Getting Your Confident Birth with StormyFires – Episode 108

Today’s guest has an adorable 3 week old and is sharing what she did to get her confident birth.

Today’s guest is Toni — Just your crazy, nerdy biker chick, with a love for all things powered by an engine, gaming, and of course a mama to a lovely 19 year old and now a 1 month old.

Big thanks to our sponsor The Online Prenatal Class for Couples — Toni took the deluxe class, but there are 3 levels that you can choose between and you can start the minute you’re ready!

In this episode

You too can find me on Tiktok

What Toni did to prepare:

1. Take a childbirth class {with your partner}
2. See all the providers in your practices
3. Engage with your providers in the hospital

Other things that might interest you

Producer: Drew Erickson

Check out my other pregnancy podcasts:

Transcript

[00:00:00.120] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on Episode 108, we are talking to another online prenatal class for couples graduate. She has a three week old. I bet he’s super cute! Let’s untangle it.

[00:00:23.460] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary Erickson, the curly head behind the Pulling Curls Podcast we untangle pregnancy, parenting, home and even travel. We know there’s no right answer for every family, but hopefully we can spark some ideas that will work for yours. Life’s tangled, just like my hair.

[00:00:47.090] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys, before we get started, just a reminder that reviews are like the best. I mean, they’re not as good as, like having the baby, but they’re pretty good. Can you leave a review?

[00:00:55.130] – Hilary Erickson

All right. Today’s guest is a friend of mine on tik tok. She took my class and then I would see her on Tik-Tok and all those kind of things. She has a three week old. I want to introduce my friend today, Toni.

[00:01:09.170] – Hilary Erickson

Do you feel prepared for your delivery in just three short hours? You can be prepared for the competent collaborative delivery you want, you’ll know what to expect and how to talk with your health care team. And there are no boring lessons in this class. I’ll use humor stories from my 20 years in the delivery room to engage both of you. I love how Alyssa told me that she found herself laughing at things that used to sound scary. Most of all, you guys are going to be on the same page from Bump to Bassinette. Join the online prenatal class for couples. Today you can save 15 percent with coupon code UNTANGLED. You can find the link in the show notes.

[00:01:44.930] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, Toni, welcome to the Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:01:47.400] – Toni

Hey, hey, thank you for having me.

[00:01:49.880] – Hilary Erickson

I love having the graduates on. It’s so great.

[00:01:52.860] – Toni

Yes. And honestly, it’s been great.

[00:01:55.400] – Hilary Erickson

OK, your baby is. How old is this little one?

[00:01:57.860] – Toni

He is four weeks old, so just a couple of days shy of a month. That sounds weird saying that in weeks and days. But yeah, almost a month old will go that.

[00:02:08.390] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, it is funny how you start out of days, then you go two weeks, then you go two months and then you’re like, wow, now I say years.

[00:02:16.160] – Toni

Right. And then you try to remember how many of them. Yes.

[00:02:19.490] – Hilary Erickson

I mean it would be bad if we still by months and I’m like my twenty one year old is four hundred and eighty months or whatever.

[00:02:24.890] – Toni

Yep. If I have to do math. And that’s just- I’m out about that point in time.

[00:02:29.940] – Hilary Erickson

Too much math.

[00:02:31.460] – Hilary Erickson

And what did you name him.

[00:02:33.060] – Toni

Wyatt Anthony. Cute. It is.

[00:02:36.160] – Hilary Erickson

All right. So tell us three things. Three things that you did to prepare for your confident birth.

[00:02:42.380] – Toni

So the first one, the obvious one was to take your class. And I had been following you on tiktok for a while. I remember the first time you jumped on fyp. Oh, she’s actually making sense. I wonder if I can learn more and then realized you were offering the class. So I took that. And one of the reasons I think that was really impactful to me and I know this really sounds like commercial right for your class, but but it’s not intended to be that.

