69. My Maine Birth: A Planned Maine Home Birth Involving A Hospital Transfer, Melanie’s Story
Melanie: 0:00
I guess it would really be to and this will resonate more with people who are more spiritual, but I think could resonate with with a lot of people regardless. I mean to view it as an initiation and to trust in the sacred wisdom that comes from going into the darkness and whether the darkness is present, in just the inevitable, like completely out of control feeling that birth is and how it stretches you and pushes you into your inner darkness, or the darkness comes from, you know, intervention or trauma, to trust that there is always a gift and always medicine that comes from that type of initiation. And in fact, if I had had the exact birth I wanted to, I would have been really stuck in the toxic positivity of it. I really would have been judgmental to other moms who didn't have their dream birth because I would have been like, well, I manifested my dream birth. So like if you didn't, clearly you did something wrong. You know, like that voice is so prevalent in the natural birth community. It drives me nuts now, but at the time I was like, felt like I was in complete control because everybody's like you have your vision board, you manifest your birth and you advocate for yourself and you do your thing, but I did advocate for myself and I did all of the things and I still ended up in the experience I didn't want.
Melanie: 1:24
And what that tells me is that you know a lot of the women who are saying they have their perfect birth and that they willed it into existence.
Melanie: 1:33
That might be true for them, but that is not true for everyone, and it also might just be luck.
Melanie: 1:42
It might just be that they were in a perfect ecosystem that was conducive to them having the experience they wanted, and the ecosystem I was in was not conducive to the experience I wanted. And I think it's like you can do all of the preparation you want, but there are forces that are beyond our control, whether that's in the practitioners or our partners or the baby you know, the baby themselves and even just the greater mystery of fate, right? And so when we talk about surrendering to birth, it's really easy to be like just surrender to the pain, surrender to the process. It's really hard to surrender to the intervention and the things you don't want to happen, but trusting in that there is always medicine in the darkness and if you can go into the darkness and collect that for yourself, it'll be of service, not only to you but to the world at large, because the deeper that we can go in our healing journey, the more healing we can bring to everyone around us.
Angela: 2:52
I'm Angela and you're listening to my Maine Birth a space where we share the real life stories of families and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine. From our state's biggest hospitals to birth center births and home births. Every birth story deserves to be heard and celebrated. Whether you're a soon-to-be mom, a seasoned mother or simply interested in the world of birth, these episodes are for you. Today's birth story guest is Melanie and she shares her experience of planning for home birth, but after a long labor, it was suggested to her by her care provider that she go to the hospital. In this episode, we talk about the importance of advocating for yourself in these extremely sensitive and spiritual moments in your life when you really shouldn't have to. Let's get right to it. Hi, melanie, welcome to my Main Birth.
Melanie: 3:56
Hey.
Angela: 3:56
Angela. Hey, melanie, how are you? I'm good. How are you Good? Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today.
Melanie: 4:07
I appreciate you reaching out, yeah of course, I saw your post and you know I um, it is by no means like a huge project for me, it's more of a like way to process my own stuff. But I started a little motherhood podcast, as you saw, and I was, like you know, seeing that you're doing something specifically for the main community. I just felt like it would be really cool to support and I also feel really strongly that sharing my if I had heard my story before I gave birth, it would have spared me a lot of challenge. Or even hearing, like where I am now, two and a half years post-birth, if I had heard that like a month after giving birth, it would have really helped me. So my hope is that you know people with shared values who maybe carry some challenging feelings about their birthing experience are able to have some deeper recognition through hearing this. So yeah, thank you for offering this space.
Angela: 5:16
Yeah, wow, I actually feel the same way about my birth. So, to get started, will you first share a little bit about you and your family?
Melanie: 5:26
Yeah, oh, my goodness. Okay, a little bit about me and my family. We live in a farmhouse built in 1840. It's a really sweet spot.
Melanie: 5:36
I didn't grow up in Maine, I grew up in Southern California, so like almost as far as you can get away. It's just really funny how, yeah, I never expected to end up here, but I met my husband in college. We went to college in New York. He grew up in Portland and when we were thinking about starting a family, we knew we did not want to do it in New York City, where we were living at the time and we were looking at, you know, southern California and Maine and I, I mean the cost of living is one thing. The other part of it is I just really love the culture and community here. Like I really love how down to earth people are coming from. Like Southern California there I mean I love the culture there too. It will always be a part of me. Southern California there I mean I love the culture. There too, it will always be a part of me.
Melanie: 6:31
Um, but there is, you know, it's, it's just a different vibe and um, I really I love how people are.
Melanie: 6:33
It's like salt of the earth, people, you know and and everybody has like their little backyard garden. It's just so sweet and nurturing and cozy, and the seasons offer so much for me as somebody who didn't grow up with seasons. And so, yeah, we have our little 1840s farmhouse that we bought the March, the first week of March in 2020, which was impeccable timing. And, yeah, now we have our little garden, we have a two and a half year old son and my husband runs a music studio out of our house, which is really cool, and I have a business that's focused on empowering women to love themselves more. It started through intuitive eating and body confidence. Now it's more in the realm of diving into soul, purpose and sacred living, and there's a whole bunch of things that I offer in my business, but it's a really powerful place to be and allows me, as an entrepreneur, to be able to be with my son as much as I want to, especially in the early newborn phase. It was the greatest gift.
Angela: 7:52
Oh, I love that. So nice to be able to really slow down after birth and soak it all in. So what's your Instagram for anyone that wants to connect with you?
