270: Ginny’s Birth Story – A Joyous Labor Induction

Dr. Nicole (00:00): Is it possible to have a smooth elective labor induction? Why? Yes. Yes, it is. You're going to hear all about it in this birth story episode with Jenny.

(00:18): Welcome to the All about pregnancy and birth podcast. If you're having a baby in the hospital, you are giving birth in a system that too often takes away power from women over what happens in their own bodies. I'm Dr. Nicole Calloway Rankins, a practicing board certified OBGYN, who's had the privilege of helping well over a thousand babies into this world. I've been a doctor for over 20 years, and I'm here to help you take back your power, advocate for yourself, and have the beautiful pregnancy and birth that you deserve. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and it's not a substitute for medical advice. Check out the full disclaimer at drnicolerankins.com/disclaimer. Now, let's get to it. Hello there. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. This is episode number 270. Whether it is your first time listening or you have listened before, I am so glad you're spending some time with me today.

(01:13): Jenny had an elective induction, meaning she chose to get induced, and her induction was an actual dream and went so smooth now, even though her induction went great, Jenny still has some challenges about her experience During her pregnancy. She had prenatal depression that began at six weeks and continued throughout her pregnancy and even a bit postpartum. Also, she had many people in her community who were pregnant and giving birth at the same time, and they experienced some serious complications including miscarriage, preeclampsia, premature birth, a shoulder dystocia where someone's baby had a broken clavicle, and then even a stillbirth. All of this happened while she was pregnant, so all of these rare complications happening during her pregnancy understandably made her really anxious during her pregnancy, and she's going to share how she managed that. In the episode, she really came to realize that pregnancy and birth doesn't happen in silos.

(02:25): We can be deeply impacted by the things that happen in our community, and it can be challenging to hold both joy for yourself and sorrow for others at the same time. This is a really insightful episode in terms of the gamut of experiences that can happen during pregnancy and birth, and I know you're going to learn a lot from it. You will also learn a lot from coming to join me in my free Laugh class. Make a birth plan the right way. In this class, you will learn how to make a birth plan that actually works to help you have the birth that you want, because those templates and forms you get online. They do not cut it. Come join me in my free live class. Everybody loves it. Register for it@drnicolerankins.com slash birth plan, and at the end of the class I stay and I do office hours q and a where I answer any questions you have about pregnancy and birth. So I would love to see you in the next live class. All right, let's get into the birth story episode with Jenny. Thank you so much, Jenny, for agreeing to come onto the podcast. I am excited to have you share your birth story today.

Ginny (03:36): Thank you. I'm really excited to share

Dr. Nicole (03:38): Today. Yeah, so why don't you tell us a bit about yourself and your family?

Ginny (03:41): So I am born and raised in Texas, still live here now. Love it. I am actually a pediatric audiologist, so I spend my days helping children and families who are deaf or hard of hearing, and so I love my job. And then I live with my husband and our dog, caboose and our almost eight months old baby.

Dr. Nicole (04:07): Okay. All right. I love it. Isn't it like crazy hot in Texas?

Ginny (04:10): Oh, it is. Yes. Yes. It's very hot, and honestly, I think that's part of my being pregnant was being pregnant in August in Texas. I think it's already in the hundreds now. Oh my God. And it's like what? June.

Dr. Nicole (04:25): Okay. Okay. All right. That's a lot. That's a, well, I'm glad you still love it anyway, and I'm glad you also love your work. I'm sure it's very rewarding to do what you do. Yes,

Ginny (04:34): Yes. It is hard. Some hard stories, but overall it's a great job.

Dr. Nicole (04:38): Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, let's get into your pregnancy and prenatal care, because in order to understand the birth, we got to understand a little bit about your pregnancy. So first, tell us what was your pregnancy like for you? What was your prenatal care for you?

Ginny (04:52): Yeah, so honestly, I hated being pregnant. I was not a happy pregnant person throughout it, but overall, it was good. I had a lot of this similar symptoms in your first trimester. I had nausea and fatigue going on. I did also have some, I think it's called Subc, chorionic hemorrhaging.

