*Trigger Warning: This episode contains sensitive discussion topics including infant loss, miscarriage, preterm delivery, and hemorrhaging.*Lizzy has a passion for all things birth and babies as reflected in her amazing 10 kiddos! Her birth stories in order are as follows: an emergency C-section, VBAC, RCS, VBAC, HBAC, VBAC, HBAC, RCS, and a twin RCS. Though Lizzy has chosen to birth differently than most, she has always made sure to do what her intuition has felt is best and what ...
*Trigger Warning: This episode contains sensitive discussion topics including infant loss, miscarriage, preterm delivery, and hemorrhaging.*
Lizzy has a passion for all things birth and babies as reflected in her amazing 10 kiddos! Her birth stories in order are as follows: an emergency C-section, VBAC, RCS, VBAC, HBAC, VBAC, HBAC, RCS, and a twin RCS.
Though Lizzy has chosen to birth differently than most, she has always made sure to do what her intuition has felt is best and what she and her husband felt was right for their family. Through the highs and lows, every decision was made from a place of peace, not fear.
We want all women to feel confident in the birth decisions they make. The VBAC Link is here to provide you with the education and resources to do just that!
Additional Links
How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents
Full Transcript under Episode Details
Full Transcript
Meagan: Hello, hello. This is still 2023. I cannot believe it. I am sitting here right now recording and we’re just getting into the holiday season thinking that this is going to be airing in 2023 and it’s just crazy to me. I cannot believe that 2023 is here.
Today, we have quite the stories for you. And guess what? We have a special cohost and it’s Paige, our transcriber, and a dear VBAC Link family member. So excited to have you with us, Paige. This story is even close to your heart because this is your family.
Paige: Yes, this is my sister-in-law, Lizzy.
Meagan: Yes, so exciting. You guys, I can’t even tell you. I’m sitting here looking at her notes right here and she has so many stories and they’re all different like, crazy, crazy different. But Paige is going to do the review and then we’ll get started.
Review of the Week
Paige: Yes, I am. So my review comes from an email sent to us just a few days ago which is so exciting. It’s from molly and she says, “Hi there. My name is Molly Marshall and I just wanted to reach out and send a review of the pod. I’ve been listening for quite some time now since I had my first baby in August of 2020 via C-section. It was absolutely the opposite experience that I was expecting to have mixed with a scary pandemic.
“After that, I began listening to your podcast just to hear other women’s stories who had gone through similar experiences. This made me feel a lot less alone. Once we decided to try for a second baby, I began listening to the pod even more frequently on top of lots of other research and such. Just last week, on Wednesday, I welcomed my second baby boy via successful VBAC. I give so much credit to your podcast and what you’re doing because it was the driving force and motivator for me to push for my VBAC and I’m so, so glad I did. It was truly a redemption story and I’m so thankful for the work you’re doing. I told so many people about the podcast and I hope to be able to help any friends of mine explore VBAC too if they desire. Please don’t stop sharing these stories. It means the absolute world to those of us listening.
After my second birth, I just want to scream it from the rooftops that VBAC is totally possible even if feels overwhelming and out of reach. Needless to say, I love your podcast and you’ve changed my life. Thank you so much.
-Molly”
Meagan: Oh. When I saw this review come in, I got teary-eyed. I really got teary-eyed. It meant so much and I’m so happy for her and so happy for everyone who’s listening. Even if it doesn’t end in a VBAC or even if that decision through listening to the podcast isn’t to go for a VBAC, if there’s any just even slight, one tiny little thing that The VBAC Link can bring to you whether it’s empowerment, education, whether it’s processing something through learning, whatever it is, that just warms my heart so to hear that review, I love it. Thank you so much, Molly.
As always, we’re always accepting more reviews to read on the podcast. You can really submit it anyway. She submitted it through an email. You can send it to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or you can go to Google or you can go to Facebook or just send us a message on Instagram. Whatever it may be, we love your reviews. I seriously, I’m not kidding. I wish I could have had– you know the Taylor Swift TikTok thing where the mom is dancing and the kid is recording but it’s really recording them? I wish I could have had that because I wish I could really portray the emotion that I was feeling reading this review.
Paige: So sweet.
Meagan: Oh, it was amazing. So thank you so much.
Lizzy’s Stories
Meagan: Hello, hello VBAC listeners. This is Meagan here. I just wanted to drop a quick trigger warning in today’s episode. It does contain some details and verbiage that may be triggering or alarming to the listening ear.
Okay, Lizzy.
Lizzy: Hi.
Meagan: Hi. Thank you so much for being with us today. I cannot wait to hear about all of your incredible births. And you guys, when I say all, I want to say that she has 10 kids. 10 kiddos. Isn’t that amazing? I love it so much. I love being a mom. I don’t know if I could do it with 10 kids. It takes a special person, Lizzy. You are incredible and I can’t wait to hear about all of these births.