Melanie: 8:03
Yeah, I'm at the self-love lifestyle is my business Instagram, and I have a few other pages. If you like gardening, which a lot of Mainers do. My gardening Instagram is a fairy tale garden. And then I have a motherhood podcast. That is a very side project for me, but it's motherhood rebirth, so you can find all of that on Instagram.
Angela: 8:28
So now to get into your birth stories. Will you share a little bit about when you found out you were pregnant and your thoughts in choosing your care?
Melanie: 8:36
Oh, my goodness, yes, so my son. So my husband and I this was December 2020 when we conceived Leo, our son, um, his full name is Aurelio and, um, we call him Leo. And when okay, so it was December 2020, we kind of were feeling it was still the pandemic and we were feeling like, oh, like we could get pregnant or, like, you know, it would probably be better to wait a little bit when things calm down. But literally the first time and I was tracking my cycle and so I knew, you know, that we might get pregnant but like it was the first time that we decided to not use any contraception, and it was the winter solstice and we just were like, let's see what happens. And then, like two days later, we decided, um, you know what, maybe this isn't the right time. So we like actually were using protection later, which is so funny because I was already pregnant Um, but it was the winter solstice. It was very auspicious. There was like, in that winter solstice, there was a whole planetary alignment. I remember waking up, like, for some weird reason, like my body just woke up, at like in the early morning hours and I looked outside and there was a deer family in our backyard and you know, I just I didn't expect that I would get pregnant so quickly, which I know is a blessing. I have so many friends who have struggled to get pregnant. Um, it had its own stuff to deal with with that, like unexpected nature. But, um, I knew I wanted to, like I would love to have the timeline of being pregnant in the summer and like giving birth in the fall. That felt just like such a beautiful way to live with the seasons here. And so, yeah, I got pregnant and I knew I wanted to have a home birth. I had, I mean, as long as I could remember, felt like I wanted to have a home birth. I wanted to have a really sacred ceremonial experience.
Melanie: 10:45
My values are such that, you know I I'm a very spiritual person. I grew up in ceremony with my great uncle, who was a medicine man, and my mom did not, um, have she had a hospital birth. My grandmother also had a hospital birth. So I was born at the same hospital that my mom and grandmother were born at and both of them had intervention. My grandmother, with my mom, had an episiotomy and then my mom ended up having Pitocin and an epidural and there was meconium in the fluid and she felt really, yeah, she it seemed like my mom did not have a very peaceful experience. It sounded very stressful for her and and so I guess I knew that I I didn't want that for myself.
Melanie: 11:39
And then being exposed, you know, through some of the spiritual work that I did, to alternative ways of birthing. I remember watching like birth videos with my like best friend, who's like very witchy person. We were watching birth videos in college together, you know, and just like dreaming about that very pinnacle experience of embodying the divine feminine. And so through my pregnancy, you know, I knew immediately I was like, oh yeah, it's going to be a home birth, it'll be natural birth, it'll be so empowering, this beautiful experience.
Melanie: 12:13
And we started talking to midwives and we interviewed several midwives, the midwives that we chose. We chose because, you know, in the initial call she actually asked like how are you feeling? Because a lot of the other midwives were like just going over, oh, this is our thing that we do. And like, what are your preferences Like? Are our values aligned? But this midwife was like how are you feeling? You know? Like what's going on for you right now? How do you feel about being pregnant? And I felt like that type of connection just was really beautiful and and that stayed consistent throughout, like all of our prenatal visits with with our midwifery practice and you know, I just did so much preparation leading up to birth but simultaneously it was still the pandemic.
Melanie: 13:04
So it was a really scary time to be pregnant and like they were saying that women could like get super, super sick, you know, and end up in the hospital. There's all these stories about moms and babies getting separated. But then there was like all of this scary stuff about, you know, getting the vaccine and I just was like so I was like I feel so scared no matter what happens, like no matter what I choose, no matter where I end up, like this is really scary. So I ended up with perinatal depression and anxiety and I didn't even know what was happening to me until like halfway through my pregnancy. But it was my first real experience with like a clinical mental health disorder and I thought I had known to expect PPD because my mom had postpartum depression, but I never thought it could happen during pregnancy. Nobody ever talked about that.
Melanie: 13:59
And so, simultaneously, to like wanting to cultivate this really beautiful. So simultaneously to like wanting to cultivate this really beautiful, like sacred experience. I also was feeling so anxious because of the state of the world and and you know whether it was the external circumstances triggering the internal response in my body through genetics was just like primed for a perinatal mood disorder. I don't know like obviously it's a chicken or the egg situation, I don't know, but I ended up feeling just so scared. You know so much of the time and, um, you know I I hardly went anywhere, but I spent a lot of time in my garden. I'll like so much time in my garden, um, and running my business and you know, connecting with, with my son in the womb was so magical and beautiful and and a lot of time, you know, reading about natural birth and it was a very dualistic experience of like beautiful, magical things and then also just like a lot of overwhelm and perinatal mood disorders are like are no joke.
Angela: 15:10
That is serious and something that I think you're right that a lot of people don't talk about or think that can happen, so I think it's really important to talk about. So how was the rest of your pregnancy looking? Did you do any testing or ultrasounds or?
