Key Takeaways
– **Preparation starts before birth.** Building healthy habits before and during pregnancy can provide a stronger foundation for pregnancy and labor.
– **Nutrition matters.** Pregnancy changes the body’s hormones and metabolism, making balanced nutrition and blood-sugar regulation important considerations.
– **Keep moving.** Appropriate physical activity can help maintain strength and mobility as the body changes throughout pregnancy.
– **Create a birth plan.** Discuss your preferences, possible interventions, pain-management options, and newborn care decisions ahead of time.
– **Know your options.** Understanding what may happen during labor allows you to make more informed decisions when circumstances change.
– **Prepare for flexibility.** A birth plan is a guide, not a guarantee. Labor may unfold differently than expected, and adapting does not mean you failed.
– **Build a support team.** Partners and other support people should understand the birth plan and be prepared to provide physical, emotional, and practical support.
– **Education creates confidence.** Learning about the possibilities before labor can help reduce surprises and allow families to approach birth more intentionally.
– **Birth is a team effort.** Preparing together and communicating openly can help both parents feel more equipped for the experience.
Topics Covered
– Preparing your body for pregnancy and birth
– Nutrition and healthy blood-sugar regulation during pregnancy
– Staying physically active throughout pregnancy
– Supporting mobility and pelvic health
– Prenatal chiropractic care and the Webster Technique
– Creating a birth plan
– Understanding labor and delivery options
– Preparing for unexpected changes during birth
– The importance of an informed support person
– Advocating for your preferences during labor
– Understanding newborn care decisions
– Staying flexible when birth doesn’t go according to plan
– Approaching pregnancy and birth as a team
**Transcript: **
Hey everyone, welcome to the Freedom to Flourish podcast.
I’m Doctor Joel Miller here with my Co host Doctor Tim Augustyniak Guys, welcome back.
We have been out for some time since Doctor Tim and his wife had their baby and we are so excited.
0:18
And in this episode we’re going to talk about that.
We’re going to go through preparing for birth.
We’re going to talk about in general, kind of from a holistic standpoint, the things that you should be doing to make sure that the birth is as healthy and, you know, safe as possible, but then also how it should go, what to do if unexpected things happen and kind of how to respond.
0:42
So most people that click on this episode are probably going to be females, but one thing I want to encourage you is that as you’ll find throughout this episode, that the whole birthing journey is a is a team effort, right?
1:00
And so one of the things that will encourage you is to have your husband listen to this with you as well.
And so we want to get into this.
We think it’s going to be really, really helpful for you to learn from Doctor Tim and his wife and their their journey and from a holistic perspective.
1:16
So we’re really excited.
So, Doctor Tim, good morning.
Good morning.
How you?
Doing today.
It’s good to be back.
I had a, you know, a friend and patient asked yesterday.
So when are you guys getting back to the podcast?
Well, tomorrow morning.
1:31
And I mean, it’s crazy.
It’s been 9 at the time of recording.
It’s been 9 weeks since our last episode was released or that we shot our last episode, which is just crazy.
It’s crazy.
It’s been that long.
We’ve never taken this this much of a break, but life has been kind of crazy.
1:50
It’s it’s been crazy getting adjusted.
It was crazy the start of the process.
And honestly, the big motivation for this episode was one just to kind of tell the story of, of what happened and, and give all of our listeners who, you know, are invested and our patients who are invested that we know really well, You know, insight as to how things are going and how it went.
2:10
But also to kind of shed some light on you can do everything that you want to do.
You can prepare as much as you want to prepare, but things are going to go not quite as planned one way or another.
It’s I, I would find it to be exceptionally uncommon that you’re going to find that your birth goes exactly as you want it to go.
2:30
I mean, I, I pray that happens for all the women who get a birth plan ready and do everything that they can to make it as smooth as possible.
But chances are things are going to be weird.
And in first time moms, it can be, it can be kind of tough sometimes.
So I just want to tell that story from the perspective of somebody who I do this for work and we did everything quote right from a natural perspective and things still were tough.
2:54
I mean, my wife’s water broke from the time that her water broke until our baby was born.
It’s 57 hours.
It was a long time.
And so everybody that I’ve talked to says, you know, it’s a miracle that they didn’t want to do AC section.
But I think a huge part of that is how much of an advocate I was in stern with the staff at the hospital that we just weren’t doing that.
3:17
And so another part of it is from the the woman’s perspective, what are things that you can do that are that should be helpful.
But then also from the husband’s perspective, what you need to expect from the doctors, what you need to expect from the nurses, what you need to expect from your wife throughout that process.
3:36
And what you need to do to make sure that you’re there to help and make sure that things go as close to what is planned or what was planned as possible.
So hopefully it’ll be a good episode.
Hopefully it’ll be a good segue between the theory of this is what you should do and the examples of what worked, what didn’t work, and what I’ve heard from other people who might have gotten different results, so I think it’ll be a good one.
4:05
Perfect, perfect.
All right, so Doctor Tim, as we were talking through this, we talked about #1 like preparing for birth.
So let’s walk through that.
Let’s walk through kind of what the things that you and your wife did in preparing for birth and, and, and how we encourage patients in that.
4:23
And then we’ll get into like the, the story of just your journey and what happens.
And we’ll kind of walk through that piece by piece, but let’s kind of jump to that first.
Like what should women be doing?
Maybe they are pregnant, maybe they’re just, they’re looking to get pregnant in the future.
What are the things that women can do to prepare their body to have the best birth possible?
4:44
Well, you know, we didn’t even talk about this before we started the podcast today.
But you know, I think the conversations we started before the, the woman’s even pregnant, you know, agreed to, you need to start off being healthy, the two of you, you know, make sure that your hormones are in check, make sure that your blood sugar is regulated.
