RPF0212-We_Had_a_Baby
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00:00:15.200 | Hey radicals quick show tonight. Welcome to the show we have exciting news we had a baby.
00:00:21.920 | We had a little baby girl on Friday morning so thank you to all of you who've been thinking
00:00:27.760 | about us and praying for us. We were very excited to have have this little baby girl. Baby is doing
00:00:32.240 | well and mama is doing well and it was a beautiful the birth was a beautiful experience. I just wanted
00:00:38.720 | to come on and and let you know that since I know I've been talking about it on the show last you
00:00:43.200 | know past days and wanted to come on and mention it on the show and just have a little announcement
00:00:50.320 | here for you all. So and then also I went ahead and I thought it'd be fun and I decided you probably
00:00:55.440 | get tired of hearing from just me and I invited my wife to come on and just say hello. So how
00:01:00.160 | you feeling babe? I feel good glad to have a pretty baby girl. I know it's exciting. Now the other
00:01:06.640 | reason that I roped you in was just a to make this quick announcement but I thought it'd be fun.
00:01:10.640 | I wound up mentioning on a recent recent show that one of my goals on my list of goals for a while
00:01:16.080 | had been the birth of our little baby girl and that I'd had it on there that before July 15 2015
00:01:22.960 | that we would have would birth our little baby girl healthy happy everyone would be everyone
00:01:28.000 | would be great and I had some adjectives surrounding that as far as the way that you know that you and
00:01:32.720 | I had talked about the birth and I got some feedback from the audience people said hey we'd
00:01:36.000 | be interested in knowing what you did because I said you know we wanted a safe natural easy
00:01:39.280 | childbirth. We wanted it to be a beautiful experience not just something that you
00:01:43.360 | regret our grit our teeth and get in get through. So I thought while it was fresh in our minds that
00:01:48.880 | that you and I might just record you know five or ten minutes of of ideas here just to share with
00:01:53.360 | any of the other parents or prospective parents of some of the things that we've found helpful.
00:01:57.680 | So I'll start though because they probably get the audience gets tired of hearing me talk.
00:02:02.480 | How was the birth experience this time for you? It was even faster than last time
00:02:07.200 | and we're thankful for fast births. I know it's genetic I'm not taking credit but it is nice.
00:02:14.640 | I think you could take a little bit of credit doesn't I mean it's always hard to know because
00:02:18.960 | so many things in life you can't necessarily control them but then you can also work hard
00:02:24.640 | to control some things. So when you do everything you know to do and you work hard at it yeah you
00:02:29.120 | ultimately can't take credit for things but you can at least acknowledge the fact that you've
00:02:32.480 | worked hard towards something. Right we did have a goal and fast or slow you still have to manage
00:02:38.080 | the experience. So we did everything we could to manage the experience and whether it would
00:02:42.720 | have been fast or slow we would have done the same things. Right right and it wasn't so much
00:02:46.320 | about the speed of the birth I mean we're thankful that it was that this one especially was even
00:02:50.560 | quicker than last time but it was more about the experience about having it be a wonderful joyful
00:02:56.560 | positive experience kind of an intimate time of bonding for us as a family and just something
00:03:01.440 | beautiful that we look back on with pleasure rather than something that we look at and say
00:03:06.160 | wow that was horrible. Now we've had close friends who've had really challenging births so we know
00:03:11.280 | that we're definitely we're definitely thankful. So I thought would be useful is maybe just in the
00:03:15.040 | same way that if we were talking with some of our friends maybe we just share some of the tips that
00:03:18.080 | some of the things that we've worked at to try to accomplish our goal of having the type of birth
00:03:23.680 | that we wanted. What's the first thing that comes to your mind of that we focused on that we worked
00:03:28.640 | at that we did differently than many people to try to have a positive birth experience? The first
00:03:34.480 | thing that comes to my mind is choosing an out-of-hospital birth. We've seen different
00:03:40.160 | documentaries and heard experiences that support what these videos claim that explain how a hospital
00:03:47.840 | birth may be taken out of your hands if you're not confident in your care provider and the
00:03:54.080 | I guess they're called floor staff the people in the hospital not just your doctor or certified
00:04:00.720 | nurse midwife or whoever you have but also the people that actually work in the hospital
00:04:04.640 | and they have protocols to fulfill and they have you know laws that they have to follow. I'm not
00:04:11.600 | criticizing anybody just saying that for us we wanted to have a little more control a little
00:04:16.880 | more say in our birth so we chose an out-of-hospital birth and I think from there a lot more decision
00:04:23.040 | a lot of the other decisions come more easily. Yeah the out-of-hospital one that's certainly
00:04:28.000 | very controversial in today's world but I know it was important to us if possible to have a natural
00:04:33.600 | birth and the closest hospital to our you know to our house here is a widely known as for having a
00:04:42.480 | very positive birth environment. They got a beautiful birthing suites and it's a very
00:04:49.520 | you know a lot of our friends have their babies there but their c-section rate is up over 30%.