Melanie: 15:25
Yeah, I was actually super freaked out about even like getting a Doppler Like I took me. I did very few intense testings, like I only did one ultrasound at Maine Med when I was 20 weeks. I did the 20 week anatomy scan and that was the only time I ever saw my son on ultrasound and it was really just to be like is everything developing normally Great? But otherwise, like yeah, the midwives listened to through the Doppler like I don't know a handful of times. But I opted out of a lot of the testing. I didn't do any blood tests. I didn't do like the eight week blood test. We did find out the gender or the sex at the ultrasound and I did the diabetes test because my dad has type one diabetes and I just wanted to be extra sure about that and you know they did like blood pressure and temperature stuff, but I didn't do any other invasive testing.
Angela: 16:22
Yeah, so how are you feeling throughout the rest of your pregnancy?
Melanie: 16:30
You know, as I said, it was like just so much duality. It was the most successful year of my business. So that year my business like increased revenue. It tripled revenue into like multiple six figures. So I felt this like huge abundance that was coming like pouring out of me creatively, and I attribute that to the magic of pregnancy. I mean it's wild. Um, my business has stayed consistent, but like it has not tripled.
Melanie: 17:04
In terms of that, so that was so cool, um, and I felt really, um, oh, I felt just like really connected to my, my feminine self. Um, as I said, like just a lot of it was overshadowed by this really challenging circumstance that all of us were living through and at the time too, my mom she is she has since passed away, but she was in her final end stage of battling breast cancer and so and she lived across the country. So I felt really like sorrowful that I wasn't able to like have that connection with her because she was in her own, like I was in my own stuff, she was in her own stuff and of course we were like connecting and talking, but like it just we weren't able to be there for each other, which was really sorrowful for me. My husband and I were just navigating like how do we, how do we navigate pregnancy in this like unprecedented situation. But we were also doing a lot of house renovations you know so much nesting in this 1840s farmhouse. It felt like such a sweet experience to prepare and I was thinking how many women have given birth in this farmhouse for hundreds of years.
Melanie: 18:24
And, um, I made uh, I made some friends in a prenatal yoga class, um, that are still like my best friends here. All of us have boys born within a month of each other and we like all get together like almost every week and our boys have grown up together. So there was just like there was a sense of community but also like very distanced community. Um, yeah, it was just dualistic. There was a sense of community, but also very distanced community. Yeah, it was just dualistic. There was a lot of good and a lot of challenge and I, physically, was feeling great. I mean, I felt, except for the first trimester which was like I could not leave the couch. My nausea was so bad. Physically I felt great. I had the perinatal mood disorder, but I was working with like two therapists. I really was seeking out a lot of support and it got a lot better as the pregnancy went on.
Angela: 19:21
Yeah, so now walk me through those last few days leading up to your labor and birth those last few days leading up to your labor and birth.
Melanie: 19:45
Okay, let me think, taking myself back so September, okay, so September 18th and um the day. Yeah, I remember like in the days leading up to labor, I was like just so paranoid that my, my water was breaking, but it was just um so much pressure on my bladder. I remember that feeling really disconcerting. But I prepped the birth space. I had like fins with everything labeled, I had all of my essential oils and I did a vision board. I had my birth plan and then I also had a separate um document that I created on, like the ways I wanted to be supported. So they're like pressure points, the affirmations I wanted, the questions I wanted people to ask me, the playlists I wanted, the positions I wanted, and that was like a multiple page document and I had also the birth plan. I did a lot of prep, a lot of preparation. I watched you know, like the spinning babies, masterclasses and birthing classes and like followed all of these. You know, like the spinning babies, masterclasses and birthing classes and like followed all of these. You know natural birth, free births, even like people on Instagram and was just learning so much watching a lot of birth videos.
Melanie: 20:58
And so in the final days my husband and I celebrated our anniversary. We went to, we went on a walk at the Royal River in Yarmouth to. We went on a walk at the Royal river in Yarmouth and I remember just like being so heavy, just like moving so slowly, um, and we had a little picnic and we came home and we were hanging out and I remember. So my husband surprised me. He recorded we'd been singing this one song to my son throughout the entire pregnancy. You know like top people talk about how if you sing one song the baby will remember it out of utero. So we sang a song about um, about a moon, um, it was like a little lullaby and um. And so my husband recorded it in the music studio and played it for me and I remember when he was playing the song I felt Leo like nuzzle into my pelvis, like I just felt him go. It was like I know people listening cannot see me acting this out, but I have my fist in my hand and it's just like wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, like I felt him like wiggling down deeper into my pelvis and then I started having cramping in the middle of the night after that. So it was the endorphin or the oxytocin, from listening to my husband gift me with this recording, and like my tears of gratitude that put me into labor.
Melanie: 22:25
And so I had labor pains that night and I woke up the next morning. I only slept five hours because I was so excited, which was such a rookie mistake Like please sleep longer than I did. Such a rookie mistake, but I was just so excited. You know, when I got up I started making muffins. My plan was to just like bake and garden for as long as I could, to like just be in like a really nurturing place for myself, but I didn't eat that much Cause I was like I didn't feel that hungry and I just was so excited. So all I ate that day was like muffins and chocolate, which was not enough because, like to jump forward, my labor lasted like 60 hours.
Melanie: 23:08
So, so, like I'm just starting to have like a right, like not even regular contractions, just you know, every so often. And then, probably around three o'clock they got, they were like every five minutes, and we called the midwives over and the midwife was like um, she, she was like you know, your, your contractions are spaced far apart, enough, right, it's like every five minutes lasting more than a minute each is the guideline. So it was whatever the guideline was and, um, she was like. She said to me you know, you just don't seem like you. You seem like you're maybe not in enough pain yet, like it's not far along, like you would be in more pain. So we're going to leave and come back. And I thought that that was like a little odd to say. Cause I'm like, cause then I was anticipating, like I was just excited and it felt like cramping. But you know, they left and came back later.
