After a surprise, but wanted, pregnancy, Jessica dove into the birth world in preparation for a home birth with her first baby. Despite her best efforts, her pregnancy was marked with many difficulties including multiple bleeds, polyhydramnios, an irritable uterus and a preterm labor scare at 29 weeks. Jessica ended up having an unplanned hospital birth when her daughter arrived a month early on Christmas Day 2021. She managed to fight for the unmedicated birth she desperately desired, but felt very disempowered by how she was treated by certain hospital staff. Her daugher Poppy was born, but surprised everyone with unexpected health complications that resulted in a 6 week NICU stay full of uncertainty. Jessica also suffered from a major obstetric hemorrhage and vaginal wall tear during the birth.
Jessica and her husband Mark did everything they could to be there for Poppy as they waited to learn what her life might look like. After the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, Poppy went from an unresponsive, floppy baby with no suck, swallow or gag reflex, to latching at 5 weeks and being sent home as a healthy baby with no tubes at 6 weeks old! Jessica’s postpartum involved a very difficult breastfeeding journey where they overcame weeks of tube feeding, oral ties and low supply to nurse successfully for 13 months. She has also spent the last two years doing everything she can to heal her perception of what birth can be and to overcome the trauma of Poppy’s delivery and newborn days.
Jessica Reynolds-Corden Bio
Jessica is a wife, mama, and lover of Meg Ryan movies and oat milk lattes. Originally from Hershey, PA, she now lives just outside of London with her British husband, Mark and daughter, Poppy. Jessica is passionate about real food and also chocolate, about full bellies and easy cooking, about endometriosis and how to flourish with an illness. As a stay-at-home, work-from-home mom she shares all of it over on instagram, along with life in the messy middle of motherhood. Connect with her on Instagram: @jessicaeatsrealfood or her website: www.jessicaeatsrealfood.com
Resources
From NICU to Nursing: Breastfeeding after a feeding tube, delayed latch, oral ties and low supply.
Have you ever wondered whether your baby will inherit your partner’s eye color, or if their hair will be curly or straight, or maybe they will prefer sweet food over salty? Enter BabyPeek, the revolutionary genetic test that unveils your baby’s potential traits as early as 10 weeks gestation.
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Visit babypeek.com/birthhour now to request access and learn more about how BabyPeek is transforming the way we connect with our little ones even before they arrive.
Pregnant via IVF at age 40, Angelina traveled from Russia (via Finland) to the United States to give birth in a city with family support. The physical aspects of pregnancy had been uneventful, save for a low lying placenta that resolved itself well before labor. Labor started naturally at 38 weeks and 6 days with the early morning loss of her mucus plug. Patterned contractions soon set in, but after being admitted to labor and delivery at 4 cm, things stalled out. With the introduction of Pitocin and an epidural, labor once again progressed swiftly, but took a serious downturn during the second and third stages. Fetal distress, a third degree tear, a massive hemorrhage from an “oddly adherent” IVF placenta, and newborn meconium aspiration syndrome with a thirteen day NICU stay, led to a challenging postpartum that Angelina describes as “a tangled bundle of trauma, grief, beauty, and humor.”
Angelina Lucento Bio
Angelina lives in Durham, North Carolina and Eastern Europe with her son Solomon (9 months). Connect with her via Instagram @angelinalucento.
The Birth Hour Episodes (available in Patreon): 606 (Lottie and Clementine O’Sullivan), 385, 384 (Cassandra Barragan), 89 (Jenn Mehmke), 559 (Elizabeth Houston)
Motif Medical
This episode was sponsored by Motif Medical. Motif designs insurance-eligible products for busy moms. With a focus on innovation and empowerment, Motif’s line of breast pumps and maternity compression garments are sophisticated, yet discreet, and made to support mothers as they navigate new motherhood. Discover why moms are reporting more milk in less time with the Luna breast pump, and see how you can get it covered through insurance at motifmedical.com/birthhour.
