73. Preparing for Rachel's VBA2C at a Birthing Center

Embarking on a journey of birth is both a powerful and profoundly intimate experience. As I, Rachel, co-host of The Radiant Mission Podcast, navigates the path of a Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC, or for me a VBA2C) with my sister and host, Rebecca, at my side, we weave together our narratives of past C-sections, present preparations, and the anticipation of natural childbirth. Every decision is infused with intention, from selecting a birth provider who shares our Christian values, to the holistic practices that supported my body's readiness for birth. The sacred dance of aligning our spiritual beliefs with our healthcare choices becomes a testament to the strength and resilience within the birthing process.

The quest for a successful VBAC or VBA2C isn't just about the physical act of giving birth; it's a tapestry of informed choices, proactive preparations, and the embracing of one's faith. It stretches beyond the birthing room into the intricacies of managing breastfeeding and sleep schedules with older children. The nourishment of body and soul through nutrition, chiropractic care, and the spiritually grounding act of prayer creates a foundation for embracing this life-changing event with courage and grace. Our discussions reveal the struggles and triumphs of pregnancy, the wisdom of listening to our bodies, and the joy of discovering that intentional living and faith can profoundly influence the journey.

From considering every birth option with meticulous care to the rituals that prepared my body for the birthing process, we uncover the layers of complexity and empowerment that come with childbirth. Guided by faith and armed with knowledge, we celebrate the beauty of life's transitions and the empowerment found in making informed, heartfelt choices. Join us in this intimate exploration of birth, belief, and the beauty of new beginnings.

Transcript

Rebecca Twomey: 0:33

Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission podcast. My name is Rebecca Twomey and I'm here with my amazing co-host and sister, rachel Smith. Hey, everyone, we are on a mission to encourage and inspire you as you're navigating through your life and with your relationship with Yahweh, and today we are back. We're back.

Rebecca Twomey: 1:00

It's crazy how long it's been since we've recorded. I know I was thinking about it yesterday when we planned to record today, that the last time we recorded was our Christmas episodes and I was like 39 weeks pregnant. Actually, I might have been like almost 40. No, I was 39 weeks, anyway, and now it's almost Christmas and we've had our babies and we are recording my birth story. Yeah, last time we were recording it was the spring and now it's winter. We did so many pre-recorded episodes, which is great. It was awesome to just be editing podcasts for the last 10 months or whatever. Six months, six months I can't do math anymore. That's how bad it's gotten since the last time we've recorded. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's been a long time, so there's a lot to catch up on. The last that you guys heard on this show, we are both about to have our third babies and now we have had them and their old now. Now I have a sixth month old baby, rachel's yeah, there's a six minus four months, and it's not been a wild ride. So we're really excited to get into the details leading up to your birth.

Rebecca Twomey: 2:22

And I just want to kind of queue up because, if you're new here or jumped in on just this episode, we like to work in mini series topics. That's just kind of the way that we've been doing things and we've talked about birth in the past, but there's just more to say continued and as we're learning more, there's more to say as well. We have more babies as we have more babies and more experiences. Yeah, well, and we like to just do birth stories from time to time and both of us have told both of our previous birth stories before. So I would say, if you're listening to this episode now, I know a lot of people who know me or have been listening to the podcast have been very curious about my birth story this time around, because my previous two were both C-sections. So if you haven't heard those, go back. Do you know what episodes those were? Rebecca, I think there were 10 and 11 actually, so you can listen to those birth stories for my first son and my second son. Both of them were C-sections and then this is going to be my third birth story and it was a spoiler alert a V-back after both of the C-sections. It's cool to me anyway, since this is my life and I've experienced the stories in real time, to know where I've come from before hearing this story today. But if you don't and listen to this one first, that's fine too. Did I say 10 and 11? Yeah, I was right. I was right. Wow, I've got a memory for these episodes. I've got a few brain cells. I only have a few left, but the ones I do. I remembered your original episode.