Melanie: 24:02
So my husband and I just hung out and relaxed, watched a movie, and then it was around like 11 o'clock PM, the midwives came back and I was like in it, fully in it. They set up the birth tub. I got in the birth tub and then I started having back labor. So that was like now I'm like fully, fully into. So that was like now I'm like fully, fully into into birth. So, yeah, I remember standing up in the birth tub and this would have been like maybe 1 AM or something.
Melanie: 24:36
And, um, I remember being like, why does my back hurt so much? And I'd heard about back labor, but I just didn't think it would apply to me, because the midwives were all like your baby seems like you know he's in a great position. I didn't have like any history of back pain. I was in really good physical shape. I had spent, you know, I had done like all my pregnancy. I was like walking and gardening. So I was like always squatting down in the garden and like with my hands in the earth, just like digging and walking, and I felt like that was like really good preparation and, you know, spinning baby stretches.
Melanie: 25:13
So I didn't expect that I would have back labor and I think the reason I did was because I was well. I think there's two reasons. I think one of them is that I was in a car accident when I was 15. And, to the point I was, I was so bad I was told I wouldn't walk again and I am literally like my body is miraculous for that healing because I can walk, I can dance, I can do whatever I want to do with my body, which is amazing and such, a, such a gift. But I do think that because of that injury, there had like something in my sacroiliac joint from overcompensating or from healing, even though it was like 15 years ago meant that there was some tightness or something. That's my guess. And then also since then, I've done a lot of like somatic healing and realized that I just hold a lot of trauma, as a lot of us do, in our hips and our back and I think that I just was holding so much and not even realizing it.
Melanie: 26:13
So I don't know, I mean it was a mystery, but the back labor was gnarly. It was, the contractions were painful, but fine, it was the back labor, like it. I could have been in those contractions and just been totally fine, but the fact that like halfway through a contraction my back would fully spasm was like cause. Then I would be trying to relax and I it was literally like I would be on my knees, you know, in this like position of like lower, like you know, softening, lowering opening, and then I'd have to physically like pull myself inward to stretch out my lower back because it was so painful, which meant that like I wasn't able to relax into the contractions, as is ideal, and it meant for a very made for a very, very long labor. So, you know, I like this whole part part is a blur because I just was like so tired I couldn't keep food or water down and like, remember I'd only had five hours of sleep the night before and I'd ate like nothing, rookie mistake, um, but you know I I just was in and out of the birth tab, walking up and down the stairs, and then I remember the early hours.
Melanie: 27:32
I went back into the garden, I was in a lot of pain from the back labor and then it just was going slowly. It was just like I don't know, it was that whole part. It was like a whole day. So another 24 hours pass and then had your water broken. Nope, so my water hadn't broken. The midwives were checking my dilation and I was dilating super slowly, like and so, okay, the next, so this would have been Thursday night. So Friday afternoon I just they had me, they, they, they invited me to sit backwards on the toilet, which actually my contractions in that position almost went away and were not painful at all.
Melanie: 28:37
The back labor was gone and I got on the phone with my grandmother and she had me start singing, which was actually when I was in my car accident. The way that I got through the pain is like a 15 year old. During one of the procedures they did, I wasn't able to be put under and it was so, so, so painful and the way I got through it was singing and she was there for that. So she's like I know you're in a lot of pain, let's sing through it. And singing was it was my favorite part of labor because I felt it was my favorite part of labor because I felt and you know they talk about how, like the vote voice and the jaw opens up the pelvic floor and I found there was a specific pitch that my voice could hit that would completely eliminate the pain. And since then I've looked into into this and there it's because sound is frequency, right, and our body is all frequency and our body responds to specific frequencies. And so it turned out this specific pitch was like the princess pitch. So I was singing Disney songs, because that's what my grandmother had me sing, cause you know she knew that I know, like all of the Disney songs from my childhood, I love fair tales and, um, I studied fair tales in college, so it's a huge thing for me. And so she had me singing like colors of the wind, you know, and singing in that register, and I would sing songs in like a lower register and it wouldn't do the same. So it was like the princess pitch allowed me to just like feel completely pain free and I think you know my body was just fully resting at this point.
Melanie: 30:16
So what happened next was like the where things shifted. So I was singing, doing my thing upstairs, the midwife comes up and says, you know, I think that, oh, because I felt Leo drop down. I wasn't pushing, but I felt him going deeper into my pelvis, and I guess the midwife, when I said that I feel him dropping, interpreted that as I was pushing, but I wasn't, and so that was happening for like an hour or two and she was like I think you should actually do some coached pushing, even though on my birth plan I had no coached pushing. And this is something that drives me nuts. Because we have a birth plan, it's really hard as the birthing person to not agree to whatever somebody says to you, because you're just in this like altered state and that's why you have a birth plan. And so the fact that there was like this opportunity to break the birth plan, I was not thinking.
Melanie: 31:21
Clearly, you know I was in labor land, so I agreed to it because I was just like, well, whatever, let's go, let's get the baby. And you know, I thought about hiring a doula, but all three of the midwives that were present at my birth were also trained doulas, and I had my husband there, and so I was like I actually don't want a ton more people present, like I'm already gonna have three midwives and my husband, like, who are all trained. You know, all these midwives are trained to do this. Why would I need to do that? But that would be the moment when a doula would have come in and been like, actually, she says she doesn't want coach pushing, and so if I could have done anything differently, it would have been to get a doula outside of the midwifery practice, because that was when things shifted.
