#108 | VBAC in the Car: Opera Singer Gives Birth as Husband Drives on the Interstate

June 23, 2021

Emily Geller Hardman, a New York Metropolitan Opera singer, gave the performance of a lifetime with her unassisted VBAC in the back of the car as her husband sped down the highway en route to the Connecticut birth center from Pennsylvania.  At 37 weeks, she went into labor unexpectedly while at a wedding three hours from home. In the middle of the night, she knew she was in labor, and it was time to hit the road. After having had a Cesarean for her breech baby the first time around, she was well-prepared for a VBAC this time, and determined to  do whatever it took to have her second baby unmedicated and vaginally.  Little did she know, she would do it entirely on her own with the cool, calm, collected grace of only one who's spent their life performing under pressure with ease, sound, and breath work.  Tune in to this exciting, fun, and inspiring birth story. 

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View Episode Transcript

I think people thought when they when you think of giving birth in a car, you know, I think they didn't realize I've been preparing and really dreaming about an unmedicated VBAC for years. And I've been preparing my mind and my body and my soul and everything to do this. So it was not, you know, obviously I would have loved to move around. I would have loved you know, my lavender oil and tub and doula and midwife with the Doppler and that would have been ideal. But, you know, I did it and I did it by myself. And that's pretty badass.

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Hi, my name is Emily Geller Hardman, and I am an opera singer who lives in Briarcliff Manor and Westchester, New York. I have two children, a son Wesley, who will be three in August and daughter, Rosemary Claire, who will be four weeks tomorrow. And this is the story of my precipitous feedback car harbor. Amazing.

Not our first but it's amazing every time. So tell us first a little bit about your C-section.

Sure. So I was planning to work with midwives at the Connecticut birthing center. And Dan Berry, and I had a doula and I was all up in the natural birth world community. I listened to a ton of podcasts, read all the books, um, you know, was avoiding the cascade of intervention type hospital birth, I was really committed to having a unmedicated vaginal birth. And, unfortunately, my son ended up being breech, which I was totally down to doing a national breech birth. But unfortunately, near the end, I just ran out of time, and I could not find a provider, I was due right around Labor Day, and anyone that I called either the hospital wouldn't quote unquote, allow them to do breech birth anymore, or they stopped doing it just all together the doctor to stop doing them. Or the doctor was on vacation, or they only worked nine to five, Monday to Friday. So if I gave birth, not during business hours, it would be an automatic c section. You know, it was just like a lot of hurdles. So it was pretty exhausting. And in the end, pretty devastating that I wasn't able to have the birth that I was preparing for. That being said, I did have a great c section and it went really smoothly. I was able to advocate for myself and had one of the first gentle c sections at Danbury hospital. So we had a clear drape instance can Diskin 90 seconds of delayed cord clamping, I did know seating hand colostrum and, you know, brought that with me and syringes. So I was, you know, they had music playing the, you know, the doctor was really respectful of, you know, keeping all the talking to a minimum, you know, it was overall in terms of see success.

Just a quick question on that, how hard was it to get those requests met, like,

Oh, I just I met with everyone ahead of time and just said, This is what I want. And they're like, Well, we've never done that. And it just kind of came down to I was like, I totally understand if you're not comfortable. But if I'm doing a C section, these are the things that I want. And I'm happy to go somewhere else that if they they're comfortable, they're like, No, no, we can do it well, and they did it. Great. And they did it and the OB was was great. And she really, you know, she said this is how changes happen. You have to you know, the patient has to request it. So overall, you know, the recovery was was good considering but I knew that after I had that birth, I really wanted a VBAC for my next one.

Can you just talk a little tiny bit, Emily about you know, you said something like it was really a devastating experience. And clearly it went as well as it could have and it may have even exceeded all your expectations of a C section given that you seem to believe you really needed one because it was a breech, baby and there was no one willing To attend to breech vaginal delivery. What then what was hard about that birth? When you were when you had all these things to feel really at peace with it, it didn't feel like an unnecessary or did it feel like an unnecessary scissoring section?

Yeah, it felt unnecessary. I felt like I could push out a breech baby. Like, I just felt like I could push out a baby. But first feet first headfirst, and I just wanted the opportunity to do that. But I didn't want to free birth, you know, like on assisted I mean, ironically, later on, we'll get to that. But you know, I didn't want to, I didn't want a free birth. You know, a breech baby by myself in my backyard. That's just not so it makes sense. Because you I mean, it says it all when you say you really would have been willing to have a breech vaginal birth, it just that no one was no one stepped up being available to do so. So that explains it.