Lizzy: Thank you. Perfect. Well, I guess I’ll just start from the beginning. I had my first baby in December 2011 and I was horribly uneducated. I didn’t even know what the birth process looked like or anything really. My husband is the oldest of 9 kids and his mom is very pro-natural birth. She had her last two babies at home with only her and her husband there and so my husband was very pro-natural birth, but we were still newly married and trying to figure out how to talk to each other. You know, have communication.
So I was about 10 days overdue with my first baby. I went into a doctor’s appointment and they were like, “Yeah, everything looks good but do you want to be induced? Usually, by now, women are begging me to get the baby out of them.” I was content and pretty happy, but I was like, “Oh. I guess meeting my baby might be a really cool thing,” so I was like, “Sure, let’s do this.” I wanted it to be a little less invasive, but like I said, I wasn’t super educated. My husband was like, “Maybe we should try to do as little as possible.” I was like, “Okay.”
So we checked into the hospital the next day and they broke my water which, I remember it’s like a legitimate crochet hook. They came in and opened the package and I was like, “That’s a crochet hook.” They’re like, “Um, it’s a medical instrument.” I was like, “No, it’s not. That is just a crochet hook from JoAnn’s.” But anyways, so they broke my water, and then I just chilled for lots of hours and didn’t have any labor. Nothing happened.
So then they came in and they were like, “We’re going to put you on some Pitocin to see if we can get things moving.” So they put me on Pitocin and every time I had a contraction, his heart rate started to drop. So then they got really nervous understandably and it had been lots of hours since they had broken my water and they were worried about infection. It was just the classic cascade of interventions, so we ended up doing an emergency C-section.
It turns out, well, this is what we assume. I wasn’t actually in the womb to know what was happening, but he had this huge dent on his forehead like he wasn’t lined up in the birth canal right like his forehead just kept getting caught on my pelvis. But he was 10 pounds, 11 ounces and he was just this big baby. Then that was his birth. I had been told that nursing counted as birth control which is not true. Anyone listening, that is such a lie.
Meagan: But so many people think that though. Just FYI, they really do. You’re not alone out there.
Lizzy: Right? So 3 months later, I was pregnant again. I remember it had been 3 months. I turned to my husband and I was like, “Did I have a period this month?” He was like, “I don’t know.”
And then I took a pregnancy test and I was pregnant. I was like, “Oh, there we go.” That’s when I really started getting into VBACs and birthing and getting educated. I gained a lot of weight with my first pregnancy like 40-50 pounds. So with my second pregnancy, I followed the gestational diabetes diet because when I tested, I wasn’t officially gestational diabetic, but I was right on the border, so I was like, “Maybe there’s a margin of error and I probably am.”
So I followed the diet and I maybe moderately exercised, but probably not. Mostly just dieted. And then I went into labor on my– oh no, that’s right. Sorry, I have to remember. There are a lot of stories.
Meagan: There are so many, yeah.
Lizzy: I also did HypnoBabies last minute because I was like, “Wait a minute. I want to do this VBAC, but I have no education really.” And so I started listening to HypnoBabies and going through that whole program. Then one day, I decided to walk home from church because I was so sick and tired of having this baby in me. I was, I think, a few days overdue. For some reason, we had expected him to come early, but he just wasn’t. So I powerwalked as fast as I possibly could for half a mile, three-quarters of a mile until I was so sore, I almost couldn’t walk anymore.
I got home and I contracted a little bit, and then it all petered out and I went to bed. I woke up the next morning and just was contracting throughout the day, just gradually building. It was the perfect labor story kind of and then that night, I was like, “Okay. It’s time to go to the hospital.” We actually called my mother-in-law to come down because we wanted her to help us labor because she was so pro-birth and we just wanted an extra person in our court.
My husband was so supportive. We were laboring and it just was going. Every time, I was like, “This is awful. Give me an epidural,” my husband was like, “No. It’s okay. We can do this. Just keep breathing. One more contraction and then just face the next contraction.” We really worked through it together and it was a really beautiful experience.
My mother-in-law was really awesome. My husband was sitting on a rolling stool while I contracted and every time I contracted, I basically just headbutted him on that rolling stool. He was trying really hard to give me counterpressure, but that’s really hard on a rolling stool, so my mother-in-law just stood behind him and braced him the whole time. She didn’t say anything. She just was there making sure the process could continue and it was so wonderful for my husband and I to do this really hard thing together. It was so bonding and beautiful for us that that’s part of what we love most about vaginal birthing is just the relationship builder it is to be able to go through something so hard and painful together and do that.
And then he came out. It was a VBAC and he was 8 pounds, 2 ounces. His was just the classic, what you read about in a textbook how a baby is born vaginally. That was awesome and we were so excited about that. We had done it and there was all of this joy and it was so happy. I healed faster and I felt better.
