very suddenly. And I'm sure that's different for everybody, probably for every miscarriage too. But I know sometimes miscarriages just happen very suddenly and I'm sure that's also extremely traumatic. But you're not just like sitting there wondering if something happened and you don't know about it. It's like a really weird mind game. So that was what was happening for me because of my miscarriages being they call them missed miscarriages, where the ultrasound reveals that you did miscarry but your body is not, has not caught up to it yet. So it's just this like okay, I don't know if I miscarried or not. Like you know, the first trimester and everything had looked normal up until then, I started looking for home birth midwives. I had already kind of like settled on. There's not very many options here, so I'd already kind of settled on the midwives in Bangor, so it was just like easy to go instead of go to the hospital so it's just down the street Indigo Diagnostics already like did some of their imaging there. So I already like done some consultation stuff before. I believe I like I think before I had my miscarriage I might have had a consultation already. So that was kind of like an easy switch. So the prenatal care went really well for me. It was very similar with the first one. It was just like I liked how they gave like a platter of choices, like okay, here's all the options you can choose whatever you want, no pressure. And I liked that a lot better than my first midwife who didn't really like tell me what other people would do Like I just I wanted to know like what do? What does everybody you know? Like what are the doctors offer versus you know, of course I can always do nothing. I know that's always a choice, but I'm just curious about like all the other testing and pros and cons. So that was a nice part about it. And then the long appointments and I kind of liked the like rotation, but not too many rotating midwives, it was like a good mix of people.

Chelsea: 46:22

And then leading up to my birth there was a lot of conversations around hey, you're really far, you're really far, drive like Millinocket's far. I did have to advocate a bit too for doing a home birth in Millinocket. They were not so sure about it because it was far. So I had to say like, hey, I've already had a home birth. I really want to, like that's my plan. So there was a little bit of conversation around that. We wrote up like a whole birth plan.

Chelsea: 46:51

I really was very clear on certain things, like I don't want people in my space, I don't want cervical checks, I don't. It makes me anxious, like these types of things will create anxiety for me. So I and I know that about myself, so I need to protect my headspace. And here are the things that I need to protect my headspace. And so it's like pretty much like in the words of one of the midwives so it's basically a free birth, but with us there, and it was like yeah, yes, but I also am the type of person that's like I do want you there. So that was like the process of thinking about birth.

Chelsea: 47:35

I did another hypnobirthing course, which was much more helpful, and I was much more dedicated to the practice of like the rhythm, like the breathing and the relaxing and was taking it much more seriously Because I learned like, oh, you do. This is like mindfulness, this is like any kind of practice, like you have to teach your body how to do it so that when you're in labor you can do it. So I got really good at that like listen to all these scripts and music and like was like getting in, like practicing, relaxing, for labor I have. I also want to say like my prenatal care a part of it. It's not like direct prenatal care, but for me it was a huge part of my pregnancy experience. I'm a naturalist and I completed um a naturalist course during my pregnancy, actually gave birth in the middle of my naturalist course. They were really flexible with me so I was able to like bring the baby.

Chelsea: 48:34

I like went on a bird walk three days before I gave birth. I was so like in nature that entire pregnancy and just really enveloped in the world of learning about nature and was like I'm very connected to like a certain bird that I listened to every night before Marlo was born. If anybody's curious, it's a bittern so I could hear it like calling down from a. There's a swamp near my house so I could hear it calling from the wetland. I know like when, whenever I went for a walk before Marla was born and then after Marla was born, like the differences between the things, like the ferns hadn't unfurled yet, and then, like a week later, all the ferns were out. So it was like super special, like part of my experience with her birth.

Angela: 49:23

Oh, that's funny. Weren't you also out doing like cold plunges in the shadows?

Chelsea: 49:27

Yeah, yeah, I liked a cold dip and I haven't done that so much after I have two kids now, but I still love it and I'm passionate about it. But yeah, I was. I have some really nice like big belly, like pushing the ice. It was like in April when the ice was starting to go out and I was like next to a big ice sheet like dipping with my friend. So yeah, that was a really cool part of my pregnancy as well. So pregnancy went well. I didn't have a lot of issues. I started getting like grumpy about food in the end, like just just a bit uncomfortable, like heartburn kinds of things. I love that about, like home birth, midwifery, prenatal care, because I had all these different varieties of things. I could try to relieve those things because they'd give me all these different ideas and so like, for some reason, almonds are what take care of my heartburn the best and that was a suggestion and it's really helpful at the end of the pregnancy when you have a lot of heartburn, um, to have something that gives you relief.

