my first birth experience is what led me to you.

I was 16 pregnant with twins.

when my husband and I decided that we wanted to have a baby last year, I just knew in my heart that I really wanted to be a part of the pregnancy.

This time.

provider's really pushing back All of a sudden.

you guys would be like, no, don't do it.

If you don't wanna do it, there's no reason, there's no evidence.

Don't do it.

And so those conversations were ticket for me.

My name is Trish Ware and I am obsessed with all things pregnancy and birth, and helping you to navigate with the practical and the magical seasons of this journey called motherhood.

I'm an all day coffee sip and Mama of seven.

And labor and delivery nurse who took her expertise in the labor room and turned it into an online one-stop shop.

For mamas looking for powerful education and support, I've had the amazing privilege of delivering many babies in my 15 plus year career as a labor and delivery.

And as a mama of seven, I'm here to help you take the guesswork out of childbirth so you can make the choices that are right for you and your baby and write the birth story of your dreams.

So hit subscribe, and let's replace your anxiety and fear with complete confidence.

Quick note, this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not replace your medical advice.

Check out our full disclaimer at the bottom of the show notes.

Hi Mamas.

I am.

So excited.

Today I have one of my VBAC lab students, Cassie, joining me to tell you guys about her birth, and just so excited to share this story and to share Cassie with all of you.

Welcome, Cassie.

Hey, Trish.

Thank you so much.

Super excited to be here.

Me too.

I feel like we've been trying to do this for a minute.

Oh, I know, because I've had a four month old and life just gets behind us.

And then you've moved, so everything just pops up.

Yes.

So I'm so excited to have you here and for you to share a little bit about your journey.

And I want you to go back, because you and I both have it in common that we both had our first pregnancies when we were younger.

Yeah.

I want you to kind of tell about your first experience and then how you found me, and how you ended up taking the VBAC lab.

And we'll go from there.

Yeah, you bet.

I will keep it brief because here, my first birth experience is what led me to you.

I was 16 pregnant with twins.

Holy cow.

Changed my whole world.

One of the consequences of being pregnant as a teen is I think you're treated a little bit differently in the system.

I already believe that women are not given a whole lot of information or rights when it comes to birth rights.

But as a teenager, I think I was treated a whole lot.

Worse.

I was not given very much information about things that would happen to me about how my pregnancy would progress.

I didn't have a super supportive mom that knew those things either, and that's a consequence of just generational education because she didn't know, and so she wasn't able to pass down knowledge.

There was so much happening in that pregnancy that I wasn't aware of or that I knew that I had rights to know or rights to choices.

Things just happened to me.

With that came a really traumatic c-section.

And when my husband and I decided that we wanted to have a baby last year, I just knew in my heart that I really wanted to be a part of the pregnancy.

This time.

I wanted to know everything I could about it.

I researched.

Every single day.

It was a journey for me, and that just got me to things popping up on my Instagram.

I was looking at a lot of live home births and watching these women just breathing their babies out.

There was pain involved, but they were in control and they had choices even when in moments of high pain, they still had choices and they were the ones calling the shots.

My husband got very into the education as well.

He was on board with me joining your class.

I was telling him all about it.

I joined your.

What was it, the one week free that you, the fearless birth experience?

So I joined that and I was like, oh my God, this is the class for me.

This is what I'm gonna do.

And Trish, if you remember, I was 36 weeks pregnant.

37 weeks pregnant at that time.

It took me forever to find the perfect one because so many of the classes out there, and I'm not just blowing smoke.

So many of the classes out there preach to you and tell you what you should be doing and almost kind of shame choices that are against what they're trying to practice.

Your class was very much like your choices, your choice, and I will support and give you information about every choice that you make.

Instead of you just preaching a choice, that means, so that's what brought me to your class,

and that's so important to me.

I remember one of my students, I think it was Raquel, she came on Instagram to share her birth story, and she said the same thing.

She's, you lay it out like a smorgasbord and then we get to pick and choose.

Yes.

And I was like, that is exactly what I want.

Yes, obviously I have my personal feelings of what I would do, but what I would do is not what.

Cassie needs to do.

Yes.

Or Raquel needs to do.

And I'm glad that you see that.

'cause I, I had I, and I've told you Guy I, you guys know a lot 'cause you know, for those of you listening, we meet weekly with our VBAC lab students and then with our pregnant mamas on our, everyone else on Wednesday.

And one of the things I've told you guys is my own experience with my baby.

Number four.

I took a all natural birth class, like a very mainstream popular one.

Yeah.

And.

I decided to do an external version, cephalic version because Gavin was head up and it was my fourth baby.

I felt very confident in doing that.

My instructor would not speak to me again because I. Was choosing medical interventions.