Rebecca Twomey: 4:10

I definitely recommend folks go back and listen to Rachel's original birth stories so you can listen to how far she's come, because it's literally your exit. This birth, anyway, is really your exit from the traditional medical model for birth. It's very different. It's very different, and so we're actually going to be splitting Rachel's story into three episodes because there is kind of a before, a during and an end. There's what you did to prepare to have a V-back after two C-sections and two bridge births, mind you. So that's going to be a different approach to it.

Rebecca Twomey: 4:51

And then we're going to talk about your actual birth, which is, I think, going to be very exciting to recall and retell, because I was there too. I know I was thinking about that because this is going to be a unique birth story on this podcast. It's going to be the first one that both of us were there for that's true. Like you know, I was in labor land, so there's stuff that has softened and I've probably forgotten, but you were there with a camera, a front and center, so you can almost fill in some gap. Yeah, I got a lot to say about that and a lot of footage that no one will ever see, even me. I haven't even watched it all. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot to say about that, so I'm excited. We're going to be talking about that next week.

Rebecca Twomey: 5:40

This and then the week after we're going to talk about your transition, because things are very different for you than they were the first one or two times you had kids because this is now the third time and you had a baby, a natural birth, after not having natural birth. So that was a different experience. Postpartum yeah, postpartum BSD section versus non, yeah. And then you also have older kids. You're going through breastfeeding again after not having kids for five years. You're going through sleep after having kids for five years. So what, we could do a mini series on breastfeeding this time and sleep this time. That is not happening still. So it's definitely been different. Yeah Well, we want to hear from you guys if you think that it would be.

Rebecca Twomey: 6:30

Oh no, my microphone is unplugged. Just kidding, it's not my microphone, it was just the plug. It looked like my microphone. I was like, no, I'm going to say, after all of this, after all of this, so just to cue you guys back, I'm not even going to edit this out. You guys, this day, this morning, getting ready not even this morning, it's the afternoon, it feels like it's been since the morning Preparing to edit today or record today, I mean, was like a huge hurdle for both of us, because we're, first of all, have not done this for a long time, but, second of all, I thought let's start back the strongest way we can with a totally new technology.

Rebecca Twomey: 7:09

Let's do that. Let's figure it out right when we're supposed to start recording. Let's do that. We'll figure it out when we start recording right when our kids go down for their nap so that we can get this recording done. Let's do that. So we spent 40 minutes troubleshooting and I have a brand new computer and couldn't even use my brand new computer to record because it wouldn't connect to my microphone. So anyway, that's the context here.

Rebecca Twomey: 7:31

It has been a lot of fun in between the last time we recorded and now when it comes to some new things that have gone on, because if you've been listening to the show that, you know that I am the one that also edits the show and posts it. So I've been trying to find tools to make it easier, and this tool that I'm using is recording Rachel and I separately, because something I ran into multiple times was one person's audio would be messed up be it me. That happened actually when I think it was two or three episodes and I was at Rachel's house editing these episodes and I had to literally edit my audio every single time I spoke or the other person. It depended on who talked more. I would edit that. Rebecca regularly stays up to like 4am editing these episodes, so hopefully this new technology makes it so you don't have to do that. Hopefully I'm trying to find things that make it easier to edit and record. We've got too many kids now. I can't be around editing for 4-5 hours. It's just not going to work. So, anyway, I had a panic moment when I thought my microphone unplugged because that, after all, although I would have been recorded separately, so I could have fixed it. So, anyway, folks, here's what you can expect.

Rebecca Twomey: 8:56

We are in a birth series, and this birth series is called God's Design for Birth, and we want to talk about what we have been learning about his design for birth, his design for pregnancy, all of this stuff, because we have been lied to a lot from the mainstream medical model that birth is an emergency, that pregnancy is a illness or a condition or a disease, and we want to debunk a lot of that. And so that's what we're doing right now in this series is just talking about birth from a God perspective and a design perspective. So we'll keep that in mind as we're going through Rachel's stories. We're going to talk about how she prepared to have a V-Back and this applies even if you are not in the same situation. It's going to help to talk about preparing for birth. Then we're going to talk about her birth story, which is a V-Back at a birthing center after two C-Sections, and then we're going to talk about her journey post.