Angela: 50:32

I got really sick for a while, or were, were you like was it Just curious, if anyone's wondering Both.

Chelsea: 50:41

So like, if you chew on almonds for a long time and then swallow it like there's something in the almonds that can relieve it, I really like to just drink almond milk because it was cold and that would relieve it quicker for me. I think, like the chewing on something like again, I just couldn't really stomach being like eating Like I just was. I'm one of those weird pregnant people that I don't like eating when I'm pregnant and towards the end it gets really hard for me because I just feel like I'm full all the time. I eat a lot of like, you know, ice cream and stuff to like deal with it. But overall I felt fine, like I was just going for tons of walks. I also run in pregnancy and I stopped running towards the third trimester and started walking a lot. So very active and, yeah, spending a ton of time outside, which was really nice. So I I'm trying to think if there was something else that I was going to talk about before you like that theme of like the natural world really carried into your birth too.

Chelsea: 51:46

Like yeah, yeah, so the day. So I expected. So I was telling everybody, like you know, everybody asks you when you're pregnant, when, when's the baby coming, when do you do, when's your due date. And I think sometimes I would throw people off because I would just say June or this summer and they would look at me like okay, you're not calculating a date, and I would just move on with the conversation and I thought, you know, nobody really questioned me on like when is the exact date? And if I felt like I had to give an exact date, I would throw out a random date, like I would say June 10, june 8. I think I told people like like more than a month past my actual due date and I didn't have a specific date in my head Because I ignored it. I like they would, you know they got I would get these early ultrasounds which would give you estimated due dates, and then I got an estimated due date from, like, my period, last period or whatever. So I had actually like three or four estimated due dates that were different from one another, which helped me ignore the dates. So it's just like all right, it was like you know, mid May, whatever, late May, and I think the more that you tell people the later dates, the more that you also kind of believe it. So I was thinking June in my head like is when I'm going to give birth.

Chelsea: 53:10

So I get to like I was kind of tracking like which week I was at, but I was again. I was kind of tracking like which week I was at, but I was again. I was just not that focused on it. And so I get to like the 40th week and I'm really tired, really, just like not wanting to go far from home, I stopped. I was like going for hikes and I stopped going to that because I had to drive like 10 minutes out of town to go hike. So I stopped going there because I just didn't feel like being far from home. I was like doing a lot of walking around my neighborhood and the day I went into labor I talked to my dad on the phone for a little bit and was walking in the morning. I also work part time, so I was working part time a little bit for a few hours, went for my walk and then planted our herb garden which was like at waist height, it was like a raised bed. So it was really nice because I could still do it and not worry about bending over. There's a lot of planting I missed last year because I was so pregnant and it was really uncomfortable to get on the ground and plant stuff. So I planted the herb garden. It was, you know, you know, super satisfying.

Chelsea: 54:16

And then I went inside and just plopped down on the chair and like didn't get up for four hours and what happened was like Henning kept trying. He was like feeding me food, like here's some lunch, like you need to eat something. And then I fell asleep and then he was going to pick up our older daughter at daycare and, um, he's like, hey, I'm gonna go pick her up. Do you want to go eat pizza? Or something. Like he was like trying to. I think he could kind of tell, like what is she doing? She's just like laying on the couch. I don't nap, I'm not a napper, I'm like a very like on my feet kind of person. So it looks like make some plans, go do something. I don't want you to wallow in your misery. And I was like I'm just tired and I started crying I don't want to go anywhere. It's like okay, nevermind. Like I remember his face. He was very confused Like why is she crying right now by the suggestion of going and eating pizza? Why would that make you cry? And so he goes and gets uni and our daughter and then he is going to the grocery store. So they're gone for a long time.

Chelsea: 55:28

I sleep more and I hear that they're home and I like jump up and go to the bedroom because I didn't want to interact with anybody, and I especially didn't want to interact with my three-year-old. I was like I want to hide for longer. I'm going to go hide in the bedroom. It's like 4pm. I'm just sleeping all day, I guess. And I remember I was laying there and I was like I should probably check my phone, because sometimes I get random stuff for work or whatever and just kind of check in randomly and I look at my phone and somebody was texting me about work and I got this kind of like weird adrenaline rush and I thought that it was because of the message.