And it was so hurtful because I felt like I had bonded so much with her and we had gotten our children together, but she was so hardcore about just letting the natural process and you know, I'm all about the natural process, but I'm also about choices.

So that's really important to me.

But anyway, you find the VBAC lab and you join the VBAC lab at 36 weeks.

Yeah, 36 weeks.

And what really sold it for me, Trish, was that it was the conversation I picked up so much in that fearless birth week that you put on just from the other women posting questions, the conversation that was going on.

And then when you had said, oh, we meet weekly and you can also chat.

I made a connection with, I think Emily was on there.

Um, okay.

Yeah, I think Emily was on there, made a connection with her really quickly.

There was another, there were a few other VBAC moms on there that joined, that were a part of your group, and I was like, oh my God, I have to be a part of this.

And that that is so true to, to why I joined, and it continued to be the reason why I, I relied so heavily on it because when it came to my birth with Atlas four months ago, I remember showing up in those classes week by week because things were going south with my provider.

And I really needed people aside from my husband who was amazing and saying, just, you do what you do.

You're, you got this, you're good support.

And I was like, I need other people to tell me that.

So I would join the class and I would tell you guys what's going on and how my provider's really pushing back all of a sudden.

you guys would be like, no, don't do it.

If you don't wanna do it, there's no reason, there's no evidence.

Don't do it.

And so you, I don't know the group itself, aside from all the information you provided, those conversations were the ticket for me.

That's, that's what sold me.

And I love that so much.

And so you came into Labor Nurse Mama world through fearless birth experience?

Yes.

And I believe that was the June one, the very first one?

Yes.

So Oh,

that was the first one?

Yeah, that was the first one ever.

Yeah.

So prior, and this is where I'm going, prior to that, I used to do like a traditional, like I would open the cart, open the birth courses, do a couple webinars.

And call it a day, and it did very well, but I felt like I had a really hard time.

Giving a glimpse into what happens inside of my private community and to me, and that relationship is so important to me.

So to me, that's the magical side of labor.

Nurse mama.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I had a friend that's in like a business mastermind that I'm in, that he does these challenges and he, 'cause he has a membership, which we do now too.

And so he does these challenges and I was like, ah.

That is what I want to do, but I'm gonna call it an experience, not a challenge.

Yeah, it's an experience.

It's an experience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I, that's what I bring all of you guys, all my students in come because just like you said, even though you took the birth class, now imagine if you will, normal birth classes.

You take the birth class, they might have a Facebook group.

You take it, you go on.

For us, you know that you take the birth class and then we meet with you each week, and we might talk about a module that you read, or we might talk about a really asinine thing that your doctor said after your appointment.

Or we might talk about something, someone's partner said yes after birth or whatever, and I feel like.

All of that combined is why I love the fearless birth experience so much because I give them also the option to upgrade as a VIP hang out with us throughout the week.

We do extra happy hour hangouts, and they can actually get a glimpse inside the community without joining.

So they can say, yeah, I can deal with this chick for the rest of my pregnancy.

Yeah.

Or she's too much.

Yeah.

It was so personal that that's the only way I can explain it.

I was looking at other courses, but they didn't feel.

As personal or connected to the person doling out the education like you were, and because it felt like you and Taylor were right there with us every step of the way.

It was like, okay, this is what I need.

I need someone that can coach me.

Support me.

It was just the platform's amazing, and I love that we're doing the postpartum now.

Oh my gosh.

I'm so excited.

Yeah.

For those of you guys listening and don't know, traditionally we had our signature birth classes, which is the VBAC Lab and Calm Labor, confident Birth, and then we had a private student community.

We have now opened up the student community as a membership for.

All moms because just like me, when I was pregnant with Gavin and it was my fourth baby, maybe I didn't need to take the birth course.

Now I did 'cause I did not know what I didn't know.

But some of these moms just need the community aspect.

So now the membership, it's 1997 a month, they can come to all the happy hours, they can come to all the free workshops.

And then if they join the course, they also get the labor bat signal as well.

So.

We've pinched it a little.

I love the community aspect.

I love it.

Yeah, me too.

And we've added a postpartum happy hour.

So

my favorite

it

is, I love joining the VBAC talks still sometimes, but you get into a part of postpartum where.

You're trying to manage the postpartum and not keep reliving the birth story sometimes.

Yeah.

And so you're like, okay, I need to talk about something else.

Yeah.

So I love that the postpartums gonna be there for us.

Yes.

That's great.

Okay, so back to Cassie.

Oh, that we've gotten off on this, but it really is you guys, like, I, I really love that Cassie even brought that up because it's really easy for me to be like, oh yes, join my community.

The best.

You're gonna get access to me and my doula and blah, blah, blah.

But Cassie's telling you it's real.

You do.

