Today we’re talking to a new mom who took my prenatal class, who is sharing what she did to get her confident birth.
Today’s guest is Amber Breeding.
Here’s what Amber has to say about herself: New Mom of is a new mom of a beautiful baby boy. We tried to conceive for about a year before we were successful. My husband and I have been married for a little over 4 years and we have a lot of pets. I am still in awe by this little guys existence. While pregnant, I wanted to be as prepared as possible for everything because this is my first kid and first pregnancy. So I took the class and do not regret it one bit. I am also a streaming gamer on twitch. I haven’t been able to stream since his birth, but I hope to again soon.
Big thanks to our sponsor The Online Prenatal Class for Couples — if you’re looking to get prepared for your birth, it’s the class for you!
In this episode
How a registry can help you
How to tie in different doctors during your pregnancy.
Taking a prenatal class, and how “big” it ended-up being!
How she surprised herself by her own confidence.
Other things that might interest you
Producer: Drew Erickson
Check out my other pregnancy podcasts:
Transcript
[00:00:00.070] – Hilary Erickson
Hey, guys, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today is another graduate day. Let’s untangle your confident delivery.
[00:00:18.030] – Hilary Erickson
Hi, I’m Hilary Erickson. The curly head behind the Pulling Curls podcast where we untangle pregnancy, parenting, home and even travel. We know that 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.
[00:00:40.390] – Hilary Erickson
Hey, guys, before we get started, this is your chance to leave a review. I mean, you’re already on the app. Just jump in there, leave some words, leave some stars; lots of stars. Like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Stars. That’s the best kind of stars.
[00:00:52.770] – Hilary Erickson
Today’s guest is the mother of a beautiful three week old baby boy. She’s actually also a Twitch streamer, and she is a graduate of the online prenatal class for couples. She came mid pregnancy and hung out with me. She brought the Deluxe course, so we were hanging out in the Facebook group, and she loved it so much. I’m so excited to have her on. I want to introduce today’s guest, Amber Breeding.
[00:01:16.430] – Hilary Erickson
Do you feel prepared for your delivery? In just three short hours, you can be prepared for the confident, 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 bassinet. Join the online prenatal class for couples today. You can save 15% with coupon code UNTANGLED. You can find the link in the show notes.
[00:01:51.870] – Hilary Erickson
Hey, Amber, welcome to the Pulling Curls Podcast.
[00:01:54.360] – Amber
Hello.
[00:01:55.300] – Hilary Erickson
All right. So you are not far out from baby being born. How old is the little guy?
[00:01:59.620] – Amber
He is? A little over three days, three weeks. See, I already have that postpartum brain. It’s worse than pregnancy brain.
[00:02:08.830] – Amber
I swear it is.
[00:02:09.790] – Hilary Erickson
Because you’re so tired.
[00:02:10.930] – Amber
Yeah.
[00:02:12.030] – Hilary Erickson
So three weeks.
[00:02:13.540] – Amber
Three weeks and a few days.
[00:02:15.600] – Hilary Erickson
And you ended up scheduling a C-section. Kind of a last minute scheduled C-section, right.
[00:02:20.460] – Amber
I had a doctor’s appointment on Thursday, and that morning we scheduled a C-section for the Friday morning.
[00:02:26.890] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah, a surprise, but not an emergency one, right.
[00:02:29.950] – Amber
I consider it kind of semi emergency because he was stuck. So they were like, we just need to get him out.
[00:02:35.590] – Hilary Erickson
Let’s just get him out. How big was his head?
[00:02:37.420] – Amber
I don’t know. I don’t think they told me what his head was, but it was like, stuck on my pelvic bone, and she was like, he’s not going to fit out of there. Your birth now is too small.
[00:02:46.240] – Hilary Erickson
Okay, well, there you go. All right, so what are three things you did to help you be confident in your C-section, and also because you had a ton of prenatal appointments towards the end. So you had a lot of choices to make and stuff like that. Tell me.
[00:02:59.290] – Amber
Yeah. So I was doing weekly ultrasounds towards the end. Our biggest things that we did was we actually made a registry, like, during the first trimester, and we let people know about that registry right off the bat. I don’t like being one of those people that’s, like, begging for stuff, but people wanted to buy stuff for us, and it ended up being we only had to buy a couple of the big things. Almost everything we got for him was somebody buying it for us. So it was extremely helpful financially, because a lot of people are like, oh, my gosh.