Rebecca Twomey: 9:56

So let's jump into our first topic today, and that is your birth. So where do you want to start with this? Where do you want to start with preparing for a V-Back? Yeah, so I was thinking about this because I think one of the reasons we're not just like jumping into my birth story and me going into labor is what I want people to who are listening to know especially if you are pregnant or planning to get pregnant is preparing for a V-Back. And the story that I can now tell it didn't just happen because I just woke up in labor and like, yeah, it was nine months of preparation, like I planned and prayed through every decision and everything I did and my whole life was consumed by I'm going to deliver this baby naturally, and the more prepared you are, the more likely you are to be successful. So if you're just like I'll just see what happens, that's I'm sorry, but like it's not going to happen the way you want. So it's true, I mean maybe you know, for some lucky people it will, but I had that. Maybe those people might get lucky because they don't have the fear. But the problem is when you go into it with that mentality of we'll just see what happens. Then when it happens, you panic because you haven't prepared, right yeah, and I had never experienced labor before, so I didn't know what the pain was going to feel like, or lack thereof, or I didn't know what a contraction felt like. I both of my C-sections before were scheduled because my sons were breached. So I think where to start in the.

Rebecca Twomey: 11:47

The story is, I had in my mind the significance of the position of the baby from the moment I got pregnant, because both of my previous sons were breach and I knew from my second, which I didn't know, that there was anything I could do to possibly prevent a breach baby from early impregnancy. So I did nothing and I just winged it and, lo and behold, he was breach at like 25 weeks and never flipped again. So this being my third rodeo, I was determined that that's not going to be my situation again. But if it is because I am more likely to have Breach Babies because I have a bicoarner at uterus, then I am going to find a provider that will support me in a natural Breach Birth, because I knew, just winging it and picking a VBAC friendly OB or something like that. If my baby ended up Breach, I would have no second option that late in pregnancy.

Rebecca Twomey: 12:59

So I really thought of this from the moment I got pregnant, of finding the right provider who would support me. So, starting there, I found out I was pregnant. I knew I didn't want to give birth in a hospital. Also didn't really. You know, we've talked a lot about home birth, because you have had multiple home births now and even free birthing. I didn't want to home birth because at the time when I got pregnant, I was living in the middle of nowhere, so there wasn't even a midwife within an hour away from me and also there was no hospital. Because that's the thing too is, while I tell this story and I hoped and prayed for a physiological out of the hospital birth, you still make decisions with wisdom, for you know emergency situation if anything happened. So to be an hour away from any hospital when you are VBAC-ing after two C-sections and possibly a Breach baby, it didn't feel in my situation something I was comfortable with.

Rebecca Twomey: 14:04

Let's pause there for a second, because I think that this is definitely something for us to talk about and I think that our audience and those listening might face the same thing, right? However, you are going through a pregnancy and planning for a birth. This is a piece of that that you have to make. The decision if you are considering home birth or you're considering a birthing center or even a hospital is how comfortable do I feel with emergency situations? How well do I know emergency situations? How much do I want to know about emergency situations? And it's a very personal thing that I think every person has to. They have to come to that choice and that decision on what's best for them.

Rebecca Twomey: 14:54

Some people live far away from hospitals and say, even if I live far away from a hospital, I'm still gonna free birth, for example. Or they may say, well, because I live an hour away, I actually think I want to get an Airbnb closer to where I'm going to. You know where there's a hospital. That's something I considered, yeah, because that's the thing is. These are all things that we, as women, have to weigh and have to factor, and this was a definite thing for you that, being far out in the country, after having two C-sections, it's not like you had a home birth already, right, and now we're going to have a home birth at just at a new house and it's kind of in the country. So I do think that this is an important area for us to just pause and think about. Yeah, making the decision, that is, everyone is in a different circumstance. If I was a first time mom living that far out, honestly, a home birth probably would have been better and easier.