Melanie: 32:01
My body wasn't ready to push and I think I was probably like nine and a half centimeters dilated. I was really close to 10 centimeters dilated, but then they had me pushing and it just it didn't feel right, you know. And so I pushed for six hours and over that it just got really dark and the midwife, at a certain point was like we should, we should manually break your waters, that'll help. And so I didn't want to do it, but should we should manually break your waters, that'll help, and so I didn't want to do it. But again, it was on my birth plan Please don't do any intervention but I agreed to it and the water broke, which felt like it did not feel good, it felt like a transgression and it's so. I mean, it's just so hard in birth when the provider that you trust says something that you want to do and I realized that you know I had.
Melanie: 32:57
What I realized after birth is that a lot of women carry too, is this fawning thing. Like you know, fight, fight, freeze. There's also the fourth response that a lot of women, especially Carrie which is to fawn. So I felt really vulnerable and there's no experience like birth, where you feel so alone because you're completely alone in your pain and the challenge and in the darkness and in the cosmic mystery of it all and it I felt so alone and what that triggered in me was this desire to like, feel safe in the way that my subconscious has felt safe due to like childhood trauma is to fawn and to be agreeable, to be a good girl, because if I'm not, I would get punished in abusive, abusive ways as a child and I didn't realize how that would show up, like I done so much work already in my life, I didn't realize that like I was still carrying this stuff, but it came up in birth and it's why it's so like I thought these midwives throughout all of the prenatal visits they were so conscientious, but it was because they also hadn't slept for days.
Melanie: 34:07
There was like this extenuating circumstance with my midwife where she had a personal situation going on. I think she just wanted to go home, which I don't blame her for, like she had some stuff going on, but I do blame her for not upholding our agreement with my birth plan. That was not okay and she later I mean afterwards she apologized for it. She took accountability but like that didn't take away the experience, because what happened was I was pushing for six hours and then she said that she felt Leo's. She reached in. She was like, let me just feel what's going on. I said, okay.
Melanie: 34:40
She said she felt Leo's head swelling, which is called cap it, and it happens in 25% of pregnancies is not actually like a huge indicator that something has gone wrong, but the way she communicated it to me at the moment I had never heard of it. So she said your baby's head is swelling. Of course I'm going to be like, oh my God. And she's like I think we should go to the hospital. And I will never forget that feeling of just complete defeat. I felt like I had failed and I felt like I wouldn't care if I just died in that moment because I was so tired. I hadn't eaten in days. I felt so alone. I'd already felt transgressed against and then to say your baby's head is swelling, you should go to the hospital. I mean, in that state it's. That is not OK to say to a birthing person, it is not OK. But so I agreed and it was yeah. I mean, the hospital was everything I thought it would be and everything I was trying to avoid. So you know, they're like threatening.
Angela: 35:48
How long did it take you to get to like kind of packed up and like?
Melanie: 35:52
I packed a hospital bag, cause I prepared for everything. I'd had a hospital specific birth plan and a binder. Um, I didn't. I didn't think I was going to go to the hospital. But you know, I'm a like, I'm a Capricorn, which, if anybody knows what that means, I'm like a very like practical. Oh, I'm not like that. I mean, I'm a very magical person. But I also like I plan and prepare. I'm I'm like I have structured. Um, so I I planned for it.
Melanie: 36:17
I think I stood in the shower for like 20 minutes while everybody got everything packed up, and then we it took us 20 minutes to drive and my husband hadn't been sleeping either, so he didn't drive us. He called his mom to drive over to pick us up and then take us to main med. And on the way I remember just being in so much pain because, like I mean, I was 10 centimeters dilated, leo was like very much in my pelvis, and then at a certain point we were driving in my in and it was the middle of the night and like some guy pulled out in front of my mother-in-law and she had to slam on the brakes, and so I thought like we were getting into a car accident and I freaked out. I got so scared and then Leo released meconium. I felt it happen because he felt my stress. He got stressed. So then, of course, when we got to Maine med, they're like you have meconium, like this is the NICU team needs to come in. And I actually wasn't. I know there's a risk, I know it can be very scary, I know people have lost their babies from this. But because I had had meconium and been fine, I was not scared about it, I was. I was scared that I was going to be violated, which I was.
Melanie: 37:29
So you know, I had my birth plan but the midwife, she didn't take it out of the birth bag. Like I packed it up in the birth bag and it stayed in the birth bag. She did not show it to the nurses and did not. I guess she verbally communicated it. She said but like I had to like plan my husband.
Melanie: 37:52
So when we got to the hospital room they were like you're probably going to need a C-section and I was like fuck, no, I'm not doing a C-section and I just need to rest. So give me an epidural, I will sleep and then I will push this baby out. It is like the back labor. That's getting in the way. If I can just relax and rest and get some fluids, have some jello, I can push this baby out.