No, and at the time, at the time, for my first birth, I didn't feel comfortable traveling and having a like a midwifery, home birth or something along those lines. You know, now for my second, I had a whole breach backup plan, and I did an insane amount of research on breach because I thought, well, this next baby might be breached, too, I want to do everything I can to make sure that I have Plan A, B, C, D, E, you know, all lined up different providers, depending on what the situation is. So I took the breed without borders course and sent all my records to different different midwives and different OBS. So I had a bunch of backup plans all set up, but it ended up that she was in a really good position, maybe like a little too good of a position. I was doing chiropractic work with a Webster certified chiropractor, even before I got pregnant to prepare my body and work on my scar. So we did graston technique on my C section scar and dry needling and just trying to align my body as much as possible. And then I went weekly, the entire pregnancy. I was very tight and I were you familiar with the Webster technique in the first pregnancy? Did you do that to try to turn the breech? Yes. Okay.

Yes, yeah. So yeah, first time in terms of trying to get my son to turn I did everything under the sun external version, Webster technique, spinning babies, you know, every name it acupuncture, you know, whatever it is tied to that he liked his position. Yeah. So second, pregnancy was just a little more rough in general. I just feel like I was bigger, more comfortable. But yeah, in terms of preparation, you know, again, just like re educating myself a bunch of books, I read, mentally processing my last birth, really grieving that and going through that. So going to ICANN meetings, therapy, doing a lot of birth meditations to prepare for this birth and fear release. So I think that was really helpful, and then putting together a supportive team of so I was back with the same midwives that I was with with the first pregnancy, same doula that I hired first time around, that I didn't get to use, you know, either of their, their services. So yeah, just getting my husband on board, which was not hard. You know, I mean, he he just did whatever I wanted. For this birth. He knew how important it was. Yeah, just preparing for that. Everything went well. She once I found out she was head down, that was a huge relief. That was like the one thing that I was really nervous about. And then I was like, Great. Now this is just going to be a straightforward VBAC. So I was at a wedding in Pennsylvania. So I'm in Westchester. So it's about three, three and a half hours away. And it was my, my husband, Travis's cousin's wedding, I was 37, and four days. So at that point, you know, I was having some prodromal labor, but nothing, you know, again, people can have prodromal labor for weeks. So I wasn't, didn't really think too much of it. I certainly did not think that out of all of the day, you know, we're there for two days, and what are the chances that I'm going to go into labor at that point? Even if I was, were only three and a half hours from home? You know, what are the chances that I'm going to have a super fast first time labor at 37? weeks? Yeah, I just didn't think that it was that was a thing.

For me. It was a thing, just not a thing for me.