Dr. Nicole (05:17): That happened in

Ginny (05:19): My first trimester around, I had two different episodes, and so after the second one, they were like, let's get you in for a reassurance scan. That was around 10 weeks and everything was fine, and they don't know why it happens, I guess.

Dr. Nicole (05:34): Yeah, we don't know.

Ginny (05:36): But they were like, you can have a happy, healthy pregnancy afterwards. And so everything was pretty good up until that point. One of my biggest symptoms in pregnancy that started about six weeks and went through was I had prenatal depression, which I didn't know was a thing I'd heard of postpartum, very aware of those symptoms, but apparently your hormones can change so much that it happens in your pregnancy. And so I didn't really feel sad. That's not how I would describe it, but I felt like a shell of myself throughout

Dr. Nicole (06:19): My pregnancy. Really,

Ginny (06:21): If I could describe it, I was like, Hey, if you have a picture, and it's a hundred percent color, my life, I felt like I was showing up at 20% color or 30% color, and we had, I think different days were worse than others, but throughout my pregnancy I was like, I just don't feel like myself. I think that that made it challenging. We'll get into all the other hiccups throughout my pregnancy, but I think that made it really challenging of, I started off at a place of low of just being really, really low throughout my pregnancy.

Dr. Nicole (06:55): Sure, okay. Did you talk to your doctor about it

Ginny (06:58): At all? I did. I did, and I think she gave me really great advice. She told me, she said, Hey, figure out control your controllables if you know that getting as much sleep as you can, eating well-rounded, getting exercise when you can, taking a break, resting, doing social things, all the things that make you feel better, do those things. And then she was like, if you have a counselor, you should go see one. And I already had a counselor set up, so I went and saw her and throughout my pregnancy, and that was really helpful. I never had to see a psychiatrist or have medication, but I did use some other resources to help support me during that time.

Dr. Nicole (07:41): Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Okay. And when the practice you were seeing, were you seeing the same physician all the time or was it different physicians or how did that work?

Ginny (07:51): Yeah, so I just went to my gynecologist that I had once I became pregnant. It was a private practice. I think there are five, six different doctors there, but I saw the same physician throughout all of my care. And then they gave me a note of, Hey, whenever you give birth, the doctor, whoever's on call, who's going to show up at the hospital. And so they were like, any of our physicians could birth your baby, but your care will be funneled primarily through your previous position.

Dr. Nicole (08:26): Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. And then so you also had the unique circumstance of you had while you were pregnant, friends who, and correct me if I'm getting all of this right, who experienced infertility having to go through IVF, miscarriage, preeclampsia, premature birth, being in the nicu, a shoulder dystocia with the baby, had a broken clavicle and a stillbirth people who had all of those things during you were pregnant. Yes,

Ginny (09:05): I did. And I think that's one of the things, we don't give birth in bubbles. I'm not just here in myself. And I think it's really easy to dismiss a lot of stories that you see online or that, oh, yeah, my great aunt told me that she knew someone who this crazy thing happened to. But yes, I think there's beauty in community and being able to bear each other's burdens. But that was a lot that happened from the time I had a positive test at the time that my baby was born, particularly the stillbirth. So everything else I could grapple with and kind, what's the word, cope with fairly well and be like, Hey, you know what? It's really hard. People are okay. Everybody's okay. But the stillbirth, she was my roommate in college for five years. Oh my God. Her husband was the best man at our wedding. And so, oh

Dr. Nicole (10:06): My God,

Ginny (10:09): Walked alongside our dear, dear friends as they're going through this tragedy. There's nothing else I can call it. It was horrific. There's nothing quite like it. I feel like that I've experienced at least, and all the time. We got the news when I was 15 weeks pregnant, and there's this looming sense of, I think we had a little bit of assurance. I think we had a little bit, Hey, we made it through the first 12 weeks miscarriage. Chances are significantly lower. This is going to happen. And that confidence was just gone, and our language and mindset and outlook turned from, Hey, we're going to have a baby to, I hope we have a baby to I think we're having a baby. And there was no signs. And I think that's one of the things with pregnancy that they say it's unpredictable. There are chances, but there's not formulas for success.