00:04:53.440 | I can't remember the last year and even 37% something like that and it's an incredibly
00:04:58.880 | high c-section rate. Now thank I'm so thankful that that the technology of the c-section exists
00:05:04.880 | for the moms and the babies who need it. There have been countless lives saved by it but for us
00:05:10.880 | both of our pregnancies have been low risk. There's not been a single risk factor and I think for us
00:05:16.560 | we decided that there's more risky for us to give birth in a hospital absent any since in our case
00:05:23.520 | there was no medical indicators indicating that we had any reason to be in a hospital.
00:05:28.800 | We felt it was it was actually better for us to give birth at home which is what we chose to do
00:05:37.360 | and it was when you give birth in home in a house or in your own home it number one it controls a
00:05:43.280 | lot of the risk factors that can happen with actually giving birth in the hospital. Number two
00:05:48.320 | it actually helps you just to control the environment and I know based upon all of our
00:05:52.480 | research one of the things that we've worked very hard to do is to control the emotional and
00:05:57.200 | psychological aspects of our birthing experience is to try to work through and we did we did
00:06:06.320 | something that's called hypnobirthing. There are a number of childbirth educational classes and
00:06:11.440 | things you can go through the three most popular is hypnobirthing, Lamaze and Bradley and Bradley
00:06:17.120 | and we chose to go through the hypnobirthing process and one of the things that the authors
00:06:22.320 | of hypnobirthing materials emphasize is the impact of psychology and the impact of of I guess just
00:06:30.080 | the mental game on the birthing process. I know for us that has definitely been our experience.
00:06:36.240 | If you're fearful about birth if you're at all uncomfortable and in talking with different
00:06:40.080 | friends of ours doulas midwives they've shared various stories just simply about the psychological
00:06:45.440 | aspect of childbirth where sometimes they'll be working with a couple through a difficult child
00:06:50.640 | birth fairly lengthy things aren't progressing they're trying to figure out what on earth is
00:06:54.480 | going on and they'll start digging into the psychology and they'll find out I know one
00:06:58.560 | one experience that a doula shared with us one time was she'd figured out that the husband had
00:07:04.160 | made some rude statements and the wife had remembered them and all that she didn't know
00:07:09.920 | was a problem till all of a sudden they're in their birth and all these fears kind of take over
00:07:13.040 | and it stops the childbirth experience. So just simply the impact of psychology and the impact
00:07:18.160 | of feeling comfortable and relaxed and confident can make a huge difference. Also the under like
00:07:26.160 | don't going through the class helped us to understand what exactly the body was doing.
00:07:30.400 | It helps me to visualize what I'm feeling and not just feel this vague odd sensation I don't know
00:07:37.600 | what this is I should probably be scared right now. Instead I think oh this is what my muscles
00:07:43.440 | are doing I can feel this this action happening if I actually focus on it I realize oh yes I feel
00:07:49.120 | it right here this is what I'm feeling and it's not scary it's not vague it's a defined happening.
00:07:58.960 | So it makes it easier to understand and not be fearful because you realize this is a normal
00:08:04.800 | natural process that our bodies have been ours as women have been designed to do.
00:08:10.960 | I know that that was a big one for us was actually learning because the only thing that you know
00:08:16.800 | that either of us you because before we got married and had a baby you'd never been to a
00:08:20.320 | birth right? I had never been to a birth no. And neither did I of course so the only idea and
00:08:26.400 | perception that you have of childbirth when you haven't been through one is essentially what
00:08:30.480 | you've seen on a TV show and usually that's been filmed for dramatic effect some woman lying on
00:08:36.080 | her back in a hospital gown screaming her brains out and some panicked dad or just panicked person
00:08:43.520 | there screaming and saying what are we going to do or the you know the horrifying taxi ride we
00:08:47.840 | got to get to the hospital it's all for dramatic effect. But the challenge is those are the things
00:08:52.480 | that stay with us there's a reason why those scenes were chosen and so that's the mental
00:08:59.520 | idea that we have. So I know for us a big especially with our first baby it was a big
00:09:05.760 | epiphany just to recognize that even the the pain and the experience of what actually physically
00:09:14.240 | happens during childbirth is not an unknown factor. For example when we first went through
00:09:19.200 | the class where they explained what a uterus actually is and how the muscles in the uterus
00:09:25.040 | actually contract and work to bring the baby from where it's been for nine months through the birth
00:09:30.400 | path to be born then all of a sudden it brings a totally different meaning to the word contraction.
00:09:36.000 | You know prior to that I don't know what you mean for me a contraction was just something that was
00:09:41.280 | this horrible painful experience but after that we figured out well this is just kind of like
00:09:45.200 | lifting weights where you're experiencing these muscular contractions in order to do the work
00:09:50.240 | and once you understand it it changes the process.
00:09:52.960 | They're not going to believe me unless you say something.
00:09:57.840 | I'm nodding my head over here.
00:10:00.560 | Okay yes that's basically what I just said but you said it longer.