It's for real.

So you are at the end of pregnancy?

Yes.

Tell them some of the things you were facing

and then let's

walk through that.

Yeah, so I was at the end of my pregnancy.

I joined with you.

I'm getting a lot of good feedback.

Trust your body, trust your instincts.

I'm trying to, my goal is not to repeat a traumatic C-section again, and so I'm reading the information I sideline is.

Something you teach your VBAC students is a C-section could still happen.

That's not something that you promise people that they're gonna get their vbac, but you have information there for VBAC mamas that have to have a repeat c. That was not something that I wanted to give any power or energy to because I just knew in my head that was not gonna be me.

So I didn't read that part of the information.

I refused to listen to you talk about repeat C-sections because I just knew that wasn't be me.

So anybody listening, if you are a VBAC mama, just give it some of your energy, give it some of your space.

It's a possibility and you don't want to come out the end of it being like, dang it, I should have done this.

I was facing challenges in the beginning of my doctor had started to push on me a little bit about my weight that I was gaining.

I gained more weight with Atlas at 35 years old than I did with my twins.

At 16, I was gaining.

Oh my gosh, yes.

I was gaining so much weight, so they were trying to do the whole big baby thing.

To me, he's gonna be very big.

Even though I had agreed to, oh, you guys had taught me that I could agree to ultrasounds and I didn't have to have them.

So I agreed to ultrasounds just to appease my doctor and be like, listen, I have plenty of fluid.

He's don't, please don't tell me the size of the baby.

That's something also I learned that I could do.

I said, don't tell me the size of the baby.

I don't want that to impact my birth.

Even though all these things were being done, they were still trying to tell me big baby.

I was approaching 40 weeks and then she started having the conversation with me about induction and how I may or may not be a candidate.

I don't know how we got to 40 weeks and started talking about induction because up until that point she was so positive about, I love VBACs.

We're gonna get you your vbac, it's gonna happen.

So naturally the best chance of a VBAC is happening on its own time.

And I knew from reading ACOG Materials and research because of your shout out to their research materials.

Up until 42 weeks, you're fine.

The risk is so low.

Talking to my provider about everything's fine until 42 weeks.

Let's get to 41 and four and see where we are before we start talking about induction.

She was really pushing induction.

At 40 weeks, we, I'll speed forward a little bit.

We get to 40 weeks in five days.

It's a Thursday and it's my last appointment and she's in the room and she's telling us we really need to do a C-section in a couple of days.

I'm crying, I'm shaking, crying.

I'm starting to have some PTSD from my last C-section popping up.

I don't know how we got here.

How are we having to be induced?

My husband's trying to hold my hand and also ask this physician questions and she's just very black and white and he's gonna be too big for you to push out.

Nobody wins an award just to go into labor naturally.

I know what you're saying, girl.

I was laying on the table trying to push my son out while he was trying to kill himself inside of me.

I'm not kidding you, Trish.

My eyes were just like, what?

This is the nightmare that Trish talks about.

When providers say really dumb things to people, I'm all of a sudden starting to freak out.

Is my baby gonna try and kill himself inside me when I'm trying to push him out?

Am I taking, is the risk too big that day?

We get home, we have a happy hour.

And so I tell you that I come to Happy Hour and I'm talking to you guys in the community about what had happened, and I just remember you in the community being like, stop for a moment.

This is your choice.

We talked about like how this is on a schedule.

She wanted to have a C-section on a Thursday because there was nobody there to help me induce on a Friday because I was a vbac.

So it was all about a schedule.

So it was just like you guys to help me take a step back, breathe, assess the risk, talk about what we'd always talked about.

But she just started the pressure, those that 40 and five.

All of a sudden it was no longer convenient for her to be on my side with the vbac.

And it was the scariest thing because you hear your provider telling you these are the risks you're taking.

It really goes, you could really cause fetal death.

She even came into the room when we declined the C-section and said, I've already talked to legal about you.

What?

You talked to legal about me?

Why?

I had to tell them that you were sane and educated.

What would you have done if I wasn't sane and educated?

So you understand that is not what she said to legal.

She is passive aggressively letting you know that she is involving legal because you're not doing what she said.

Yes.

Uh,

and it was very intimidating.

I, I don't get intimidated easily, but she walked into the room.

A very, the nurse was very nice, but I consider her kind of like mousy.

And so my provider walks in the room, I have COVID mind you, so she walks in the room.

She, I was like, Hey, I'm dilated two A one.

'cause she said if I was a one, she could start my induction.

I was like, I'm dilated two A one.

And I'm super excited.

Smile on my face.

I've progressed naturally all on my own, lost my mucus plug.

I'm trying to tell her this.

And she just rolls her eyes and says, where's all the PPE?