(11:11): And I think just we had to sit there and grapple with, okay, well, we are just going to have to take this one day at a time. Baby is here today. We are here today, and we're going to walk into the next step. And just, I don't know, I think we just held our breath for the next several months until everything was okay. And so I think grappling with that on top of feeling so low already to begin with, because that started around six weeks of pregnancy because that was all before. And so I think just everything all together just made for a really hard, low, long, hot, it was summer hot season of my life.

Dr. Nicole (11:53): Right, right. Yeah. I think one of the things you said when you wrote in, like you said, is like you don't give birth in silos and then all of a sudden you hear things are rare, but then it's not anymore when someone experiences it, and it just changes your whole relationship to it.

Ginny (12:12): Yes. Statistics turned from numbers to people and faces that I love, right names that I love, a baby that I thought was supposed to grow up with my son. That's just really hard to kind of, it's sobering. I think sobering is the appropriate word.

Dr. Nicole (12:29): Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So then how did that change, or did it change what you did to prepare for birth? What did you do to prepare?

Ginny (12:38): Yeah, so I am a preparer. So about a year before we even started to think about having kids, I was like, I don't know anything about birth. We're going to learn. So I found your podcast and I had listened to most of your library, all of your library, which was really great. And then also there was another podcast I listened to called Is It Normal, which is done out in England. So it's a different model, but it's not medical necessarily. It's very light. There are some medical pieces. They have midwives come on and they have OB gns come on, but I don't know more just like, Hey, this is what you can typically expect. This should be what is normal. Okay. And so I found that to be really helpful. I also did your birth prep course when my friend who gave her, she had P prom. She had her baby about five weeks early. She went into labor, and I told my husband, I was like, Erin, we haven't started this.

(13:47): We need to start this today. What if we don't have as much time as

(13:51): We think we do? So we did your birth course, and that was fantastic. I was a big fan. One of the things that did change along the course before my friend had her stillbirth, I remember thinking, as long as I'm not induced, everything's going to be fine. I just didn't want to be induced. I wanted to go into labor spontaneously. I had it in my head of if I am not induced, if my body is already getting with this process, it is feeling like it can do it, then my labor will be smooth. I won't need a C-section. Got it. That was what I had created in my head. I don't think that's necessarily true or have any stats behind it, but that was my brain formula. I was like, the worst thing that could happen would be I'm induced. And then my friend stillbirth happened and I was like, actually, no. There are other things that I want to avoid. And so that was the big shift in my birth plan. Was I from No, we're going to be spontaneous birth to, no, I really think I'm going to elect to get an induction.

Dr. Nicole (14:58): Okay. Okay. How far along was your friend when she had her still birth, if you don't mind me asking?

Ginny (15:04): She was 41 and two days, so she was a little bit over. She had a beautiful non-stress test at 40, and then at 40 in two, she felt him in the morning. She did her kick counts that night and baby was gone by that point.

Dr. Nicole (15:24): Okay, okay. Oh my gosh. So I can see how that would change, and you decide when I can get this baby here safely, I want to get this baby here

Ginny (15:34): Safely. Yeah. I think my body no longer felt safe for them after that event. Got it. So I was like, as soon as I think I debated between, should I do 40 or should I do 39? And I went back and forth, but I was like, as soon as baby can get here, we're just going to do it.

Dr. Nicole (15:50): Okay. Okay. Alright. Was there anything else that you wanted for your birth? You decided that you wanted the induction. Was there anything else that you decided on?

Ginny (15:59): So I wanted immediate skin to skin. I wanted a delayed cord clamping. We didn't know if our baby was a boy or a girl.

Dr. Nicole (16:10): Oh, surprises are so fun.