00:10:07.520 | If you've ever wondered in our marriage I have the skill for making things that are simple long
00:10:14.880 | and repeating them and my wife is very concise as you just heard. So that decision to have a home
00:10:24.720 | birth is certainly an important one and you have to be comfortable with it because there are risks
00:10:30.240 | to having a home birth and you need to be prepared for those risks. Thankfully if you do number one
00:10:36.400 | if you pay careful attention with your medical team to any actual physical risk factors that you
00:10:41.040 | have most of those risks are known about in advance and then you can have a plan in place
00:10:46.160 | in case risks emerge during childbirth that you know we had a backup plan we have backup physicians
00:10:53.440 | backup hospital ready to go we had bags packed all you know contingency plans in place in case
00:10:58.960 | we needed to transport to the hospital. So we were comfortable with those things.
00:11:03.920 | And having a home birth doesn't mean that you're not getting quality medical care.
00:11:08.320 | We had qualified midwives with us through the whole process we get the same prenatal care
00:11:13.920 | that people get who go to an OB. We could choose to opt in or out of certain tests that may have
00:11:20.320 | been offered and it's not it doesn't mean just going off in the woods somewhere like a cow and
00:11:30.880 | having your baby that's not what home birth means. It doesn't? No.
00:11:37.760 | Another idea that might be helpful for some that are interested in the topic. Let's talk about the
00:11:43.520 | fear release process because I know for us that was a big deal and I think contributed a lot even
00:11:48.400 | to this last birth to making it a positive experience that we had gone through the process
00:11:53.280 | of figuring out what you were fearful of and figuring out ways to handle those fears. Why
00:11:59.360 | don't you explain about that? Yeah one of the exercises we did in our hypnobirthing class
00:12:04.960 | was writing down anything that may emotionally cloud your birth experience. So basically fears
00:12:14.000 | things that that could hinder your birth from being smooth things that would keep you from
00:12:18.480 | being confident while you were going through your birth experience. And for me a lot of my fears were
00:12:25.920 | based on what other people would do regarding the timing of the birth. I don't like to be rushed
00:12:33.920 | in anything. Poor Joshua he deals with my slowness sometimes. But I don't like to be
00:12:41.040 | rushed and I didn't want to feel like anyone was pressuring me to hurry up and have this baby and
00:12:45.360 | I didn't want to feel like a due date meant something because for those of you who haven't
00:12:50.320 | gone through this process a due date is the midpoint in well I guess it'd be a little bit
00:12:55.440 | after the midpoint in a five-week window when it's safe to have a baby. It doesn't mean that the baby
00:13:00.880 | has to have shown up by that point or something's wrong. And I'm not saying that in some cases it
00:13:05.680 | isn't but it's not based on a due date. You can look into that on your own at a later time. Anyway
00:13:11.200 | I didn't want to feel rushed. I don't want anyone to know when the due date was or be asking me
00:13:15.120 | where's the baby? Where's the baby? What's wrong? How come you haven't had the baby? We're so
00:13:19.760 | excited to see that baby. While I appreciate that they were excited I didn't want to feel like I
00:13:26.000 | needed to meet someone else's expectations. So I had a long list of I guess you'd call it like a
00:13:33.360 | family birth plan or maybe requirements for other people that they were not to call me, they were
00:13:39.600 | not to text me, they were not to know the due date or if they did they were not to ask about it,
00:13:43.920 | they were not to post anything on Facebook, they were not to tell their friends my grandbaby's
00:13:48.320 | coming soon or my cousin's baby is due to arrive any day. Leave me alone. I will let you know when
00:13:54.640 | the baby shows up. So that was important for me. We sent out an email to the family and it may have
00:13:59.920 | come across I mean a little bit rude just because of the nature of the request. It's not common in
00:14:05.120 | our society that people would ask for that. But for me it was important that my family know that
00:14:12.560 | this could hinder my ideal birth and they all respected my wishes and if there were any confusing
00:14:20.640 | statements that I made we cleared those up. And it resulted in my feeling like I was free to have
00:14:27.600 | the baby whenever he in that first case decided to come and I could relax and just wait for my
00:14:34.880 | body to bring the baby and I didn't have to feel under any pressure. I could just wait and relax
00:14:41.360 | and let him choose his birthday. It was very important to me and it was essential for that
00:14:45.920 | first birth that I feel relaxed. Yeah and on this last one and on baby number two we didn't even
00:14:52.720 | tell anybody the expected due date. The only people who knew were the midwives and also then
00:14:59.680 | the person that we'd chosen to care for our son, our older child in case a baby came during the
00:15:08.880 | day and we needed to have him taken care of and have somebody come and get him. So that person
00:15:14.240 | needed to know. Beyond that nobody, my mom didn't know, your mom didn't know. We kept it secret.
00:15:20.160 | We just told everybody about the end of June and the actual expected due date was June 24.