[00:03:32.880] – Amber
I don’t know if I’m going to have the money to prep for a baby. And we’re like, that’s a huge deal. So starting a registry super early and letting people know about it, people don’t think about that. That’s a big thing.
[00:03:43.600] – Hilary Erickson
Where did you put your registry at Amazon?
[00:03:45.690] – Amber
It was mostly on Amazon. Everything that was bought was from Amazon. But we actually made Amazon, Walmart and Target Registries.
[00:03:52.230] – Hilary Erickson
Okay. Yeah. And then you also don’t get double buys. Well, I guess you could if you had multiple. But most people bought on Amazon. Yeah.
[00:03:59.040] – Amber
And then the cool thing about Amazon is once somebody’s bought it, it takes it off the list for other people. We only had one double by. And I think that was like, maybe Amazon had a glitch or something, and it didn’t tell somebody that something was already bought. I don’t know. But other than that, it worked perfectly.
[00:04:14.320] – Hilary Erickson
Also super easy returns for Amazon.
[00:04:16.790] – Amber
Yes. Very much so.
[00:04:19.790] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah.
[00:04:20.270] – Amber
And then the second thing, and I think this one is a big deal is we made sure that all of my doctors, not just my OB GYN and my perinatal specialist, but also my psychiatrist. They were all in the loop with each other because I’m on medication. And so they all needed to make sure they knew what was going on and everything and even postpartum. All of them are working together to make sure that I’m still mentally and physically. Okay. Postpartum too. And so I think that’s been a major deal for me.
[00:04:55.480] – Hilary Erickson
So is that something you talk to your doctor about at the beginning? If they were cool to be on board with that because some probably would just be like, We’re separate doctors. Whatever they do is separate.
[00:05:06.590] – Amber
I don’t think I had to convince them or anything like that. I mean, I had talked to the psychiatrist before I even started trying to get pregnant, and I was like, hey, this is what I want to do when I do get pregnant. He was like, okay, cool. And then when I met the OBGYN, I had told her, hey, I already talked to a psychiatrist about this. And this is our plan. And she was like, I think that’s a great plan. We’ll go ahead and we’ll work with him.
[00:05:28.020] – Amber
And so they kept in contact through just making sure they sent each other. My files and stuff ended up working out perfect.
[00:05:35.870] – Hilary Erickson
That’s perfect. Because sometimes they want to just be, like, living their own little land. Like, you are separate people. Your brain is separate from your uterus. And that’s not fair. Yeah. It’s all the same person. Not at all.
[00:05:46.990] – Amber
It’s like, you realize all of this interrelates and the psychic stuff is going to affect my baby. Totally big deal.
[00:05:55.010] – Hilary Erickson
That’s a good one.
[00:05:55.790] – Amber
Yeah. And then the last one was taking your class. Actually, that one is, like, the biggest. It doesn’t seem like a huge deal to take a prenatal class. And a lot of people just put it off. But I started your class. I got the class in my second trimester, and a lot of people are like, oh, that’s too soon. You don’t really need that until, like, the third trimester. No, this is important. So I think my husband and- I re watched it about four or five times.
[00:06:23.110] – Amber
My husband watched it twice or listened to it once from the other side of the room. And it really prepared us. I mean, mentally and physically, we had prepared for a vaginal birth, like, just a normal birth. But as soon as I found out that it was going to be a C-section, I’m pretty sure I rewatched that chapter three or four times. It’s been extremely helpful because I went in there, and I didn’t even question when she was like, do you want to just do a C-section?
[00:06:53.510] – Amber
Yeah, sure, I’m prepared. I’ve got it. There was a little bit of anxiety because it’s my first ever surgery I’ve ever had in my life. But otherwise, mentally, I was ready. I was like, anything’s going to happen. I’m not going to be heart set on anything, just going to go with the flow because I know what to expect. So that part was super helpful.
[00:07:15.030] – Hilary Erickson
And do you feel like that chapter prepared? You pretty good for a C-section?