Ginny (16:12): It was super fun. And so I wanted my husband to announce whether it was a boy or a girl, it was a boy surprise, which was wonderful. And I had music playing in the background. I had Christmas lights set up in the room on my birth wishes that I had. I work for a major hospital system in Texas, and it's a children's hospital, and our NICU is in my network, but other NICUs are not in my network. And so on my birth plan in Bold, I was like, if we need a NICU stay, you need to transfer them to my hospital. That was very big on my birth plan. And then if I couldn't do skin to skin, I wanted my husband to do skin to skin, but all of that was really standard practice at my hospital. So I was telling people and they're like, oh, yeah, we always do that. I was like, okay, great.

Dr. Nicole (17:09): Good. Yeah, that's always reassuring, and one of the things that is the importance of discussing it ahead of time, it just gives you that reassurance that everybody's on the same page.

Ginny (17:16): Yeah. My doctor was really good.

Dr. Nicole (17:19): Yeah. And what were things that you were afraid of about giving birth? I'm sure the possibility of still birth, obviously, but besides that, what are other things that you were afraid of?

Ginny (17:30): Honestly, that was kind of the big one was like, Hey, we just want baby here. We want me here and we want baby here. After that, I kind of threw out all my other preferences. I wanted to feel like things weren't happening to me. I wanted to be a part of the discussion. I didn't want things to feel chaotic and out of control if preventable, but really that was about it that I wanted, my baby was born, was due around Halloween, and I really didn't want his birthday to be on Halloween. I don't think that was a fear, but that was number two priority. If we can prevent it, you're like,

Dr. Nicole (18:10): Eh, if I could choose maybe not Halloween.

Ginny (18:14): Yeah, I have a holiday birthday and don't love it. And so I was like, if I can prevent this from my child, then I'll got, okay. All right. So then

Dr. Nicole (18:22): What was your induction and labor and birth? Let's talk through that.

Ginny (18:27): Yeah. Honestly, it was a dream. I loved it. Oh, yeah. I realized spontaneity not for me. So we went ahead. We scheduled my induction around 30 when I was 37 weeks is when we decided to schedule it. So we scheduled it for 39 and four. It would've been 39, probably on the dot, except we were trying to avoid Halloween. And she was like, if you go really long, if it takes a long time, I don't want that to happen to you. And so Gotcha. We went into the hospital the night of Halloween to have our son. The day before was my last OB appointment, and she was able to sweep my membranes to help things get moving maybe, right. And so we did that. I didn't necessarily feel that different until about 12 ish hours later, and then I got really, really sick. They said The hormones can fluctuate and that can make you nauseous.

(19:35): I don't know. I don't know. So we went in, it was checking into a hotel, though. We go up to the floor and it's all quiet. No one wants to have a baby on Halloween, so we're the only ones who were there. Gotcha. The nurses knew we were coming. They were like, here's your room. It was so peaceful. We went in at four and they started me on, I think Cy Attack. It was an oral pill, I don't remember that much. They started me on that, and they were like, we're going to take this dose every four hours, and I have all the monitors on me. My husband was very nervous about the sleeping situation for him once we got there and he saw that, he was like, oh, I have a sofa bed thing. He felt much more comfortable, but he was a little nervous at first getting in, and I don't know.

(20:32): I went into it with a mindset of if I get more sleep than I do on an overnight flight, then I'm calling it a win. And it was more comfortable than an overnight flight. So I thought it was pretty good. So when I got in there, I was at a really great bishop score of a three for the beginning, but my nurses were always so positive. They're like, Hey, if we're not seeing a lot of dilation in the beginning, we're looking for more the cervical ripening. She said something about baby going down and something turning, and as long as we have that progressing, we're not worried if you're a one now and I took you in four hours and you're still a one. And so that was good. There was progress at every four steps. I could eat that night, and then they let me eat breakfast in the morning, and then after, I think it was like eight in the morning, the next day they did a check and was like, okay, we don't need to do another round of Cytotech.