After a tough pregnancy and a low Papp-A diagnosis, Sruthi’s water broke unexpectedly at 36 weeks. On the bus to the hospital, her contractions intensified, and by the time she had her first cervical check, she was fully dilated. She pushed for 30 minutes before her healthy baby boy was born. Even though she found birth empowering, postpartum and the fourth trimester was unexpectedly rough with a painful physical recovery from birth and breastfeeding issues.
Sruthi Ramesh Bio
Sruthi is originally from California but has been living in London for 4 years with her husband, cat, and 5 month old son. You can contact her on her Instagram at @sruthi.co
Today’s episode is brought to you by the Sleepybelly Pregnancy Pillow which is guaranteed to give you better sleep in 30-nights or they will give you a full refund! Sleepybelly is a three piece, adjustable pregnancy pillow designed to prevent back sleeping, whilst giving you support for your growing bump and helps align your hips to reduce hip and back pain. Being an adjustable set, it grows with you on your pregnancy journey and can be used in 5 different configurations – it is even used as a breastfeeding pillow postpartum.
Sleepybelly has offered listeners of The Birth Hour an exclusive promo, use the code THEBIRTHHOUR10 for 10% off your order, at sleepybelly.co for a more comfortable night’s sleep! With free shipping and a 30-night money back guarantee, try the Sleepybelly today!
After several years of infertility, Alexandria and her husband had become pregnant abroad in Okinawa, Japan. Her first birth was a planned induction due health complications. But when intervention takes place, she is left to navigate Postpartum Depression at the start of the Covid lockdown abroad in Japan in 2020.
Her experience leads her on a search to understand what had happened and sparks an interest in birth work. As a result, she and her husband seek support for a second pregnancy on island. However, navigating the military and local landscape is difficult at its best and something else entirely when international relations are experiencing a sudden healthcare crisis.
Her second birth starts as a home birth on base through a local clinic and culminates in a voluntary transfer during the push phase to a local clinic against her team’s advice. An action that ultimately saves her and her child’s life.
Alexandria Parks Bio
Alexandria currently lives in New Mexico with her husband and two daughters. She is an english teacher by trade but currently a stay at home mom to their one and three year old girls. They are a military family and were stationed in Okinawa, Japan when Alexandria gave birth. If you’d like to connect, you can leave a comment for Alexandria here and we will make sure she sees it.
This episode was sponsored by Motif Medical. Motif designs insurance-eligible products for busy moms. With a focus on innovation and empowerment, Motif’s line of breast pumps and maternity compression garments are sophisticated, yet discreet, and made to support mothers as they navigate new motherhood. Discover why moms are reporting more milk in less time with the Luna breast pump, and see how you can get it covered through insurance at motifmedical.com/birthhour.
Amanda overcame a deep fear of childbirth by working to become as educated about labour and birth as possible. Once pregnant, she planned for an unmedicated birth at an independent birth centre.
Amanda went into labor on her due date and progressed quickly. Her midwife, initially evaluating the situation over the phone, did not feel Amanda was far enough along to warrant leaving for the birth center. When the midwife finally arrived at Amanda’s home to assess her in person, she was already 8 cm dilated. Given that the birth center was at least an hour away, Amanda and her husband felt it was safest to transition to a home birth. Amanda’s baby boy was born after 3 hours of pushing, about 11 hours after labor began. She describes the day as being incredibly positive, empowering, and the best day of her life.
Amanda Fonesca Bio
Amanda lives outside of Toronto with her husband, son, and loyal dog. She is a certified clinical research professional (CCRP) and has focused her work in the area of oncology. Her efforts to overcome an initial fear of childbirth has led to a great passion for all things related to pregnancy, labour, and birth. Amanda enjoys cooking, literature, and music. You can connect with her via email at amandafonzie@gmail.com .
Today’s episode is brought to you by the Sleepybelly Pregnancy Pillow which is guaranteed to give you better sleep in 30-nights or they will give you a full refund! Sleepybelly is a three piece, adjustable pregnancy pillow designed to prevent back sleeping, whilst giving you support for your growing bump and helps align your hips to reduce hip and back pain. Being an adjustable set, it grows with you on your pregnancy journey and can be used in 5 different configurations – it is even used as a breastfeeding pillow postpartum.