5:02
Make sure that you are exercising, make sure your aerobic capacity is good.
Make sure all things that are just good health measures are doing pretty good.
You know, build those good habits beforehand.
Because, you know, I can’t say specific example things here, but I have read certain studies that basically say infants are less likely to end up developing insulin resistance, metabolic issues.
5:26
All across the board, morbidity or, or disease rates are lower in kids who are born from parents who are healthy before they get pregnant and healthy throughout the the pregnancy process.
So it starts there.
It starts there.
I mean, what is health?
5:42
There’s all kinds of things that we can talk about in other podcasts and you can listen to in our other podcast to kind of wrap your head around what that looks like.
But I mean, everybody knows it’s diet, it’s exercise.
You know, it’s not doing a lot of bad things.
It’s not drinking too much, it’s not smoking, it’s not doing nicotine and Zens and all the bad habit things that that you can do.
6:02
It’s eating right, exercising, doing right for your body, getting good sleep.
Excuse me.
But anyway, beyond that, once you are pregnant, what, what do things look like?
Well, even well before the birth, gestational diabetes is a real problem.
6:19
I mean, my wife is, I mean, she was 120 lbs five foot one before she got pregnant.
And she was pretty borderline when it came to her gestational diabetes test where they did the blood work and and had her slam that sugary drink and whatever process they do for that.
6:39
She wasn’t far off from it being too high.
And she never has any issues of blood sugar or anything like that on on regular labs.
But during pregnancy, the placenta secrets a, a hormone that allows blood sugar to stay more available and create insulin resistance to feed the baby.
6:56
And so you’re going to be more prone to having that problem regardless of whether you’re super healthy beforehand or not and early on in the pregnancy.
So maybe this is kind of like a, a wife and husband kind of topic.
So husbands, make sure you’re listening early on in pregnancy.
7:13
Everybody talks about cravings, They talk about morning sickness, first trimester, once women first get pregnant.
You know, that’s where right off the bat we were like, holy crap, I really hope this isn’t how things keep going because I mean, I’d cook a steak and it was like the best steak that I’d ever cooked.
And my wife is like, I can’t even smell that.
7:31
I’m going to go, I’m going to throw up.
I got to go lay down.
And I was like, man, this is literally the best thing ever.
And she could not stand it.
And so there’s a lot of that stuff going on and what foods end up being tolerable, even even to just say tolerable, not even like, enjoyable.
7:48
But a lot of times it’s the carby foods.
I mean, my wife was eating Mac and cheese like, way too much because that was the only thing that she could possibly tolerate any sort of chicken.
I mean, she didn’t throw up a whole lot.
But man, there was one time at dinner where we’re eating and she’s like, you know, this isn’t really sitting all that good.
8:04
And then she’s like, yeah, I got to throw up.
And she just went and threw up the chicken and yeah, it wasn’t, it wasn’t good, but she really struggled protein and the things that were good or at least tolerable were a lot of times carving your foods.
And so she just was super heavy on the carbs.
8:21
And man, I hope she isn’t upset that I’m going to say this, but it was January, this last January, my brother was in town.
We were going on a on a camping hunting weekend trip thing just to rough it in the woods, be in nature.
And she had bought, you know, those just really cheap crappy sugar cookies that you see right when you walk into Walmart with the frosting and sprinkles, the ones that are really dry, you need something to drink with them.
8:49
She just loves those, you know, And so she got those and brand new package.
And I forget what we were doing, but me and my brother come back and three of them are gone.
And I’m like, did you eat one of these cookies?
And he’s like, no.
9:04
And I’m like, Kylene, did you eat three of those cookies?
She goes, well, well, I wanted 2 and the baby wanted one.
And I’m like, you can’t, you can’t say that that’s not true, You know?
So the whole time I was kind of like, you know, we got to, we got to dial this in.
9:23
And then it was like she’d get this like kind of a little bit of frustration of like, I can do what I want.
I’m pregnant.
And I’m like, tactfully being like, hey, you know, this is common.
Maybe you shouldn’t do that.
And then Fast forward to her gestational diabetes tests and she was borderline.
9:39
And I’m like, and the doctor’s like, yeah, you know, insulin makes big babies.
We don’t want this baby to be too big.
Disclaimer, our baby was 8 lbs nine oz and my wife is tiny, so that was a big baby for her.
9:56
And that was a week early.
So, but when we were at the OB’s office at that point, I was like, you know, I’ve been saying maybe maybe you should start to listen a little bit better to when I’m trying to gently say maybe we shouldn’t eat those things, you know, trying to be very tactful about it.
10:14
And she’s like, yeah, I know.
And so from that point moving forward, she went, holy crap.
I like, I don’t want AC section.
So I need to, I need to slow down because this baby could very well be big.
And then she got her ultrasound and the baby was measuring big and we’re like, oh, this is not good, not good at all.
10:32
But The thing is, those could vary by like a pound up to 2 lbs.
And she was measuring like 7 lbs at that point.
And it was, I forget exactly how early, but it basically worked out to where she estimated the baby could be like 9 to 10 lbs if she went like a week over her due date, which she was a week early.
10:48
So it was fine.
But that stuff happens.
And so making sure that throughout pregnancy you are eating properly, not doing too many carbs and the carbs that you are doing whole food carbs because you’re going to want the Oreos, you’re going to want the the pasta, you’re going to want all those things.
Whatever you can do to find good quality foods that you can tolerate super beneficial because you do not want to have a baby that’s way too big.
11:13
Because I mean, during pregnancy, the placenta creates a hormone called human placental lactogen that that’s the hormone that keeps all the sugar circulating more.