Rebecca Twomey: 15:58

I was intimidated by the thought of having a far drive in labor and then, obviously, the circumstances of what risks that we each are facing, because that's going to be different for every woman and for me. I knew I could do this. I knew that the Lord was calling me to it, but I also am not an idiot. I know that my uterus has been cut open twice. I knew I was healed, but I also knew I have a bicorn at uterus and again, I knew I might have another V-back baby. So there, I don't want people to.

Rebecca Twomey: 16:45

What would you say about your fear level? Like, do you feel like you were more nervous and afraid when making that decision than you feel today? Like I think that your decisions today might be different than your decisions were then? Even Probably? Yeah, I wouldn't say that I felt, oh, you just cut out, are you there? I didn't cut out. I just turned off my camera so I could open the blind. Oh, okay, sorry, I wouldn't say that I felt necessarily fearful. If I was afraid of anything, it was afraid of going back to the hospital and having a C-section. So yeah, today, on the other side of this experience, decisions could be made differently, because I've now had a V-back, but at that point in time I had a traumatic C-section with my second and I was afraid of that. And also there was I don't necessarily think it fears the right word, but there was a level of caution about another breach, and you and I talked about this a lot during my pregnancy. It's not that I was afraid of another breach baby, it's I was afraid of the memories and the emotions that another breach baby would bring up in me because it would trigger everything I went through the first two times and I didn't want to deal with that in pregnancy, honestly.

Rebecca Twomey: 18:24

So one thing in my experience of choosing where I wanted to birth and the provider so I started, literally a week after I got my positive pregnancy test, interviewing midwives and this is something that I would highly recommend to women is you don't just have to meet with one midwife or doctor and then that's it. Like I probably had phone calls with at least five or six and I interviewed an OB as well who was apparently the most V-back friendly OB in my area. The practices apparently allows quote, unquote, allows even V-back after two C-sections, because that was something I faced. Like I called some of the most popular birthing centers with midwives in my area and they wouldn't even consider me because I've had two C-sections. They would only take V-backs after one C-section, which is so.

Rebecca Twomey: 19:31

Isn't that interesting this is kind of the whole core of our series here, right as design for our bodies and birth that the very people whose job is to assist a woman during the labor time are that afraid of the outcome of birth. They have a lot of fear surrounding it. Now, of course, you could say, well, they've seen terrible things happen and they've seen risk, but the issue with yours is that these people came back to you and said, well, we just don't know, we have no idea, we don't have any data on your specific data set because your uterus is that unique. Yes, your own data set. That is what the OB said to me that I interviewed, that they would only take me on as a patient. It. Really in that appointment I feel like they were interviewing me as much as I was interviewing them.

Rebecca Twomey: 20:30

Once they realized I wasn't going to go along with their protocols, the doctor did say to me what you just said, that they would not feel comfortable allowing me to VBAC with the lack of research for women who have bicornerate uteruses and are VBAC'ing, and VBAC'ing after two C-sections. There's just no data. Because there's no data, they wouldn't feel comfortable with me as a patient unless I agreed to a Schedule C-section. I was like so what if I showed up at the hospital in labor? Then what would happen? This is where I could tell she was so annoyed with me. She was like well, if that's your plan, then you should find a provider who's more comfortable with your situation. I'm like, okay, well, great, I will. Okay, let me this.

Rebecca Twomey: 21:26

If you showed up in labor to a hospital and no one had your records and you didn't say I've had two C-sections prior to this and you just went through the birthing process like a normal person, I mean, how much different would this be? Nobody can know that I have a bicornerate uterus either. She wouldn't even have known in that appointment, because you can't see my bicornerate uterus in a ultrasound. The ultrasound tech even said when she did it was one of the only ultrasounds I had in my pregnancy was for that appointment. She said your uterus looks totally normal. So if it wasn't for me telling the doctor that she wouldn't even know. So I'm not saying to not share your medical history with people, but it's just interesting these decisions they make. Anyway, I guess what you're trying to say is there is something that's not present that if they didn't know, would they have fear? Would the fear be creeping up? This actually brings up a good point.