And then I had a miscarriage pretty early on, I think 6-8 weeks. Right after the miscarriage, I got pregnant. I did not watch my diet. I did not exercise. I gained a lot of weight and finally, I was two weeks overdue. Actually, I was a week overdue and they were like, “Hey, maybe we should think about doing something.” I was like, “No.” I was seeing midwives and I was like, “I need to give it the whole two weeks. I have to know that if I wouldn’t have waited a little bit longer, if it wouldn’t have just happened.” I really pushed them all the way to the two weeks and then I just never went into labor.
Actually, that’s not true. A few days before, I had hard labor for 3-4 hours and then stopped and nothing else. Except for those couple of hours, nothing had happened. I felt nothing. Finally, I went in and we did a planned C-section. She was 10 pounds, 14 ounces. I think my body was just like, “Um, friend? I’m not sure I can do this. This is a really big baby.”
There was that and then on my fourth baby, I learned my lesson and I went back to my diet and my exercising. I went into labor on my own and went to the hospital. I’m a very vocal laborer. I yell and I moan and I say mean things about the baby when I’m in transition. My midwife was getting really nervous because she had never seen me labor. She had been there for my C-section baby, but she had never seen me in active labor. She kept turning to my husband and saying, “Is this normal? Is she having a uterine rupture? How do I know what this pain level is?” My husband was like, “No, no. She’s okay. This is just how she does it.” But she was super nervous.
She kept pushing me to try different positions and it wasn’t my favorite birth. She ended up having me lie on my side with one knee pulled up high to deliver the baby and I just didn’t love that position. It wasn’t terribly comfortable, but the baby came out and we had a VBAC and everything was happy. That was awesome.
And then my next pregnancy was a set of twins. I had a subchorionic hemorrhage and I bled a lot. I would wake up regularly in the morning with blood stains the size of cereal boxes on my bed.
Meagan: Oh my gosh.
Lizzy: I would call my provider and be like, “Hey, I’m bleeding,” and they were like, “Well, as long as you don’t have any cramping, you’re fine. Bleeding’s okay. Cramping is bad so when the two of them happen together, call us.” But I just was bleeding so much and it was so weird. I remember just feeling like these babies were going to come early. I just had this feeling. I remember counting down to viability because I was like, “Oh good. At least now, I know they can make it if I deliver.”
A few days before they were born, I started passing really big clots, and then a few days later– oh, and I had gone into labor and so I went into the hospital, and by the time I got checked in and lay down and had all the cords hooked up, they were like, “You’re not in labor anymore.” I felt like an idiot because I was like, “I’ve already had four kids. I know what labor is,” but they were like, “Make sure you’ve labored for at least an hour with strong contractions before you come back in.”
I felt very patronized and patted on the head and sent back to bed. I just felt humiliated. I went home and I was like, “That’s it. I’m not going back unless it happens for two hours because I’m not doing that again.” Getting sent home from the hospital is the worst thing ever. It’s happened to me a couple of times and I just hate it.
So then a few days later, I started going into labor again. I was like, “Okay.” So I drank lots of water. I lay down on my left side. I took a shower. My husband was trying to get our kids in bed because we had four other kids and they must have known something was up because they were being awful and super rowdy. So finally, we just locked them in their rooms. My husband came to check on me and I was still laboring. I was like, “You know what? It’s been two hours. I think we should go.”
It was actually funny. I remember going to him after about an hour of labor and being like, “Ugh, I just don’t like this baby anymore. This hurts so bad. I don’t want to do this anymore.” He chuckled and said, “Haha, it sounds like you’re in transition.” We both laughed and then I went back to my room and kept laboring because, in my mind, there was no way you could have a baby in two hours. It just wasn’t possible.
I went back to my room and he finished up with the kids and then I was like, “Okay. It’s time to go to the hospital.” So we called our babysitters which were these three little girls that lived across the street, these sisters that were 9, 8, and 7. They came over and they were sitting in the front room. I was like, “Okay. I need to go to the bathroom. I think I’m having some gas cramps. I’m going to see if I can work something out.”
My husband knew because the same thing had happened to his mom when she felt like she needed to go to the bathroom and had a baby. He was like, “Wait. I know what this means,” so he followed me, and all of a sudden, I was like, “This is not right.” I started pushing and I was like, “Oh my goodness, something is coming out of me. Honey, what is happening?”
I stood up and the baby fell out. My husband just caught him right before he hit the water.
Meagan: Oh my gosh.
Lizzy: But I was 23 weeks and 6 days. So he was a pound and a half. His entire body fit in my husband’s hand. His head was the size of a clementine. He was just so little. I remember my husband laid down–
Meagan: Way preterm. Way preterm.
Lizzy: Way too early. I remember he laid me down in the shower and put the baby on my lap. We just all of a sudden were like, “Okay. What do we do now?” He was moving and it looked like he was grunting, but we couldn’t really tell if he was breathing or not so we called 911. The amazing thing was as we were figuring out what to do, we just felt so peaceful. We’re very religious and we just felt like God was like, “It’s okay. It’s okay. Now you should call an ambulance.”