Chelsea: 56:10

But right after I got this adrenaline rush, I like very wet, like stuff happening in my underwear, and I was like did I just like pee myself or something? It was so weird because I was like in a haze and I was like trying to look at my phone and it was like I was laying down, so I was in a very sedentary position. So it was like what I've never peed myself in pregnancy why did I pee myself? So I get up and I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to go to the bathroom. It's just like this rush in my body like it was hot and I had to go to the bathroom. And so I go to the bathroom and I like start to get on the toilet and there's just like gushes of fluid. So it was like this very dramatic it you know water breaking like the movies, you know like everywhere. And it didn't register for a few minutes until, like I I wiped it up and was inspecting it and was like, what is this? So I was like, oh, my water broke and it was like literally my probably like the day before my due date. I think that she was born on one of my due dates or like around one of us. So, but it's so funny that I wasn't even thinking that she was going to be born at that time. I was like I've got another three weeks. So it just shocked me.

Chelsea: 57:32

I had like an initial panic because of the water breaking thing and how much fluid was coming out. It just felt really strange for labor to start that way. So I think Henning and this was part of our plan Henning was going to be the only person contacting everybody so that I could not use my brain and I did not want to like have to coordinate people. So he like called the midwives to ask them because I was asking him questions and he's like I'm just gonna ask them questions, these questions, because I don't know. So he called them and they're like yeah, okay, sounds like your water broke. Water broke, everything's good, let us know when you want to come, kind of thing. Um, and I was like nothing's happening, like just have water leaking out, and it was aggressive. I ended up having to put on a diaper and I was just chugging fluids. I just kind of intuitively felt like okay, I'm losing a lot of liquid, so probably need to like drink liquid. Um, but I started to calm down quite a bit and got into a very like like I came back down because it was like nothing's happening. My water just broke. I'm not even having. I had been having these little fake contractions, but I wasn't having anything intense happening. I think I initially kind of panicked because I imagined those labor, those births that I've heard that like the water breaks and then the baby's out. It's really fast birth. So I think I got a little bit paranoid that that was going to happen. But when I realized I'm not, my body's not like, the changes aren't really that fast, it's just my amniotic sac breaking. So I think I'm good. So I sat down, I ate dinner, hung out with family, ended up like daughter went to bed reading a book.

Chelsea: 59:17

I got off of social media like a month before I gave birth. That was like that was one of my methods of trying to keep my brain calm was by getting off of social media and the internet, and so I wasn't like just browsing on my phone. I read a bunch of books. So I like asked one of my friends who reads a lot of books, was like Can you give me recommendations for something that will can be like entertaining, like I'll really love reading it, but it's not scary, like. And I gave her a list of like know, no murder, no blood, no, like things that like will stress me out, and she was like, yeah, I gave you like tons of recommendations and it was really nice. So, um, those books were good and went to bed and I you know, the timeline for me gets really fuzzy here and it's funny because I think you're gonna have a much better idea of the timeline. So my memory is just gonna be kind of like what I remember in order of things, and I think you're going to have a much better idea of the timeline. So my memory is just going to be kind of like what I remember in order of things, and I think, because it was overnight, I just I was tired and I really put my brain into like my hypnobirthing stuff. I immediately started to turn on like my there are these really interesting, like like recordings, like where you're imagining yourself in different places and and I those were so nice for me, I really loved those, so it just like takes your mind off of like the labor and I was really very relaxed during those hours.

Chelsea: 1:00:40

And I know the midwives showed up at some point after dark and you also showed up right at the same time as them, right? I think it was like yeah, we both got there at 10 pm, yeah, okay, so, and this is like late May, so it had probably just gotten dark like an hour or so before that and I was in bed most of the time and that chunk of my labor, like most of the night, was I stayed in bed until it got too uncomfortable and then I started getting out of the bed and like was on the floor, um, henning filled up the birth pool. I remember being like no, no, no, what are you doing? Like no, I'm just going to bed. Like it was really like that. But part of our agreement was he's doing those things and I'm just going to bed. Like it was really like that, but part of our agreement was he's doing those things and I'm not thinking about it. So he's like don't worry about it, don't worry about it, I got this. Okay, that's fine. But I think like he gets really excited to about the birth stuff happening. So he's like, oh, my gosh, baby's coming. So he's like I got to get all this stuff ready.

