Preparing for an Induction Without an Epidural with Crystal – Podcast 141

Today’s podcast guest had an induction without an epidural. She also used a hospital midwife and an OB needed to come help.

Today’s guest is Crystal T. She was a student in The Online Prenatal Class for Couples and had an excellent epidural-free birth.

Big thanks to our sponsor The Online Prenatal Class for Couples I love how Crystal was prepared with her partner in the class. Come join us and use the coupon code mentioned in the episode! Here’s what she had to tell us about herself:

I’m a first time mom of baby Alec! My husband and I have been married just over 2 years after meeting a bit later in life, so we’re older parenting novices. We live on our little country homestead in rural Vermont, and I work full time in management in the food manufacturing industry. Our journey to pregnancy and parenthood was impacted by chronic illness as well.

In this episode

Why Crystal needed to be induced

How she managed without an epidural

What happened when she had an unexpected need for an OB to help out (and a bit more about the midwife model of care)

Getting educated on what your hospital’s “normal” is (we talk about that a bit more in this episode too)

Other things that might interest you

Preparing for a planned C-section with Amber

Induction Questions Answered

Getting Your Confident Birth with StormyFires

Producer: Drew Erickson

Check out my other pregnancy podcasts:

Transcript

[00:00:00.030] – Hilary Erickson

Hey guys, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on episode 141, we are talking to another graduate of the online pre-natal class for couples. We’re going to talk all about how to get your confident birth by learning from others. Let’s untangle it.

[00:00:22.870] – Hilary Erickson

Hi. I’m Hilary Erickson, the curly head behind the Pulling Curls Podcast. We entangle 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.

[00:00:45.320] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys, do you like these podcasts? Because I like you. And if you liked me enough, I would love it if you would leave a review. That means so darn much. Thanks.

[00:00:53.270] – Hilary Erickson

Today’s guest is the mother of an adorable five week old. He was actually on the interview with us. Super, super fun. She’s actually heading back to work soon as an hour manager. She is a first time mom. I want to introduce today’s guests, Cristal.

[00:01:09.370] – 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 Alissa 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.

[00:01:44.310] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, Cristal, welcome to the Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:01:46.710] – Cristal Trimble

Hi, Hillary.

[00:01:47.490] – Hilary Erickson

So exciting. So you guys can’t see it, but Cristal is doing a little bottle feeding while we’re here recording a podcast. I hope we get a little burp soon. Yes.

[00:01:56.230] – Cristal Trimble

Quite possible.

[00:01:57.120] – Hilary Erickson

Okay. How old are you, little guy Alexander.

[00:01:59.700] – Cristal Trimble

And he is five weeks old today.

[00:02:01.860] – Hilary Erickson

Oh, five weeks? Yes. I went back to work at five and a half weeks on my first one. Literally no idea how that worked out. But yeah.

[00:02:10.410] – Cristal Trimble

I’m going. But I get sick, so. Not too far by you.

[00:02:12.960] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. What do you do?

[00:02:14.460] – Cristal Trimble

I’m an hour manager.

[00:02:15.930] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, so you there will be setting downtime, right?

[00:02:19.170] – Cristal Trimble

Yes. Mostly setting down six weeks.

[00:02:22.950] – Hilary Erickson

It’s too early. Okay. So a quick, quick review of the delivery. What what ended up happening? Did you get to do all that jazz?

[00:02:31.770] – Cristal Trimble

I was a gestational diabetic, so yes, I did end up getting induced at 39 weeks. It took we started the induction on a Tuesday and he was born Wednesday night. So not too terribly long. Yeah, I’d say relatively uneventful. The midwives might disagree a little bit. We had some unexpected anatomical issues with May come up. Oh, when I got ready to push, I had a septum they were not aware of until I got to be ten centimeters and he could not come out until they rectified that. So.

[00:03:00.540] – Hilary Erickson

Oh, wow, I’ve never seen that. So congratulations on that.

[00:03:04.290] – Cristal Trimble

Neither have they.

[00:03:06.900] – Hilary Erickson

So did they call it an OB?