It creates insulin resistance to help the baby grow.
But it can go a little too far if you do too many carbs and it will create a big baby.
11:30
And if you have a big baby and you are smaller framed, the likelihood of you having AC section goes up greatly.
So just don’t do it, you know?
And husbands, try to be gracious with your wife as you’re going through it.
But I mean, there are ways to go through that and be like, hey, you know, we both want this baby to really be really healthy.
11:46
Maybe we should dial this in, you know, and try to be creative with recipes.
Try to be creative with whatever you’re doing to create good food and cook good food.
But do what you can.
And the thing that can help mitigate that, though, is exercising.
So you need to be active.
I know it’s super easy for me to say from the side that didn’t end up having a belly that stuck out crazy far, but maintaining physical activity is going to be super, super, super important.
12:14
If if your muscles and ligaments and all the things are not mobile and you just kind of stagnant, it’s going to be more difficult on your body.
You know, you need to stay moving and even beyond that, you need to you need to find somebody who does Webster technique.
I mean, Webster technique is a phenomenal chiropractic technique that prepares for giving birth.
12:33
And so you can’t technically say it, but every single doctor that I’ve talked to that is certified in that technique and does it on pregnant women that come into their offices.
If there are babies that are breach, they turn babies like it.
I don’t do the techniques.
12:48
So I’m not claiming anything for, you know, my scope or whatever I, I do and they won’t claim it either.
But it happens.
It’s, it’s anecdotal, but it happens all the time where you get all the ligaments, you get all the things nice and relaxed, pelvis aligned and things will Orient themselves properly.
13:05
And so it’s super necessary, you know, you got to, you got to treat your body well and, and make sure that you’re prepared to give birth.
And so those are, those are obviously the best, the best things, eat right, exercise, get treated.
And so I think they say first trimester, it’s once a week, second trimester it’s once every other week.
13:26
I’m sorry, once a month, once every other week and then like every week or every couple days or something like that.
Third trimester.
But anyway, I’m sure it’s totally up to the doc that you are seeing.
But we got all that done.
And I mean, there are things that we’ll get into in a little bit where things can go super, super well, but there’s also some sort of perspective that we have with some familial history that maybe things went better than they could have.
13:49
So we’ll get into that a little bit.
But anyways, that’s that.
That’s my list.
Doctor Joel, do you have anything else to add?
Yeah.
So the so the last thing that we had talked about that I think is really important going especially to going into the birth.
And this is for the team, this is for mom and dad here is, is the birth plan.
14:08
So putting together a birth plan so that you both kind of know what to expect, what we are looking to have happen during this birthing process, what things we don’t want to have happen and if they do happen, how we’re going to kind of respond to that and so forth.
14:27
We hear a lot of different stories, Doctor Tim, where unfortunately where mom will kind of start going into birth and maybe different issues arise.
And a lot of times, and this is a big point of this episode.
14:43
A lot of times the husband or the dad is not kind of there advocating.
A lot of the times he’s just not super knowledgeable or understanding about everything that’s happening in our our encouragement is learn about these things, dad, learn about these things so that you can be a strong advocate because mom is going to be in a lot of pain and have a lot of things going on.
15:08
Now, with that said, doctor Tim, of course, you know, you have midwives, you know, that can help with all of these things as well and so forth.
But birth plan.
So doctor Tim, walk us through maybe a little bit about like birth plan wise, what is what’s important to to talk about?
15:29
What are maybe some of the key points and then take us through but y’all’s birthing journey and story and kind of how all that went.
Yeah.
So at least with our process, it kind of started with something that they do at Northwest here in Bentonville, the hospital that my wife ended up giving birth at.
15:49
They do.
It’s called a nurse navigator.
So if you’re local to this area and you’re wondering which hospital to go to, because I mean, you hear horror stories every, every patient that comes in here has a problem, you know, and so I see all kinds of women with issues following giving birth, pregnancy, all the things.
16:05
And they’re like, Hey, don’t go here.
They’re terrible.
Don’t go here, they’re terrible, don’t go here.
And so I had people saying literally every hospital in the area is awful.
Do not go there.
And my wife was going to the hospital like period.
We didn’t know what was going to happen.
It made me more comfortable.
16:21
It made her more comfortable.
She didn’t want to even mess with home birth or rating center, which they don’t have those here.
And so we were going there and she trusts her OB and she ended up being great.
So, but anyway, with that being said, there’s no good options according to everybody that I’ve heard something from.
And then you look up reviews online.
16:37
Nobody, nobody leaves a good review of a hospital.
It’s always bad, you know?
And so anyway, we went to Northwest because that’s where her OB delivered at.
And I don’t know if she’s the head head nurse of the labor delivery delivery department or, or what her actual official title is.
16:56
But the, the nurse that I gathered kind of overseed everything she does.
It’s called a nurse navigator where you go in, she takes out a tour of the whole department.
This is where you’re going to get in.
You know, you do your intake, you go to the ER for this and then they take you over here and then, you know, you go to all these whatever do you do your whole thing.
17:15
And from there she’ll walk you through this is, these are the steps that we take.
This is your informed consent for all these things.
And remember, informed consent can always be removed at any point.
So you’re signing these forms.
However, if you say you do not want this, we cannot do that and we will not do that.
17:31
So that was great ’cause I asked, I was like, so we’re signing forms right now.
What if in the moment we say, hey, we don’t want something And she’s like, yeah, we can’t, I mean, and we won’t because that’s not right.
And so take you through like these are the medications that they could get for this.
17:46
These are the options for painkillers for this.
If you test positive for GBS, this is the antibiotic.
And if you’re allergic, there’s other options.
And so you just go through the whole thing.