[00:07:18.390] – Amber
Yeah. Actually, almost everything that they talked about in the or, like, listening to them talking and getting set up in there. I was familiar with just about everything. And, of course, I had an absolutely amazing anesthesiologist. He was extremely helpful, too. So one big thing is making sure the anesthesiologist knew that I had anxiety.
[00:07:38.970] – Hilary Erickson
Although I will say most people have anxiety in the OR.
[00:07:42.350] – Amber
That’s true. I can imagine that. Yeah.
[00:07:45.260] – Hilary Erickson
Diagnosed or not, we’re all coming in nervous.
[00:07:48.590] – Amber
Yeah, but that was a huge deal. And I have friends that they don’t want to spend money or whatever in there. They’re like, hey, we’re going to just look on YouTube and find out what we can find to get prepared on YouTube. And they just weren’t prepared enough.
[00:08:04.650] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. Youtube is great for, like, pieces of information, but you just don’t end up getting the whole buffet, and we all want the whole buffet, right?
[00:08:12.470] – Amber
Oh, yeah, for sure.
[00:08:14.310] – Hilary Erickson
Okay. Did you learn anything about yourself during this whole process?
[00:08:17.720] – Amber
So one of my biggest things was that the Csection was the first surgery I’ve ever had. And so I actually kind of surprised myself because most of my life, I’ve actually been told horror stories about C-sections. Like every C-section. They use tongs. And a friend of mine, one of her siblings was pulled out of a C-section with tongs and ended up. Now her arm doesn’t work like she just doesn’t have a working arm for the rest of her life, all these horror stories, and then these people saying how.
[00:08:48.880] – Amber
Oh, well, the doctors only schedule C-sections so that they can live their life. So I hated C-sections for the longest time. But then one watching the class and two actually doing research on it. When it came to it, I was so comfortable in their comfort, including being completely numb from the breasts down.
[00:09:08.310] – Hilary Erickson
Yes.
[00:09:08.810] – Amber
But I was so comfortable and prepared and ready for it that if I had to do it again for a second, kid, I wouldn’t care.
[00:09:16.690] – Hilary Erickson
Okay.
[00:09:17.090] – Amber
No problem.
[00:09:17.740] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. You’re just prepped for it. And the good thing is that you didn’t have all these hopes and wishes that were like, oh, no. If I have a C-section, none of that can come true because C-section babies are loved just like all the other babies.
[00:09:29.040] – Amber
Oh, yeah. Exactly. All of the taboo that used to go around isn’t as prominent anymore, and it’s really awesome. So that was the biggest thing that I learned about myself is I was wrong and that I am braver than I thought I was.
[00:09:43.390] – Hilary Erickson
You’re going to learn that a lot as a mom. Yeah. Those things. Yeah. All right. So you’re at three weeks, do you feel like it’s getting better? Like the whole postpartumness for the most part.
[00:09:53.570] – Amber
Yes. The physical recovery from the surgery is a little bit rough, or it started off really rough, but I’m doing so much better now. I’ve still been able to handle my kid even through the recovery. I think the hardest part is just that he has major gas issues, and so we’re trying to troubleshoot whatever could be the issue. But, yeah, it’s much easier now than it was to start. And one of the things is you’re told, oh, it’s going to be all great and stuff. And then if you’re not expecting it, it could really mess you up.
[00:10:27.670] – Amber
But Thankfully, I was expecting it to be pretty difficult to start off.
[00:10:31.590] – Hilary Erickson
Did I over difficult it? I’m very clear in the class that it can be difficult. There’s no rainbows from this one. Yeah.
[00:10:38.690] – Amber
No, I don’t think you over difficult today. I think if that’s a word difficulty, but it also just depends on the baby. And thankfully, the first week and a half, it’s like, the best baby. I mean, he’s still Besides being gassy. Obviously, if I had gas pains, I’d be ticked off, too. But other than that, he really only cries when he needs to cry to tell us something. He’s such an awesome baby. And I know there’s some babies that aren’t exactly that easy to deal with.
[00:11:05.250] – Hilary Erickson
Well, that’s awesome. Yeah. I think you look back over the three weeks and you’re realizing that it’s getting better. But there are days where you’re like, this is the same every day, and it’s never going to get better. But it slowly does, right?