Chelsea: 1:01:46

But I was just like everybody, just slow down, like I'm just chilling here. I'm really relaxed, like things are happening much slower in my body than outside of my body, and so I was kind of like having that tension already and maybe it was already like building up as a pressure for me of like, oh, the baby is coming, but, but really like things are taking their time, you know, and it just was a very relaxing, like initial part of labor for me. I was really happy about my improvement from my first labor to my second labor and like the things that I found that worked for me to stay relaxed. And it was like a super nice time with Henning. Like we had a lot of cuddling and holding each other and we just didn't get a lot of that. So it was like birth gave us that opportunity to just really hold each other and things started to pick up.

Chelsea: 1:02:40

And then I remember getting in the pool and it would like make things slow down. It's like the water actually was working too well. So that's a piece of feedback for myself. That was like, oh, I guess like you have to really wait until, like, your body's like on that like no going back zone to get into the pool because, yeah, just like I would fall asleep. So it helped me get a little bit of sleep. But it was kind of like, okay, things are like slowing down and they're picking up and slowing down.

Chelsea: 1:03:13

I kept having to go to the bathroom. That was something like I don't know, it was kind of hard for me because it was like I don't want to go to the toilet. But I got to go to the toilet, walking around everywhere, but I stayed in my room like I didn't leave my room at all and I think I just wanted to sleep, but labor was happening. I couldn't sleep. So it was like this weird tension of like, okay, I have to do this. And so as the morning went on, I started thinking about my daughter waking up and getting a little bit worried about it. So I think that little voice in my head like, oh, if the baby can just come before your daughter gets up, then you don't have to like worry about the logistics of that. So that was going on in my head.

Chelsea: 1:04:03

And then it was like I don't know, I started to feel like there was a shift in my labor. So it was like I I don't know how much of it was like an external influence or or how much of it was internal, but I needed something different in my labor. And so I started to do like some bearing down, some like different movements, and it from my perspective it felt like suddenly all the midwives were in my room and I was trying to like figure out why. And again, like memory is kind of weird when you're thinking back on your birth versus like what was happening, I think. But from my perspective it was like I don't know, everything was like going well. And then my perspective it was like I don't know, everything was like going well and then suddenly it was like why isn't the baby here? Where is the baby like? Are you not? You know? And it was like I felt like it was kind of like okay, it's taking too long.

Chelsea: 1:04:59

Suddenly, and I don't and I would be curious to hear, like, the other perspectives of but I remember looking outside and seeing a little bit of light in the sky and was like, oh my god, good morning. Like it was just kind of like, oh my god, I'm still in labor and I had this, this pattern with the contractions, where they never got close together, they were always very spread out and it was weird because it was so different from my first labor. So I kind of kept thinking like is something wrong? Is my body like, is the baby stuck? Is my body doing something weird right now, like in the, you know, those miscarriages, like those thoughts that kind of built up in my head of with the miscarriages, of like, oh, something's wrong. So I did start to kind of like panic and again, I don't really know like the sequence of events here and this is interesting because you were at the birth, so I know that you have like some insight on this but I remember I think I was voicing something like I need help or I don't know what to do, or something wrong.

Chelsea: 1:06:12

I was saying something along those lines and I think what I needed was, like everybody to just be like you're totally fine, you're good, like I really needed just like the reassure. I needed the continuous reassurance of like you're okay, you're okay, you're okay, okay, you're okay, the baby's okay, like you know, because they were listening to the baby, I was getting all of the that feedback. So there was, I wasn't in labor that long. My water broke like 4 pm or something. It was only like 12 hours later and I was clearly in active labors and it was progressing. So, yeah, from that perspective, I know there was nothing wrong, um, but I was offered a cervical check and or to be checked and I said, yes, um, and you know, I've really learned my lesson on this.