Melanie: 38:16
And I did like I knew what I needed at that point and it wasn't what I wanted, but I was able to advocate for that and so, yeah, they gave me an epidural and they gave I didn't want Pitocin, I didn't think I would need it, but they gave it to me nonetheless and I figured I was like, well, if I'm getting an epidural, like you know, a small amount of Pitocin, I'm like whatever. At this point I just was like surrendered. So my husband was sleeping, the midwife was sleeping and I was resting, and then two nurses came in and they were actually like really caring and they were really nice and I then pushed for another couple hours and then when I was getting close you know, they just were so like I just what I don't understand about birthing professionals Like I could still, even though I had the epidural, I could feel my contractions and so I'd be like another contraction is coming. And they're like, no, the screen isn't showing that Like are you sure? And I'm like what I'm in my body? Like I am sure. And of course it was always coming.
Melanie: 39:14
It was just so bizarre and like when one of the nurses called me Melissa and my name is very much Melanie, and she was like push Melissa, and and my name is very much Melanie, and she was like push Melissa, and I'm like that's not my name, what are you doing? This is like the most sacred experience of my life and you're just like calling me by the wrong name and again like this is what I knew to expect, but it's what I hoped to avoid, and I even hoped to avoid it with the midwife there but she was like gone, um, she was not there. And my husband was like completely out of it, Also not there. So when it came time to actually push Leo out, they had this whole other team come in. They had the NICU team there and in the corner of the NICU team they were talking about their coffee order, like somebody was talking about like a caramel macchiato, and I was like what is going on?
Melanie: 40:00
And then, like I had said explicitly on my birth plan, I didn't want any students, but it turned out a student was there to like catch Leo and this was because the midwife that was acting as my doula did not take the birth plan out of the bag and was like completely out of it. The one thing she did do that I really loved, though she had them bring a mirror in so I could watch myself push Leo out, and that was amazing to be able to see Leo's head emerge from my body, and it actually helped me push in a better way, so that I will like totally give her points for, because I never would have thought of that. So I, leo is emerging from my body. I'm just like into full disbelief. Like this is you know I'm well into. Like this is I went into labor, felt those comes out and I say I want to step pushing because I wanted to my body to push him out.
Melanie: 41:08
The rest of the way, my midwife says nothing, my husband says nothing, nobody even responds to me. Like you can see it in my birth video. Like I say I want to step pushing, nobody says anything. Like this random person reaches into my vagina without my consent and pulls Leo out, which is sexual assault. Like come on, you can't reach into somebody's vagina when they're literally saying don't like and there was no reason.
Melanie: 41:37
I guess they were like freaked out about the meconium, but he was clearly fine, he was pink, he wasn't blue, like he was not inhaling anything. So then I, you know, I didn't even realize he was coming out of my body when he was, because somebody pulled him out. But I reached up and I put them on my chest and I started singing to him that song that I'd sang to him and I just surrounded him in this bubble of love and then they were like okay, dad, time to clip the umbilical cord. And I was like, and Sam, my husband just was like okay, and I was like, no, we're doing delayed cord clamping. So it was just so crazy to me, like he, you know, he was out of it Cause he hadn't slept.
Melanie: 42:15
My midwife was like, totally tapped out from her own trauma stuff that was going on, and I was the one advocating, which, like I'm still so proud of myself for. So I was able to negotiate. I wanted like 10 minutes of delayed cord clamping. I negotiated to like, I think, a few minutes. They they were so weird about it but I kept negotiating and I fought for it. But I also like to have to negotiate something when your baby has just emerged from your body and is on your test and you just want to be focusing on your baby and not negotiating with a medical professional is just like so crazy. Like you know, that's literally why I was paying my midwife to be there, but she didn't do her thing and I'm still really proud of myself for for holding that line. Um, they gave me a couple of stitches. I tore like a tiny little bit, it wasn't a big deal and Leo was totally fine. The NICU team left and I got the golden hour or two or whatever, and he latched perfectly and breastfeeding I'm still breastfeeding him. He's two and a half, so that was a breeze.
Melanie: 43:22
And yeah, after the birth, I mean I felt I had PTSD Like I've never. I will say it was hard. It doesn't seem like it makes sense, but because of the way the PTSD lands and what a specific kind of circumstance that is way the PTSD lands and what a specific kind of circumstance that is, it was harder to heal from the PTSD than it was to grieve my mom's death. My mom died eight months after my son was born and then my mom's mom, my grandmother, died two months after that and I had PTSD throughout that whole period of time and it was harder to be in PTSD than it was to grieve the deaths of these women who raised me, who I love very, very much. And that's how I guess, just to paint a picture of how all consuming birth trauma can be.
Melanie: 44:12
And coming off of the birth, nobody understood, you know, nobody got it. They were just like you have a healthy baby, you should be fine. You still got to birth vaginally, you still got to be at home most of the time and I'm like you don't understand. I was assaulted, like what? And people were like you're just a perfectionist, you just have control issues. And I'm like this is not a personality flaw, like this is a trauma. And it took so much work for me to convince my husband, my family, that what I was experiencing was real and I just. It took so much work to find the right therapist who wouldn't like, who actually got it. I worked with or, yeah, it wasn't until the fifth therapist that I found who would, who lives in Australia, she's not even here and I found her because I was watching a talk about how social media creates unrealistic expectations and pressure on women for birth, which was amazing. And I found her and I was like this is the woman and I still work with her to this day and she's a midwife and clinical psychologist and I still work with her to this day and I like she's a midwife and clinical psychologist and I really credit working with her for helping heal.