Rebecca Twomey: 22:34

There was a video recently, dr Stu, who was on our podcast, which listened to those episodes because they're bomb. He was on our podcast but he was interviewed by what? Was it? The Today Show or something like that Daily Show? The Daily Show, yeah, the Daily Show. And there's a little tiny clip of his interview where he talks about how obese are trained to fear birth and the comments went wild on that one.

Rebecca Twomey: 23:05

A lot of people are like, oh no, we should fear birth. Birth is scary. Yeah, you should be afraid because birth is scary. And it's like no, why are we afraid of a physiological function? We're not afraid to go in the bathroom go. Number two are we and so that is my experience in the one OB that I interviewed in my preparation process is essentially what she said to me is there's not enough data so we're afraid of your body and your uterus and we don't know what would happen, so we don't want to be a part of that. That makes us uncomfortable. That was.

Rebecca Twomey: 23:40

That's a summary of what I was told in my own words. Can you get to study the same right Respectfully? Then by yeah, and it's like OK, like I don't need you, I didn't want to, I did it. I knew, like I said, I knew I wanted to give birth outside of the hospital anyways, but I just wanted to say that I guess interviewed in and I actually wanted the ultrasound because this was when I was about 10 or so weeks, so I just wanted to confirm there was one baby and all that anyway. So in, I had actually already selected my midwife by that point.

Rebecca Twomey: 24:21

So to just briefly talk about the process of selecting my midwife then is I interviewed a ton of midwives. I, through the grapevine, found the only at the time that I knew of midwife who had experience with breach delivery, and I interviewed her and she was very sweet. I really liked her. She had told me about the breach experience she had. She was very honest and upfront. This is one thing I like about midwives for the most part, at least in my experience and talking to so many of them they don't like BS as much as obese do. Like they're very honest and vulnerable about what they are capable of and what they're not.

Rebecca Twomey: 25:09

Because there were plenty of midwives that I talked to who still spent an hour talking to me like as I was like crying but also saying like I I would not feel comfortable delivering a breach baby and that's totally fine, like if someone doesn't have experience or training, they shouldn't be agreeing to that. And so she did have experience. And she said that for her breach, for the amount of times that she was assisting a breach delivery, they transferred to the hospital 50% of the time. And that to me was like wow, that's not a good number. And I asked her I remember asking her how she would feel if we were looking at a breach delivery, because it would be and like, once you're at the end of pregnancy, if that's what we were planning for, how would you feel with that? And she said I'm going to be honest with you, there would be a certain level of stress for me and I would not put that on you, but there is a. I would be a lot more hands on than I normally am and I said, okay, like I appreciate your answer To me. I heard a little bit of fear there and that was fine, but I needed someone who was not going to be afraid of this with me.

Rebecca Twomey: 26:41

And while I was researching midwives because of wonderful trailblazing birth practitioners like Dr Stu, who advocate for training midwives and obese in vaginal breach delivery I knew about an organization called Breach Without Borders. So I was in a Facebook group for support for Breach Without Borders and on their website I looked up. They had a provider index that you could put in your area and look at providers who have taken their education classes to learn how to safely deliver vaginal breach. And on there I saw a midwife listed that I looked up and that she actually had a birthing center and it was about an hour and a half from where I was living at the time and I looked up the birthing center and it looked great and I called her and I set up an appointment to meet with her and I interviewed her in person and at that point I had also interviewed the other midwife who actually had experience and what I realized in the midwife that has the birthing center that she is a Christian, a very strong woman of God.