Chelsea: 1:07:02

Like they're so painful when you're in labor and this happened with both of my births like it's really painful and for me the maybe the pain level just spikes because I lose my ability to cope with it, because suddenly, like pain went from like a three to a 10. And it was just like with a snap of the fingers was just like with a snap of the fingers. Suddenly it just was like I'm being stabbed, and that was how all of the contractions felt after that point, so that one cervical check, like the beginning of the more hands-on part of my labor, translated to a much higher level of pain for me. And so I think that pain and just kind of the signal in my body of like something's wrong, really just like spun my anxiety out of control. It was just like okay, now things are not going the way I thought they were.

Chelsea: 1:08:05

The midwife told me I had a cervical lip which I had never heard of before. That which was really not good for me. Like I thought like oh, you might as well Like. Later on I thought about that and I was like she could have told me anything terrible and it would have been like I would have had the same reaction because I just didn't know what she was saying to me, or like if there was even anything I could do about it, or if that meant like so my perspective is like if I need to go to the hospital, just call the ambulance, take me to the hospital, and if I don't, then like don't come in my room, like don't intervene, like because my body is just going to perceive all of those things Like something is happening and I need intervention. So it turned the way that my labor went for me.

Chelsea: 1:08:57

From that point on it was like I felt like I needed to go to the hospital.

Chelsea: 1:09:03

I felt like something was wrong.

Chelsea: 1:09:05

I felt like, whatever all these things they were having me do to like resolve the cervical lip, I was feeling like it wasn't going to work or in like you know, I just I just didn't trust anything anymore.

Chelsea: 1:09:19

I like lost my feeling of safety and I was kind of just like I think also that, combined with the fact that I was getting closer to giving birth because I know whenever you transition, you panic and I think that's like pretty normal to be like I'm done, like I can't do this, like mom, come get me, you know, like you say really irrational things. So the combination of that transition period and that happening with, like, the cervical lip thing was not a good combination for me and, um, yeah, it just freaked me out. I just spent a lot of those contractions and a lot of that time like fluctuating between like I'm gonna die, I need to go to the hospital and Henning would just look at me and be like you're okay, everything's okay, chelsea, like he was really like you know, we're doing it, you're fucking you know. He was probably the only reason why I didn't just like sprint away to the car or something.

Angela: 1:10:18

He was your rock for sure, like he was so strong and just there for you the whole time.

Chelsea: 1:10:24

It was so sweet to watch you guys together in that labor yeah, I have to say like he, he was the primary reason why, like I still gave birth at home because he knew that's what I wanted. He told me you don't want to go to the hospital, you really don't want. And I knew I was like no, I don't. I remember feeling it like what am I gonna do in the car? I'm not getting in the car like that sounds horrible.

Angela: 1:10:53

Because also it wasn't an easy thing being in Millinocket. We had called the Millinocket hospital and they were like, yeah, it's like a crazy emergency, like you need to go to Bangor, like at that point it was just because of a long labor and it's like an hour car ride.

Chelsea: 1:11:04

No, I've heard lots of stories of people who like live in Millinocket and who like ended up like car babies or like having to pull off and go to a different hospital, like kind of because it's so far. Yeah, so I didn't. You know, I I was like calling for the that like I'm gonna go to the hospital, I'm getting the car, and it was my way of being like get me out of the situation. I don't want to be here anymore. I'm done like. I just need somebody to get me out of this. You know, it was just a very primal kind of reaction to being scared in that moment you hadn't gotten out of your room.

Angela: 1:11:43

You're in your room for a full night. And one thing that happened before you came out of the room, when that was like so before you came out of the room, when that was like so before you came out of the room, that was when you sort of had the I think I need to go to the hospital moment. And right before that happened, a moose walked up your road, a mama moose with her baby moose walking right behind her, right outside your bedroom window where you had been laboring all night. This mama, little baby walking right outside your window. Just that energy was there.

Angela: 1:12:13

And then, yeah, so then, and then you decided to shift sort of like your environment and because we weren't like, are we gonna? So we kind of had this little plan where we're like, okay, we're gonna transfer down to bit like we're seeing what our options were, like we can't go to millinocket, we're gonna have to go to bangor. Pennant came out and he's like can you move the car seat from the van into the other car? And then you had started walking around the rest of your house and I'm like hearing that your noises that you're making and the rest of the house is. I'm like in the garage trying to move the car seat from one car to the next. I need to go back inside, like like I, like I should move the car. I think I'm going to go back inside Cause like this is this is happening. Yeah, as you were like coming out of your room or like making that decision to start like moving around the rest of your house, like a little bit at that point.