(21:35): We can start you on Pitocin. At that point, I hadn't had any pain management. I wasn't really experiencing pain at that point. You could see contractions on the graph, but I wasn't necessarily feeling them at that point. Gotcha, gotcha. And so they started the Pitocin and my sweet nurse, she was like, Hey, the pit pitocin rans up really fast. And so if you want an epidural, just know that you have to be still for an epidural. The Pitocin ramps up the contractions, and it can be hard to stay still. And so I knew I wanted to experience the contraction, and then I knew I wanted to get the epidural because that was toughing it out, or it is not for me. It's not for me. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard that if you want an unmedicated birth, you have to want it. And I didn't.

(22:31): And so I was like, I'm going to piece out. Nothing wrong with that at all. Yeah. And so we started the Pitocin at nine in the morning, and I think I got my epidural around 1230 in the morning. So a few hours after, they were very correct. It ramped up. I was playing cards. I was like, this is fine. I have little cramps. I'm just going to play my cards. And I didn't even finish my game. I was like, okay, I'm ready. We can get this show on the road. Gotcha. So we started the Pitocin, and at that point, I am pretty sure I took a nap for the next five-ish hours. Okay. You mean after you got the epidural? After I got the epidural, yeah. After I got the epidural, I was much more groggy than I thought I would be with the epidural I could, not having a baby didn't make sense to me, but getting a milkshake after made sense to me.

(23:31): And so I was just thinking about a milkshake while I'm sleeping. Right. That is so interesting. Yeah. I felt very kind of woozy, and I don't know, they had told I had never had a baby before, so I couldn't really understand. They say, I'm going to have a baby, but I don't have this experience to check in to see what it's going to be like. And so I was just like, well, afterwards I can get a milkshake. So I was just thinking about a milkshake the whole time. Really. It was not conceptualizing that I was about to have a baby.

Dr. Nicole (24:02): Really? That's so interesting. Okay. I swear I learned something new every time about people's experience of things. Okay. Okay. Alright. Alright. Interesting. Interesting. So I forgot to ask, how dilated, do you remember how dilated you were when you got the epidural?

Ginny (24:23): Oh, I was probably, I think it was almost a four. I think they could say we could stretch you to a four. So I had progressed a fair amount by the time we got there. While I was napping, she used the peanut ball. The nurse brought the peanut ball in between my legs and kind of went back and forth. And about five o'clock the nurse came in and checked me. So it had been five hours on Pitocin, and she's like, yep, we're at a 10. We're about to start pushing. Okay,

Dr. Nicole (24:56): Okay. It just

Ginny (24:57): Went. Yeah. So I was like, milkshake time. And I was like, oh, wait, what's happening after work now?

Dr. Nicole (25:03): Yeah, okay. Alright. Has your water broken at all?

Ginny (25:07): They broke my water. Oh, yeah, that happened. They broke my water. It was after I got my epidural, maybe about two o'clock,

Dr. Nicole (25:16): One

Ginny (25:17): O'clock, something like that. Again, I passed out real hard in between some of those hours, but they did break it themselves. Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Nicole (25:25): All right. So then she comes in and is like, okay, it's time to push. And you're like, okay.

Ginny (25:31): Yeah. Yeah. So we start moving around to push. She had me push on my side for most of the time. Also, she comes in, she's like, we're going to do practice pushes. I don't know the difference between practice pushes and real pushes. I feel like we're just using some lingo.

Dr. Nicole (25:48): That is a great point because we say practice push, and what we mean by that is that we just want to see how kind of it goes to see if we wait a little bit longer or do we start, that is interesting that, see, this is an example of we know what we mean, but we didn't probably explain that. You're like, what is practice versus real push versus, yeah,

Ginny (26:08): Right.

Dr. Nicole (26:09): I'm just going to push. I'm still pushing.

Ginny (26:11): I feel like this is it doing the same thing. Yes. And so at this time, the whole time we had the lights on that are all Christmasy, and we had this soft piano music playing, and I was having a really hard time waking up enough to start participating more. So I had my husband change the music from the piano to Taylor Swift, 1989.