But then you talk about, OK, well, what, what do you want to happen?
Do you want to have a regular vaginal birth?
18:02
Do you want to be induced?
Do you want to do this?
And so you go through and you fill all that stuff out.
And then the last part is once the baby’s here, are you doing vaccines?
Are you not doing vaccines?
What are you doing?
What are you not doing?
And so you go through and you fill that stuff out.
OK.
They keep that on file.
And when time comes, they already have it there.
18:19
But then they recap and they’re like, OK, so this is what this is what we’re thinking we’re going to do.
We’ll just see how things go, you know?
And so it’s kind of already laid there.
And during the week that that nurse was there, I, I wish I could remember her name.
I’m wondering if she’ll listen to this.
18:36
But anyway, it was great.
That part was great.
You know, get that plan ready, kind of have those conversations of where, where do you want things to go?
Because you know, we’re not great at citing awesome statistics on here.
But the likelihood of doctors or medical doctors being OK with delivering babies and helping you through that process when you’ve already had one or two C sections is a whole lot lower.
19:00
I mean, once you get past 2C sections, a lot of doctors will say you really shouldn’t have any more kids.
And so if you start off with AC section and you want to have more than two kids, you know, you basically have to do AV back on the next one or it becomes a, you know, statistical dangerous pregnancy moving forward beyond that.
19:22
And so our biggest thing was vaginal birth, you know, ideally no epidural, ideally none of the, you know, hard stuff to help her get through and then just a vaginal birth.
And when it came down to it, that’s not exactly what happened.
And so we’ll get to that in a little bit.
19:38
But getting your plans set and husbands being willing to go to bat for your wives in that position, even when emotions are high, she’s in a lot of pain, all the things.
Because once once that happens, all rational thinking and foresight for the future goes out the window.
19:58
I mean, we got, so here’s, here’s kind of the timeline for what happened with my wife.
It was May 31st that Sunday at 4:00 in the morning, she got up, went to the bathroom.
And for like 3 or 4 weeks prior, she’d get up and pee in the middle of the night and she’d leave the light on and I’d be like, hey, you OK?
20:17
And she’s like, yeah, fine, just go and pee.
And then she’d come back.
Well, this time it was a little longer and she kind of comes out, goes back in and I’m like.
What the heck is this?
So I’m like, you good.
And she goes, I think you should come in here.
I’m like, all right, cool.
And I go in there and she’s like, I think I think I’m leaking.
20:33
I’m like, what is like you think of water break.
You think of the movies are like.
Oh my God, yeah, they’re in the car, right?
But that’s not always it, you know, it can be, but usually it’s a little bit less dramatic and it can be somewhat of like a slower drip.
And she she sat down to pee, she went pee.
20:51
And then she’s like, but if I squeeze, like more comes out.
And so but there’s already pee in the toilet.
So it’s kind of yellow.
And we’re like, is that amniotic fluid like what’s going on?
Or is her bladder?
Because I mean, she had a massive belly.
She’s not very big.
She’s 5 foot one and mostly legs.
21:07
And so her torso is very short.
And so that baby was pushing on her bed on her bladder big time.
So that was she, she had issues with that towards the end.
So I was like, all right, maybe it’s that.
But what we did was, you know, disclaimer, kind of gross, but we I went and got a Mason jar and I had her sit down.
21:26
She peed and then we caught when she squeezed what the fluid was that was coming out and it was pink and it had some, you know, protein type mucus eat stuff floating around in it.
So we’re like, OK, that that’s definitely amniotic fluid.
And so we’re like, all right, well, how are contractions doing?
21:43
Are you contracting?
No, not, not at all.
And it is, from what I’ve gathered in my research, it’s fairly uncommon for women to have their water break and not have any contractions beforehand.
I mean, a lot of women don’t go like their water won’t break until they’re ready to pop.
21:59
And that kids like right there, they’re already dilated most of the way.
And so we’re like, all right, well, no contractions.
They told us if there’s no contractions, just kind of wait it out.
You don’t want to be the hospital forever.
So but then they also said about 24 hours after water being broken, that’s when you start to worry about infection.
22:18
And that’s where a lot of a lot of doctors will push for C-section.
And so we’re like, all right, well, let’s go to back to sleep for a couple hours because you don’t have contractions.
And let’s at about 8:00 AM, we called the OB’s office and the nurse was like, yeah, I mean, you might want to go get checked early afternoon if you don’t start getting attractions.
22:36
But it because it might be that you’re just not quite ready, whatever.
Well, come about 3:00 PM, we get there and the nurses are like, you’re your water’s broken.
You should have been here at 4:00 in the morning.
And we’re like, why did the nurse tell us that?
You know, because they’re like, man, if you’re already, you know, 12 plus hours through, I mean, another 12 hours like they’re, they might be wanting to do C-section.
22:58
And I looked at the nurse and I was like, we’re not doing that.
She’s like, well, you know, you have to worry about infection and all this.
I was like, I don’t care if there’s a worry if it’s not medically necessary, we are not doing AC section period.
She’s like, all right, well, you know, you’ll have to talk to the OB And eventually OB came in and he’s like, hey, so I hear, you know, you don’t want to do all this, You want to do all that.
23:19
I’m like, yeah, like that’s, that’s the plan is to not have to do all those things.
And he’s like, hey, that’s cool.
We got a monitor on the baby, got a monitor on your wife, and we’ll just keep eyes on things, you know.
And so I do think the saving grace for not having an infection because from that moment at 4:00 in the morning until baby was delivered, 57 hours of water being broken.
23:42
So we went over double what a lot of doctors would have just done, C-section 4.
But she did test positive for GBS ahead of time, Group B strep.
