My Maine Birth - Chesari’s Maine Birth Experiences at St. Mary’s Regional Care Center in Lewiston, Maine

Welcome to MyMaine Birth, a space where we share the real life stories of families 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. From the first feelings of pregnancy to the first cry of your newborn, we explore the journey of childbirth in all of its beauty, intensity, and emotion. Whether you are a soon to be mom, seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth, these episodes are for you!

If you are looking to document your own birth story, I highly recommend considering my central Maine Birth Photography services. I am a skilled professional central Maine birth photographer and am very passionate about capturing the raw and emotional moments of the birthing process. I design a personalized and intimate photo album, creating a beautiful and lasting memory of one of the most special moments of your life. For more information head over to https://www.mymainephoto.com

Today’s birth story guest is Chesari, and we are going to be hearing about her experience birthing her children with the care of the midwives at St.Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine. Chesari Dubois is a Reiki and Holistic Women’s health Practitioner and the owner of Flow Healing Arts.

Join me and listen here to my conversation with Chesari. Scroll down for the full transcript.

Angela: Hi Chesari, welcome to MyMaine Birth

Chesari: Hello!

Angela: So to start will you share a little bit about you and your family?

Chesari: Yeah, so my name is Chesari, I live in Minot Maine with my two kids Liam and Liv and my husband Brian. And we live on a homestead, we’ve got some chickens and ducks and sheep and goats, and I’ve been homeschooling them for the past few years. I’m working alongside other homeschool families, so that is my other gig. A lot of the way I have been spending my time has been influenced by having kids, both in terms of how I spend my days with my kids, raising my kids and how that affected me as a woman.

Angela: Can you tell me about when you found out you were pregnant and the care that you chose?

Chesari: Absolutely

Angela: Oh my gosh, so I can’t believe my son Liam is turning 10 in August. I can’t believe its been 10 years. I remember finding out I was pregnant, it was just before thanksgiving. And it was a surprise pregnancy, and we were really excited. It was kind of a wild year to be honest with you because I had just that fall started a one year masters degree program in social work and so I distinctly remember this entire pregnancy just being a very tiring one, because I was definitely in a very intense clinical program, working, doing an internship. So trying to prioritize self care for he and I was a little bit of a challenge. But it was all in all a good pregnancy. So I did choose to go with a midwife, and for both of my pregnancies we went with St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston. Overall we enjoyed the experiences we had there. I think for both of them, we had really just done the 20 week ultrasound where we had chosen to find out the sex for both of them because we were eager to know and plan. And it’s funny because I remember distinctly thinking that my son Liam was a girl, I was very surprised to find out he was a boy. So having a sort of holistic sort of mindset, we definitely enjoyed going with a midwife. We tried to keep testing to a minimum. We did find out that I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with Liam and that was a bit of a surprise, but I was able to control it with diet which was really nice. It was a little bit of a journey though, I remember having to check my sugars and all that. But then with my daughter Liv I didn’t have that issues. Yeah, but it did create a big baby.

Angela: So how did your labor start with Liam.

Chesari: So he did not want to come out, so at 41 weeks they ended up inducing me and I think part of that was I had the gestational diabetes and he was set to possibly be a big baby, and he was. So they did induce me, I remember going in the morning before and it was a long, very painful process. I got the Pitocin and I remember just sitting and waiting, and all of the sudden it kicked in - and it was very intense. I mean at that time I had nothing to compare it to, he was my first - but the labor, the cramps, it was pretty intense. He wasn’t born until 1:41 the next morning. Again, it went overall considering. From the beginning I didn’t want to do the epidural or any sort of pain management. I think at the last minute I remember howling and sort of wishing I had done something. But overall, I was happy that I had made that choice and that it worked out. Yeah, so it was a journey. I sort of remember moving around, I remember being in the tub, in the bed - I remember at one point I was not ok with laying down, I actually delivered him standing up! Which was different, again there were a lot of difference between my son and my daughter - because I was in the tub when I delivered her. So it was a journey! As it always is, right? Things overall went very well, he was a big headed 9 pound, 3 oz baby which totally shook me because I was all of 105 pounds before I had him.

