Ep 347: Birth is magnetic

0:00Welcome to the Happy Homebirth Podcast, your source for positive natural childbirth stories and your community of support, education and encouragement and all things homebirth and motherhood. I want to tell you about two births. Same woman, same husband, same house, same type of birthing location, homebirth, and afterward, two completely different marriages. And this was not because one birth was easy and one was hard. That is not what made the difference. I've thought about this for years and I want to tell you what I think it actually was. Hey there, Happy Homebirthers and welcome to this week's bonus episode of the Happy Homebirth Podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin Fusco and I help mothers prepare for homebirth as whole women so that

1:02when labor starts, they're not scrambling for what they should have learned, they're leading. And this one is personal and there is an invitation at the end. So I want to tell you about my first birth. I at the time was a student midwife. I had read everything for school. I had seen births given beautifully at home. On paper, nobody was better prepared than I was. I was literally running up a flight of stairs four days before I gave birth to my first to help a mom give birth to her baby. So I felt really prepared and really confident. I knew so much about homebirth and I also assumed that my husband knew about homebirth. You know, he has seen me work as a student midwife for all of this time.

2:04We talk about birth things. He knows the word fundus like we're on the same page. We're going to do great together. He is a competent, strong man and I felt like he will definitely rise to the occasion. He will know what to do as the birth is unfolding. And similarly out of love and admiration, I believe he believed. Okay, Lynn's got it. She's a student midwife for crying out loud. She's attending births. She's running up a flight of stairs to help a mom have a baby four days before she had her baby. I don't know. Like it went both ways. He thought I've got it. And I thought, oh yeah, he's got it. Like he's going to know what to do. Whoopsies. We had the wrong assumption. Neither of us ever said any of this out loud. It was never a conversation. We didn't even think it was needed. It was two of us just subtly relying on each other for something that neither of us had

3:10actually agreed to or discussed. So let me tell you what the actual birthing experience looked like. Number one, it was long. And whether or not it's long, you know, it could have gone this way if it was short. But this one was long. And there was a lot of vomiting on my part. And it lasted through the night. And my husband was tired and exhausted. He hadn't slept. I hadn't slept. And it was very grueling. And he didn't know what to do. He wanted to help, but didn't have any resources to reach for. And there was no way for me to be able to in the moment explain to him what it was that I needed or what it was that I was looking for. In his own words, I'll just say what he has said.

4:11He said, I figured she's the expert. What could I possibly bring to the table? That did not provide a great environment. And that's true. It didn't. I just, I needed help, but I didn't have it from him. And he wanted to help, but he didn't really know what he could even do. And it's kind of like, all right, if we had prepared to learn how to swim before jumping into the ocean, it probably would have gone a little bit better. The reality is, is that my husband loved me completely. And that was never in question. The question was, what is your job? What is your function? And nobody had ever told him, especially not me. So once we got to the end of that birth, I will not lessen the beauty of it. It was incredible. I was on an oxytocin high that experience of pulling my baby up to my chest for the

5:12first time. It was just amazing. At the same time, did I feel like my husband and I worked together as a team to make that happen? Not necessarily. I didn't feel like we were against each other by any means either, but it wasn't like we were pulled together strongly. And if it had gone one way or the other, then sure, there was a little bit of tension that came out in the months following that was like a little more pushed apart, which I'll talk about when we talk about birth being magnetic. So that led into postpartum as well. I hadn't prepared. I hadn't shared with him what I expected and what I had hoped for in labor and birth. And we also didn't talk a lot about postpartum. And like I said, I had all the information. I was a student midwife.

6:12I knew all of the things. I knew the importance of resting postpartum and I still didn't do it. I did not do it. I went back to doing regular Caitlin things and washing dishes and cooking and doing the laundry. And I was just so freshly postpartum thinking, oh, but it's different for me. And my husband thought, oh my gosh, she's like superwoman. She's incredible. This is amazing. And so then I just kept on going and kept on doing it. And it led to significant depletion and significant postpartum anxiety and depression. Just mood disorder that lasted for at least 18 months. It was a long hard time. So all of that to say, it was not a disaster. But I had been through the biggest experience of my life next to my husband rather than connected with my husband.