And so she was taking some antibiotics about every four hours to help with that.
And before we even got going with everything I’d said, you know, I just, I don’t think that you need to take those.
24:02
Like I don’t want to mess with that because the rates of infection with babies is just exceptionally low with that.
And so it’s just not, I don’t know if it’s necessary.
And she goes, look, I’m taking it, OK, I’m putting my foot down on that.
I want to take it, OK.
And then we got to the birth and I think that saved her from having any sort of issues because any sort of infection that could have happened was fought off immediately by the antibiotics or helped or dealt with whatever.
24:27
But anyway, that’s how that went.
You know, we she didn’t have any contractions to that point.
They got her going on a medication called Cytotec, which is a Prostaglander that helps soften the cervix because she wasn’t at all dilated and started getting some contractions going.
24:44
And about 30 ish hours after she started that it got just so crippling painful.
And to kind of rounded out for why I said, you know, the rational thought and all the things aren’t exactly there.
Not ripping on you guys, ladies, but you’re in a vulnerable state, in a lot of pain.
25:03
You know, that’s why you need to have a good trusting, you know, good conversation and, and relationship with your husband to stick up for you, because that’s tough.
Like I, it, it was tough for me to watch my wife go through that.
Like everybody says, from the moment that your kid is born, everything changes, like your perspective on life, all the things.
25:24
For me one of the biggest things that changed was the appreciation I have for my wife for that process that she went through.
Because seeing her in that much pain for that long and what she had to go through to get us to that point was just it was it was terrible.
25:40
It was terrible because we got about 40 ish hours into her being in labor and she every contraction she would have her legs or she was shaking like a leaf.
And that girl doesn’t show pain.
She has incredible pain tolerance, never really complaints of anything.
25:56
And she was like almost in tears.
She was exhausted.
She hadn’t slept in 40 hours and she was just like I, I just, I don’t think I can do this.
I don’t, I, I, I can’t keep doing this.
I’m only a, she’s only a centimeter and a half dilated by the way, centimeter and a half 40 hours into it.
26:12
After 24 hours of that medication to soften the cervix, she’s like in the next step was epidural and pitocin or just pitocin.
She’s like, I can’t, I pitocin is terrible.
It’s going to cause bad contractions.
I’m already crippled by these.
I don’t know if I can do it.
I’m like, look, I think it’s time we, we throw the towel and get the epidural and she’s like, I, she just kind of freaked out and she’s like, I don’t want it.
26:33
I don’t want it.
I don’t want it.
It’s, you know, it’s just going to cause all kinds of problems, this and that.
And I’m like, look, it’s either, it’s either, you know, epidural or C-section at this point.
It sounds like, you know, and she’s like, I just, I don’t want it.
I don’t want it.
And I’m like, look, we’re getting there.
26:49
We’re going to get there.
Like you’re, you’re, you’re slowly dilating this and that.
And then when I said we’re getting there, I kept being like, hey, just keep it going.
You know, we’re, we’re making, we’re making progress.
And she goes, we’re not getting anywhere.
I’ve been in labor for 40 hours.
I’m barely dilated.
27:04
I’m exhausted.
I can’t keep going this and that.
And, you know, in the movies where you know, the guy will slap his buddies, like, pull it together, man, get a grip.
You know, it’s basically basically what I had to do.
I’m like, look at me.
You got to refocus here.
OK, Stop with that right now.
27:21
And listen, it’s either you find it in yourself to make this happen, or we’re screwed for the number of kids that we want and we’re screwed for you having any sort of vaginal birth at any point.
You know, yeah, you can you can opt to do a be back in the future, but it’s it’s not as easy.
27:39
So I’m like, you know, as bad as it sounds, it’s not just about you think about our baby, think about our babies in the future and your health for the future.
I know right now you just want to get that baby out of you, but it’s not the right move.
OK, so let’s bring the doc in.
Let’s talk about the plan and like what we can do next steps to ease your pain and help you get through it.
27:58
And then if you decide epidural and we can get on the pitocin to get you dilated.
She’s like, sorry, and she started crying and all the things, but like it’s I don’t if if I wasn’t there, she would have AC section.
I mean, she told me that straight up.
She’s like, if you were not there, like I, I don’t know how women do it.
28:15
If they aren’t in like they’re not married, they don’t have a loving relationship.
Like maybe kid just falls out and you have an easy time on your own.
But man, it was it was tough.
She couldn’t have done that alone.
It was it was really difficult.
But if if you’re not there husbands, when there’s things like that happening, the likelihood that you know her emotions are going to get the best of her and her pain is going to get the best of her and there’s going to be some sort of short term gain for long term hurt by doing AC section or something like that.
28:50
You need to be there to support and make sure that the decision is made in in good crowded thoughts as opposed to just I’m in pain right now.
I’m emotional right now.
I need this baby out of me because that would have been the easy way to go.
And it took everything I had to just be like, we can’t do that.
29:06
You got to, you got to pull it together.
You know, it was just as much of an emotional process for me.
So you got to got to find a good way to be level headed with things.
And if you’re in the process of giving birth, you’re not equipped to do that.
I mean, unless you’re just built different and you’re pain tolerance through the roof or whatever.
29:26
But I just, I thought my wife was built different and I mean, it kicked her butt bad.
So anyway, so that that’s kind of the whole point of like, hey, you know, make sure you guys have good conversations, cousins, make sure you’re there to advocate.
29:42
Because it would have very easily been like C-section at 24 hours or C-section once you got to that point just to get it over with ’cause it was, it was very difficult to watch.
It was tough, really tough.
But anyway, she ended up getting a epidural shortly thereafter.
30:01
And as soon as she got that epidural, she passed out, was able to get some sleep finally for a couple hours, got some rest.