Angela: How was your postpartum time and what did that look like for you?

Chesari: I remember, I mean so he was our first - and I was young, I was 22. And its like, as much as you prepare yourself for it, there’s really nothing that can prepare you for having a baby, for what it is going to feel like in your body, and for what it is going to feel like to care for a little person. And I just remember feeling so shaken by it to be honest. Like I remember getting home and being like - what are we doing with this baby? And you know, you settle into it very quickly, but I remember feeling very weak. I had gone into the pregnancy with anemia, so I very distinctly remember my postpartum time being very weak. I remember people coming to visit, and I remember feeling like I couldn’t stand up for very long - and this was weeks later. So I definitely, looking back, especially with the work I am doing now, looking back I was pretty depleted - I was very much in need of some nourishment at the time. And it was especially hard because at the time the job that I was doing, working social work - I needed to go back to work in 6 weeks. So looking back, I’m like ugh that was so heartbreaking - we found a daycare where we knew the family and so we felt as good about that as we possibly could. But I remember, it was very challenging trying to get back to the swing of things, and to get back to work - I had a really hard time leaving his side. And so that brought about a lot of emotions, and again I felt like it took a long time the first time around - especially when I compare how it went postpartum with Liam compared to my daughter Liv 5 years later. It actually took me some time to feel like myself again for sure.

Angela: So five years later, you became pregnant with your daughter, can you share more about how that all unfolded

Chesari: Its funny, we never planned to have kids so far apart in age - but I do think that the birth experience, as well as things did go, compared to some - really kind of shook me and the healing process kind of shook me. So originally, I think we would have chosen to have our kids a couple of years apart but I just wasn’t ready. So four years later, my husband and I were talking to each other and we were like we are either going to do this or we aren’t going to do this. And so this pregnancy was a little bit different, it was very planned. We sort of got it in our heads like, we are going to do this, and we are going to do this now. And we were very lucky like in terms of - we didn’t have any fertility struggles or anything like that - literally the month that we decided to get pregnant, we got pregnant. So we were really surprised about that and thrilled about that. At that point, reflecting on my pregnancy with Liv. I had, when Liam was about 2 years old, at that point I had already sent him to several different child care programs. And I had really struggled with not being by his side. Even though I was new in my profession, I was sort of fighting with things that I was doing, I graduated soon before I had him. But I really struggled with not being around him, so I had actually quit my job - put my career on hold - and decided to do a child care program at my home, just because we were so in love with the way that we were living here with him on the homestead with the animals - that we decided to open that up to other families. So anyway, that very much impacted my pregnancy going into it with Liv, because at that point I had a business - I had kids everywhere. So I was very busy and very tired. And at that point I had someone working with me and I am very grateful that I had the support that I did, because I think otherwise going into it with a pregnancy and a newborn would have been wild. So that was what was happening in my life during that time.

And so same thing, we decided to go with St.Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine and again went with a midwife there. And we had a really lovely experience at St.Mary’s. This time I felt like I kind of had my footing, I felt more comfortable and confident as a mom because I had already gone through this process. So we kept things really simple, I remember doing the ultrasound with her at 20 weeks, and we found out she was a girl. So it was kind of funny, at that point I was like - well I was wrong last time, I totally thought Liam was a girl last time so I don't know. And it was hilarious because my husband and both Liam were convinced it was a girl and I was like - I’m not saying anything because I thought it was a girl last time - and they were right! So they were quite proud about that. It was really something that was really cool about going through that pregnancy journey was having my son be four years old. It was just such a lovely age. And at the time we weren’t homeschooling yet - he was in Pre-K and he was known as the family man. He was just starting to write and sign his name and instead of signing just his name on his papers he would sign all of our names - Liam, Liv, Mom, Dad. He was just so excited to be an older brother, so it was really kind of lovely. And having him there for the ultrasound, it was really magical honestly, it was just really cool having him there for all of that. And to this day he is still a really incredible big brother, yeah!