(26:40): We needed something a little bit more upbeat. She had just dropped that album that she rereleased, and I was like, this is what we need. And my nurses love Taylor Swift. And so they were all into it, which was really fun. Your room was probably the best. They were like, this is a great room to be in. They also, I got really nauseous and the first few minutes of pushing, I got really nauseous. And then I ended up throwing up a little bit. But then I woke up after that. I was super hazy before and not really into it. And then I was like, okay, no, I'm here and I'm here for the pushing. So yeah, we pushed for about not too long, an hour and a half-ish For First baby. Yeah, for first baby. That's excellent. Yeah. So we pushed for about an hour and a half, and then we got to a point she was like, okay, we'll do one more practice push, and then we'll bring the doctor in.

(27:33): And the whole time I wanted a progress bar to show me, because everyone's telling me, you're doing so great, you're doing so great. And I don't think you would tell me if I was doing bad, but I want to know, are we close to baby being here? Do I have another few hours of this? And I guess they might not know, but I was like, if I could just visualize where am I on this journey, that would be amazing. Yeah, yeah. Yes. So she was like, we're going to do one more practice push, and then I'm going to go page the doctor to come in to have the final push and have baby here. And so we start to do that last push, and she's like, oh my gosh, stop. Okay, baby is coming. We need to get the doctor. And so now we're going through the contractions, and by this point with my epidural, I couldn't feel pain, but I could feel when the contraction was happening, and I would, I don't know, the urge to push or something like that. And she was like, okay, so kind of let's like breathe in short breath a little bit while it's happening, so you don't accidentally have baby born with doctor, not here. And so we did that for three minutes, and then my doctor comes in and she's getting all her stuff on, and then we set up and baby was born, my husband told me it was a boy, and then immediately on my chest, which was amazing.

(28:58): He was big. No one knew he was going to be that big. He was nine pounds, two ounces, and no one, my doctor didn't know he was going to be that big, big, and I didn't know. And the nurse was like, how much do you think he weighs? And I was like, oh, we're going to guess seven pounds. And she laughed at us. She was like, no, homeboy is hefty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like no newborn clothes for him. Oh, yeah. It was like a week. And I was like, well, these are done. We're all done with these. Yeah. But yeah, so he was on my chest. We did Golden Hour, which was amazing. He breastfed a little bit. I don't think he left me for almost three hours. They let him sleep on me for that long, which was amazing. It was so good. It was so good.

Dr. Nicole (29:52): Okay. So he stayed with you. They came to check on him in the room and did anything they needed to do with him. Perfect. That's how it should be. Oh, did you have to get any stitches or anything?

Ginny (30:02): I did. I had a second degree tear. Okay. Yeah. That's

Dr. Nicole (30:07): Pretty common. After

Ginny (30:11): I will say postpartum recovery hit me hard. I just did not have any expectation for like, oh yeah, you're not really going to be able to walk to your room very well. They're going to have to wheel you to the car. And I was like, are they? Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Nicole (30:31): Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the things where we're very much, especially if you have an epidural, well, don't get up. Don't get up. Don't get up because you might pass out after birth if you get up too soon or those kinds of things.

Ginny (30:45): I remember they had me when I was sitting on the bed after I had him, they hadn't moved me to recovery. I was like, I'm feeling really good right now. My epidural had not fully worn off. I was like, this is amazing. Let's go home. We have our baby. This is great. And they're like, okay, so stand up and go to the bathroom. And I stood up and I was like, oh my gosh,

Dr. Nicole (31:04): No,

Ginny (31:04): I am not going to do that. I can never leave.

Dr. Nicole (31:06): Never leave. Oh my goodness. So then how was the rest of the postpartum period for you with breastfeeding? And also, did you have any issues with depression at all?

Ginny (31:17): Yeah, so breastfeeding, thankfully breastfeeding was really, really smooth. I took courses beforehand through Aero Flow. That was through my insurance. They're fantastic.