[00:03:10.730] – Toni

It’s just genuine feedback is because it wasn’t so much just geared on the birther, but it was geared on the birther plus support. Right. So the fact that I can get my husband involved in it with meaningful questions and conversations that I didn’t even know I needed to have with him prior to delivery was really the game changer for me, for us. So that was that was one big, big thing that I did. And I’m really, really happy that we did it.

[00:03:42.230] – Toni

I’m really happy that I got the book and the online class so that I could just go back and forth, printed it all out, take notes. So it was sort of like studying for an exam.

[00:03:54.110] – Hilary Erickson

Well, I mean, I think a lot of people end up looking at it kind of like that way. And I love that you loved it. Now, you guys are an interesting situation. You have a stepdaughter that’s nineteen. So he’s done this before?

[00:04:04.790] – Toni

Yes, he has. Did that help?

[00:04:07.340] – Toni

It did. So he is not a shy person and he will speak up and he will always advocate for the well-being of the people he cares for. And I know a lot of times when I hear those stories and when I would read the horror stories of women not feeling confident in their birth and your support person, because my husband would be chasing somebody down. Right. Trying to trying to fix whatever it is that’s going on. So for him, yeah, it was it helped a lot because he was calm and he was confident through it all.

[00:04:41.150] – Toni

But my delivery compared to, you know, the first delivery that he’s experienced, completely different. I mean, the first one very traumatic to him and her biological mother, you know, forceps involved emergency delivery because the cord was wrapped around her neck. So he remembers that this one we labored watching Street Outlaws and the kid was born to Goldrush. So it’s sort of a different experience when he had to be pretty young. Nineteen years ago, right?

[00:05:19.010] – Toni

Well, yes. No, actually, I think at thirty.

[00:05:23.940] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, yep. Yep. All right. So he wasn’t an eighteen year-old sitting in there with big, wide eyes.

[00:05:30.800] – Toni

No, no, ma’am. Neither one of us or our young.

[00:05:35.900] – Hilary Erickson

Well, that’s great. So he enjoyed the course, you think?

[00:05:38.550] – Toni

Yes, he did enjoy the course. He enjoyed the print outs a lot because it was very easy for me to sort of slide something his way or just stop him in the middle of whatever we’re doing. That is a gut reaction. How do you feel about this? And I would ask him a question, one of the questions that you would pose at the end of every chapter. So I’m just like, I want gut reaction unfiltered. How do you feel about this?

[00:06:05.210] – Toni

What are your first instincts on this? And that was really good. And then the piece that it also helped us have more meaningful conversations with the providers and with the doulas through work, were provided a service that allows us access to several health care professionals that would encompass all prenatal and postpartum care and pediatrics and all that. They don’t replace our providers, but they give us information. So we took advantage of that in a way that was actually constructive because we had the knowledge from you.

[00:06:41.630] – Toni

We knew what to ask. We knew what to be concerned about, where we wanted more information, so I had really good sessions, a couple of sessions with Doula and then a couple of sessions with a midwife. And of course, pediatrics, we did one. And it was just really important for him to be able to be involved. So the course allowed him to be involved and then gave him tools to remain involved throughout the entire process. And I think if your support person wants to do that, this is the route to go because it puts them in the middle of it doesn’t leave them on the outside like an afterthought.

[00:07:17.130] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, I hate it when dads are just in the corner typing. They literally have no idea what’s going on and don’t want to engage in it at all. I’m like, dude, this is just as much you. It’s just not coming out of your body.

[00:07:28.230] – Toni

Right? Right. And it’s the opposite. Like with our nurses, we’ve we were very fortunate. We had really good nurses both in L&D and postpartum. And we we vibe’s with the majority of them. But he was like, I’m here. I want to be involved. Can you please get me involved? Like, I really need to be involved. I don’t want to be a fly on the wall. So what can I do? And a lot of times and I understand this because the birthers, the patient.