00:15:26.480 | So that worked out and then when you combine them not knowing with the explicit instructions of
00:15:32.480 | don't ask, we'll tell you when the baby's on her way, then it led to just a very pressure-free
00:15:41.120 | delivery. I guess to me I was thinking about after the fact like what were the things that
00:15:48.000 | we did to prepare and in my mind they all came down to, well many of them just came down to
00:15:53.840 | the psychological side, just making sure that you felt rested, that you felt comfortable.
00:15:58.400 | There were some physical things that we did to prepare for the childbirth experience that we
00:16:04.000 | hoped to have but a lot of the psychological ones were important. We tried to have everything
00:16:09.280 | squared away and plenty of time with baby's things, baby's room, baby's environment.
00:16:15.520 | We tried to have all of the things done around the house that needed to be done,
00:16:20.240 | any loose ends that were going to stress you out to try to make sure that all of those loose ends
00:16:25.120 | were taken care of, to try to make sure that the environment was very comfortable for you,
00:16:30.400 | that you had all of the things that you wanted so that you could just be at ease and be comfortable.
00:16:36.000 | All the psychological things as far as no pressure, being in a comfortable environment.
00:16:39.920 | We made sure that the house was clean. We made sure I had a nightlight for nursing.
00:16:45.600 | We made sure there was greenery in the room where I was going to give birth so it felt like
00:16:50.880 | nature-ish. It was lots of little things. We tried to keep the house clean so that I didn't
00:16:57.040 | have to feel like, "Oh, there's dog hair over here and that's a problem right now."
00:17:00.240 | And then some of the physical things that we did as far as physical preparations is number one,
00:17:06.000 | obviously eating well, exercising. I made you go on your walks.
00:17:09.520 | - And it was hot.
00:17:11.760 | - Exactly. I pushed you out the door and said, "Go walk." And I obviously went on some of them
00:17:18.160 | when I could. Make sure you had lots of rest. So that was really valuable was to have as much
00:17:24.320 | rest as possible, as many naps as possible. - And snacks.
00:17:27.200 | - And snacks. Other physical things would be chiropractic care. You had chiropractic care all
00:17:34.480 | the way through. And go ahead and talk about that. - I recommend chiropractic care to every pregnant
00:17:41.040 | mama. It, in my opinion, made a big difference. I just know my first baby came so smoothly
00:17:49.520 | and easily. The way it was explained to us was if the baby has all the room possible that he or she
00:17:58.560 | can have, then they're not trying to finagle through a wiggly path. Everything is straight
00:18:06.400 | and in line. They can just come right on down. And that made so much sense to us that we started
00:18:12.000 | to go into chiropractic adjustments about six months in with our first baby and all the way
00:18:16.720 | through, well, no, maybe three or four months in with this baby. And it just, I mean, not only
00:18:24.720 | does it make you more comfortable during the pregnancy, it makes everything smoother during
00:18:30.000 | the birth because you know that the baby has as much room as possible to get down.
00:18:34.560 | - Yeah. There were kind of two aspects to it. There's the first, making sure that you're feeling
00:18:40.480 | comfortable because when you're carrying the baby and all of the baby's weight, that puts a lot of
00:18:46.560 | unusual stress on your body. And so making sure that everything's well-adjusted for you can make
00:18:51.440 | a big difference. But then during the delivery, making sure, I guess it's hard to describe in an
00:18:57.120 | audio format, but just making sure that your pelvis and your pelvic bones are all lined up
00:19:01.920 | so there's a maximum space possible. When you actually look at the human anatomy and understand
00:19:06.560 | a slight twisting of the pelvis means substantially less room for baby to pass through. But if
00:19:11.520 | everything is straightened out, it's substantially more room for baby to pass through. It makes a big
00:19:15.840 | difference. Big difference. Anything else that you can think of that we, I mean, kind of doing
00:19:21.920 | this show on a whim here. - Well, I feel like, I mean, just to leave ideas with people, the biggest
00:19:32.240 | thing that we did was our research. We read, we watched documentaries, we talked to various people,
00:19:38.320 | we toured the hospital right near us, we visited birth centers, talked to midwives, like home birth
00:19:45.920 | midwives. There are two kinds of midwife. One is a certified nurse midwife and one is a licensed
00:19:50.880 | midwife. And they have slightly different philosophies, different trainings. So midwife
00:19:55.680 | might mean different things to different people. Then you've got OBs, you've got naturopaths. I'm
00:20:00.800 | not sure if I'm saying that right. Just different people you could choose to have a baby with.
00:20:07.600 | And then you've got all these decisions to make. Do we circumcise? Do we vaccinate? Do we breastfeed?
00:20:12.480 | Do we use cloth diapers? All these questions. And how do we sue the fussy baby? Do we follow
00:20:19.600 | a sleep schedule? Do we follow a feeding schedule? So many things that nobody tells you you have to
00:20:26.080 | decide about and you have nine months to get it figured out. So do your reading, do your watching
00:20:32.880 | your DVDs, ask people around you who had good experiences. Do not find those people who love
00:20:39.440 | to horrify you with "I almost died and my baby almost died and if it weren't for my XY intervention
00:20:46.800 | you know we would have died." Sometimes that does happen but it's not encouraging
00:20:51.920 | when you're going to have a baby. So try to find the people that had positive experiences
00:20:57.120 | or who can tell you how to have a positive experience and put those ideas in your head.