(31:32): And I had a huge support of people who I could reach out to with issues and problems. But baby ate super great the whole time. He was a big kid, so he was big appetite, never at a risk of losing. Yeah. He would sleep really well. And so that breastfeeding all went well, and I felt infinitely better after having a baby, and both physically and mood wise, I was like, wow, I feel like a new person. But the further away I got from postpartum, the more I look back and I think, oh, I wasn't doing so great. I was doing better, better than I had in a long time, but I wasn't doing great. And that is still happening. Even today. I'm almost eight months past post, and I look back to about mid May or even end of beginning of this month, and I was like, oh, I thought I was okay, and I wasn't quite, but I'm doing better now than I was. And so I think just some more progression of mood. I will say there was a big shift around four and a half months postpartum where I noticed a big change in myself. But there was definitely some harder times. I think I chalked up to, you just had a baby and your hormones are all over the place. And also it's Christmas and also it's Thanksgiving.

(33:02): And actually I was not actually.

Dr. Nicole (33:04): Okay. Okay. Okay. Did you continue to see your therapist?

Ginny (33:09): I did. I had a few sessions with her, mostly practicing. Previously I had gone in and I had a few sessions with her. It was just hard to do anything with a newborn. I will say I stand with American Maternity leave is not great in the us.

Dr. Nicole (33:32): It's trash. It's embarrassing.

Ginny (33:33): The support we get

Dr. Nicole (33:34): Is,

Ginny (33:35): Yeah, the support we get is horrendous. For me personally, going back to work was an anchor in my life of this is something that is consistent. This is something that is familiar. This is something that I can step into and kind of put on who I was before and feel a little bit more like myself. I don't think that's everybody's story, but it was very helpful for me to take a break, have a breather, and remember who I was before.

Dr. Nicole (34:04): Sure, sure. And at what point did you go back to work?

Ginny (34:08): I went back at 12 weeks, so I took 12 weeks off and my husband got 16 weeks of paid paternity leave, which is, I was like, you didn't put the watermelon.

Dr. Nicole (34:23): Wow.

Ginny (34:24): Which was amazing, amazing,

Dr. Nicole (34:25): Awesome that his company supports

Ginny (34:27): That. So great big fans. I think that made the transition easier because I wasn't leaving my newborn with someone I didn't know. But my first day of work, I was leaving him with my husband, which made it better.

Dr. Nicole (34:40): So did you all kind of stagger your do a little bit together and then then he took some later? Or how did that

Ginny (34:46): Work? We took all of it together and then he just went back to work about four weeks after I did.

Dr. Nicole (34:52): Oh, got it, got it, got it. Okay.

Ginny (34:53): We thought about staggering it for a hot moment, but we figured at this point with our first kid, we want both hands on deck since we don't know what we're doing. And also it was like, this is a fun time that we get to spend together as we welcome our newborn home. That's true. That's true. That's true. We didn't, and it was a good fit for us. I think that month when I was at work and he was at home, that was a weird transition to move through.

Dr. Nicole (35:22): Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So then how do you feel overall about your birth experience?

Ginny (35:29): Yeah, so my actual birth experience, 10 out of 10 stars I loved. Every doctor I interacted with was amazing. Every nurse was so fun and so caring and so sweet. I loved the birth process was really good. Everything before and everything after less enjoyable. But the actual, I think for someone who initially thought the worst thing I could do is be induced, and then to end up with an induction and to have such a positive experience, I was a big fan. Okay.

Dr. Nicole (36:08): So then as we wrap up, what is your one favorite piece of advice that you would tell somebody who's about to have a baby?

Ginny (36:16): I think, golly, I feel like there's so much between just getting education or if you

Dr. Nicole (36:21): Have a couple sure. Go for it.

Ginny (36:23): Yeah, I mean, I think getting education and being informed is really important, but I think just identifying what you need and trying to treat that as opposed to thinking, imposing someone else's health and cares and concerns on yourself. I think that's the biggest thing. My pregnancy looked really different than all my friends' pregnancies, but I had my own difficulties and struggles and those were the things that I had to address. And that was, I think most beneficial for me throughout was like, not everybody wants to be induced at 39 weeks, but I do. And that's okay. And not everybody to has to go do this other thing, but they might need to and that's okay. And so I think that would be my biggest piece of advice. Gotcha.