Sleepybelly has offered listeners of The Birth Hour an exclusive promo, use the code THEBIRTHHOUR10 for 10% off your order, at sleepybelly.co for a more comfortable night’s sleep! With free shipping and a 30-night money back guarantee, try the Sleepybelly today!
Although Mae was super fit, young, and healthy, having maintained a rigorous practice of daily Ashtanga yoga for over seven years prior to her first pregnancy, like any woman, she found herself facing many unknowns. For her first birth, she opted to birth at a small birthing center outside of Fukuoka, in the southwestern region of Japan, where she lived at the time. This was because she wanted to choose “the hand that would touch her baby’s head first.” She was able to have a natural, unmedicated birth with her then-husband, but the experience had her screaming at the top of her lungs in PAIN and left her feeling torn apart–mentally, emotionally, and physically–for weeks afterward. The sense of disconnect left an inkling of a thought in her mind that said: “If I ever get another go at this, I think I can do this a lot better next time.”
Mae went through a difficult divorce from her first husband only six months following this birth, leaving her to be a single parent to her firstborn son. In her mid-thirties, Mae met and remarried a wonderful man. They came together as a family and decided that they wanted another child.
Eight years after her first birthing experience, thanks largely to the keen intuition of her husband, for the second birth, Mae switched from a clinic birth plan to a home birth at 28 weeks. In preparation for home birth, Mae spent a considerable amount of time intentionally repainting the landscape of her mind, from viewing birth as a painful process to a possibly pain-free one. Her teachers were: yoga, meditation, guided relaxation practices, and a whole bunch of wild animals on YouTube that she watched and learned from.
In the end, Mae was able to have an all-natural and almost all pain-free birth in the bathtub at home in Tokyo, assisted by her midwife and husband. Why “almost”? Wait ’til you hear her full story!
Five months after the birth of her second son, Mae lost the love of her life and the father of her children to a sudden traffic accident. The tremendous grief plunged her into the depths of sorrow and isolation for a few years. However, Mae says, “Everything she needs to know about coping with Pain in Life, she learned from childbirth,” referring not only to her wisdom from all of her years as a yoga practitioner, but ultimately from the redemptive birth experience that taught her this: If you can change your mind, you can change your experience.
Mae Yoshikawa Bio
Mae is an author, yoga & meditation practitioner, teacher, and mother. In 2006, Mae became the first Japanese woman to be authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India. Having graced 42 consecutive covers and penning a widely popular column for Japanese Yogini magazine from 2003~2013, Mae helped to spearhead a cultural shift in Japan—making sure that yoga would not be seen merely as physical exercise, but rather as a holistic practice and lifestyle that would restore health and balance to the busy lives of modern people. Currently, she is known as the face of adidas yoga. Her third book (her first in English) is a heart-wrenching and heart-arousing memoir titled Kizuki, which chronicles her experience of finding herself again through grief by metaphorically weaving through her experiences of childbirth and childrearing (coming soon).
Connect with Mae at https://maey.live/ or on Instagram @maeyoshikawa.
Resources
https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/tracyholloway
https://maey.live/
Needed
Today’s episode is sponsored by Needed. Needed is the leading women’s health supplement brand recommended by nutritionally-trained practitioners. While most perinatal supplements include the bare minimum of the nutrients needed during pregnancy, Needed’s products are based on the latest clinical research and in-practice experience of nearly 4000 practitioners. Needed has all your needs covered, from your prenatal vitamin to pregnancy-specific Pre/ and Probiotics, to egg quality support, sleep, stress, immune and hydration support, as well as your protein needs for blood sugar balance and postpartum healing. Needed’s Complete Plan delivers unparalleled nourishment for every phase — whether you’re trying to conceive, pregnant, or postpartum! Instead of having to pair 6 different products together to meet your needs, I love that Needed has simplified things by bundling together four core products you need, in an easy and flexible monthly plan. Save 20% off your first order of Needed’s Complete Plan or any of their other perinatal nutrition products at thisisneeded.com with code BIRTHHOUR.