Angela: So how was your birth experience this time around?

Chesari: It was very different, I was not induced. I was surprised, my water broke at home in bed and we were both sort of like, alright, this is happening. We kind of took our time, but we made our way into the hospital. It still took a little while. I remember we got there in the morning and she wasn’t born until 8:13 that evening. So it was a little bit of journey there too with laboring. But overall things went really well, I remember at the end she just - both my kids, just didn’t want to come out. So she came out and she was a little bit smaller - but both of the midwives could not figure out what was happening as I was pushing - because I was pushing and pushing and she was not coming. And then when she came out, she came out with a fist. Which describes her personality today as well, so it was just - we kind of laugh about that - she came out with her fist right next to her head. But yeah, overall healthy mom, healthy baby. I feel very blessed overall about the pregnancy and the delivery of the babies. It’s funny, it was more of a blur - I think I was a lot more out of it after having Liam. It just took more out of me and was such a shock to the system as a first time mom. But I really distinctly remember at St. Mary’s after having Liv - I mean they treated us like we were guests at this suite. The nurses were wonderful, they took such good care of us - I remember being a very lovely time, the short day that we were there. I can’t say enough good things about the experience that we had there at the time. But it definitely felt like a big adjustment though, going from one to two felt like a big step, when we went home.

Angela: So how was your postpartum time with Liv?

Chesari: It was nice, the timing was really great. So Liv was born on June 29th and at the time when I was running this child care program at home - I actually had all teachers, so we would close during the Sumer time. So I ended up with a much roomier time to rest and recover and adjust to life with Liv and with Liam. So we had the whole summer and then we opened back up in September. So I had a couple more weeks anyway there. So that felt a lot better than the six weeks and rushing back to work. It was nice knowing I would be home with them. But I will say, it was challenging getting back into the swing of things - being with a group of children all day long, let alone just my own - it was a big undertaking and again I am very thankful to having the staff that I had supporting me during that time. I remember I would be able to sneak out to nurse her to to try to put her home for a nap. And so having that setup was really helpful. But it was a lot. And the program that I ran for years was a nature based program and we were always outdoors with the kids, making fires, going on little hikes - and it felt so important to me to raise her in that and to stay with integrity to what I was doing regardless of having a baby. I was always very stubborn, I would never let anything slow me down. So I have pictures of her just a few months old, sort of sitting in the snow with us or sort of sitting by the fire with us. And so she was right out there with us. I had her in the little hiking backpack carrier and she went with us wherever we went. So that was lovely in many ways. And the joke for a long time was - she will always be baby Liv because we just had this community of kids who was like - it was like instead of having one older brother that was excited to have her it was like a whole community that came back and was sort of ready to tend to her so that was really lovely. But it was quite tiring. I definitely remember having my emotional challenges, struggling with depression, and then as time went on I feel like it caught up to me a little more as she got a little bit older. Like by the time she was two - that was also the height of the pandemic so there was a lot happening for all of us, right - but I felt like all of the sudden my anxiety had really just ramped up in a new way that I just hadn’t experienced before in my life. I was having panic attacks, I just wasn’t feeling like myself - I was feeling just increasingly depleted and weak. Which is interesting, because we talk about postpartum - we think of it being as a more short immediate time in a moms life. But the truth is - if you are depleted and sort of running yourself ragged you are not able to rebuild and replenish. And I think that was what happened with me. I had this holistic mindset, and I thought I was doing a good job but I wasn’t doing enough for myself - and I wasn’t sure where to go with that. So that did very much lead into my own healing journey. I became very interested in energy medicine, I became trained in Reiki - I have been practicing as a Reiki practitioner for the last year or so after having sort of been on my own healing journey with that. I think being a mom brought up a lot in me - and forced me to do some nourishing and tending to myself that I hadn’t been able to do in the past so I think thats a really beautiful thing and that has kind of lead me to what I am doing today.