And storms out of the room just doesn't even acknowledge me.

I, I'm, I don't like her.

I'm like shaking.

I'm not even gonna name drop.

If anybody wants to know and they're listening, just not let me, I'll tell you

little do these providers know that they are risking going onto Labor Nurse Mama's page and being, being ousted.

Oh my gosh.

I will let you know who she is if you ever reach out to me.

So we, I don't know, we go home.

My husband is standing there with me and he's like.

At all due respect, doctor, this is the choice we're making.

We understand the risk.

Just get us the paperwork.

Because at that point I think he could tell that I was shutting down and feeling very intimidated and he knew what we wanted.

So we go home, I'm doing my VBAC lab with you guys, I'm talking, and all the while my teenage daughter had flown in to help me give birth.

My husband's there.

I've got COVID things, shit's hitting the fan for better lack of words, while I'm on the VBAC lab.

They were setting up, you know how you talked about in the, in your materials about setting the scene.

If you're gonna give birth, turn the lights down low.

So my husband who had been doing this education with me all along through your course and your classes.

Was setting fresh flowers all around the house, candles everywhere, setting the mood all over the place.

Getting my little smoothie.

What is it?

The midwives brew.

The midwives brew.

Getting my midwives brew.

Ready?

He gone.

So he's setting the

birth scene while you're hanging out with us.

Yes.

He took him two hours to drive around and get the right ingredient.

Finding some of these, oh,

that apricot nectar.

Yes.

The lemon verina.

Yes.

If, if you're listening right now, go ahead.

Even if you're nine weeks pregnant, order it because it is hard to find.

Yes,

Amazon

And he would use it for other things.

Yeah, Amazon

has it.

Um, so he was like studying the scene.

I am just like, I get off the call with you guys.

I'm feeling so empowered.

I'm like, we're gonna do this.

I'm gonna go into labor.

I just know it.

I drink the cocktail.

Trish, you are not kidding.

It hits you within me.

It hit me within minutes and I was super, how it might feel just based on like your conversation and your experience, but I wasn't quite ready for it.

Right.

You really can't.

There's

just so anybody listening, I can't adequately explain it and neither can Cassie.

You have to experience for yourself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It wasn't painful by any means.

Don't wanna scare, scare anybody.

It's just different.

It's just different.

Yeah.

And I'm not kidding.

Labor happened within half an hour.

So it's a Thursday.

Okay, hold on.

I'm gonna interrupt you because I want that girl who's listening right now who's 38 weeks and four days that's about to chug the mid midwife's brew because Cassie said it works that quick.

It only works that quick if your body is ready.

Yes.

So we do not recommend that you do it until you're after 40 weeks.

Low risk pregnancy.

All clear from your provider.

Okay.

Go.

Perfect.

Yeah.

And to clarify, I was over 40 weeks.

I was one centimeter, one tight centimeter dilated.

Oh, really quick.

When she checked my cervix in the hospital, she said I was closed up like Fort Knox.

Anyway.

Yeah, so I'm 40 weeks.

I'm over 40 weeks.

I'm taking the midwives through.

In 30 minutes, I'm starting to have contractions Now, the way that I understood contractions to feel is not how I felt them.

I felt them very sharply and very intensely from the moment they started.

I had always heard, like they wrap around, sometimes they feel dull.

It was like they were rough.

I'm not gonna lie, but got my yoga ball.

I had my scene set, I had my music.

I was doing the ice cube.

I was holding an ice cube in my hand that you had done that exercise with us on the class, and so it was perfect.

Fast forward to Friday night.

This is now, so Wednesday I was in like prodromal labor.

Thursday I'm in regular labor.

Friday I'm in very regular labor.

Friday night, around 11 o'clock after laboring without pain meds and anything for three days.

My contractions went from 15 minutes apart to 11 minutes apart to one and a half minutes apart.

I mean.

All of a sudden it was like a drop off.

There was no like 11 to five, to four to three.

It was 11 to one and a half.

And I looked at my husband, I said, we gotta go.

We gotta go.

There's a lot of pressure happening.

These contractions are so close together, so we're driving to the car.

15 minutes feels 500 hours when you're in having contractions.

One of my biggest fears, uh, for people listening, I don't know if others had this, but one of my largest fears was how is the hospital setting gonna be?

How are the nurses going to perceive me being in pain?

Are they gonna think I'm a baby because I'm having a quote unquote medication free birth, and I'm in pain and I'm showing that I'm in pain?

Are they gonna talk badly about me?

I was just, for some reason, I was very anxious about how I was going to be curing.

I think that's very common.

Okay.

Very common.

That's something I'm trying to work on with the girls, especially Uhhuh, the calm labor students, is this feeling that we need to be liked by the staff or we need to please the staff.