Chelsea: 1:12:59

Yeah, so that was part of like okay, I got to get out of here. So I finally I I think that if nobody would have been in my house, I would have been in my house, I would have been in the rest of my house more, because I remember thinking about labor. I'd go on these walks and I think about labor and I'd be like, whoa, the baby gets really low when I walk. And I remember thinking about like, randomly would be like I'm probably gonna have to walk a lot in labor, like this baby gets really high whenever I lay, but then whenever I walk or head gets so low and I just had this like kind of feeling of like I'm probably gonna have to walk a lot, and so I think that was something I needed to do. Um, so maybe that was part of the like I gotta go to the hospital Cause my body was like get out of your room Because you can't move enough in there to like get the labor to progress.

Chelsea: 1:13:53

And so I like open the door. I just remember the air like smell different. It was like a different temperature. It was like a whole, like a portal, like oh, here's the birthing room. And like when you, when you leave my room, you go right to the go to the garage. So that wasn't like I was going to the car, but I did. I just walked right past the the doorway to the garage. I just kept going and so, yeah, I was doing these like I did, like maybe one. I have a big open area. My living room and dining room have a big, open, like space.

Chelsea: 1:14:32

So I did like a big lap around and I just felt a contraction coming on. I was standing behind the couch super random spot, hardwood floor, like nothing special there in front of the bookcase and the contraction was so productive Like I felt all the pressure baby's head going down. It was like okay, like brought me down to my knees, very intense, and I like to check myself when I'm in labor. So I was like, oh, I feel baby's head and the next contraction came and they were just like getting really intense and again like can't be on my legs anymore. I feel like my legs just stopped working because, like you know, your pelvis is doing all kinds of crazy things. I know some people get birth standing and that might have helped me with with this baby, but I could not. I just like laid down and like when the contractions came it was just like I needed Henning. Where's Henning? And you know he would just get in my face, kind of.

Angela: 1:15:33

And your daughter had woken up at this point. Yes, and you was there too.

Chelsea: 1:15:38

I, that was such an interest. You know, we had a very solid plan for her, like she's either going to be sleeping or she's going to be at daycare, and the timeframe when I was like in active labor was so chaotic because we were trying to get her to childcare. But it was just the timing was like we couldn't leave to get her over there and maybe if we would have you know, it's like these little details, like okay, I guess we could have tried to call somebody to come get her or something, but it's just like such a specific timeline that we didn't anticipate. Like you can't plan for all these things.

Chelsea: 1:16:12

So, yeah, she was there, like she saw that part of labor because, again, like I planned on being in my room, so she would have totally not seen any of it. But then she was like right there, like two feet away from me, when these really productive like contractions happened and I was laying on the floor and I know at some point it was too much for her, because I'm really loud whenever I'm laboring and like especially in these end moments, and she's very sensitive to noise and we even prepped for it. I told her it's going to be loud, you can go to your room and watch something on your tablet, like we don't usually do, like tablet stuff. But that was something I knew she would really be like oh cool, I can you know distraction from that. So I think she did go with a student midwife who was there to her bedroom for a bit during that period of time.

Angela: 1:17:06

It was really just that last contraction where she got just a little like, okay, this is what's going on, she understands and yeah so, yeah, nice, they had a student midwife there that went and comforted her in those last moments when you birthed your baby yeah, yeah, so my head was on my room but that's I was like.

Chelsea: 1:17:27

That tells you how random that spot was. It was really. It was very different than my first birth, like I fully had to push her out, like you know. It was like, oh, this has taken me a lot of effort. Her head was like very big, like the measurements. She was like 100 percentile like head circumference. Like the measurements. She was like a hundred percentile like head circumference. So she did have a very. She wasn't like a big baby overall, she was just like eight, eight pounds, something ounces, but her head circumference was really big.

Chelsea: 1:17:55

So I think that was a part of why the pushing was so hard and so intense for me. But head came out and it was also like contractions were not back to back to back, it was just like head came and then I had to wait for the next contraction and then pushed her body out. I felt her little arms like doing this wiggle. So I really felt all of it and it was like whoa, like so I could, even before I saw her. I felt her like moving. So like, yes, a baby. I was better at it this time. I was like, yes, it's a baby coming out of me. But yeah, it was, she was on my chest and you know, when the baby is on my chest and I look at her, I'm like she's good, we're good. I was laughing and was like laughing at myself.