Angela: wow so can you share more about your business and everything you are doing now?

Chesari: yeah, So I am the owner and practitioner at Flow Healing Arts so that is what started as more energy based work - which has been really lovely and rewarding using energy medicine to support particularly women in my experience - in processing emotions that really get carried in the body and take up space and vibration. And processing trauma that has happened in grief in our lives. Which has really been a really meaningful full circle journey for me, because my background had been in social work and originally before life happened, and kids happened, I really thought that I was going to go into this clinical path and do some sort of counseling. And I think that life sort of hands you what is best for you in this really wild way - because looking back - after my experiences in doing social work for a few years - this is a much more meaningful path for me personally. In terms of the energy work, and in terms of releasing people for the whole body, mind and spirit that they are. And I look back now with the training that I have and it is shocking to me that we aren’t talking more about nutrition, we aren’t talking more about movement and all of these areas in our lives that are so important. So to continue my story, along the way I had found a couple practitioners that were really beneficial to my healing. And one of them was a woman who runs a holistic women’s health program and I had worked with her to regulate my cycles postpartum and to really just support me through different aspects of my feminine health and I was so blown away by really the effect that it had on me - and the healing that it had on me - that when she decided to offer a holistic women’s health practitioner certification I just jumped on board. Which was not the plan, and I used to be such a planner, but at this point that has sort of gone out the window - I think what is right for you sort of emergences, I really believe that. And so I am finishing up that program currently, and have been working with some women this spring. But it has been a really lovely experience of understanding the body through the Chinese medicine lens of things so coming to really understand the constitutional patterns that we all have - and some of that comes from birth and from sort of inborn from what our parents give us - but a lot of it is lifestyle related and so much of that can be impacted by things like diet and movement and just how you are managing stress. And so thats really what the approach is centered around, so it’s really been lovely to get that education and background which has so much influenced my personal health journey. And I am so excited to share that knowledge and education with my daughter, to empower her as she gets older - that just feels like such a gift in itself. So to be able to do that and also marry my clinical background and my energy work background to really come together to hopefully sort of offer women a different approach to wellness. Especially in the realm of child birth and bringing children into the world - fertility is a really big challenge for many families, as well as postpartum issues. So those are two areas that I’m really excited to be able to support women moving forward with. I really truly believe that our western culture and the way that we are all function in this world right now, particularly in America - just doesn’t lend itself to a lot of nourishment and a lot of rest. We have so many stresses from so many different angles and we don’t live in community the way that we used to - the way that our ancestors did. I think that is especially relevant in a conversation about moms and postpartum - we often don’t have the support systems that we need to heal meaningfully in a sustainable way - and so I am really interested in offering that support to women and that community aspect of healing.

Angela: What is the best way to get ahold of you?

Chesari: So I am on social media, I am on Facebook and instagram @flowhealingarts This is a new adventure for me, the holistic women’s health - so a website is in progress - but social media is a great way to connect with me.

Angela: Alright, I will link all of your information so everyone can get ahold of you.

Chesari: Wonderful

Angela: Thank you so much Chesari for sharing your birth stories today!

Chesari: Yeah, I really appreciate you having me - its been fun!

And thats the end of another MyMaine Birth Podcast! Thank you for joining me. I hope the stories shared here have been inspiring and informative to all of my listeners.

If you are looking to document your own birth story I highly recommend considering my central Maine Birth Photography services. I am a skilled professional central Maine Birth Photographer and am very passionate about capturing the raw and emotional moments of the birthing process. And, I also design a personalized and intimate photo album, creating a beautiful and lasting memory of one of the most special moments of your life. For more information head over to https://www.mymainephoto.com/birthphotography and schedule a complimentary zoom consultation with me.

Thank you for tuning in an I look forward to bringing you more amazing birth stories. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review! And I will see you back here again next week!