[00:07:58.020] – Toni

Right, they come in, they talk to you and they want to make sure you’re OK. Your support person is I guess you’re not the patient as long as you’re not passed out on the floor. Well, then assume you’re good. But the really good stuff was when the nurses would come in and more than just acknowledge him, get him involved in my care and explain what’s going on and allow us to have conversations to discuss the brain critically. And if I go over that every time we try to to choose a direction and they they would just flat out turn to him and ask him, hey, do you have any questions?

[00:08:32.670] – Toni

And I knew that he was confident now and knowing what was going to happen and what he could ask or couldn’t.

[00:08:39.300] – Hilary Erickson

I love that. I will say that as a nurse, you kind of have to feel the vibe in the room to know if dad even wants to be involved, because the last thing I want to do is make a relationship between mom and dad worse. Right. Well, there you know where I’m, like, trying to involve dad, he’s like, no. And then it just takes the mom off even more than that. I do not want you now, is there?

[00:08:59.490] – Toni

You know, Brad, I love you like. All right, well, we do it, but what am I doing? That’s how can I help you flip her over?

[00:09:07.770] – Hilary Erickson

Because I love that we have a podcast on movement during labor. And one of the things is, dad, if dad can say, yeah, I want to help, it really helps the nurse because sometimes we can’t turn mom all that well on our own and there’s nobody to help us.

[00:09:21.780] – Toni

So, yeah, no, he was there. And I know you and I had a little bit I had a fabulous relationship with the peanut ball. We were best friends. And so every time it was it was time to move that, you know, I’d be like, all right, come on, come and reposition. Yeah. And it made it easier and made him feel involved. So to me, going into it, everything that we did, especially with this being an IVF baby, it was really important that he always stayed connected and that we were in it together because I never wanted him to feel like just the whole attention was just on me.

[00:10:03.870] – Toni

So I’m like, it’s it takes as much out of him. I think mentally, not physically. That would be weird, but mentally. Right. But mentally, it takes it’s a lot of pressure, I think, on on him as well. So it’s like I if I get you involved then it’ll alleviate some of that.

[00:10:20.940] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. I think actually mentally it’s harder on them sometimes because they don’t have any, they have zero control and they get to see you in pain and they wonder like what’s going on with the baby like they do. They’re just like I’m sure their mind just goes five million miles an hour.

[00:10:35.700] – Toni

And it luckily it was no pain for me through it all, which was the odd part. And I’m not complaining, but the only piece where I know that he was worried is when the epidural hit. I mean, it hit me and I told him I was like, you need to be prepared for that. I’ve had such low blood pressure, the entire pregnancy. I don’t care how much fluids they’re going to put in me, I’m going to tank.

[00:11:03.240] – Toni

Just be prepared. And I that was the only time where I saw some worry on his face that I told them I’m tanking and the nurse just push that call button. A bunch of people rushed then. So I think that was the only time, speaking of pain and not being able to do anything, but hopefully he was prepared for it. It’s like you could be mentally prepared. I kind of am.

[00:11:28.290] – Hilary Erickson

It can be scary because usually many nurses run in and we just love to support each other. We’re all ladies. And it’s nice when somebody is turning somebody is giving the IV med. All that kind of stuff. We just. Yeah, many hands make. Feel supportive, although it also can be scary. So that’s awesome that you guys were prepared for that. I think I mentioned it in the class, right?

[00:11:49.010] – Toni

Yes, yes. That a lot of people are going to come in and I think you mentioned it as well for the delivery, that just a ton of people will rush in, which was fun.

[00:11:57.330] – Hilary Erickson

And not always. Sometimes there’s just like three or four, but sometimes all of us come in.

[00:12:03.060] – Toni

Yeah, there was a lot of them. And then just randomly people would walk in and I’m like, hi, welcome to the show. And they would just there and you’re like, you’re you’re an active laborer. Yes. Yes, I am. But welcome. Yes, I can talk. No, I don’t have any contractions like come on in. Or if I do, I can feel them to you. You don’t. Yeah, I didn’t.