I think that is possible. Yeah, I knew that was possible. But I was thinking, Oh, I'm going to go post dates, I'm going to have to, you know, decline all of these scans and have all these ns T's and I think I was just preparing for the quote unquote, worst and having to fight for what I want. Even though the midwives were incredibly supportive, and you know, all of that, but I'm still working within a hospital system, because I'm gonna be back, I wouldn't be able to give birth at the birthing center, it would have to be at the hospital, so I'm still in their world. So we went to the wedding. It was beautiful. So nice to you know, after COVID I mean, we're still in COVID. But you know, after not seeing so many people for so long, you know, celebrating with family, and we were dancing and a bunch of people came up to me, I was huge. At that point. They were like, oh, you're gonna dance that baby That baby's gonna come out. You know, dancing induces labor, which is funny now, but at the time I was just so swollen and pregnant and kind of over it. Like, let me just dance without people constantly telling me that I'm gonna go into labor. fun time with my husband. Um, but it's fine. You know, like, we had a great time we went back to the hotel room, fell asleep around 1130. And at midnight, I felt like I had to go to the bathroom. I stood up and my water broke. You mean, you felt like you had to pee or Yes, sorry. Yeah, so I felt like I had to pee. And then I stood up and I was I first I thought I was paying. And I'm like, okay, I don't do that. Yeah, I don't usually, usually I don't, I don't do that. Nothing crazy. But this was a lot of fluid. And I just kept leaking, and it didn't stop. And then it just was like trickling pretty much the whole. So anyway, I woke up my husband around 1230. And I just said, Hey, I think my water broke, you know, but I'm GBS negative fluid was clear. There was no odor, I thought were good contractions didn't start. I thought, Okay, this is going to be a marathon labor first time labor probably going to stall out, you know, let's just rest for a couple of hours. Just get some rest. we'll wake up, we'll drop. We'll make the drive back. And I'll at least we'll be a little bit. We'll have a little bit of sleep. Which I think statistically, you know, that probably was the right call. Although, you know, in hindsight, we should have left immediately. So my husband was really tired. He said, yeah, that's fine. He fell back asleep. You know, he trusted me and, um, you don't have to twist his arm to go back to sleep, I'm guessing. Yeah, he's like, yeah, that sounds great. You're gonna have your night. But yeah, so from there, I tried to go back to sleep. I thought, Okay, I have to will myself to sleep. This is the time that people get excited. And they really should be sleeping. I need to sleep. So I'm trying to sleep. But I just kept leaking. fluids just kept leaking. To the point where I was just laughing. It was so ridiculous. Sounds like this is done. I have to at some point, I was basically from 12 to 3am. Just up and down, going to the bathroom, going back to that going to the bathroom, going back to bed. The poor hotel room like I used all of their towels. Yeah, but 3am I went to the bathroom. And when I wiped, I noticed that there was blood. I thought okay, bloody show. Here we go. Things are ramping up. No contractions, but we should probably head out. And then as soon as I thought that the contractions started, like pretty much immediately. So I woke up my husband, we packed up the room, he ran out to drugstore to grab some adult diapers for the car since I was still leaking everywhere. He didn't want his car to get ruined. Again, in hindsight is yes. Yeah, so we got in the car around 4am. And at that point, it's, you know, a little after three contractions started, they were immediately four minutes, three minutes apart, a minute long, intense contractions and I thought, wow, this early labor, who is early labor is hard. This is this is a lot actually. But I used a the gentle birth app. So I was using that throughout my pregnancy, for meditation, and then they just came out with a contraction timer. And we got in the car around 4am. From there, I was just using the contraction timer and I was in and out of the car a couple times stopping and starting. So we're in the car and basically, you know, things were really intense in the car, but I was just using the contraction timer and breathing. when things got more intense. I was doing lips rolls and lo moans just thinking okay, relax my jaw, relax my jaw, you know, don't tend to three and a half hours to get to the birth center. Is that right? He said three and a half hours?

Well, three and a half hours to my house probably closer to like four hours to Dan Berry. Okay, cool. So it was like we left at 4am contractions started a little after three. And at this point, I still didn't call the midwives because it was the middle of the night. I didn't want to bother them. And I just thought, well, we're so far away anyway, I don't want to wake them up. I'll wake them up when we're like an hour away to just give them a heads up that we're coming in. But I don't want to wake them up in the middle of the night. Whatever. I know I was like I don't want to bother anyone. Same thing with my doula. I just texted her because I knew that she keeps her texts on silent but she'll have her phone on if we need to reach her her ringer on if I call her. So again, I didn't want to wake her up. I just sent her some text messages. And I just thought when she wakes up she'll see it you know, no big deal. So again, we're in the car at one point, I asked my husband to pull over because it was just getting really intense and I stood up and put My I put my wrists on the top of the car and it was really cold. And I remember thinking that felt so luxurious to just be able to stand up and feel the cold because I was sweating at that point. And while I was outside of the car, my legs were shaking. And I was starting to bear down and I thought there's no way I'm in transition. There's like, there's no, you know, but I knew that my legs were shaking. And I was like, well, that's not good. That's, that means things are getting more dead. But I just thought, well, this is early labor and I'm it's probably just so intense. The pain is so intense that I'm, I'm tensing up and I'm pushing before I'm ready. And then I thought, Oh, no, I'm going to be swollen, I'm going to go to the hospital and I'll be swollen and they'll give me Benadryl and then I'll be out of it. So I just thought Emily, don't, don't push, just relax, just breathe, you know. So my husband has no idea how far along we are. Nor do I, you know, I'm just breathing through it. Just thinking, Okay, we have to make it we still have, you know, a couple of hours in the car. So I willed myself back into the backseat. After. And, you know, I remember in between contractions, I was just resting my head on the toddler car seat. And I could see on the screen on the GPS that we still had two hours. And I would just like to ignore that. And then I just looked out the window. Again to like, watch the sunrise and I was like, I just need to breathe and not look at that GPS timer that says two hours. So he was driving down the highway. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was driving his state of mind. Was he totally cool calm, collected, relaxed. Yeah, we're both pretty palm overall people. And I think, you know, again, I wasn't screaming, I would you know, like, I was kind of hanging out in the backseat moaning. So he just thought, okay, he didn't know I asked like, do you want to go route for you? Or no, no. And I didn't realize either, you know, so. I think because I was calm. He was calm. You know, in his defense, he did ask a couple times, like, do you want to go to a hospital? Do you look up a hospital? And I just said, No, no, because I still, you know, I'm not First of all, I didn't have the mind to like, hold up a phone and like, Look, and find the hospital. But second of all, you know, I don't want to just walk into a random hospital as a as a VBAC. And they know nothing about me. They have no history.