It's really, yeah, I What that

is

really, I don't either.

I don't either.

But I know it and I even felt it myself.

Yeah.

Delivering at a different hospital than I worked with Grayson and I felt that pressure.

Yeah, it's, it was hard and, but what happened was, like you said, what happened?

You will get there.

I walked in and the minute I walked in, they were like, girl, you're not walking.

You're gonna sit down.

And I was like, these contractions really hurt when I'm sitting down.

They're like, it's okay.

We're gonna get you there so fast.

They zip me right out.

Let me interject that.

One of the things I didn't prepare myself for was how messy birth can be.

I know people talk about it, they talk about the fluids, but my husband and I were both like, there's so much liquid coming out of my body right now.

I just wasn't prepared.

I was like, oh man, it just keeps coming.

It never stops.

So I'm glad I didn't wear my birth gown ever.

Um, we check in.

The nurse loved my birth plan.

Anyone out there who's getting told.

Oh, you shouldn't have a birth plan.

That just means it's gonna go right out the window, blah, blah, blah.

My nurses loved it, and I even went a step further and I wrote them a short little paragraph that introduced me and my family and my baby's name and like my top three objectives in labor.

So you, you didn't do a birth plan?

Consult with me.

No, I had a birth plan, so my sister is a doula.

Okay.

And so she helped me do my birth plan.

Yeah.

'cause I name at the top.

Yes.

I have a thing.

And then I have a blurb of what's the most important thing to Cassie.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's how I got that.

So when I wrote the letter, it was like, here's my top.

I, this sounds like

mine.

Yes.

I didn't do my birth plan with you, but I got tips from what you were talking about.

Yeah.

And like all the information.

And my nurses loved it.

They ate it up.

We had a binder that had tabs.

That had what to do for this type of pain, what to do for this type of pain.

I'm a very organized person.

You're,

I love it.

That's just making me so excited.

I know, but my birth team loved it.

Not, there wasn't a single comment about, oh my God, this is so much nothing.

They were just very accepting of it, and they had really taken the time to read it because my labor nurse came in.

She was like, Hey, I saw that you don't want cervical checks very often at all, so you just let me know when you are ready to have a cervical check.

Oh my God.

I could be in love with her.

She was amazing.

She was in love with my playlist, which I also appreciate because time out for a second.

I took months.

Building my perfect birth playlist, channeling all the good music.

So they checked me in.

I'm at a one, a full one is what they called it, but I am a hundred percent A faced.

And I was like, I'm in labor for three days and I'm only at a one.

You know how you talk about, don't let it go to your head, but hearing that I was a hundred percent a face, my husband's in the background, he's like, baby, we're doing it.

We're doing it.

And so I got all jazzed up.

I go to the bath, they start the IV in the tub.

Now I'm a vbac.

Mostly what you hear, like you said, is you have to stay connected to the wires.

You can't get in the bathtub.

That's not true.

Not every provider is like that.

I was so lucky.

My provider that we don't like and won't say her name was not on call that night.

When I went into labor, there was a male physician who was so relaxed and so laid back and saw that I was so incredibly low risk.

He let me do whatever I wanted.

He was amazing.

He was amazing.

So I get the bathtub.

I am starting to have really strong contractions, like deep in my gut, more than just like those shallow, sharp ones.

And all of a sudden my water ruptures everywhere just burst.

And I always thought I would be a trickler.

Like I'm never gonna know if it's leaking or not.

I am

way too polite to slash

everything.

I'm a trickler.

I'm so glad that I was in the bath because it went.

Everywhere, but it felt so good.

Do you know what I mean?

I just felt so good.

Yeah.

So I'm, they're doing the IV while I'm in the bathtub and relaxing with candlelight and my music's going, I did not

know this.

Yeah.

How did I not know that?

They were amazing.

They saw that I basically wanted a home birth with the safety of a hospital, and they tried everything they could to give that to me.

Phenomen.

So I, I'm about to do a little spoiler alert just because I. Know and love Cassie so much, but Cassie, the difference in your sharing of this birth story this time compared to when we first heard it

Yes.

Is so beautiful and healing.

Yes.

I love

it.

I want a side note on that and say, it has taken me four months to own my birth story and accept it and realize like how beautiful it actually was.

It's so beautiful.

Yeah,

it

really

is.

I,

yes, I'll skip forward and say I was very disappointed those that first month.

We'll get into that in a little bit.

Right.

But, um, I'm

sure everybody knows where we're headed, but I, yeah, I had to, we had a c-section.

Yeah.

I ha I had to stop just because I can see your face and I saw your face leading up to birth.

I saw your face initially right after birth, and I saw your face when you shared your birth story with us on happy hour.

And I see you now and there's so much peace and such a beautiful smile.

There really is.