Meagan: Wow, I’d be like, “Ahh!”
Lizzy: I know and that’s what I expected, but we both took a deep breath and were like, “Okay, now let’s call 911. We can do this.” So we called them and the paramedics get here. We’ve totally forgotten about our babysitters so these paramedics just come in through the front door. These little girls are like, “Um, what’s going on?” They come back to our bedroom and it seemed like it took them forever for me to get on the stretcher and out to the ambulance. I think they were waiting to see if I was going to deliver my other baby because twins usually come pretty fast in succession.
I remember laying there being like, “Why aren’t you taking me? Why are we just sitting here? My baby is maybe not breathing. Can we get a move-on here?” But as soon as I got my first twin out, twin A out, my body just stopped. I don’t know. It just didn’t need to contract anymore. It was like it just turned off. They got me in the ambulance. There was a hospital just a couple of blocks from our house, but it was a very small hospital. I think they had a NICU, but it was for 37-week babies who needed help with breathing. It was not well-equipped for this situation.
They took me to the OR. They cut the cord and whisked twin A off and tried to get him breathing. It ended up taking about an hour to get him oxygen because they didn’t have any neonatologists there. They just had pediatricians. So he was on the phone with the neonatologist trying to figure out how to intubate this pound-and-a-half baby.
Meagan: Holy cow. So baby was breathing, but not well, not enough.
Lizzy: Yes, that’s my memory.
Meagan: So they had to really help this baby’s undeveloped lungs to breathe and give baby oxygen.
Lizzy: Yeah. He was not going to survive on his own. He was not going to make it without intubation. But then I never delivered the placenta so they just sanitized the part of the cord that was hanging out and shoved it back in.
Meagan: What!
Lizzy: They wanted to keep the other baby in as long as possible, so they didn’t want to induce labor to get the placenta out. They were like, “You know what? We’re just going to put this back in and see what happens,” because everyone figured that probably within 24 hours, I was having my other baby. They gave me all of the shots. The magnesium, the steroids, and everything. Magnesium is awful. My whole body felt like I was on fire, from the inside out burning. I don’t like magnesium, but I understand its purpose.
Meagan: Yeah, it has a purpose, but it definitely makes you feel crummy.
Lizzy: Yeah. So then they transferred me to a different hospital and they just watched me. They were like, “Okay.” It had been 24 hours and I hadn’t had the baby and they were like, “Well, I guess we’re just going to check you into–” I think it was labor and delivery and they were like, “You’re just going to chill here until you have a baby.”
Meagan: Just curious, so they didn’t transfer you, right?
Lizzy: They did after.
Meagan: For baby number two, they transferred you to a better hospital.
Lizzy: Yes. Once they had me stabilized and realized that I wasn’t having another baby in the time it took to get to the hospital, they sent me. They transferred me.
Meagan: Let’s get you to a place that can handle a 23-week birth.
Lizzy: A micro-preemie, yeah. And as soon as they had Cayden, twin A, stabilized and had him intubated, they transferred him too by life flight because they couldn’t help him there.
Meagan: Okay, gotcha.
Lizzy: So then, I was in the hospital for 11 days before I delivered my second twin.
Paige: With four kids at home.
Lizzy: Yeah. My husband was working and trying to play mom to four kids. He definitely had the hard job. I mean, I was sitting in that hospital room for 11 days making homemade thank-you cards and making jewelry and I was like, “This is amazing. This is like a mom-cation. This is awesome.” I’d go sit and look at my baby. I mean, it was a little scary, but it honestly was really relaxing. I felt so bad for my husband because he was doing everything and was holding it together really well considering everything he had to do.
Paige: And it was over Thanksgiving so we all came and visited you.
Lizzy: That’s right. It was Thanksgiving.
Paige: I remember visiting Cayden and his body was just so translucent, so tiny. But yeah, that waiting place.
Meagan: Wow, wow.
Lizzy: Yeah. And so then 11 days later, I just went into labor on my own. Well, the other thing they kept trying to decide was which is better? The baby does better in the womb, but if he gets an infection, that’s worse. So they kept balancing the, “Do we induce you or let it go?” So they monitored me really closely for infection, but I didn’t show any signs and then 11 days later, I just went into labor on my own. I remember my doctor– oh, Dr. Dabling. I’ve been trying to remember her name for the past three days. I finally remembered it. She was super awesome.
We loved her and she came in. She was like, “Okay. I really think we should give you an epidural.” I was like, “This baby’s going to be itty-bitty. It’s just going to literally fall out of me. That’s not going to be painful.” She was like, “Yes, but I’m really worried the placentas aren’t going to deliver well and that I’m going to have to go in and scrape them out of you and that will be very painful. I really suggest you get the epidural.”
So I did because the idea of people scraping things out of me was sufficient to push me to an epidural. They gave me the epidural and my husband got there. Twin B was born and they immediately whisked him off and got him to oxygen. He was set and stable within a matter of minutes. I delivered my placentas just fine and it was a great delivery. That was that.