Yeah, you knew you were so committed to, you know, having this feedback. And you knew you needed to get to those midwives, where you were sure that you were going to have the kind of provider support. You want it for your birth. It makes sense. It makes sense. Yeah.

I mean, I think this way makes for a much more interesting story. What happened?

Yeah, and again, I didn't know you were how fast you progressing? Yeah, I had no idea. You know, in hindsight, if someone said, Do you want to give birth on the car? I would have said, No. Would you have like to go to a hospital? Yes, sure. You know, but you don't so, but at the time I didn't you know, I'm in the backseat. So my my head's on the toddler car seat. I'm propped up on one hip, I have one hip on the floor, one foot on the floor, one foot up on the seat, and then with my left hand, I'm holding myself up with the little bar that holds dry cleaning.

Now you know what it's really for. Yeah, that's what it's for. It's happened to handle.

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And I remember thinking I need to get off my tailbone I need to I need to make sure that my pelvis is opening I should let me try to lean over on the car seat and I can just drape myself over the car seat and be on all fours and then I'll you know my pelvis will really open up and this will be great but every time I tried to move I couldn't like there was no the contractions were just so strong. They were right on top of each other and I couldn't move so I just Tried to prop myself up on one side. And at some point, the we called the doula. And, you know, again, we didn't know how far along I was, but I just I said, when we get closer, I'll let you know whether to meet us at home or at the hospital. And she was like, Okay, great. I have my phone on me. I'm, you know, ready to go. We did call the midwives. At some point, we got a operator and she was going to have the midwife call us back. But at that point, I was already bearing down and pushing. And I remember I couldn't really talk. But I was thinking, I hope this operator hears that I'm pushing and that they might call back soon. And things got intense. And I told my husband to pull over and he said, There's nowhere to pull over. It's a deathtrap. There's no, you know, sorry, there's nothing. There's no, what's it called?

No shoulder. But did you say deathtrap is a poor choice of words?

It's not Yeah, no. Yeah, there's no, there's no shoulder room to pull off on. And then I reached down and I said, there's a head Oh, my gosh, the head and he was like, Okay, I'm telling man, you know, yeah, he immediately just pulled over, like, wherever he was. So he thought, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go and deliver the baby. And I don't know if it was like five or 10 seconds later, she blew out, just like one contraction just flew out. And I said, there's a baby. It was just a, like, my body just pushed her out. I mean, it was like, crazy, just as he had pulled over to the side, and the car had stopped.

No, he was still like, trying to pull over like, he didn't even fit in. Within like, 30 seconds. Yeah. I said, like, pull over. And he was like, No, there's a head. There's a baby round. It was like, like, fast, fast, fast. And then he, you know, looks behind me, looks behind and I'm like, you know, covered in blood and holding this up. And then I looked down. I say it's a girl because we didn't know the gender. So.

So you had pulled you had pulled off your own underwear at some point? Because you felt that happening? You felt the head?

Yeah, I think when we, when we pulled over, I think that was around when I got out of the car for the luxurious standing portion of my labor, where I could move for a second. That was around 5:30am at that point, so I was leaving for about an hour and a half. And I took my adult diaper off.

Right, that's what you're wearing. Okay. And then you got back in the car. What time was she born? 5:47. Back on the road. Yeah. So she came out. And then he proceeded to pull over and

stop. And he and he called 911. But basically, she she was breathing. But I grabbed some of the towels and was rubbing her down and I tipped her, tipped her over a little bit to see if there was any fluids that would come out and just try to rub her and get her to, to cry a little bit. But when I looked down, I saw that the the umbilical cord had snapped. Oh, wow. Yeah, like, I didn't know that. That was, I mean, that seems not an uncommon thing. It is not. So. Yeah. So looking back, my midwives and kind of everyone I spoke to our best guess is that the cord was short, which I do know, I took pictures of my placenta and I have all of that. But I think the cord was short, and she just shot out really fast. And I like ripped her up to my chest like super, you know, I didn't want her to fall on the floor. 