And then we hit it hard at like 2:00 in the morning.
She was starting to get in a lot of pain again.
And yeah, she was in quite a bit of pain.
30:16
Ended up dilating pretty pretty quickly at that point.
By the time it got to be about 8:39 AM the next morning, she was, you know, ready to go.
And then she started pushing in about an hour and a half hour, 45 minutes later, baby was there.
She did really well and she, you know, for the record, she said that the most painful process was like right before she got epidural, even with pushing, even with being all, you know, that whole process not had nothing, absolutely nothing on before she got that epidural.
30:45
So and she ended up with a vaginal birth, minimal tearing and everything.
And, and things went I think as well as they probably could have at that point.
Baby’s really healthy.
Baby was big, big and healthy she’s doing great now super strong I mean they say it’s supposed to be a couple weeks before the baby can pick their head up an extension and they laid her on my wife’s chest and immediately she’s head back and looking around the room as much as she can so and now I mean we’ll be holding her and I can support her balance but she’ll just stand up she’s 8 weeks now and so she’s. 88 months?
31:19
Did you say 8 weeks?
8 weeks. 8 weeks, two months, Yeah, yeah.
It hasn’t been eight months.
It hasn’t been eight months.
Yeah, I was like, wait a minute, that doesn’t.
Wait a minute, it hasn’t been that long.
But anyway, so all turned out really well.
Everything about the process, like nobody was really pushing for anything, but they were like, you know, that’s really what typically done.
31:43
The only time that there was any sort of pushback was we didn’t want to do the Vita, We didn’t want to do anything.
We didn’t do any vaccines.
We didn’t want to do vitamin K because we don’t want to worry about any of the side effects that could be there.
And it’s not especially necessary.
I mean, if you get in a car accident and there’s some crazy fluke thing that happens, yeah, vitamin K is necessary.
32:02
You know, she’s a girl.
There was no circumcision.
And even still, I don’t know if we would have done it.
But there’s no need for the clotting factors yet.
And man, I think she was a nurse practitioner, whoever was on call for the postpartum side of things.
And she really was like, well, why don’t you want it?
32:19
And really kind of gave me some attitude about it.
I had a conversation about it.
She’s like, well, there’s just no downside.
I’m like, there is downside.
There’s there’s research that shows that there’s side effects with these, these additives and all this stuff.
She’s like, it doesn’t have anything in there.
It’s just vitamin K.
32:35
And I’m like, that’s not true.
There is no injection.
That’s just one ingredient.
She’s like, it is, it’s just vitamin Ki was like great, go get me a go get me the box, a fresh box of it unopened that has the label of all that’s included in it.
And if that is true and there’s nothing bad in there, we can go through with it.
32:57
She goes, oh, I’ve never been asked that before.
I don’t know if I can make that happen.
I was like, OK, then we’re not getting it.
She goes, let me see what I can do.
And she brought a box of it and it didn’t have any bad additives or anything in there.
I’m like, great, open this box, give her this one.
33:12
And that’s what they did.
So it was, I was kind of like you.
You want her to get it that bad?
I’m OK with that if you can prove that it’s not full of all the junk that leads to all sorts of nervous system and and muscular issues.
So anyway, once we got through all that, I mean, all was good.
33:30
All was really good.
We just focused on, you know, resting up and preparing for a change of life, you know, But anyway.
But yeah, and that kind of is AI guess a good segue into the next step of things like vaccines and all that stuff.
33:46
So Doctor Joel, we talked about, you know, mentioning some of that stuff.
What did you have in mind?
Because that’s what we did.
We didn’t do anything as far as that goes.
All we did was the vitamin K.
In the future, I’ll probably just do drops just to avoid the hassle, you know, And but anyway, when it comes to vaccines, what, what were you wanting to talk about?
34:06
Yeah.
So that’s that’s obviously a big topic for a lot of, you know, moms and moms to be is vaccines and, and that kind of thing.
And we haven’t done a ton of different, you know, talks on this.
And so really just kind of without getting into it, you know, exhaustively, you know, it’s like there’s in every, every story I’ve heard, there’s a lot of pressure right from the nurses, There’s a lot of pressure from the staff.
34:33
Number one, they start with the vitamin K shot and they tell you, oh, if you don’t get this shot, baby’s going to die.
You know, they, I’m exaggerating a little bit, I’m being a little facetious, but it can be a little bit intense sometimes and the pressure can feel so intense.
And you know, one of the things Doctor Tim, we always tell people is that should be part of your birth plan is obviously what happens going into the birth, during the birth.
34:54
But then after the birth, because after the birth, everybody’s exhausted, everybody’s tired.
And when the doctor comes in and says, or the nurse or whatever says, hey, if you don’t take this, like, baby’s going to be in bad health or baby’s not going to do it, whatever, whatever the whatever they say, it’s like, is that true #1?
35:16
And I, I hate that we even have to ask, you know, is what the nurse or the doctor says, is that number one, is that even true?
Is the risk even true there?
So again, making that a part of the birth plan.
So I guess Doctor Tim, my question is, without getting into too many opinions on vaccines and on this is like, what was your experience like?
35:35
So what, what was your birth plan?
And then you mentioned a little bit, but did you get a lot of, you know, maybe push back from the nurses and doctors outside of what you mentioned or was, was that pretty much it and then you just kind of ended up, you know, kind of resting up and going home soon thereafter?
35:52
Our Earth plan was basically let’s do nothing and have this baby.
Yeah, to put it, try to keep it as natural as possible.
Keep it as natural as possible.
Let’s not do any, let’s not do any pain interventions.
Let’s not do an epidural.
Let’s not do Pitocin.