[00:12:26.700] – Toni

So it was as I said that to go back to your question, you know, taking the class, being able to have good conversations with my providers. Oh, and one thing that I did, I rotated through 90 percent of my providers in the practice I saw. Yeah. I told the lady at the at the reception I was always like somebody new. If I haven’t seen them, I want to see them. So we we bounced around a lot.

[00:12:53.410] – Toni

We did that.

[00:12:55.970] – Hilary Erickson

It is kind of like speed dating because those appointments are pretty fast. Did you so you were at a really large practice, like how many providers were at it that that we’re delivering.

[00:13:06.300] – Toni

So between. Yeah. Between the OB’s and the midwives. I think just this location, maybe twelve ish. I have a booklet with them that is a lot of providers in one practice. Yes. Yeah. And did you find that they were all fairly similar mindset or there were some that were very different.

[00:13:29.300] – Toni

Majority of them were very similar. There was only one I didn’t vibe with and it was I don’t know if it was just her mood or my mood or whatever that day, but there was a conversation that felt a little bit dismissive around heartburn and like, yeah, you and I were not going to judge because you’re giving me the. Oh, well, you’re just going to have to deal with it. I like yeah, I know. If I bring it up is more than just deal with it.

[00:13:59.610] – Toni

So that was that was the only thing. But all the others, I would ask them similar questions, which were some of the questions from your class and they would give me they weren’t canned answers, but they were similar answers and the same mentality and asking them about you movement during labor movement within epidural options for pushing options for using, you know, the peanut ball, the birth ball, the shower, the tub, IV’s, birth plans. I call it a birth preference because I didn’t plan nothing.

[00:14:32.950] – Toni

I like I said again, that baby out and they they all welcomed that conversation. You know, they didn’t push any weird procedures. They didn’t try to freak anybody out. They were always very cautious and respectful. And yeah, I as I said, I speak they them because I was hoping to be able to have a person that I knew actually delivered this baby. And it still didn’t work out because I missed a few.

[00:15:02.250] – Hilary Erickson

Well, that is a lot of providers. I mean, I don’t think you have well, you probably have twelve appointments during your pregnancy. Right?

[00:15:10.200] – Toni

So you have well, from thirty six weeks I had them. What was that one. And I went to all of them because the baby decided to show up on his due date. I had them once every weekend with me being IVF. They wanted me more often. So we, we bounced around a lot. But no, I met as I said, was usually a new one, with the exception of one midwife that I met with twice.

[00:15:36.150] – Toni

It was always somebody new and I had all midwives, too.

[00:15:39.420] – Hilary Erickson

I think that’s great advice for people who are in larger practices because there are a lot of benefits to a larger practice. I think they’re less Matt Rash to make a decision based on their golf game. Yes, but also at the same point, you do kind of have to get used to it sounds like your clinic, it’s a lot of them had very similar. I’m always fascinated by people that are in a partnership together that are not alike at all.

[00:16:02.070] – Hilary Erickson

I’m like, how do you manage each other’s patients without losing your mind? But I guess that’s their problem, not mine.

[00:16:08.470] – Toni

Right. Right. And that was my big as I said, it’s you know, you go online, if you’re going to read on a forum or even on text got picked up. It’s fabulous information, but it’s everyone is fear mongering. And you hear all these horror stories and it’s like, OK, but how do you navigate the world of someone pushing you to do something based on that vacation or the golf game or a dinner date? It was something about somebody had a dance to go to or something that I read like.

[00:16:43.140] – Toni

How do you end up with a PC out of your C section or something because of this? I know it’s frustrating. It’s terrifying.

[00:16:52.320] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, so that’s one of the huge benefits that I have with larger practices. Those doctors still going to have a life that they enjoy because it’s not fair for us to be like you have to be on call for me. Twenty four hours a day for the rest of your life. Like, I think everyone realizes no no doctor is going to want to do that long term. No. So that’s why the big practices, I think, are going to be the thing of the future.