00:21:02.400 | And don't put TV shows with crazy screaming people. Think calm, relaxed, confident, and read.
00:21:10.720 | And read from both sides of different issues and make your own decisions as a family. Because
00:21:18.560 | a lot of times people just get swept along. They say "Okay I'm pregnant" and go find whoever can
00:21:26.320 | deliver a baby and follow whoever as whoever's advice they hear. "That sounds fine. I guess this
00:21:32.080 | is what you do when you have a baby." And then they come out of it thinking "Well that wasn't
00:21:36.800 | a positive experience. I don't know if I want to do that again." But a little reading can save you
00:21:41.920 | that feeling of disillusionment. Yeah and it can impart a sense of self-confidence because
00:21:49.840 | big time. I know you and I we try very hard to because our birth plan would be different from
00:21:56.240 | other people's birth plans. And the key is not for anybody to assume what another person wants
00:22:03.280 | but rather to feel confident and empowered with your own choices. Because at the end of the day
00:22:08.400 | it's your family, it's your baby, and it's your birth. And so take ownership of it and take
00:22:14.640 | control of it to the largest extent possible. And then be flexible in your thinking because
00:22:23.280 | circumstances can emerge that would say "Well we need to move in a very different direction." You
00:22:26.800 | might have your birth plan specifically pointed in this direction and then some circumstance presents
00:22:34.320 | itself and you need to make a complete change. And that's why you have a medical team there
00:22:38.640 | that's able to help you and assist you in that process. And that's why you empower yourself
00:22:43.360 | because then you understand "Oh I know what this medical term means. I understand the repercussions
00:22:50.320 | of not making a change to my plan and I feel confident making this change." It's not just
00:22:55.680 | "Oh well somebody suggested that maybe we should do this so well I don't really know what that
00:22:59.760 | means but maybe we should do it." It just gives you a place to ask questions, intelligent questions,
00:23:06.800 | and take control of your birth whether it follows your initial plan or not.
00:23:10.560 | - Right, right. So two other things about the birth. I'll put you on the spot. I didn't
00:23:16.480 | prep her for these questions but I think the audience will enjoy. And then we'll talk about
00:23:20.400 | one or two quick things about having a baby or actually when the baby's actually here.
00:23:25.440 | So hypnobirthing claims, I don't know what the word is on the front cover of their book,
00:23:31.520 | but it's basically about pain-free childbirth, something like that.
00:23:34.000 | - I think it's more they advertise calm and gentle, not so much pain-free. Although they
00:23:40.320 | do suggest that that is possible with the right circumstances.
00:23:43.520 | - So what would be your experience? Is it possible to have a pain-free childbirth?
00:23:47.520 | - Well I've only had two births. I don't know if you can even ask, that's a pretty broad question
00:23:52.480 | to ask one person. Do I think it's possible? Others have claimed so. I had, I would say,
00:24:01.520 | pretty relatively pain-free birth. Not pain-free but not painful, meaning there were moments
00:24:08.160 | specifically during the, what is it called, ending where the baby's actually coming out.
00:24:13.120 | - Right, final phase.
00:24:13.920 | - Right, well I know the final phase is the placenta. Anyway, the part where the baby's
00:24:18.640 | actually coming out, that was not pain-free but it didn't last very long and the labor process
00:24:26.720 | was made much more bearable by the fact that I understood what was going on. I felt pressure,
00:24:35.520 | I felt tightening, I felt sensations, I felt lowering, the baby going down. But I didn't feel
00:24:42.960 | scared about it, I didn't feel confused about what was my body doing. I felt in control,
00:24:52.000 | I felt confident with working with what my muscles were doing and I had breathing techniques to help
00:24:58.960 | me be able to focus on my body and not just think, "Oh no, what's going on, what's going on?" and
00:25:04.160 | tighten everything up. Because if you tighten up, then that causes pain. But if you can breathe and
00:25:10.000 | relax and pay attention and visualize what's going on in your body, then you don't have to be afraid
00:25:16.720 | and tighten up and cause your own self-pain. - The best analogy that we came up with that
00:25:22.960 | we've shared with our friends that for us was super helpful was when you understand what's
00:25:27.520 | going on, it's kind of like a workout. If you go into the gym, and it's what I mentioned earlier
00:25:31.280 | about understanding simple things like what uterine contractions are, but if you go into the gym and
00:25:36.960 | you're lifting heavy weights, many of us have had that experience, and you're lifting heavy weights
00:25:40.480 | and you're pressing through a bunch of repetitions and your muscles might be really screaming and
00:25:44.480 | they're really hurting, you're really feeling a burning sensation in your muscles. Well, you don't
00:25:49.760 | usually just drop the weight and run out of the gym screaming like your hair is on fire.