That was awesome and we were excited that both babies were here, but then four days later, twin B got an infection and died.
Meagan: *Gasp* Just a random infection?
Lizzy: My understanding, there were a lot of medical terms that I don’t understand, but they automatically put babies that young on antibiotics as soon as they’re born because they know that infection risks are high. He had been on them for about three days and wasn’t showing any signs of anything. It’s not good to be on medications you don’t need. So they took him off the medication and then within about 12 hours, he was looking really gross. He wasn’t looking good and then 12 hours later, he was gone. He was so little. He was 2 pounds. I’m not angry at anyone. I don’t feel like it was anyone’s fault. I feel like this was God’s plan.
The fact that Cayden was born at home, twin A, and didn’t have any oxygen for an hour and didn’t have any of the drugs and is still alive today and his twin brother who was born in a hospital with everything and everything he needed and then died, it just seems so clear to me that God has a plan and that this is what was supposed to happen and so it did. You can try and control things and do the best you can and that’s great. God wants you to do that, but in the end, what needs to happen happens.
So I came away with a lot of peace and not very much anger. I was really fortunate in that. I mean, it was so painful. It was so unbelievably painful and it was really interesting because we learn that my husband and I grieve in different ways. When my husband grieves, he wants to be around family and be supported and be around people and I just want to hide and be alone. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t want anyone to tell me it’s going to be okay. I just want people to say, “You’re right. This sucks. This is so painful. I’m so sorry.”
That was hard moving through that, but we figured it out and we’re doing a lot better now. Then, we got pregnant again. I was so nervous. I was so nervous that something was going to go wrong and something was going to break or the baby was going to die. I just couldn’t. I didn’t know what was going to happen and it was very stressful for me. The pregnancy went really well. It was a very smooth pregnancy, but I still had all of these lingering fears that something horrible was going to go wrong.
I went into labor and we checked into the hospital. The room they put us in to be evaluated was two doors down from the room that we said goodbye to our little boy. It totally shut off all of my labor. We tried walking the halls to get things working, but we kept running into people we knew from the NICU and his respiratory therapist and it just brought back all of the memories and all of the fears. We just couldn’t do it. My labor totally shut off, so they sent us home and I remember as we drove home, I said, “I can’t do it. I can’t go back to that hospital. There are too many hard memories there.”
My husband felt the same way. He said, “What if we do a home birth?” I was like, “Are you nuts? I’m 39 weeks pregnant, 40 weeks pregnant. This baby is coming. We can’t do a home birth.” He was like, “Yeah, we can. Let’s do it. We’ll call my mom. She’s delivered babies. We could totally do it.” We were like, “Okay. I guess we’re going to do a home birth because we know we can’t deliver in the hospital, so I guess that’s the only other option.” So we called his mom and we were like, “Hey, we need you to come to help us deliver this baby.” She was like, “I’m sorry, what?” But she was wonderful.
Meagan: “Are you serious?”
Lizzy: No, I know. She was like, “Okay, well when do you want me to come down?” We were like, “Now. If you could get in the car now, that would be great.” She was like, “Okay.”
Meagan: Oh my gosh.
Lizzy: Because we had just been to the hospital for labor, so we assumed it was imminent. We were like, “No, really. I think you should head down here because, at any moment, I could go into labor again.” She came down and then it was a whole week. She just hung out at our house. I remember finally one day, I was like, “I need you to leave my house for the day. I can’t see you. It reminds me that I haven’t had my baby yet. I need to stop ultra-focusing on this and I need you to just– you have a daughter that lives here. Go visit her. Go away for the day and come back. It’s not that I’m angry at you. It’s all that I’m thinking about.”
I finally just went into labor on my own and it was a really hard labor. I was in transition for two hours. It was much harder and much more difficult than my previous labors had been, but then she came. It’s actually really funny because it was kind of early in the morning like 6:00 or 7:00 and she came out. Like I said, I’m a really vocal laborer so there was lots of yelling and lots of screaming. My kids were awake. They were watching a movie in a different room while we were trying to have this baby and so she comes out and 15 seconds later, my son walks in the door.
He’s– gosh, I don’t know– probably three or four. I think four is about right and he walks in the door. He goes, “Is that the baby?” I mean, there’s blood. There’s fluid. We’re trying to make sure this baby is breathing. She has just come out. We’re like, “Yep, it is. Can you go away, please? Give us a few minutes.” He’s like, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh, okay.” So he leaves and 30 seconds later, he comes back with all of our kids and is like, “Look! Mom’s had the baby!” And we’re like, “Yep, we did. Can you please give us just a few more minutes?”
But it was so beautiful and so wonderful. I laid down in my own bed. It felt so healing after our traumatic twin birth and not being able to face the hospital and everything associated with that. To be able to have this successful home birth where we were all together and my kids climbed in bed with me, it just was wonderful and beautiful and everything that we needed.
And then we got pregnant again.