7:15So let's talk about the second birth and what changed and what changed was not the birth itself. It was the months of preparation beforehand. This time I realized based off of my experience and then based off of all of the stories that I had begun hearing as I interviewed mothers on this podcast, things could be different. I brought my husband in. We had the conversations that we had never had in our first pregnancy. I told him how I wanted to be supported, what that would look like, how it would feel for me to have him show up in certain ways. I gave him things that were his jobs, jobs, not just moral support. He learned some of it himself instead of just receiving it filtered through me. He took ownership and initiative, which was a huge aspect of how this became so successful. And so then on the day of, oh my goodness, he knew what to set up.

8:17He knew what I needed. He knew how to hold me. He knew when to pray over me, what to say over me. He knew how to be present and in the moment in a way that he did not understand before. He knew where to put his hands. He knew when to talk and when to hush. I did not have to come up out of my labor to manage him or our experience, not one time. And afterward, after that birth, we were closer than we'd ever been before. And that is the part. That is my main point. Birth is magnetic. It does not leave a marriage where it found it. It can either pull the two of you together or it can push you apart. And it does one of those with a force that nothing else in ordinary life hats.

9:19Nothing is more catalyzing than this experience of bringing life into this world. We don't forget it. So I've watched couples come out of a birth more married than when they were going into it. And I've watched couples come out of a birth carrying something that they're picking at for years and often neither of them can either name what it is. And often the birth itself, you know, outcome wise went fine. But here's what I most want you to hear. Which direction it goes is mostly decided before labor begins. Not during before. Because labor doesn't create the dynamic between you. It reveals it under pressure with no time to talk through things. So whatever the two of you have already worked out is what you've got. Whatever you've left vague stays vague and vague at four in the morning turns into hurt.

10:23Now here's why most people are not doing this work. It doesn't feel urgent. It has no deadline attached and nothing is cross-offable on a list. And there's a deeper reason. It's a strange conversation to start. What are you actually going to do when I'm in labor? You don't want to imply that he would fail. He doesn't want to admit that he's got no idea. So most couples don't have that conversation. And then they have it to in the morning, in the middle, at the worst possible time. Or they don't have it at all. They're completely oblivious. Their relationship changes after they had the baby and they're just living life this way now. So here is what I would have you do instead. I would have you ask your husband one question this week. When I'm deep in labor and I can't talk, what do you feel like your job will be?

11:24Then be quiet and let him answer. Most men have never been asked and what comes out is usually more thoughtful than either of you expected. And if he doesn't know, well that is certainly not about outcome. You've found the work and you found it now instead of them. So that conversation is a version of what I'm going to spend an hour on next Monday. The free workshop is Monday, the 21st of September, noon, Eastern time. And it's called why you've read everything and still don't feel ready. It's going to be about an hour, it's live and it will have a replay. We're going to cover what's actually missing when a woman has read everything. Still doesn't feel ready. What means preparing and in what order? The moment in labor that almost nobody warns women about and the husband peace, which I am going to give real time to because it is the part that gets left out everywhere else and it is the part that changed most for me because it is the part that gets left

12:30out everywhere else and it's the part that changed the most for me. There will be a Q&A at the end and I mean it about the questions. I'll tell you plainly that at the end, I am going to be talking about my course. So I'd rather say so now than have it land as a surprise on the day. And this is the last time that I'll mention it on the podcast before it runs. Registration closes when the workshop starts. Myhappyhomberth.com forward slash next. That is myhappyhomebirth.com forward slash next and it's in the show notes. So ask him the question this week. Even if the answer is I don't know, especially if the answer is I don't know. Okay, my friends, that's all I've got for you for today. I'll see you back here next week. Thanks for listening to this week's episode. Are you looking to extend the home birth support, encouragement and education? Join us in our Facebook group Happy Homebirth Podcast Community.

13:34And check us out on Instagram at Happy Homebirth Podcast.