Dr. Nicole (37:11): Gotcha. I love that. I love that. So where can women connect with you? You can say nowhere. It's totally

Ginny (37:17): Optional. Not really anywhere, but you can listen to this podcast again.

Dr. Nicole (37:20): Yeah, that's a smart move. Yes. I don't blame you. I don't blame you. All right. Well, thank you so much for agreeing to come onto the podcast and share your story. I really, really appreciate it. It was so helpful.

Ginny (37:33): Thank you for having me. I'm happy to share.

Dr. Nicole (37:39): All right, wasn't that a great episode? I so appreciate Jenny coming on to share her story. And after every episode when I have a guest on, I do something called Dr. Nicole's notes where I talk about my top takeaways come from the conversation, and I have several Dr. Nicole's notes from my conversation with Jenny. Number one, it is okay to choose a labor induction. There's a lot of talk sometimes on social media about you shouldn't be induced, you shouldn't be induced, but really it is a personal choice about what works best for you. If you want to be induced, as long as you understand the things that go into labor induction, that is totally fine. It is a personal decision and one that you have to make for yourself. Number two, I really appreciate how Jenny said that going back to work helped her feel more like herself.

(38:30): This is totally normal. There's often, again, on social media, this perception or pushing that you have a baby and you never want to go back to work. And maybe that's the case. There are certainly some people who don't want to go back to their work environment after having a baby. But it's also okay if you want to go back to work, if you want to get back into activities that you were doing before you became a mother, yes, that can help you feel more like yourself. That is completely normal. Just because you don't necessarily want to stay at home with your baby all the time doesn't make you a bad mother. There's a range of how people can show up in motherhood and how they can make it work to fit within their lives and who they were as a person before they became a mother.

(39:17): So it is totally normal if you feel like going back to work can help you feel more like yourself after having a baby. Okay, number three is that it can be helpful to change up the energy surrounding your labor. Sometimes calm and peaceful doesn't cut it. Jenny went from piano music to Taylor Swift, 1989. Sometimes you need to just change the energy, the mood and the room. Calm doesn't do it. Sometimes it needs to be anger. Sometimes it may need to be cursing or yelling, but you may need to flip up the energy. Not all birth is calm and peaceful. Sometimes it just needs to have a different energy in order to happen. Now, I will say what's important for all birth though is a positive energy. Even if it's not calm, even if it has a little anger in it, it needs to be positive.

(40:07): She had positive nurses, she had positive doctors, the lights, the sounds in the room, all of those things were important to create a positive energy around the birth. That is very, very important. Okay, next couple of things. Prenatal depression can happen. We don't talk about it a lot. We talk a lot about postpartum depression, which is important, and I think people have more of an awareness of it, but people can be susceptible to having depression that happens during pregnancy. So do be on the lookout for that and get the help that you need because in order to have a healthy baby, you got to have a healthy mom. So take care of yourself. If you're worried about depression, then seek help. And then the final thing I want to say is that sadly, sometimes bad things happen in pregnancy, and it's not anybody's fault. Nature is not always kind.

(41:00): Her friend had a stillbirth at just over 41 weeks. That is incredibly rare, but rare is not zero. So unfortunately, sad things sometimes do happen in pregnancy. Difficult things do happen in pregnancy, and we just need to be aware of that and recognize that. Again, not common, but it is a possibility. Okay, so there you have it. Please share this podcast with a friend. Also subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening to me right now. You can leave a review in Apple Podcast. I'd love to hear what you think about the show. You can also let me know what you think about the show by sending me a DM on Instagram. I'm on Instagram @DrNicoleRankins, and I would love to see you in my next live birth plan class. Make a birth plan the right way. Grab your spot at drnicolerankins.com/birthplan. So that is it for this episode. Do come on back next week and remember that you deserve a beautiful pregnancy and birth.