[00:17:12.990] – Hilary Erickson

And I agree. Get to know all of them. Don’t get your heart set on one because they probably won’t be on.

[00:17:18.600] – Toni

No, not literally. None of the ones that I absolutely love. And the two midwives that that were a part of our delivery were absolutely fabulous. But they were not. We had an agreement like you’re delivering this child. You are invested in this now, you know, didn’t happen now. But the upside of that is our hospital where they have privileges.

[00:17:45.600] – Toni

There’s always an O.B. and two midwives from our practice on staff. Twenty four, seven. OK, that’s awesome. So fantastic coverage. But that was a huge fan of.

[00:17:58.680] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Especially if you were a high risk. That is important to have somebody there all the time.

[00:18:03.290] – Toni

Yeah. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t my case. It was apparently I was just old. They just like to remind me of my AMA, so AMA.

[00:18:13.590] – Hilary Erickson

It’s so funny that we’ll have somebody that’s like forty five and then somebody thirty five and we give them the same label. I’m like yup, yup.

[00:18:21.750] – Toni

They even called me a..

[00:18:23.460] – Hilary Erickson

We had a sixty five year old. Still AMA.

[00:18:26.820] – Toni

What. Wow. That is all. That is all that is impressive. That is some stamina. OK, I mean you kidding to be able to carry it. Oh no no no no no no. Three sixty five. I’m just going to, I’m just going to leave that there. Anything else you did help you feel confident in the delivery room or do we cover them.

[00:18:49.770] – Toni

I think in all honesty, I think that was that was it. As I said, just knowing what to talk about, what to look for, understanding what goes on in the delivery room, why do we need certain procedures, how to talk about them, how to ask for space, to think about things that was so empowering, being able to just flat out told the provider, I need a moment, I need a moment to have a conversation with my husband and discuss how we want to do this, but also being able to set up an idea of what I would like to do and how I would like my delivery to go, because that allowed me when I walked into triage, my my midwives came in and said, what do you want?

[00:19:37.470] – Toni

What’s your hope for this? And I told her. Leave me as unattended unaugmented as humanly possible, let this baby do its thing unless he or I are in danger. Let’s just see where it goes. I’m in no rush. You in a rush is like for twenty four hours like. There you go. We will check back in the morning. And I said, she asked me, what’s your pain management like. I’m ready for an epidural at some point.

[00:20:06.030] – Toni

And that was, it was one hundred percent respected. I mean no questions asked. Nothing. She’s like, OK, we are good to go. I will not bother you. I will maybe come and check in on you before you go to bed or you have your epidural. See how that hit. And that’s what she did. She rolled in on nine o’clock at night. I didn’t see this one until six o’clock in the morning when she woke me up.

[00:20:29.220] – Toni

And she’s like, yeah, your complete time to push. What can I wake up first and, you know, finish my episode of Street Outlaws is this is the season finale. But, yeah, it’s that was that was it. So thank you.

[00:20:44.700] – Hilary Erickson

In all honesty, a lot of it’s just telling you what, what is an option, because a lot of people just don’t know what the options are. And by knowing what your options are in a normal delivery, it just really helps you.

[00:20:57.060] – Hilary Erickson

So did you learn anything about yourself when you have that baby?

[00:21:00.090] – Toni

That I’m really, really quiet when I focus? Apparently I because I guess I didn’t make a sound to where my husband would have to check, like, are you OK? I’m a little busy pushing a human thanks. That’s it. Was that and then that I really felt very fortunate to feel in control and to be in control. There was no point in time where I honestly felt not hopeless but helpless like somebody else was making choices for me, like I wasn’t involved in it.

[00:21:36.120] – Toni

It just felt like a really good experience, so much so that I might be able to do it twice. Thankfully, I know that’s not. Also, we’re not going to get trapped in that, but that’s honestly that’s what I learned. Currently, I focus and I get quiet and I can stay in control of something. I really thought I wouldn’t be able to because everyone said you’ll go in the zone and the pushing zone and the contraction zone.