Chelsea: 1:18:41

I, you know, hitting he always I don't know, this happened in both births he always cries, cries, and like the moment the baby comes out and I feel his tears on my face. So I have like this memory of like his tears falling on my face, like when our both of our babies were born and he was all dressed like to go to the hospital. I remember looking at him thinking like you really got ready to go to the hospital. Oh, I'm sorry. I immediately felt like, oh, whoops, like everybody like got all their stuff packed up and ready to go and Henning was trying to get like a bag packed, because I was so like born in the living room floor of the hardwood floor and I really wanted to like birth my own placenta, or at least try to, because I didn't get that experience with my first, and so I was like trying to see if it would come and then it wasn't really coming very easy and they were like well, why don't we just like get you back to your bed? And oh, also, I didn't know that it was a girl and so that was a big part of that moment of like, oh, second girl.

Chelsea: 1:19:51

And then we walked back to my bedroom and I like tried a little bit longer to like kind of pull on it for a few minutes, and then I was. I got a bit of pressure like hey, let's just get your placenta out, and I think that I would have been totally fine with waiting. I didn't feel like any pressure for the placenta to come. I was like, yeah, it's gonna come. It might take a minute. But they were really like no, let's get it out. And I just was also kind of like okay, like get out of my bedroom. So, like you know, and it came out pretty easily. It wasn't like uncomfortable. I mean, it was not comfortable. I think there's still a lot of contractions and stuff happening and so it's still. But compared to birth, it's like, yeah, okay, it just kind of pops out and not a big deal. But it was really cool to get the time with the placenta and we did the, we burned the cord like specifically so we could have that time, and we really loved the photos from that.

Chelsea: 1:20:53

Uni was laying in the bed with us and she was so tired for things like probably just that experience like her mom giving birth, like right in front of her, she's like the picture, she's like closing her eye, so yeah, that like that time period after birth was really special and just oh, I I just always with both births, just feel so good, like yeah, I just finished it, I just did it like baby's here, like she looks so pink and like cute and chubby and her little head, like the cone on her head, was like to the side a little bit. So I also think a lot of the labor she was like kind of wonky, like her head was maybe turned a little bit, so maybe it was a bit of that walking in the end. Just the laugh. I did that, turned her head the right way. So I think the pushing phase was really long because I kept feeling like, yeah, I got to push, I'm there, but her positioning wasn't quite right and I needed to do some more moving around to get her there. So that's kind of the conclusion I came to for that.

Chelsea: 1:22:00

But yeah, the postpartum period was I don't know. You know, having a three-year old was so different and went by way too fast and I felt like I don't know, I just had to like do too much. I didn't want to do as much but I had. I had to because I have this child, this three year old, but like wants my presence and attention and so I tried to do things with her and tried to balance, like resting too. But it was lovely. It was summer, you know, it was like we could just go outside and hang out and went for walks and strawberry picking and Marla still breastfeeds. So you know, a year in now we're still doing it, but still sleep deprived. She's got like eight teeth, so that's also a lot of the nights.

Chelsea: 1:22:49

But yeah, that was the birth stories and I did want to say you are my birth photographer for the second birth and the photos from that like I don't know for me it takes me a while to like process my birth and to understand what happened and because there's so much emotion there and it's kind of like buried by the emotion. So I have to like sort through that first and then I can get to the story. But the photos helped me see like the concrete reality earlier because I have that you know. It's like, oh, that's the timestamp, that's like what happened. Then you know and that's the where this person was standing or not standing, and then, just like, the memory you know of that is being captured.

Chelsea: 1:23:39

So, and something that occurred to me when I was processing, it was like you hire your birth team, whoever it's going to be Processing.