[00:11:15.290] – Amber
Yeah, for sure. It’s also been helpful that my husband’s been extremely helpful through all of this.
[00:11:20.240] – Hilary Erickson
And is he on paternity leave or is he working?
[00:11:22.540] – Amber
Yes, he’s kind of on paternity leave. He’s technically on paternity leave, but he works two days every other week, just the way that his schedule works out. Some weeks he works five days and other days he works two days. So he took off all of the weeks that are five days and is still working the two days. So we’re still making money, but he’s able to be home with me and the baby. And it’s been really helpful because we take turns at night.
[00:11:49.750] – Hilary Erickson
Oh, that is helpful. So does he feed baby a bottle?
[00:11:52.490] – Amber
Yes. We have had to supplement some with formula just because long story short, the people the nurses in the hospital were too worried about my baby’s weight and didn’t understand, I guess, how colostrum and breast milk work. And so they were freaking out and put him on formula to start. So he’s kind of supplemented with formula, and I’m slowly building up my supplies so that we could slowly get him onto full breast milk.
[00:12:20.790] – Hilary Erickson
My kids all had formula and one just got a 34 on the act. So I mean, stuff happens. Have you seen a lactation consultant?
[00:12:30.070] – Amber
The last lactation consultant I saw actually was the one that was in the hospital. They told me, you need to put them on formula.
[00:12:36.690] – Hilary Erickson
That’s a rare one.
[00:12:38.200] – Amber
I was like, I’ve never heard a lactation consultant that wasn’t like, you’re a terrible person for not breastfeeding your kid.
[00:12:43.680] – Hilary Erickson
That’s interesting. Did you give a reason? Was his blood sugar low?
[00:12:47.340] – Amber
No. He came out at 5lbs 9oz, and within the first day, he was down to 5lbs 3oz. And so they were like, freaking out. And I was like, you guys realize his stomach is tiny, so of course, just the few droplets that are coming out that’s going to fill him up. But they were no interest.
[00:13:07.470] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. I feel like lactation varies a lot, person to person sometimes, but also, we want babies that are thriving and growing. So there’s that. But it doesn’t seem like a giant weight loss. So who knows?
[00:13:19.600] – Amber
Yeah. Within the first week, he was already almost a whole pound. I mean, he’s already more than £2. Well, now a little less than £2. Bigger than he was when he was born now.
[00:13:30.200] – Hilary Erickson
Well, you know, the studies, when I worked for pediatrician back when I rode my dinosaur to my pediatrician, they always said that moms who supplemented always rested longer just because they felt like they had just a tiny little bit of support. And it sounds like your husband gives him a formula bottle during the night.
[00:13:47.690] – Amber
If I have enough supply in the fridge, he’ll give him breast milk bottles. But if I’m low, then he’ll use formula.
[00:13:54.230] – Hilary Erickson
Perfect. Yeah, that’s fine. They both are food.
[00:13:57.400] – Amber
Oh, yeah. And baby, Besides, the gas is fine. He’s happy.
[00:14:02.080] – Hilary Erickson
All right, perfect. Well, it sounds like it’s going really good. Amber, thanks so much for checking in as a graduate. We really appreciate you coming on and letting other people know what to expect.
[00:14:10.380] – Amber
No problem. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
[00:14:12.470] – Hilary Erickson
I hope you guys enjoyed that episode. I think it’s so important that they’ve shifted and they’ve flexed according to what went on. She had a pretty high risk pregnancy. Towards the end, she was seeing a perinatologist. You might be seeing a perinatologist, too. So it’s really important to take all of those into account as you’re trying to make your best choice for your delivery. And she made the choice that a C-section was going to be the best for them because baby wasn’t descending like baby was still super high, and so they just made the best choice for them.
[00:14:38.110] – Hilary Erickson
So good job, Amber. I love that she and her husband are splitting up night shifts. After we got off the call, I was talking about how my husband and I also do that, and we still do it. I am the early bird, and he’s the laid out, and it actually works really well for parenting because he can make sure kids come home alive, and I can make sure they get up and get to school. So it’s super handy to run things like that. Thanks again for coming on, Amber. So glad you’re an online prenatal class for couples graduate.
[00:15:02.020] – 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.
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