Who was it that told us?

Her son's seven months old now.

Her husband's Gina.

A doctor.

Gina.

Gina,

yes.

Gina was like, you're gonna get to a point where.

You own your birth story and it feels so good and it's so redemptive and you'll just know.

And I finally just hit that point.

Yeah.

So it's, I love it.

Okay, so we're one centimeters, we're,

we're getting an IV in the, the tub.

Yes.

And lemme tell you the minute that I'm one centimeter to the time that my water breaks is only an hour.

I check in at 11.

At 12.

My water ruptures everywhere.

I tell her.

Hey, I, I'm laboring really hard.

They're coming very intense.

I'm on the yoga ball.

I'm walking all over the room.

Trish, my husband and the nurse are following me around the room with puppy pads.

They're just like, I've done, I've done that so many

times.

Yeah.

You go wherever you want, girl.

We got you.

And they're just following me around puppy pads.

They're putting, they brought me a yoga ball, a peanut ball.

Um, they're turning my music up for me.

My nurse is being very like standing on the side.

She's, I'm here if you want me.

Tell me what you need.

I love it so much.

I think that we should put in wedding vows.

I will even follow you around with a puffy pad.

Oh my gosh.

I can't even tell you how amazing my husband is without like crying about it.

He was Anybody that's listening.

Your partners need to join you on the education.

Yes.

Trish preaches that so much.

It's very

importants, so important.

Yeah.

Because your job at that point was to labor.

Yes.

Not to advocate.

Yes.

Not

think about anything else.

Yeah.

Not to say, oh no, I wanted this or I wanted that, or This is how no labor, that's a full-time job.

And so when I was laboring in the bathtub, I always imagined myself being like.

Oh, I'm gonna love the water.

I'm gonna give birth in the water and it's gonna be beautiful and peaceful.

The minute my water broke, I was hot and I wanted out of there fast.

You've heard my story, right?

Same exact thing.

Yes.

Exact same thing I thought, and I was going to deliver it in there, and I was like, no.

Right now

I was so hot.

My nurse taught my husband this brilliant trick where she brought buckets of ice in with towels, and they just started piling ice towels on me and it felt phenomenal.

Oh my God.

It was the best feeling ever.

So anyway, I, so we're at midnight, my water breaks and I'm like, Hey, I think I'm ready to be checked again two hours after I check in.

And I was a one and a hundred percent a faced.

I was now in a five or a six.

My husband hears this and he's in the background.

He goes, fuck yeah, baby.

We're at a six.

You hear that?

We're at a fucking six.

You're doing it.

We're doing it.

He's so jazzed.

Up in the corner, the nurse is cracking up.

I'm like, get?

I'm like, yeah, we're doing it.

And I'm getting emotional two hours later 'cause we're gonna fast forward.

We all know what's happening in the middle.

I'm moving around the room.

I'm dilating, I'm getting on the bed.

I'm using every position possible.

Two hours later, I am at a nine and a half.

She says, okay, girl, what position do you wanna be in?

How do you wanna push?

And I was like, oh, my hands and knees on my hands and knees.

It just felt so good and I couldn't figure out why, but my body felt better on hands and knees.

So I'm on the bed, they prop the front up a little bit and the bar's behind me.

I'm facing the wall and I'm laboring.

And I'm laboring, and I'm laboring.

Four or five hours goes by, I'm still in a nine and a half and I'm laboring, and I'm starting to get to the point where the contractions are so exhausting at a nine and a half with a baby stuck at a two station with nothing else happening, that there's pain that's starting to happen.

That wasn't before.

And you had always said, you will know when the pain isn't normal.

But you'll know, I knew that the pain was normal for a long time until it wasn't.

And I had said something to my nurse, I was like, I feel like I need to push so, so bad.

And I'm pushing, but it, something isn't feeling right.

And so she checks me and she's, I think you might be a little bit swollen.

Calls the doctor in.

The doctor says, I think you're more like an eight because you're so swollen.

So I went from a nine and a half to an eight because of swelling.

And I think that.

All of the COVID for three days.

The laboring pain med free for three days had just hit me when he said I had reversed dilated somehow, and something inside me died.

I couldn't, in the moment.

I didn't understand what he was saying, but after reflection, yeah, I was like, oh, okay.

There wasn't a lip or anything.

It was just like a lot of swelling.

He was amazing.

Which is painful.

He says, yeah, it's so painful.

I was not prepared.

I learned a lot in your class and all my research.

I knew that services could swell.

But I didn't prepare myself for how that happens.

Why it happens.

Try to do to fix it Anyway, so the doctor comes in, he's like, Hey, you're swollen, but let's try something to help you.

So they put my head of my bed down.

Okay.

They were just trying to get me to rotate different positions.