[00:22:02.270] – Toni

Yet we didn’t have that. I didn’t know when that was happening. I had an app that told me to go to the hospital because I would have been home. So I think that’s about it. There’s not is not some soul shattering stuff.

[00:22:18.320] – Hilary Erickson

You know, I think a lot of it I think it’s interesting to just hear what people think about themselves after they have their delivery. So I think that’s a great answer. Yeah, does it then?

[00:22:28.670] – Toni

I had a small I was like, oh, we made this. I turned to my husband and I’m like, look, we made this.

[00:22:35.750] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, it is amazing. It really is amazing. Like as a nurse, you don’t really think about everything that goes into building a baby and what your body does. But when I go to classes, I’m just like, wow, it’s amazing.

[00:22:48.680] – Toni

You’ve done that three times, you know?

[00:22:52.490] – Hilary Erickson

And then but just watching other people do it, it’s just the fact that it even happens normally as much as it does. It’s just amazing. It’s a miracle.

[00:23:01.880] – Toni

Yeah, I do. And, you know, to us, I never thought we would be there. I never thought I would have a child, you know, biological child. I thoroughly enjoyed being a mom, you know, and raising our daughter. But I had missed those first five years of her life when when I didn’t have her. And so kind of filling in the gap now and also having had a preview of teenagers, I didn’t into young adulthood.

[00:23:31.670] – Toni

Oh, God, I’m not ready, but it’s it’s beautiful. And as I said, I don’t think I could have walked into this with the level of comfort and confidence and the same for my husband. Had I not been prepared to the point that even the nurses are like, what class did you take that you are aware we do not have to translate stuff for you? And I did. I pulled up your Instagram and your ticktock and I’m like, here this this is what I did because I said Pullingcurls.com/podcast that that’s that that doesn’t sound like you just don’t question it.

[00:24:06.650] – Toni

Here’s his. It was a tiktok. You, you know, here’s the Instagram. Just work with me here. And that to me was a huge compliment. At first I thought, like, are you are you being serious? Like, do I actually know this stuff? And you’re actually complimenting me or you being facetious is I can’t take a compliment to save my life. But no, they honestly, they were all impressed because the questions that I was asking, I guess we’re making sense to them.

[00:24:35.660] – Toni

And when they were talking about the options and what’s going on and why they’re doing certain things, it just clicked that we were able to have a conversation, I feel, on an even footing where things didn’t get lost in translation. And I think that hopefully they felt they didn’t have to adjust their presentation too much, you know, for my husband and I to feel comfortable and also bribe them with candy. So that might have work, too.

[00:25:01.370] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, candy’ll do a lot.

[00:25:02.870] – Toni

Yeah, I brought snack bags.

[00:25:05.290] – Hilary Erickson

So, Toni, it sounds like you had a great delivery. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your experience with us and with Mr. Wyatt and your husband. Good luck with everything. I know you are going to be an amazing well, you already are an amazing mom, but you’ll continue it.

[00:25:20.930] – Toni

Thank you so much and thank you for providing this amazing platform. And honestly, just keep doing what you’re doing. Oh, I’m going to keep recommending this class because it made a huge impact in my delivery and I hope it will do the same for anyone else that takes it. But honestly, thank you so much.

[00:25:37.970] – Hilary Erickson

Thank you. All right.

[00:25:39.230] – Hilary Erickson

I hope you guys enjoyed that interview. So fun to talk to people after they have a baby. In fact, if you took the online prenatal class for couples and you’d love to come on and chat with me, send me an email, you know, you have my email because I’ll send you a bunch of email. But I would love to chat with you as a graduate on the podcast as well.

[00:25:54.350] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode. We know you have lots of options for your ears and we are glad that you chose us. We drop episodes weekly and until next time, we hope you have a tangle free day.