00:25:54.880 | You recognize, "I know what's going on, I'm pressing through this set of repetitions and yes,
00:26:01.040 | my muscles are burning, but I recognize that the sensation is normal and it's going to pass."
00:26:07.360 | And so by being prepared for that sensation, once you've experienced it once, you know what's going
00:26:12.080 | to happen. It's not pain-free. There's certainly pain, but it's not unmanageable, unbearable pain.
00:26:18.480 | And so with the labor process, that's my observation is it's not pain-free,
00:26:24.960 | and I've got just the observer's seat, but it's not pain-free. But by the understanding of it,
00:26:32.160 | of what's going on, and then by the being relaxed and by the mental preparation as you're going
00:26:39.200 | through the process, it's not unbearable. One clarification, he doesn't have quite the
00:26:45.760 | just observer's seat. He is very much involved in the process with helping me feel comfortable,
00:26:51.440 | making sure I have water, making sure I have snacks, telling me I'm doing a good job,
00:26:55.680 | dealing with my ridiculous requests. "I need water. No, I don't. I need music. Turn it off.
00:27:01.120 | I need my birth ball. Get it away from me. Need massage. Don't touch me."
00:27:05.120 | He's very much involved. He's not just an observer. That's part of what makes it easier,
00:27:12.800 | too. There's certain statistics, I'm not exactly sure the numbers, but that women who have constant
00:27:18.800 | support during labor have far better outcomes than women who don't have support. And for some,
00:27:24.160 | that may be a doula, it may be your mom, but in our case, it was Joshua, and he did an awesome job.
00:27:31.040 | And I feel like if you have that support, it makes a huge difference in feeling relaxed and
00:27:38.000 | confident and comfortable because you don't feel alone, and somebody else understands what your
00:27:43.120 | body is doing and can respond to that and help you. And also, he timed the surges and watched
00:27:50.640 | the process to figure out when do we call the midwife and how are we doing along the process.
00:27:56.080 | He's not just an observer. He's a companion.
00:27:59.600 | - Yeah, it is good. I can't stand when husbands put everything onto their wives and don't take
00:28:09.200 | a place of responsibility in the process. You were involved in making the baby, it's time to step up
00:28:14.080 | and help through the process. The two things that anger me when I see weak, impotent husbands is,
00:28:19.520 | number one, when they don't get involved with childbirth, and number two, when they don't get
00:28:23.440 | involved with weddings. That's the other one. That's a rant for another day. But you start here,
00:28:28.800 | there's a lot of weak, impotent men who just don't step forward and take any place of
00:28:35.440 | responsibility. And childbirth is one of those, I know for us, is just an incredible,
00:28:39.760 | really beautiful experience that has drawn us closer together. And I know both of us,
00:28:46.640 | we look back and treasure the memories of the two nights so far, working through that process
00:28:53.920 | together. It's a really beautiful experience. - And I know I've noticed, no matter what age
00:28:59.760 | of a woman you ask about her birth experience, she remembers. - She sure does.
00:29:04.480 | - She remembers. This is not like a class in school where you might remember certain
00:29:10.320 | details here and there. Women remember. So make it as best a good experience as you can.
00:29:17.840 | - You spent a lot of time doing affirmations, birthing affirmations, for the weeks up to it.
00:29:24.960 | I made sure every night, sent you to the bathtub with candles and birthing affirmations. I make
00:29:30.240 | fun of affirmations a lot on the show from the visualize, "Oh, I'm gonna sit back and visualize
00:29:35.840 | millions of dollars floating into my mailbox." But what impact or how useful did you feel that
00:29:41.440 | the birthing affirmations were for you? - After the first birth, we did affirmations
00:29:47.280 | with the first birth as well. I started looking for affirmations for everything. I was like,
00:29:52.800 | "Are there parenting affirmations? Are there affirmations for maybe like eating right or
00:29:59.120 | the way you wanna get things done?" And I'm sure you can make your own affirmations for anything,
00:30:03.600 | but I was like, "This is great. We just need these for everything." Because it puts an idea
00:30:09.840 | in your head. It gives you a direction. And if you don't have anything to fill your mind
00:30:18.560 | while you're in labor, it's easy to let fear take over or confusion or, I mean, I don't know what
00:30:26.080 | you would think of, but if you have in your mind a plan that I'm confident, I feel calm, I feel
00:30:34.720 | my breath filling my body, I understand what's going on, my baby's moving down. These are not
00:30:40.880 | the hypnobirthing affirmations, but just to give you some ideas. It puts ideas in your head that
00:30:45.920 | you can then cling to in those moments when you don't know what else to think about.
00:30:50.640 | - Right, right. I just noticed they were very useful. And I think they have their place in
00:30:57.600 | normal life. Affirmations can help you to focus your thoughts and focus your efforts and direct
00:31:03.120 | your mind in a positive direction. - Right, but I didn't see millions
00:31:06.080 | of dollars in the bank account. - We're working on that. Don't tell them.