Rebecca Twomey: 28:12

She has the same values as I do and she is a huge advocate for physiological birth, because not every midwife is, some of them are very hands on, but she was a huge advocate for physiological birth and her passion is actually in VBAC. She's had clients who were VBAC-ing after two, three, even four C-sections and she also really took seriously continual training as a midwife for things like twin birth and breach. That's why she was listed on the Breach Without Borders website, having taken their classes, and so when I asked her, I like interrogated her practically about how she felt about breach, her training experience, her personal experience, and I got the impression that she hadn't actually physically been at very many breach births for how long she has been a midwife. But one thing I did learn is that it is pretty uncommon for a midwife to have been at very many breach births because most women aren't doing it. Most women who find out they have a breach baby are going to the hospital and having a C-section or their midwife is sending them to the hospital and they'll have a C-section because they're not trained or comfortable with it.

Rebecca Twomey: 29:45

So she had a few, but not as many as the other woman, but she took very seriously being trained in how to do it and she was the only midwife that I talked to that had no fear of anything that was related to birth. That when I asked her the same question of how would you feel if you were, I chose you as my midwife and we were looking at a breach delivery and she said if we were in that circumstance, we would pray together about what we would do and we would make the decision together and whatever we both have peace about, I would have no fear and we would handle it, we would face it together. And that, to me, was that was the kind of provider that I knew God wanted me to walk this journey with, and I did. I remember you having a tough time with your decision too, because you had two choices, and I think that this may have even been before you really felt, before you really got to know Anita a little bit more, but one of the things that you were facing, too, was that the other midwife was not a Christian. Yes, yes, she was not. I I followed her on social media and our views on things were very, very different in our values and and I knew she wasn't a Christian.

Rebecca Twomey: 31:22

So I do remember talking to you and Mike about it when I was making the decision, because I kind of felt like I was faced with the decision of one midwife who has all this in person experience but doesn't share my same faith and values, and this other midwife who maybe doesn't have as much experience but she shares my faith and values and also, even though she doesn't have as much experience maybe, which she has a ton of experience, so I'm just saying, with breach, but she reached her time to be educated on it and to learn and so that she can know, so that when they so she can take on women who are facing breach, because there's such a hole in the birth world for where women who are facing a breach delivery at 38 weeks where they go. So she interestingly, your midwife also took a training course from Dr Stu. Yes, yes, she, she had been trained by Dr Stu on breach. So, yes, so obviously she's the one I chose and I also felt better about just talk about, like, the logistics of planning this is. I felt more comfortable delivering at a birthing center because of my living situation. You know, the birthing center was a few minutes from a hospital if there was an emergency, whereas if I had chose the other midwife she was a home birth midwife I would have been in a circumstance of having to figure out the whole Airbnb and delivering there and and so, yeah, there there were a lot of facts there were, and when you made this, when you made this decision, you originally lived out in the country and then you guys ended up moving. Yeah, so it all worked out, but I do want to.

Rebecca Twomey: 33:13

I want to pause for one second about this conversation because I think that this could actually be its own episode making a decision about providers. I've seen this come up in some of my Christian birth communities and the question is to the group Would you feel comfortable with a provider who's not a believer and what Would you feel comfortable with a provider who is not a believer, who does not believe in Yahweh, who does not believe in God or any of it? Right, because there's a lot of new age in the birth world, a lot of new age stuff, a lot of alternative types of folks, and so this question comes up and everyone has obviously a different opinion, and certainly you're entitled to your own opinion anybody but this was something that you had to face is what I'm trying to just emphasize here that you had to make a decision. I know Anita is a believer. This other midwife is not, and you know how much. How much weight does that have in my decision? Right, yeah, and that that definitely ended up being the tipping point for me.