Chelsea: 1:23:47

It was like you hire your birth team, whoever it's going to be, to like pretty much to manage your birth and to intervene usually. So they're going to change the course of your birth or to do something, but a birth photographer is like a pure witness and that's like a super high honor to when you give birth, it's just to have somebody there who's like just a witness just to record it for you. So that was really special to have and I really appreciate the that, just that doing that for people as a, as a career, as a you know a job, because it's it's much more, i't know, I think emotionally, like so much more important in a lot of ways than like the changing the course of birth versus just like here's what happened, you know, here's your story, here are your photos, and like, yeah, it's just very helpful like emotionally and you have to process it. So definitely wanted to say that the podcast, too, is like the same thing. It's like you know you get to tell your story. It's so important. So, yeah, really appreciate it.

Angela: 1:24:58

Yeah, oh, thank you so much for saying that. It really is such an honor to witness birth and to witness women in their primal power claiming their babies. I'm in a year-long study of birth with elder midwife Wapio right now at the Matrona and she talks about being a witness to the creation of family and I really feel that a lot when I'm at births, and she also talks a lot about how less managing and more witnessing is what the families that she worked with really wanted the most, and I really do love that I'm able to be there to capture these purely documentary style photos of the experience for families, which can often be really helpful in processing the birth afterwards in a more integrated way.

Chelsea: 1:25:48

For me it was really helpful and, like I I wish I had one for my first birth, I wish I had photos from that because, yeah, that's something that we totally missed. And I was like I'm hiring a birth photographer so that there's no pressure on Henning, because Henning just needs to be like supportive of me, because that's too much for him gosh, he has to manage so much, like in those moments. So maybe next time too, like I'm like if I have another I'm maybe I would involve more family members, just because there's too much for anything to have to deal with. But we'll see if that's just, you know, the trying to turn off the planning brain, like that's like been my biggest learning from birth and it's really helped the parenthood like stop trying to control things with plans and anticipating what's gonna happen next and just like let go of some stuff, like just relax.

Angela: 1:26:42

Yeah, birth really brings you to new levels of consciousness, really.

Chelsea: 1:26:48

Yeah, yeah, I'm totally different person than before. Like every experience has changed me and, yeah, for the better. I mean it's like, wow, that has helped me. Like I'm so much better at a lot of other things that, like would have been really hard for me. Now I'm like no, I got that, that's fine. That's Peter King. I gave birth, not just the hard thing, but like you know the emotion, like things that really made me anxious when I was young. Like don't even touch me. Now I'm like, yeah, that's no, I've got a kid, like nothing.

Angela: 1:27:23

So good things to worry about, yeah. So now, as a final question if you were to give advice to people who are expecting, or even new parents, what's one of the biggest things you'd want to share?

Chelsea: 1:27:38

That probably like is a good connector to the last thing I said.

Chelsea: 1:27:43

Like that that was kind of yeah, like a little bit of like, but I mean that might just be advice for a specific type of person like I know there's people out there who are like the opposite, who are just like not planners and are already really good at that. So maybe they shouldn't, maybe they need a different set of advice. But I guess if you're like me and you like to like land things and anticipate what's going to happen next, Like you have to like learn how to turn that off for both parenting and birth and prenatal care. I mean, maybe from my set of stories between my births and my miscarriages, you can just hear like the variety of things that you can experience and that was just like within five years, one person, same partner. So, yeah, and maybe that was my lesson, like I needed that, so I got it. But yeah, I think, yeah, just like, like letting go a little bit and and not feeling like you have to control everything and or know everything either.

Angela: 1:28:52

Yeah, totally Well. Thank you so much, chelsea, for taking the time to chat with me today and share your birth stories.

Chelsea: 1:29:01

Thank you, I appreciate getting to. It was the first time I I got to do it. I'm glad I got to take my time and really appreciated it. It was the first time I got to do it. I'm glad I got to take my time and really appreciated it.

Angela: 1:29:09

Before you go, I just want to remind you I have a ton of resources for pregnancy and birth. If you're pregnant, whether you're a first time mom or if this is your fifth baby, I want you to check out the show notes, because I have some free trainings and free downloads that you can sign up for, as well as the link to access my Labor of Love, a comprehensive self-paced online childbirth education course. I created this course specifically for moms who don't want to be told what to do, regardless of where you're birthing or who you're birthing with, and I'd honestly love to teach you everything that I know so that you can prepare for an autonomous birth experience and prepare to step into your role as the leader of your birth journey. So click to the show notes, check out all of those links and, if you ever have any questions, feel free to DM me at my main birth over on Instagram.