[00:03:08.250] – Cristal Trimble

Yes, I had two midwives. Two little bees ended up coming in, a couple more nurses. Whole crew was there.

[00:03:15.300] – Hilary Erickson

Oh, wow. But you had an epidural?

[00:03:17.550] – Cristal Trimble

No. Oh, you didn’t. Unmedicated.

[00:03:19.530] – Hilary Erickson

Completely numb it too.

[00:03:21.300] – Cristal Trimble

Well, good.

[00:03:21.780] – Hilary Erickson

For.

[00:03:22.020] – Cristal Trimble

You. No numbing, no epidural.

[00:03:24.360] – Hilary Erickson

Even cutting the septum by the normal.

[00:03:26.290] – Cristal Trimble

Yeah. Wow.

[00:03:28.680] – Hilary Erickson

Okay. Dying. All right, so what things did you do to prepare for this competent delivery?

[00:03:36.660] – Cristal Trimble

Well, first of all, it was our first baby, both mine and my husband. So we definitely wanted to take a class. COVID made that a little more difficult. Our hospital was doing some on Zoom, but it was like a nine hour marathon Saturday session that just wasn’t going to work for us. No. So we ended up I ended up finding your class, so we took that program online. So that was the main one big thing we did to prepare.

[00:04:01.740] – Hilary Erickson

Not to make it too much of an ad. What did you like the most of the class?

[00:04:05.430] – Cristal Trimble

I like a couple of different things, and my husband’s a very different he’s very practical and scientific minded kind of thing. So we both did like the straightforwardness and it’s not a whole lot of fluff, I guess is a good word.

[00:04:19.920] – Hilary Erickson

No, I’m not a fluffy girl, though. I’m fluffy, but not not in that way.

[00:04:25.110] – Cristal Trimble

No. There was a lot of great information. The videos were a great length. We could fit it in around our schedule as we needed, and then like we needed to plan half a day to sit down and knock out a video we could do on here and there.

[00:04:38.790] – Hilary Erickson

Oh, that eight hour marathon, the eight hour Saturday, you see those couples and they look like zombies when they do the hospital. Two hour. I always feel so bad for them.

[00:04:46.290] – Cristal Trimble

I know. And I was even going through yours. I kept telling my husband, I said, you know, if we had done this in one day, it would be so overwhelming and so easy to miss information and just being able to go back and rewatch things I knew from the start. I didn’t want an epidural or anything like that. So just being able to go back and review right before our induction, the pain management modules, things like that, it was nice to be able to go back and refer to that as needed and not have to sort through again like a four hour video to try and find that ten minute clip that you want to rewatch.

[00:05:20.940] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, well, that’s awesome. Okay, what else did you do? We can stop talking about me. Okay.

[00:05:26.250] – Cristal Trimble

We asked a lot of questions I kept, and it seems like a simple thing, but I just kept an open on my phone in between Albie and midwife appointments. Or I just make a note of any questions I had. Because the minute you get into the exam room, you forget everything you wanted to ask or talk about.

[00:05:43.470] – Hilary Erickson

Yes, you totally do. That happens to me too.

[00:05:45.660] – Cristal Trimble

Yeah. So we were just like, just make a note and we go in and. And if you feel uncomfortable asking questions, I can’t tell you how many to preface with. This is probably a ridiculous question for you, but I’m going to ask it anyway. And your medical team should be more than happy to answer that for you. And they were for us.

[00:06:02.880] – Hilary Erickson

I 100% promise you that if you’re taking my prenatal class and also you just listen to this podcast, I promise it’s not the dumbest question they’ve ever heard, I promise you.

[00:06:12.300] – Cristal Trimble

And I think that was one thing that was a little surprising for me through the whole process was just how the medical team is there to guide you through pregnancy, but you can really make it what you want. They want to handle it the way you want it to be handled, and they want you to be in the driver’s seat a lot. At least that was my experience. So the more preparation you can have with that and the more you can educate yourself, that makes the whole experience better.