00:31:10.080 | We're working on the millions. So then the final two things that I thought would be good to mention
00:31:16.560 | are not related to the birth, but actually just to after the birth. And one is just nice things
00:31:25.280 | that people have done for us. And so if you know friends who are having babies, one thing that even
00:31:31.120 | just this time, a close friend brought us lunch the day of, and that was really nice before some
00:31:36.560 | of the people in our church get together and put together a meal list and people have been bringing
00:31:41.440 | us food every night, which is a real blessing. But even just a friend of ours showed up with lunch
00:31:46.320 | for that day and didn't ask, didn't ask permission, just did it. And that was a big blessing.
00:31:51.760 | - It was so sweet, so thoughtful. I was just so surprised. I think I thanked her two or three
00:31:56.720 | times. She just showed, she sent me a text, "Hey, I'm gonna show up and bring some food." And I was
00:32:01.120 | like, "Oh, that's great." But I had no idea she was bringing lunch, she brought dessert,
00:32:05.520 | she brought snacks and cereal and sparkling juice. It was so nice.
00:32:10.880 | - Yeah. So those little things can just make a big difference to a family. So if you know someone
00:32:15.600 | who's recently had a baby, don't ask. It's hard when you're juggling all kinds of new things,
00:32:20.320 | it's hard to try to figure out and plan, just do it and recognize that they're gonna appreciate it.
00:32:24.720 | - But they might turn you away at the door.
00:32:26.240 | - Right.
00:32:26.640 | - Because when we had our first baby, I didn't want anyone to touch him, I didn't want anyone
00:32:32.240 | to show up at my house. I wanted our privacy and our family bonding. And so do it, but you might
00:32:39.600 | just also be prepared to leave it at the door and go home.
00:32:42.080 | - Right. And you gotta let mama be in charge, 'cause this time has been very
00:32:45.520 | different where we've been totally relaxed and happy to see people and it's been nice
00:32:48.800 | to be able to visit with people right away. Then the other thing I thought would be fun
00:32:52.240 | was our pet peeve about people commenting about sleep patterns for new parents.
00:33:01.360 | So we were talking about this the other day and it's kind of interesting having a new baby in
00:33:08.080 | the house. In our society, we have little mental scripts that we run and a little script like,
00:33:16.400 | "Hey, how you doing? Oh, I'm fine, how are you?"
00:33:19.040 | - Or you walk up to the counter at the McDonald's, "Hi, how can I help you? I'd like the number five."
00:33:23.440 | - Right. It's just we know the back and forth and it doesn't ever change every time. And so people
00:33:29.440 | get used to running the scripts. And so one of the verbal scripts that people use with new parents
00:33:34.240 | is talking about the parent's sleep, about how much sleep they're getting or how much
00:33:38.880 | sleep they're not getting or asking a question about, "Are you getting any sleep?"
00:33:41.840 | And I did this myself for years before I was married and before I'd been through it as a
00:33:48.560 | parent. I just adopted the script 'cause this is what you say. You make a comment about the
00:33:52.480 | parent's sleep. You say, "Oh, I hope you're getting lots of sleep." Or, "Oh, are you getting
00:33:56.320 | any sleep?" People don't mean anything rude by it. People mean very positive by it. But I know that
00:34:02.160 | after we had our first baby, I finally had a chance to understand actually what sleeping patterns are
00:34:07.600 | for babies and why sleeping patterns are that way. And I don't ever talk to a new parent about sleep
00:34:14.080 | now. I don't make any comments on it because I actually understand what's going on. So I thought
00:34:18.720 | we might do our public service announcement for the listening public about things to actually
00:34:24.320 | understand why and how baby's sleep patterns are set when they're newborns. (laughs)
00:34:30.360 | - Okay, carry on.
00:34:32.120 | - Okay, so that was gonna be to setting you up to give it. I guess just the thing that I learned,
00:34:39.240 | that I had never really understood was the reason that babies wake up during the night is not
00:34:45.320 | because there's something wrong with babies. It's not somehow that a parent is not doing a good job,
00:34:49.880 | but rather just the fact that their stomachs are very small. When a baby is newborn, their stomach
00:34:54.280 | is how big?
00:34:55.000 | - I don't know. Google it.
00:34:56.920 | - Tiny. We don't Google on this show.
00:34:59.240 | - Oh, I mean, use the duck. Ask the duck. Ask the duck.
00:35:01.240 | - The audience knows that very well.
00:35:02.840 | - Ask the duck.