Meagan: I love it. And then another baby. After a really healing birth, though. That had to have been just so special.
Lizzy: It was so special and all of my kids are about 12-18 months apart. I have 10 kids and my oldest turns 11 next month so they are all really, really close which is something else that was really interesting is that a lot of times you hear with the VBACs and with getting pregnant after a C-section, you need to wait 9 months. You need to wait a year. You need to wait 18 months before you even get pregnant or whatever and we just did what we wanted. I mean, you definitely should consult medical professionals with your specific instances, but we felt really good every time we got pregnant like, “Yep. We’re ready to get pregnant. Let’s do this again.
We feel good about this,” so we went ahead and did it even though I don’t think any doctor in the world would advocate doing what we’ve done.
But we got pregnant again and my water broke the very first night of our family reunion. This was a week early or so and everyone was coming up for the weekend to our house for a family reunion. That night, my water broke. I was like, “Oh my goodness. Everyone is at our house and we were planning to do another home birth.” So I told all of the moms that as they were putting their kids down to bed, I was like, “I don’t think you want your kids upstairs. I’m probably going to be in labor all night screaming, so find someplace farther away so your children will sleep through the night.”
So everyone was kind of like, “Why aren’t you going to the hospital? Your water has broken. What are you doing here? Why are you having a home birth?” But we were good with it. We were just like, “You know what? This is what we are doing.” I went to bed that night trying to sleep knowing what was coming and then woke up the next morning and I was like, “Wait a minute. I was supposed to have a baby. What happened?”
I was hanging out waiting for labor to happen and we hiked a small mountain to have a bridal shower for my sister-in-law, all the while I’m like, “Okay. Maybe this will get it started. Maybe not.” Finally, it had been 18 hours or something, and nothing. Not even really any contractions and I was like, “I think maybe we need to call someone now.” Infections are real as we know, so let’s get on the phone with someone. They were like, “Your water broke when?” We were like, “18 hours ago.” They were like, “Will you please come into the hospital now?” I was like, “Yeah. I’ll come in.”
So we checked in and actually, the doctor I met there was not my normal doctor. My normal doctor was on vacation and getting back the next day. So we had the guy that was just on call and he was actually really supportive. He was like, “You know what? Let’s try giving you a little Pitocin, just a little something to maybe get things going and see what happens.” He was totally on board with, “Let’s go for a vaginal birth.” But I was feeling a lot of fear. Something about having a vaginal delivery did not feel right to me. I was scared and scared of the pain, to be honest.
Part of me was like, “I don’t want to. That’s so owie. I don’t want to do that. If I just do a C-section, they’ll drug me up and I’ll have a baby.” Which, I knew wasn’t true in my brain, but I wasn’t really thinking clearly because I knew that the delivery wouldn’t be painful, but the recovery would be so much worse. But at that moment, I was like, “I just really don’t feel good about this.” I was really torn and my husband was like, “You want to pick a C-section?” I was like, “I think so. Something doesn’t feel right about this.”
So I finally did. I said, “Can I just choose to have a C-section?” And they were like, “Yeah. Yeah. You can do that if you want to. We’ll go prep the OR.” They started the C-section and I could feel everything. It was awful. I kept telling them. I was like, “You guys, this really hurts. I can feel you cutting me.” They were like, “Oh, it’s okay. The pain meds are kicking in.” The anesthesiologist kept pushing more drugs. He didn’t understand why I was feeling this, why the pain meds weren’t working. It turned out that because I was feeling so much pain, I kinked my wrists. I was flexing my wrists because I was in so much pain and it kinked my IV so none of the drugs were getting to me.
So when they finally realized that, they were like, “You need to relax your hands.” I did and all of the drugs hit me at once. I remember watching myself floating away from my body while Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds played in the background. I’ve never been stoned before, but I’m pretty sure this is exactly what it feels like.
But yeah, I remember I was like, “Bye Lizzy,” as I floated away from my body and it was all psychedelic. It was really intense and I remember them asking me and then the rest of the C-section was pretty much a blur. They got the baby out and I remember them saying, “Do you want to hold your baby?” I was like, “Nope. I don’t even know where my arms are, so please don’t put that baby on me because it’s just going to fall off of me.”
I was so out of it and it was just weird. It took me a long time to come back to even afterward. I didn’t hold my baby, I don’t think, for a couple of hours because I just didn’t feel enough in control of my body that I could do it safely. But he came and that was happy, so that was his birth.
And then we got pregnant again with twins. I was so excited. I had prayed for so long. After Levi, our twin, died, I prayed for so long that we would get another chance at twins. I had always wanted twins and I thought that was so cool. I said, “Please, please, please give us another chance except it’s got to be a different outcome. I can’t do this dying thing. Please send us twins and make them healthy and happy and it’s going to be great.”