What did you do with the court? I looked at it and it actually had clotted, like immediately, so there wasn't so her on her side, the cord was about three inches long. The placenta was still in me the cord was the rest of the cord was still in me somewhere. But it instantly clotted. It was very bizarre like there wasn't a lot of but I wasn't hemorrhaging at all. Um, she also was fine. It was very, I mean, I think we just it was we were really lucky. But it but your body on both ends, what needed to happen to stop the blood from continuing to transfer happen because it's not just like it's an open highway of, you know, blood flowing back and forth. There's things that happen on the placental end and things that happen on the baby. And that stopped the process of that. So your body just did exactly what it needed to do. It just could have been. It could have been a very, very different situation. But amazing.

Yeah, so it was it was great. Ambulance got there. We didn't need anything. They brought a mobile ICU just in case they gave her some oxygen but she didn't she didn't need it. I think it was just like there was nothing really to do like we were good. The main thing was just keeping us warm because the door was open for a while. While the ATMs, people were trying to get us out. And you know, all of that. So she was a little cold. But we ended up transferring to a hospital. And we did all of the, you know, blood tests and sugar levels and all that stuff. And she latched on great like breastfeeding this times, way easier. Even though I breastfed my son for 21 months, it was still a little bit of an uphill battle in the beginning with mastitis and clogged ducts and a bad latch in the beginning. So this time is just like, way easier overall. That's amazing. Yeah, so it was from about the first contraction at 3am. So water broke at midnight, first contraction a little after 3am. And she was born at 547. So it was, you know, less than a little less than, like, two hours, 45 minutes from like, first contraction to birth. Yeah, I think it was only just in hindsight, you know, afterwards, and people were like, thank God, you're all okay. And like, what a disaster and like, how terrible and oh my gosh, like how were you not screen? I think people thought when they when you think of giving birth in a car, you know, I think they didn't realize I've been preparing and really dreaming about an unmedicated VBAC for years. And I've been preparing my mind and my body and my soul and everything to do this. So it was not, you know, obviously, I would have loved to move around. I would have loved you know, my lavender oil and tub and doula and midwife with a Doppler and that would have been ideal. But, you know, I did it, and I did it by myself. And that's pretty badass. Yeah, it is. Oh, I think people just thought I was like, a screaming Banshee in the backseat. And Travis is screaming, and we're all screaming and it's just, you know, a full on nightmare of pain. And I, it really wasn't like, we were pretty chill. And I think, you know, me being an opera singer, I'm in high stress situations, a lot and performing in front of, you know, it's just, it's a lot. You know, in it, just like any, you know, sports, you know, athlete or, you know, being able to focus in high stress situations and perform is I think, it takes a lot of mental energy and practice, and I've had that practice. So when things were getting intense, I was able to focus and go back to my breathing, and I was timing my contractions up until 15 minutes before she was born. Like, I was just doing it by myself in the backseat, you're clearly really informed. And you know, I'm guessing even before your first you were pretty informed, I'm guessing it's your personality to just get really well. And it's no surprise to me that you you know, when you heard you had to have or when you I hate to say had to have it when you made the choice, given your very limited options to have a C section the first time around and you chose not to say go to ima Gaskins farm in Tennessee, and you made the choice to have a certain section. You clearly rolled up your sleeves that Alright, I'm going to have the best damn scissoring section I can possibly have now. So yeah. Do you feel you equally prepared for what postpartum is like? I don't mean the physical recovery. I mean, the emotional the lifestyle, how your relationship is impacted?

Yeah. So I think first time, I thought that we were prepared because we were filling out worksheets about, you know, whatever expectations of things, and I felt very informed. So I felt like we were in a good place. But then, after my son was born, I just had a lot of resentment and rage, even though I wasn't I'm not an active like yeller or screamer, you know, I don't that's not normally how I express things. But I was, you know, I think in hindsight, like pretty passive aggressive and if my husband went out to do something, I was like, Oh, that must be nice, like, have a great time I'll be here with my child. Um, so I think it was rough, it really motherhood really changed me. And I wasn't expecting such a substantial rebirth of myself. I just thought well, if I have postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety or you know any kind of issues like I'll just go and get help no shame in that like I'm, you know, very common I'll just go and get help but I was in it so deep. And I was so high functioning I was doing you know, multiple gigs and auditions and you know, out in the middle of productions of shows that it just like no one thought anything was wrong. I barely thought something was wrong. So it just, you know, it wasn't until about like it least six months in that I realized that we needed help. And we started seeing a marriage counselor. And that made like, all of the difference for me. And then this time around, before I got pregnant, I started seeing my own therapist, and that was really key, which my husband was, you know, trying to, was encouraging me to go see someone. And for a while I was resisting, not I mean, I've seen therapists in the past, not anything like that. But I just thought like, well, I'll just go to someone when there's a problem. And he's like, okay, but like, maybe you should just go to talk to someone, why wait for a crisis, right? Yeah, like, Why wait for the building to be on fire, like, let's just, you know, so it was a little preemptive. And I think that's made a huge, huge difference for me to have a space. You know, that's not a mom group, or not a postpartum group of any kind, just just one on one talking to someone, I think has been really huge. And this postpartum has been way different than the first time around, and it's just more relaxed easier. My husband and I are, you know, in a great place. And, you know, we went out on a date last night, and it's just, you know, it's, it's different.