Melanie: 45:31
And I did, even though I didn't have like I had lingering lower back pain, I didn't have like any major symptoms, but I went to pelvic floor therapy to help heal the trauma in my body and I did a lot of spiritual healing. I mean I really did it from all directions. But it took a year and a half for me to like feel okay and it was really really hard. Um, cause the resources just weren't there for me, especially in the natural birth spiritual community. It was like the resources were there but they were not looking at like the way I look at birth is that it's this like sacred rite of passage and the birth trauma resources were like more about like clinical depression and I'm like, but how do I, when I feel abandoned by the divine feminine, because this was like supposed to be this huge embodiment of the divine feminine and it ended up being traumatic, what does that mean about who I am in my relationship to my spirituality? Like, was I abandoned by the goddess, like how, how could this have happened? And I could not find any resources for reconciling those two belief systems of like being you know this like divine, feminine, worshiping, spiritual, woo, woo person. With this, like clinical experience that I had me. I mean, of course it was a lot of healing, but what allowed me to really make sense of it was the idea that we are often initiated and like, obviously some people listening to this will be woo-woo, some won't, so take this or leave this.
Melanie: 47:15
But like for me, you know, looking at, as I said, my great uncle was a medicine man and I did a vision quest with him. He initiated me and when I viewed my birthing experience as a vision quest, which is an intentional, traumatic experience, you go out. I mean, this wasn't my vision quest, was not this hardcore, but historically you go out into the woods by yourself, no food, no water for days. That sounds really traumatic and exactly like what I experienced. I was by yourself, no food, no water for days. That sounds really traumatic and exactly like what I experienced. I was by myself, no food, no water for days, or it felt like I was by myself. I mean, I was abandoned by the people who were supposed to advocate for me right in the moment, and I was like Whoa, like if I can view this as a sacred initiation, even though I was in a hospital, even though I ended up with these medical interventions, like all of it is connected Right and so can I view this like a sacred initiation.
Melanie: 48:12
And who I became from my healing journey has meant that I have so like I mean, I just have so much more. I had depth before but, like I, I just have this whole other level to me that I didn't have before. It's like indescribable. But you know, the deeper you can feel within yourself, the more understanding you have of the universe and and what you want in your life, and the more capacity you have to live it purposefully and to see the ways you might be getting in in the way of of yourself. And so I just know I feel like I carved out this like whole greater depth of my soul, which, of course, is not only a benefit to me but it's a benefit to my son and my mothering experience.
Melanie: 49:00
Um, but that was the big shift I had to make for my mindset and it didn't happen for like 18 months, just like trauma processing and now being two and a half years out, you know, I hold a lot of reverence for myself, especially in those moments when I felt completely abandoned. When I felt completely abandoned, the fact that I was able to still advocate for myself and my son. I really, really, and just sing to him and like, put us in this like force, field of love. I really, like I'm so proud of that and, you know, next time I'm probably going to free birth because I do not trust anyone and that's what I mean. No, I can trust people, but like man, I, yeah, I would definitely.
Melanie: 49:54
I'm thinking like next time I would have, just like all of my friends there who I know I can 100% trust, you know, and to have like more, even though theoretically, like I wanted it to be very intimate, I think I would actually have more people there, because the more voices you have, the more people you have to intervene and advocate and conversate and be there and support, especially with such a long labor. My husband felt really, um, like he couldn't take care of himself because he was the only person, like the midwives were like in the other room, so he was just like with me for days and he wasn't able to like eat or sleep either, and he felt like he wasn't able to be present for Leo's birth because of that, and so I think having more people would have been actually really good because people could have switched off. But yeah, that's. That's what I would do differently.
Angela: 50:45
So do you care to share um the therapist in Australia that you found that was really helpful for you.
Melanie: 50:52
Yeah, her website and Instagram is the birth council. Her name is Athena and, um, I don't know if she's currently accepting any any patients, but she is amazing. I mean I highly recommend and there's I've since, you know, since working with her, I've I found there's like a lot of birth trauma specialists. I just didn't find them. Like I couldn't find them. I don't know if that was for a reason or not. I just could not find the birth trauma specialists that also had the like kind of spiritual edge that I was looking for.
Angela: 51:27
Yeah, wow. So now, as just a final question, if you were to give advice to someone who's expecting, or even new parents, what would be the biggest thing you would say?
Melanie: 51:47
new parents. What would be the biggest thing? You would say, um, I guess it would really be to and this will resonate more with people who are more spiritual, but I think could resonate with with a lot of people regardless. I mean to view it as an initiation and to trust in the sacred wisdom that comes from going into the darkness and whether the darkness is present, in just the inevitable, like completely out of control feeling that birth is and how it stretches you and pushes you into your gift, and always medicine. That comes from that type of initiation.
Melanie: 52:32
And in fact, if I had had the exact birth I wanted to, I would have been really stuck in the toxic positivity of it. I really would have been judgmental to other moms who didn't have their dream birth Cause I would have been judgmental to other moms who didn't have their dream birth because I would have been like, well, I manifested my dream birth. So like if you didn't, clearly you did something wrong. You know like that voice is so prevalent in the natural birth community. It drives me nuts now, but at the time I was like felt like I was in complete control because everybody's like you have your vision board, you manifest your birth and you advocate for yourself and you do your thing, but I did advocate for myself and I did all of the things and I still ended up in the experience I didn't want.
Melanie: 53:09
And what that tells me is that you know a lot of the women who are saying they have their perfect birth and that they willed it into existence.
Melanie: 53:18
That might be true for them, but that is not true for everyone, and it also might just be luck.