[00:06:36.120] – Hilary Erickson

I love that. It really is like a Choose Your Own adventure about. Yeah, I’m like elementary school where that just kind of provide the options and then you make. The choice. And then you skip to page 136, right?

[00:06:45.570] – Cristal Trimble

Yes. And I would say the third thing kind of related to that, but a little bit different is really educating yourself on what your specific hospital and provider’s quote unquote normal is. And I know that’s something I’ve picked up, even with other podcast episodes through your eyes when you’re talking to other labor and delivery nurses. Every facility and every provider does things a little bit differently. So even whatever you read online on TikTok, you’re in podcast. Don’t be afraid to ask what your specific hospital or birth center, what do they do for that? What do they provide? What are their general policies?

[00:07:21.330] – Hilary Erickson

Right. Because it really does vary as I switch hospitals and stuff and it definitely varies. East Coast to West Coast is a very fair amount between coasts. So that’s always been interesting to me. As I talk to other nurses, I’m like, Wow, now that’s so different than what we do. So that doesn’t mean that your choices are the same in both places, but a lot of times we’re just kind of doing what we normally do and tell the patients like, Oh, I want to do this. And then we skip to page 136. Yeah, I love that. So you had midwives and O.B.?

[00:07:51.180] – Cristal Trimble

Yeah. So my house that you saw. Yeah, my hospital, they do both. So mainly you work with the midwives, but they have all these as well on call.

[00:07:58.380] – Hilary Erickson

So I love, love, love that. Yeah, I love an OBE that kind of just hangs back. And now the midwife needs them. I love it, I love it. I love it so much. If you’re thinking about doing if you’re like early in your pregnancy and you’re thinking about midwives certified nurse midwife, I’m not talking about late midwives or midwives, the delivery of the home. I’m talking about certified nurse midwives. I have been a labor nurse most often and then they go and they get a masters degree and sometimes even a doctorate. So they’re also a doctor. Yeah, I love the midwife model of care, so that’s awesome. And it’s nice that they can take care of you even though you were a diabetic.

[00:08:27.840] – Cristal Trimble

Yes. So that I mean, I saw the midwives for pretty much my entire career. They consult with the obs if they had questions or just to double check things, but mainly with the midwives.

[00:08:38.400] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. And were you just diet controlled, insulin.

[00:08:41.700] – Cristal Trimble

Diet and metformin.

[00:08:42.810] – Hilary Erickson

Okay. Yeah, very normal. Yep. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. What did you learn about yourself in the Labor Room? Anything as you became a mommy?

[00:08:49.470] – Cristal Trimble

I feel like I learned a lot after. Yeah, the delivery room was for me, and I know I’m kind of the exception to the rule. I was surprised how fast the process won, but at the same time, how fast time passes. You look up and 2 minutes later it seems like it’s 5 hours later and there’s this little baby. Yeah. And they’re like, okay, they’re responsible for them now.

[00:09:10.980] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Good luck. Yes. I don’t want to raise them, but yeah, it is great. I love so much of the hospital’s like waiting and then like, boom, like huge things happen and then waiting and then boom. Yeah, yeah. So that’s a great perspective. Well, congratulations. Thank adorable. We still didn’t get a baby brb so that’s too bad. But good luck going back to work. That’s always hot. Although I kind of liked going back to work because it was the one thing that was like normal for me versus what was not normal at my house. So good luck with everything and thanks for coming on, Krystal. Appreciate it.

[00:09:43.230] – Cristal Trimble

Thank you. Have a great day.

[00:09:44.760] – Hilary Erickson

Oh, my gosh, guys, that was so awesome. I can’t believe she did an induction at 39 weeks. That was prolonged natural. That is so awesome. Super proud of her. If you are looking to get your confident birth, you do need just some mild preparation. I’m not going to teach you like how to deliver it in your car, but just some basic ideas. It’s going to make it so much easier so that you can make the right choice in your choose your own adventure. You can find my prenatal class through the shownotes, or at onlineprenatalclass.com.

[00:10:12.420] – 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.