00:35:03.800 | - So their stomachs are, the baby's tummy is tiny and it can only hold just a tiny little
00:35:12.920 | amount of milk. And so the baby needs to be fed basically about every three hours
00:35:18.200 | at the beginning. And then as time goes on, it can stretch out, but every three hours,
00:35:23.800 | she needs food. And so your goal as a new parent is not to get your child to sleep
00:35:30.920 | because you're probably at least not nourishing it as fully as maybe you should be if you're
00:35:36.920 | doing that at the beginning. Now, a little while later, yes, it's nice when they can sleep through
00:35:41.800 | the night, but in the beginning, it's no problem to need to get up and feed the baby during the
00:35:45.880 | night. The baby needs food. And in the same way that you wouldn't tell your three-year-old not
00:35:50.600 | to eat for three days and starve them because you're worried about your precious sleep patterns,
00:35:56.040 | you want to make sure that your baby's needs are cared for. So it's not super helpful to ask
00:36:00.600 | parents about sleep or not parents about sleep. I mean, it's no big deal. That's just what,
00:36:03.880 | it comes with the territory. You have a baby and you need to make sure that your baby's needs are
00:36:09.800 | met. And when you do that, part of that is just involves sleep. And part of it involves waking
00:36:16.040 | up and making sure that the baby's needs are met. And I know we're amazed often at just even how our
00:36:23.080 | bodies can adapt to that. I mean, I noticed that you are able to very effectively change and it
00:36:28.040 | seems like your body was beautifully made to be able to adjust and adapt and basically just change
00:36:33.800 | your sleep schedule a little bit to match baby's sleep schedule. - It also helps to have help.
00:36:38.120 | - It's hugely, yeah. The first couple of days are the toughest. They definitely are. And after that,
00:36:42.680 | you can kind of get into a routine. But yeah, we've got your mom staying with us right now,
00:36:46.360 | and that's a huge blessing. - Yes, because as he said,
00:36:50.200 | babies need to eat, which means you're getting less slash scattered sleep. And there comes a
00:36:56.840 | point sometimes 4 a.m. when you just need to sleep and you need to pass that baby to somebody else.
00:37:03.560 | So it is different sleeping and you do adjust, but it is nice to have help.
00:37:08.600 | - Yeah. I guess my point with the public service announcement is simply,
00:37:11.880 | there's no need to ask new parents about sleep. They're not sleeping through the night. But then
00:37:15.880 | again, I don't sleep like I did when I was a 16-year-old boy. I sleep differently as a husband
00:37:22.600 | than I did when I was single. I sleep differently as a father than we did when we were married and
00:37:26.760 | didn't have kids. It's just you go through phases of life and life changes and it comes with the
00:37:31.400 | territories. There's no need to ask a new parent about sleep, no need to comment about sleep,
00:37:35.240 | no need to bemoan or commiserate about the lack of sleep or the abundance of sleep.
00:37:40.040 | It's just called parenting. It runs with the territory. So anything else you wanna add,
00:37:45.400 | words of wisdom and encouragement to other, I guess, prospective moms and dads or other
00:37:49.960 | moms and dads in general? - Just do your research. It can be
00:37:54.680 | beautiful. It can be what you want. It can be fulfilling and memorable in a positive way.
00:38:00.440 | And I feel like every time you hear this speech, there's always the disclaimer,
00:38:05.960 | "But you know, there are those emergencies." And of course there are. But why start from there?
00:38:10.440 | - Right, right. Yeah, I would say that's a great way to sum it up. Do your research. And
00:38:16.440 | I guess as I mentioned, the reason I had Tiffany on the show was just simply because I'd mentioned
00:38:22.360 | this a couple of days ago, that set out your goal, set out your ideal vision of what you
00:38:28.440 | actually want. Just like anything, if you can clarify what your ideal vision is and you can
00:38:34.360 | flesh it out as much as possible, then you can start to take the steps towards those goals.
00:38:42.360 | And you can back it up in the same way that at every stage along, but once we got into the
00:38:50.120 | pregnancy a little bit, I've had little sub-goals, little things that need to be done. Okay, these
00:38:54.440 | things on the house need to be done. These things need to be wrapped up. We need to make sure that
00:38:58.040 | Tiffany is getting this. We need to make sure these things are happening. And those things put
00:39:02.200 | together, I think they make a huge difference. And I wouldn't ever be so arrogant as to say that
00:39:10.040 | we control the outcome, but I would say that you can work hard to create the best outcome possible.
00:39:19.160 | And the amount of preparation that you've done can really make a big difference at that time.
00:39:24.520 | So we're thrilled to have our little baby girl here. So far, so good. We've been enjoying her
00:39:29.320 | immensely. If you all want to see pictures, feel free to connect with me on Facebook at my personal
00:39:33.160 | account. Go to facebook.com/joshuasheets, S-H-E-A-T-S, or just search in the Facebook search
00:39:39.160 | engine for Joshua Sheets, S-H-E-A-T-S, and you'll see way too many pictures. Or I guess Instagram
00:39:44.920 | also. I'm on Instagram at Joshua Sheets, whatever their thing is. Instagram.com/joshuasheets.
00:39:51.560 | Just search Joshua Sheets, S-H-E-A-T-S. I'm the only Joshua Sheets. So thanks for coming on the
00:39:56.440 | show, babe. It's been fun having you again. - Thanks for having me. Hope I didn't bore
00:39:59.160 | the audience with my childbirth stuff. - You mean you're the one who gets straight
00:40:03.000 | to the point and Joshua who goes on and on. Thank you all for listening. Be back with you soon.