So we got pregnant with twins and I was so excited except I was bleeding again and it was just like the first time. I was so scared. There were huge blood stains, but the bleeding seemed to heal itself a lot faster. It totally went away so I was like, “Oh, great. This looks awesome. This looks like we’re in a good spot.” And the rest of the pregnancy went really well. It got time to deliver. Now, I currently live in a very rural town where they have a hospital, but they were like, “We don’t have enough blood on sight that if you hemorrhaged, we could save you. We really think you should deliver somewhere else. We like you. We love taking care of you. We’d really love to deliver your babies. You should go someplace else for your safety just because you’re a high hemorrhage risk with the number of kids you’ve had. You’re having twins. They’re high risk because you’ve been bleeding. Please go somewhere else.”
So we did. We went to a hospital two hours away. We scheduled it and we showed up and got all ready and went into the C-section and everything. I actually asked, “Can I record the C-section on my phone? Is there an extra nurse that can take a video of my C-section?” Because I’ve always wanted to see myself birth a baby but I always forget to tell people that I want to do that. So we’re in the middle of birthing and my husband is like, “Oh, do you want a mirror?” and I’m like, “Just get this thing out of me!” I’m not in the mood to deal with it at that point. I don’t know. I’ve never even watched birth videos of other people having babies because I just want to watch myself. The first time I see it, I want it to be me.
So I asked them, “Can some nurse record this?” He was like, “Um, yeah. Sure.” So I totally have a video of my C-section on my phone which is a little disarming to watch actually.
Meagan: Oh, I wish I had mine.
Lizzy: My kids have watched it and they think it’s very cool. I remember as they were doing the C-section, I got so nauseous. I really thought I was going to throw up everywhere. I don’t know why or what caused that, but the babies came out and everything was beautiful. I had these two beautiful girls that look totally different and were a pound and a half different in size. I was in the recovery room and all of a sudden, I noticed that all of the nurses were starting to get really agitated. My husband was there with me too and they were like, “We’re going to take the babies to the recovery place. We need to help mom. Are you okay with that?” My husband was like, “Yeah. Take the babies away. I’m going to stay here with mom.” They were like, “Okay, good.”
I started hemorrhaging really bad. I wasn’t sure really at first what was going on, but I could just tell that something was wrong. Everyone was starting to panic. The doctor came back, so they finally told me, “You’re hemorrhaging. We’re trying to get it to stop. We’re going to try some stuff.” I was like, “Okay.” Then they proceeded to punch down on my most recently cut open belly and that was the most excruciating pain I have ever felt. Oh my goodness. It was awful. They just kept pushing and pushing trying to get my uterus to start clamping down again and it just wasn’t happening.
They told me. They were like, “Okay. We previously discussed that you don’t know if you’re done having babies or not, so we don’t want to do a hysterectomy if we don’t have to. We have one more thing we can try, but if not, we’re going to have to do that. We’ve got to stop this bleeding.” So we were like, “Do what you can. But we understand that emergencies happen.” So they took me in and did this crazy– I was so out of it. I was in so much pain and said, “Whatever you do, if you have to take my uterus, will you please just put me under? I’m so done. I can’t feel this anymore. I need to be put out.”
They were like, “Yes. I promise I will put you under if I have to put you in surgery again.” It’s called a uterine artery embolism. They took a picture of my uterus and all of the arteries from above, and they shot contrast fluid into all of the arteries. This doctor had to take a probe, a really long cord, and he went into the femoral artery in my leg. It had to go up around my heart and back down into my uterus. I don’t know medicine does these things, but it was so crazy. They take a still picture of where all of my arteries were and he would guide the probe by feeling through my body. They’d take another picture, see what it would look like, and he would push it through until it got to the artery and filled it with the medical equivalent of minimal expanding foam and just totally clogged up that whole artery so that it couldn’t bleed anymore.
Meagan: Very fascinating.
Lizzy: I know. It was a total miracle. Our doctor told us afterward that I think it took him a total of 20 minutes to do it and he said, “I’ve never done it faster than 45.” This was unbelievably fast and wildly successful. It stopped the bleeding and I was able to keep my uterus, but it was a hard recovery after having the C-section and then getting pounded on after that and then all of the procedures afterward, it was a really rough recovery. And I was older. I had lots of kids. It kind of all compounded and that was the recovery, but the twin girls were here and they were beautiful and so happy. I was able to tandem nurse which was something I hoped I would be able to do and now I have these 10 beautiful children that are just adorable.
Meagan: Oh my gosh. I love it. Yeah. I mean, wow. What a journey you have been through. Holy smokes. I am sorry about your loss. That is hard.
Lizzy: Thank you.
Meagan: I definitely felt the emotion in your story after, but thank you so much for sharing all of these beautiful stories and this journey that you have been on. It has definitely been quite the journey. So many unique things. You mentioned it yourself talking about waiting until you’re 18 months after to get pregnant or give birth and things like that. Between your C-section and your first VBAC, you said 3 months.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Meagan: 3 months. So we know that it’s possible. I think the biggest thing is yeah, there are all of these studies and I think that everyone needs to read the studies, educate themselves, and then make the decision that is best for them, but it’s really just that. Make the decision that is best for you and for you, your kids are closer and it sounds like you have such a happy crew for sure.