Let’s not do you know, vaccines.
36:10
Let’s not do basically anything.
Let’s just have a baby naturally with the guidance in a hospital.
And I told so that head chart head nurse lady, she came in and postpartum and she asked like, all right, So what?
What kind of feedback do you have for us?
36:28
Because they brought her on last January, I believe, she said.
And she was making some really good changes to make it more patient LED.
We’ll put it that way.
So allowing you to be more of an advocate as opposed to just aggressive pushing at things, trying to be more at least natural, open and natural things.
36:46
And I told her it exceeded expectations, honestly.
And so we had a conversation at that point about what what I do for work and what I’ve been told by patients who had given birth there.
I mean, I had north of probably 2030 women that had given birth in this area in the time that my wife was pregnant as patients that said don’t go here, don’t go here, don’t go here.
37:08
So I probably had between 5 to 10 different patients that said don’t go to Northwest because this is what happened.
And so I had one patient who she said that they botched her epidural and she like had all kinds of migraine and head pressure issues and all that stuff that was really bad as a result and things like that.
37:28
So like, I’m on the lookout the whole time.
He said, yeah, I was a young, maybe a student anesthesiologist or whatever.
And the guy that did ours, he came in and he was just like, you could just tell.
He was just like, I don’t want to say like a war veteran, but kind of he’s just like, all right, this is what we’re going to do.
37:43
And he’s got Gray hair a little bit.
And he just was, you could tell he did it a million times.
So I’m like, all right, this guy knows this thing.
This is who we want.
But anyway, as a whole, I told her exceeded expectations.
She goes, oh, wow, why?
And I told her that’s why, because all of these issues that I’ve heard about in this lens.
38:03
And she was like, oh, well, I came in in January.
Did you know we’ve done a lot to try to change things.
That’s great.
And she asked, like, did you feel pressured by anybody?
Did you feel any of this?
And I said, honestly, not really.
I mean, even at the beginning when the nurse asked about why no epidural, like it can be really helpful and this and that, I’m like, well, you know, everything that I have read about and within my training, it’s the intervention cascade.
38:27
You give an epidural, can’t feel the legs, then it’s pitocin, contractions get too strong, then baby gets stressed, C-section period.
She goes, well, that doesn’t really happen that much.
And I’m like, well, I mean, even if you don’t see that happen insane amount, if it’s not necessary, we want to avoid it, OK.
38:43
And so if things are fine, we don’t want to do that.
And so that was I, I don’t even want to call it pressuring.
She just had a question.
She’s like, why?
I’m just curious.
And.
She’s like and that’s sort of fun.
Yeah, yeah.
And you could tell she’s kind of like, really?
Yeah.
She’s like, yeah.
I mean, that’s OK, though.
39:00
But there was no pressure.
OB.
Awesome.
No pressure whatsoever.
He was like the coolest dude, the guy that was on call.
And then then when her OB finally showed up, it was time to.
I mean, the baby was almost there.
I mean, she was most the way through pushing, so no issues there.
39:15
And the only time that there was any sort of pressure was actually after I had the conversation with the nurse about how was our experience.
And I said it’s been phenomenal.
There’s been no pressure.
And then I had this kind of argumentative conversation with the nurse practitioner afterwards about the vitamin K.
39:31
But you know what she actually said So back to whole vaccine thing.
She’s like, I don’t give a shit about the vaccines.
We have babies.
We had just like just however long ago we had a baby, they left here and the baby had to come back in in the emergency department because the baby almost bled out, internal bleeding, all these things.
39:47
And so I think they had some issues with things that the wounds were still fresh kind of thing where they were a bit.
She was a bit more hyper emotional about it and just because of those recent anecdotes.
As opposed to the actual like rates of which things happen.
40:07
But for sure, I mean, it ended up being fine.
So, but it was a little bit more argumentative than all the other steps had been.
And I mean, it was a clean shot.
And so that’s she, she backed it up.
40:24
I mean, she was wrong in that it just had vitamin K and I called that part, but I was able to look and see and be completely informed as to what was in it.
So that was totally fine.
But yeah, we, I mean, we didn’t do any vaccines.
And she said I don’t care.
Like, do your like, that’s whatever.
That’s not going to kill your baby in the short term if something drastic happens, if you do not get the vitamin K and this were to happen, it’s going to be a big problem.
40:48
Yeah.
So anyway, hopefully that answers your question.
Basically, do nothing.
That was our plan.
And then we had to do stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, no, in that in part of the birth plan, you know, one of the things that we kind of talked through this a little bit here is or at least one of the things that you’ve heard is, you know, have your birth plan as far as this is what we would love to happen in a perfect situation.
41:12
But then also understand where different things could go wrong.
Educate yourself.
Spend time with the doctor, spend time with the nurse, spend time with the the midwife or the doula going into the birth and learn about these things so that you get into it.
41:28
And there’s should be no surprises.
How many births have been given in the history of man?
A bajillion of them.
OK, there should not necessarily be any surprises per SE.
You know, if, if something were to happen, it’s like, OK, we knew this was a possibility.
41:44
How would we like to kind of react to that?
And of course, if you’re a person of faith, definitely pray through things and ask God to help you and lead you and all that stuff.
But Doctor Tim, the story has been super, super helpful, super insightful because to hear it from a holistic doc, someone who you know, knows all the insurance and outs of the body and, and all things holistic and how you, you create this plan and how you approach it.
42:12
And then how sometimes things do happen and how do you respond to that And staying consistent kind of with your plan and, and with your mindset, but also working as a team.
It’s, it’s a powerful thing.
And so anyways, for the listeners, I got to visit Doctor Tim in Arkansas about a month or so ago and see his little baby girl and get to spend some time with him.