Melanie: 53:27
It might just be that they were in a perfect ecosystem that was conducive to them having the experience they wanted, and the ecosystem I was in was not conducive to the experience I wanted. And I think it's like you can do all of the preparation you want, but there are forces that are beyond our control, whether that's in the practitioners or our partners or, um, the baby, you know, the baby themselves and even just the greater mystery of fate, right, and so when we talk about surrendering to birth, it's really easy to be like just surrender to the pain, surrender to the process. It's really hard to surrender to the intervention and the things you don't want to happen, but trusting in that there is always medicine in the darkness and if you can go into the darkness and collect that for yourself. It'll be of service not only to you but to the world at large, because the deeper that we can go in our healing journey, the more healing we can bring to everyone around us.
Angela: 54:35
Yeah, I totally agree and that's so well said. Thank you so much, Melanie, for sharing your story today. It's very powerful.
Melanie: 55:07
Thank you. Thank you so much, Melanie, for sharing your story today.
Angela: 55:08
It's very powerful, thank you. I hope that if anybody has a shared value system of sacred birth and isn't able to have a birth that feels sacred in an obvious way, that this allows them to feel more connected to themselves in spite of whatever has happened.
Melanie: 55:14
So will you share a little bit about your business before we wrap it up? Sure, yeah, I have a few different offerings in my business, so my one of my favorite offerings is my guided rituals membership, and this is something I started doing. I started doing guided rituals in 2020. Um, and I have a library of over a hundred mini rituals. They're all 20 minutes or less and it's a really beautiful way to bring spirituality into a daily practice that is accessible. It's kind of like a guided meditation app, except with like divination and a little more mystical connection, and, for me, like meditating in silence 20 minutes a day, like I was taught to do when I was in my yoga teacher training, was not accessible. I need a lot more like magical stimulation and and like visioning, and you know affirmations and music, and so this has a lot of um tools and practices that I bring into the ritual themselves, and they're only 20 minutes or less, so they're really easy to fit into your day and, especially as a mom, that has been a really great way to keep my spiritual practice alive and to deepen my spiritual practice. Really great way to keep my spiritual practice alive and to deepen my spiritual practice. I also have a 13 week um initiation program. Actually that I think was really birthed out of everything that I integrated from my birthing experience, um, but it's for people who feel like they have, they don't have their own spiritual practice like clear yet, or they want to show up and be a spiritual leader or like ceremony practitioner or ritual facilitator and they just they don't want to appropriate other cultures, they don't know how to, like you know, put all these pieces together to create their own brand of spirituality. And so this, this process, is meant to be an initiation of using universal spiritual tools, guiding people to uncover the magic practices in their own ancestry, in their own belief systems, and to bring that forward in a way that they can share with the world. So it's called the initiation and I'm about to launch the third incarnation of that.
Melanie: 57:21
And then I have a program that I've been running for four years. That is an internationally accredited coach certification program. I started after I'd been doing self-love coaching for many years. I'd had people be like how do I do what you do? And I was like, well, here's the list of, like all of the you know tens or hundreds of thousand dollars I spent in certifications to patchwork this work together, and then somebody was like, can you mentor me?
Melanie: 57:49
And so I was like what, who am I to do that? But I ended up doing it and it turned into this really beautiful online course training program that's now had hundreds of graduates. So if anybody listening is interested in starting your own wellness and self-love business, this is a really great program to do that. And how is what allowed me to be a full-time mom and multiple six-figure business owner, which is I built my business with the mindset and intention that I would be able to fully commit to motherhood, and it took me years, of course, but then when I finally did become a mom, I was like I did it. So that whole course is. It teaches you how to do, how to do that for yourself through self-love coaching If that's something that calls to anybody.
Angela: 58:35
Oh my gosh, I love it. So will you share your information one more time on how people can get ahold of you?
Melanie: 58:40
Yeah, the best way to connect with me is on Instagram at the self-love lifestyle, or you can go to my website, melanie monacocom, which links to all of my programs and offerings the guided rituals, membership, the initiation and the self-love coach certification program and I offer workshops pretty regularly as well. So, um, I have a workshop in March that's all about about fairy tale psychology and like creating a magical story out of your dark lived experiences. So if you, maybe, if you're processing birth trauma, that would be a really beautiful way to rewrite the story in a way that feels magical for you and also authentic to what happened and is rooted in the work that I studied in college, which was the psychology of transformation through the lens of folklore, mythology and fairy tales.
Angela: 59:27
Awesome, so I will have all of your information linked in the show notes for anyone that wants to contact you. And yeah, thank you so much for sharing today. It's been such a pleasure talking with you.
Melanie: 59:40
Thanks, angela, I appreciate it.
Angela: 59:44
And that's the end of another episode of the my Main Birth podcast. Thank you for joining me and listening. If you're looking to document your birth story or if you're interested in doula support for your upcoming birth, head over to my website, mymainbirthcom and check out my packages. I am a certified professional birth photographer and an experienced doula, and I offer in-person services to families throughout the state of Maine, as well as virtual birth coaching worldwide. I want to invite you to grab my top free resource for newly pregnant moms. It's called 37 Questions to Ask your Care Provider, whether you've already established care or if you're in the process of interviewing new providers. This is for you. Not only are you going to get the questions to ask, but I also share how to assess their answers and the major red flags that you should be looking for. So go grab that. It's at mymainbirthcom slash download. Thank you again for tuning in and I look forward to bringing you more amazing birth stories. Don't forget to subscribe and leave me a review, and I'll see you back here again next week.