So what's your advice? To just summarize, based on the questions I had, what advice do you have for women related to birth or postpartum I would say, you know, you can list a bunch of things to quote unquote, do. But I think the main thing is just really finding a supportive provider and listening to a lot of birth stories and knowing that you have a choice. In everything that happens, not with your labor, obviously, you don't, you know, you can't control what your body does, and situations like that. But, you know, you should have informed consent for everything that happens, no matter who your provider is, and really doing your research and making sure that you have a team around you that supports the kind of birth that you want. So even though I ended up not using, you know, my doula and labor or my midwives in labor, I think having having that support and knowing that I had that made a real positive impact. So I wasn't panicky and just trying to get some positive, positive vibes in my brain going. And that was that happened actually, after a meeting with my doula when I was in my second trimester. And we were sitting down and talking about my birth plan. And I was, I was just talking about all of the things that I didn't want, and how I was going to avoid all of these things and disaster. And she was like, You need to stop thinking about all of the things you don't want. And think about what you do want and channel this, this energy into what you want. And it took me a while to kind of process what she said, there, because I just thought, okay, yeah, but like, I need to avoid death to die to get what I want. So, but she was right. And I thought, you know, what, yeah, I need to start doing meditations, I need to start getting this positive, positive energy.

There's always a duality. When we, you know, sometimes we're first more clear on what we don't want. And it can take a while to figure out what we do want because our brains almost afraid to even go there, you know. But when we go there, and we really see what we do want. It's like, you know, am I willing to really expect this to ask the universe for this? Like, can I really expect a beautiful Happy birthday? Is that too much to ask them? I think we get so afraid of being disappointed later if we get too attached. But it's actually really better to just the way I think about it is just expect and plan for that birth that you want. But my favorite expression that I use with clients is, I want you to feel by the end of this not only clear on the birth you want but I want you to feel you can roll with the punches. You know, that's Yeah, cuz things can come up and it's like, Okay, I'm all right here. Okay, now I know what questions to ask. Now I know what options I have. You mean, you've had a car birth For God's sake? Like, if I don't feel trust in yourself, and that you can roll with the punches, then you can't get through that feeling safe and calm? And you? You absolutely did. So what do you attribute that to just all the work that you did? Yeah, I think it was, I mean, I think in the moment staying calm was, you know, knowing that there's no, there's only one way out, you know, or I guess to, you know, this is like this baby's coming out one way or another and we're in the car, and there's nothing I can do, and panicking and freaking out is only going to make it worse. And I knew that pain, fear cycle, you know, and I didn't want to get into that. So focusing on breathing and just knowing that I had to ride the waves and just let it, let them happen and go through. We just encourage everyone to, you know, be positive and do your research. And I hope that everyone has the birth that they want, no matter which way the Baby comes out.

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Bakar baby, she's gonna hear her birth story so many times in her life. I know Awesome. Thank you so much for having you. I really appreciate it great. The stories like this are wonderful for people to hear because it just re instills in their minds the fact that birth just happens. It just happens and if we just let it happen, it almost always go okay. And if it's not if it's not gonna go Okay, like if your birth for the most part weren't going to go okay. You would have had time to get somewhere like you would have had some signs of enactment. Okay, you would have Yeah, everything was just really especially happens like that birth just happens and it's okay. I mean, the only crazy little quirk you had was the cord snap. But still, your body did what it was supposed to do and it was okay.

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About Cynthia Overgard

Cynthia is a published writer, advocate, childbirth educator and postpartum support specialist in prenatal/postpartum healthcare and has served thousands of clients since 2007. 

About Trisha Ludwig

Trisha is a Yale-educated Certified Nurse Midwife and International Board Certified Lactation Counselor. She has worked in women's health for more than 15 years.

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