42:35
So really sweet Doctor Tim, I’m super thankful for, for everything.
Super thankful that it all turned out OK and baby’s happy and healthy, Mom’s happy and healthy and just really thankful for all.
Yeah, Thank you.
Yeah, she’s probably a good two 3 lbs heavier than when you saw.
42:53
Her, I bet I.
Bet she’s huge.
She’s grown.
She’s grown over 2 inches in the last probably three, 3 1/2 weeks, which is just insane.
She’s like 90th percentile in length right now.
Not quite that on on weight yet, but she’s getting getting a little chunky.
43:09
So we’re getting there there.
But yeah, this last weekend we went to go visit my wife’s family in Saint Louis so they can meet the baby.
And we ended up seeing one of her, one of her best friends from high school who recently had a baby.
And the baby was I think ten days old when we saw him.
And he was only 7 lbs.
43:26
And Lucy was never, she was never 7 lbs.
I mean, she was, but before it was before she, you know, came, came earth side.
And the smallest she was was 714 or 713 after she lost some weight postpartum.
But holding their baby.
43:43
I was like, this is just the tiniest.
And he did this little, like little tiny cry.
And I’m like, Oh my gosh, just wait.
Like my baby could beat your baby up.
Oh, 100% she could put the smack down on that baby.
Oh my God.
43:59
But yeah, she’s doing great.
Everything’s great now.
My wife is healed up nicely.
It’s been, you know, she got past her six week visit and she said everything’s great and praise God, she not, you know, hopefully she doesn’t mind I’m sharing this.
44:14
But she’s back down to pre pregnancy weight and everything and she’s exercising and she feels great and she’s in good spirits.
She’s not dealing with any postpartum depression type stuff.
There’s there’s hard days and then there’s easier days.
But all things considered, she’s actually doing really good, doing really good.
44:32
Baby’s doing good, wife’s doing good, everything’s good.
And they always say the first, first one’s the easiest 1.
So then that way you want to have more.
So I told her let’s get going.
And she’s like, no, I need a break.
Let’s get going.
Oh my.
Goodness, let’s get going.
44:47
Let’s just every year, let’s have let’s have one for a little while.
She’s like, no, I need a break.
So but it’s good.
But All in all to I guess wrap things up with this.
Yep, from my perspective, because that’s that’s the best advice that I can give, is husbands do not be somebody that just sits on the sideline and just lets your wife just bear through it or whatever.
45:14
Wives also try to not be mean to your husband’s while you’re in it.
Because I have heard a lot of things about, you know, women not exactly being nice and respectful and all that to their husbands when they were going through it.
45:30
And so it kind of creates this barrier where husbands don’t want to help.
It’s it takes 2 to tango, OK, takes 2 to get that baby there.
I understand the women are, are the ones who have to carry the child and give birth, all those things.
45:46
But it’s, it is, I believe our duty is meant to be there to take care of our wives when we are going, when they’re going through that.
Because my wife couldn’t go through it alone.
Like I said, way more respect for her and always will moving forward.
Now after going through that and we, we have a healthy baby and she is healthy without AC section because I was able to support her.
46:09
And so don’t just sit there and bring your PlayStation or Xbox or whatever be there.
I mean the next morning after she started that side attack contraction started real bad about 5:00 in the morning.
And she really about 6:00 AM was like you need to get up because I was kind of in and out of sleep on that crappy little couch they had.
46:27
But about 6:00 AM, until she got that epidural at about 7 PMI was pushing on things, pushed, putting counter pressures on like her pelvis, her hips, you name it, to alleviate some of the crack contractions.
Every 1 to 5 minutes that entire day, that entire day, I was pushing on things, helping her, you name it, and just coaching her through it.
46:50
So I mean, you got to be there and you got to do that stuff.
So if you don’t want to do that, don’t get her pregnant in the first place.
Be ready to be there.
Yeah, that’s my advice.
That’s good.
That’s.
Good you will.
But I I think that’s, that should be a duty that you get done.
47:08
Yeah, I love it.
So wrap up, prepare for birth through being in good shape, having good nutrition.
And and by the way, Dr. Tim, it’s as you mentioned earlier, you you mentioned this, but we didn’t talk about too much is for the woman and the man.
The man needs to be in good shape.
47:24
The man needs to work out prior to pregnancy.
The man needs to take care of his health and and then in the pregnancy, good nutrition, getting good sleep, getting adjusted, having a birth plan in place and then sticking together, loving each other throughout that birth process.
47:41
So Doctor Tim, this has been this has been awesome.
Thanks so much again for sharing this.
So let’s go ahead and wrap up here.
I’m Doctor Joel.
The practice here is freedom health and Wellness in Flower Mound, TX.
You can find me online at it’s actually we got a new website recently, Doctor Tim, so Freedom healthandwellness.co, you can find us on there.
48:01
You can find our information on there.
So if you guys have any questions or yeah, needing any help or whatever, reach out.
Would love to to help you.
Doctor Tim, how about yourself?
Where can patients, where can people find you online?
I’m Doctor Tim Logseniak here at Flourish Functional Wellness Center if you’re going to find me online.
48:20
My website isflourishfwc.com.
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions for future episodes, feel free to reach out and let us know.
And thank you everybody so much for listening.
It has been, I don’t want to say it’s been tough being away this long for the podcast because it was nice to have a break, but it’s good to be back.
48:38
And I’m thankful that everybody that I’ve spoken to has been looking forward to hearing about this on this episode.
And yeah, I appreciate the listeners being so great because it is.
It’s good to know that sharing something so vulnerable as that whole process is going to be received well.
48:56
So thanks everybody an we will see you next week in the next one.