But yeah. Are there any tips that you would give to our listeners especially going through such high and low emotions from each birth? Do you have any tips that you would give our listeners?
Lizzy: I think I would say that each birth is its own birth. You need to be able to let it unfold the way it needs to without worrying about what has happened previously. Every birth can be so different. I felt a lot of fear after we lost our boy that it was going to happen every single time after and once I realized that this is a new baby. This is a new experience. I just need to have faith that it’s going to work out, I think that helped a lot, and just saying, “You know what? Yes. That happened. I hated that. It was awful. I don’t want to ever do it again. I’m going to try heading forward believing that this is going to be different.”
Not to the point where you ignore bad signs or bad feelings, but just where you say, “You know what? I’m going to let this baby be it's own and not be controlled by the fear of my previous pregnancies.” That was a big help for me to let each baby be their own.
Meagan: Oh, I love that because especially with VBAC, we have this past and sometimes they are traumatic. Sometimes they are not. We all have experienced different Cesareans and things, but we still have this past birth and for me, I mean, even with my third, I was triggered because I had similarities to the way the labor started. I had to truly be like, “This is a different baby. This is a different birth. This is years later.” I had to try to stay present in this space and not flash back to three years ago or two years ago. It’s really hard to do.
Lizzy: It is very hard.
Meagan: Yeah, but I love that you said that. Each baby and each birth is individual.
Lizzy: And I think the other thing I tell myself a lot is a healthy baby is most important. The end goal is a living baby at the end. As long as I get a baby at the end that’s healthy, it’s going to be okay. The experience might not have been what I wanted, but the thing I really cared about was the baby. That was the end goal. The end goal was getting the precious, perfect, beautiful baby and every time, I got that. So every time was a win because that was my expectation. Now, I had other expectations too, but would I have rather gotten the perfect VBAC to have my baby die? No. My goal was to have the baby and so you try as hard as you can, do everything you can, and if it doesn’t go the way you want it, you still get this beautiful baby and that’s what’s really the happiest about this. You got the baby.
Paige: I think what I look up to the most about Lizzy and her stories is that no, it’s not conventional. I don’t think there is anybody in the world who has had similar stories quite like Lizzy’s with kids that close together. I mean, typically in families that have a lot of kids, it’s kind of all vaginal– I mean, I don’t know. Right?
Lizzy: Yeah. I think it’s mostly vaginal births that are very successful.
Paige: I think Lizzy’s stories are very unique because there are C-section stories sprinkled in there and then a VBAC. We can all relate to that feeling deep within us of being drawn to VBAC and it’s like, “I know this is a little riskier. I know this isn’t maybe what a doctor would recommend initially.” I mean, hopefully, your practice is supportive. But that calling is in your heart and you go for it because your intuition is telling you that your body can do it. And that’s what Lizzy has refined. She has refined her intuition to be able to listen to that, follow it, and recognize that there is this calling to have these babies and bring them to the world in lots of different ways but also to move forward not in fear, but how she feels is appropriate.
It’s probably not what’s going to work for you or for me. I’m not going to have 10 kids, but I can still look up to Lizzy and I’ve taken so much inspiration from her as I prepared for each of my births because she understands and has such a heart for birth and unconventional ways of birthing in the way that’s right for you.
Meagan: I love that. Yes.
Lizzy: I mean, I’ve now had four C-sections and I knew after my third C-section that no provider would let me vaginally birth again. Even after two, most of them say no but because I had accidentally had those twins vaginally, it kind of opened that door back up for me, but I knew that once I had another C-section, I was done. I’d never vaginally birth again and there’s part of me that still really mourns that. As I think about having more kids, I’m like, “Maybe I should just go off the reservation and have another home birth.”
Paige: We talk about that all the time because I’ve had three now. Lizzy has had four and we’re like, “We can do it.”
Lizzy: Right? Let’s just be each other’s midwives and deliver our babies at home in secret.
Paige: So TBD what is in the future. We don’t know.
Lizzy: So part of me does mourn that I’m not going to get that experience again because I think I know that it’s not good for my body with the history I’ve had that it’s probably not medically very smart for me to try and do that. But that’s okay. You know, because I’ve been through a lot and I got the baby and that’s what matters. I got the baby.
Meagan: Yeah. Oh, well thank you so much for sharing all of your stories today and being here with us, taking the time out of your day. I know time is so precious and I just feel that in so many ways you’re going to touch someone out there listening just like Molly said in the beginning. In this podcast, every story is going to connect with someone differently, and with all of your stories, I guarantee there is someone out there who is going to connect or has maybe had a similar situation or was told something similar or something. So it’s going to be amazing. Thank you so much.
Lizzy: Well, thank you for having me on. I love talking babies.
Meagan: So do we, obviously.
Closing
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