Yeah.

Also say being on my back was so pain they were trying to flip me and rotate me and get me to move and

imagine, if you will, that's how they want most women to labor.

Terrible.

And why the epidural rate is so high.

I don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So my nurse at this point, I reflect and I know that the cervical checks were becoming so frequent that didn't help me at all.

But it was a point where my body wasn't feeling good, something wasn't feeling right.

He was feeling weird in there.

So she checks me again.

She says he's a little bit wonky.

We're trying to figure out what that means.

He is op and he is also a little bit crooked coming down.

So the doctor says, Hey, you've been at this for four or five hours.

At night and a half, you're starting to swell.

But I'm willing to let you keep trying 'cause baby looks great on the monitor.

He showed us like a few dips, but because of your class, and so he was going through that.

He said, I'll just let you keep trying.

You keep trying.

He looks great.

I've got an emergency.

See that I need to come do over here.

I'll come back and check on you.

My nurse is in there the whole time.

We had no concerns about that.

Yeah, we were trying to keep trying, so we keep trying and the cervical pain keeps getting worse and I can just tell this isn't gonna go the way I want it.

I'm trying to deal with the pain that won't stop now.

Yeah, of labor, but also understanding that I probably end up the emotional too.

Yeah.

So emotional at that moment.

My doctor comes back and he says, uh, let's do a C-section.

This sounds like the best route.

And I was like, okay, whatever.

Get this baby out of me.

Just get it out of me.

I can't do this anymore.

My head nurse comes in and she says, wait a minute.

Your birth plan is to have a vbac.

What if we try one more thing to try and get you your vbac?

Trish?

I wanted to hug this woman when I was ready to give up.

She was like, hell no, girl.

Oh my gosh, I love her so much.

You came me here with a binder with dividers in it.

We're not giving up.

So she gets me an immediate epidural.

The anesthesiologist comes in and he's like, Hey, how are we doing in here?

Let's get you your epidural, which I struggled with because if you can imagine when you're having a contraction and you are slumped over for that epidural at the same time, it is.

Awful.

And a

swollen

cervix and

all the other things.

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

But he comes in, he quickly gets me my epidural.

They get Benadryl on board.

They put me head down again.

They're flipping me back and forth.

I am exhausted at this point.

I am coughing.

I am exhausted.

I am just trying everything I can to get this baby out.

And the doctor comes back in and he, it's two hours later, so.

After I technically stalled out.

It wasn't for six more hours that he let me keep trying and said, I'm confident.

Let's keep trying.

Baby looks great.

So for those of you listening, get yourself a provider like this that says, baby looks wonderful.

You look wonderful if you want to keep trying.

But ultimately it was a conversation of, Hey, we've been at this for six hours.

There's been no change.

Next time we have this conversation, it could be an emergency.

Are you willing to risk that?

And I think the exhaustion and just wanting to make sure that Atlas was safe and that I was safe, my husband and I together just made the choice to go ahead and do a C-section.

So they let me play at my playlist.

They put my phone at my head.

I had an amazing nurse team, a phenomenal nurse team nurse anesthetist came in, took over for the anesthesiologist.

And we go into the downstairs spare operating room, which like looks like it's under construction, but everybody's happy and joyful.

And we're talking about our recent Salt Lake City, Utah mountain trip, and some of the music that we chose.

And all of a sudden it's like my husband and I forgot that we were getting a baby at the end of this, because all of a sudden the doctors baby, because everything was about the birth.

Everything was about the birth.

I just forgot there was a baby involved.

Yeah.

So all of a sudden my physician holds the baby up over the screen and my husband and I just start bawling.

I was.

Oh my God.

We got, I totally forgot we were gonna have a baby.

What is

this thing?

And the first thing I asked my husband, because I can't see him quite yet.

Some I didn't prepare enough to say like, Hey, put my baby right on me.

But in the operating room, it's cold.

It's very cold in the basement.

They need to hurry up and dry 'em and get him warm enough, dry him enough.

It sounds so

bad, Cassie.

You're in the bait, huh?

It sounds so terrible.

You're in the basement.

Oh, I know the other operating room was being taken up by an emergency C-section.

So since I wasn't an emergency, they had time to go down to the basement.

To go

to the basement.

Yeah, it was very to where you

got a surprise baby.

Yeah, I know.

So they take him over to the warmer and I was like, I want skin to skin.

I want skin to skin.

My husband's, I know honey, we're gonna get you skin to skin.

And I was like, what does his nose look like?

Because in the ultrasounds, his nose looked very funny.

And that was the first question I could think of.

What does his nose look like?

And my husband was like, it's a very cute nose.

It's a good nose.

So they bring him over, we get skin to skin.

They did not touch that baby.

After he was on me.

I was a little, oh, I love that.

I was a little like drunk from all the Benadryl.

Yeah.

Which I wasn't expecting, but it was a great relief actually after three days of labor.

But my husband just helped hold a mommy.

I sent you the pictures.

My husband helped hold the baby.

They put Atlas on me and he immediately found my nipple and latched love it.

It was.

Magic and everybody was commenting like, oh my God, he's already latched.

I feel like I had this special little baby that knew what he was supposed to do.

We, we joked that he was born to eat because when he came out, he had little sucking bruises on his wrists.

Oh, our nurse got phenomenal photos.

I didn't even ask her to.

She grabbed my phone and just started taking videos and photos.

My husband took photos the first time I was breastfeeding in the post-op room, and I didn't know he was taking 'em.

I was so proud of it in the moment.

I was very devastated.

Very devastated that somehow my body couldn't do what I knew it was supposed to do.

And it took me, like I said, about three months to get over that devastation and questioning like, what went wrong?

What did I do wrong?

But now when I think back on it, it was really the most beautiful thing.

And I never told you this, but my father passed away two years ago and it was very tragic for me.

My father was a nurse, by the way, the operating nurse that stayed with me all weekend postpartum and in the, or.

She was good friends with my dad for about 15 years.

Oh, that's so healing.

I know.

I love it.

I never would've met, I never ever would've met her had I not had a C-section.

And she took care of me all weekend long.

It was just, and when I had said, when she saw my last name, she was like, wait a minute, do you know what Jim Gillum?

And I was like, that's my father.

She was like, oh my God.

Oh, I

love it.

So we just really, it was phenomenal.

It ended up being exactly how it needed to be.

I had the most beautiful team.

If you ever get the choice to labor on a weekend and deliver over a weekend, do that.

Oh, they're the best.

They're so

laid back.

Oh, that's amazing.

Yeah.

That's phenomenal.

Yeah.

They're so laid back, but it ended up being a really beautiful birth.

And like I said, I reflect on it now and it was very hard at first, but now it's just.

That's my first story.

I love it so much, Cassie, and as I'm listening to you, there's a couple of things that I want other mamas who are listening to really hear.

There's a couple options, right?

You could have just conceded to your doctor and done what she wanted and had a scheduled C-section.

But you would've missed out on your husband dashing around town to fix up your birth room and one of your twins like there and that experience of it.

Yeah.

So yes, you didn't get to have the vaginal delivery and we all screamed and mourned with you.

Yeah.

But you had a beautiful labor.

It was great.

You

really did.

It was, I would not have had that, had I gone ahead and just let her do the scheduled C-section like she wanted.

That post-op visit was very awkward and very quiet.

I bet

we didn't say much.

We just.

Got the let check my wound and moved on with life because I didn't want to hear about how I told you so, and I just got

out.

But she didn't, she didn't tell you so, because ultimately you went back to the OR because your baby was op.

Yep.

Your cervix was swollen and you were exhaust.

Yeah.

So you didn't go back to the OR because your body failed you or couldn't do it, your body could do it.

Correct.

Just different things happened that happened to all of us that caused us all to have to go back to the or, and that's what pisses me off,

and it was our choice.

That physician stood there and said, you could keep going now.

I'll let you keep going, but it's your choice.

And so my husband and I had a choice the first time.

I didn't have a choice.

And so that's,

there's

beauty in that.

Yeah, so there's a lot of

beauty in that.

So I'm so proud of you and I'm so thankful and so blessed to get to know you and be a part of your birth story.

So thank you so much for coming on today and sharing.

So I'm gonna ask you two questions.

One, what would you tell someone else that's deciding whether or not they wanna take a birth course with us?

Oh my

God.

Take the birth course.

I love it.

Take

the freaking birth course.

I don't go

in blind.

No, no.

And two, is there anything about your birth experience, your pregnancy, any of it that you would change if you had to do it over?

I would've started the birth course earlier than 36 weeks.

I did not set that up.

I did not know that was coming.

But yes, honestly, I will.

I, and you see the difference of the students and the members who come from the beginning.

Yep.

And thinking of Sarah, Sarah started coming Yes.

Before she even decided if she was gonna have a baby.

Number two.

Yep.

And now she's Prego and she's having baby number two.

Yep.

Yes.

Thank you so much for coming today, Cassie.

Thank you so much for having me, Trish.

Hey mamas.

I hope you enjoyed this episode where we shared Cassie's beautiful birth story.

If you didn't know it before today, then I hope you leave this episode knowing how much we love our community, we love our students, and we love our members inside of our Mama membership.

Take a minute.

Go to the show notes, click the link, and learn more about our birth courses and about our mama membership.

Have a great day as always.

I'll see you next Friday for the next episode.

Bye for now.