Rebecca Twomey: 34:34

I remember Mike saying when you're in your labor time this isn't the gentle Mike voice when you're in your labor time what God do you want your midwife praying to? Do you want her praying for you to the same God that you believe in, or even some other kind of demons? Anyway, as a believer, we're a Christian podcast. If you're listening to this and you're not a Christian and this doesn't pertain to you, then that's fine. But these are parts of the decision for us, because I do make my decisions prayerfully and I think at the time I attempted of like this other situation. Now that I'm on the other side of this, I can see how significantly important it is to be with a provider that shares my same religious beliefs and beliefs, and that we'll get into that more on the next episode when we're actually going through my birth story. So this is just prayer, though I do have a quick question for you what were you praying leading up to your birth? So obviously I'm sure you already said you are praying that the Lord would lead you to the right midwife. What other prayers did you have, what?

Rebecca Twomey: 36:03

So, from getting pregnant until pretty much halfway through my second trimester, my prayer was to have a head down baby. That is all I wanted and, like I said before, it's not necessarily that I was afraid of it, because I ended up choosing someone who was very comfortable with it and we were going to walk through that together, if that's what we were facing. But I felt like I was walking in faith to have a different birth experience and there was enough things like a VBAC after two C section, having a bicornery uterus. There was enough things that it's like please just take this one thing off my plate of a breech baby too, like it would just be great to have a head down baby. So it would give me confidence. That's what I felt like. I would have even more confidence in my birth I didn't want to face if it would bring up fear, if I didn't have a breech baby. So that was my prayer from from that point on. And so not only was that what I was praying for, but that is another thing I want to talk about of significance, of what I did throughout my whole pregnancy and preparation for birth was preparing for the position of the baby from very, very early on. I didn't just wait until I was in the third trimester, I started pretty much halfway through the second trimester I went searching on the internet again to find a Webster certified chiropractor, and Webster technique is some I honestly can't really.

Rebecca Twomey: 37:51

I'm not a chiropractor so I can't explain what exactly it entails, but it is a certain certification and that chiropractors get for for working on pregnant women in the pelvic area to not only like. Essentially I'm not explaining this very well. You want me to explain the technical definition. Yes, please. The Webster technique is a specific chiropractic analysis and diversified adjustment with the goal of the adjustment to reduce the effects of subluxation and or SI joint dysfunction, and doing so helps the neuro biomechanical function of the sacrum and the pelvic regions. Yes, so that's the technical explanation for what what it means to be Webster certified and chiropractors who use the Webster technique on pregnant women. It helps position the pelvis or open up the pelvis and all those ligaments for optimal positioning for the baby, not just head down, but also what's the? What's it called when it's the baby's facing your spine? Oh, posterior versus posterior? Yes, yes, the Webster technique also helps optimal positioning, like having a posterior baby.

Rebecca Twomey: 39:25

So I knew about the Webster technique. Your chiropractor had even mentioned to me that that would be his recommendation because you live in a different state and I found a Webster certified chiropractor in my area and she's really great and she even offered like maternity packages for women who are pregnant to go twice a week to be adjusted for my whole pregnancy. So, starting at about I think I was about around 15 weeks, I started going to the chiropractor twice a week and I also every single day would do spinning baby stretches and if you don't know what spinning babies is, it's, it's supporting your body in a similar way of stretching to loosen the ligaments that hold up your pelvic area and also doing certain things like inversions and stuff like that just to help support optimal positioning for the baby. So I started doing all of that in my second trimester and I was also praying and working towards that around 25 weeks. I knew from my experience before that that's kind of when my baby's position is set If they're my first. Two were both briefed at 25 weeks. They never flipped again and they were stuck because my uterus is a different shape and so my theory was if I had a head down baby around 25 weeks then he would be stuck because he wouldn't be able to flip up and then we'd be good to go.

Rebecca Twomey: 41:00

I had an anatomy scan and found out he was another boy and health, and then shortly after that I really felt like he was going to be breech. I felt like I was only feeling kicks down low which with when you have a breech baby, their head is kind of up in your lung and they stomp around on your bladder and I I was feeling movement like that again. I felt a lump up high and I said that to my midwife at a checkup and she's like I'm going to get in there and I'm going to all be able to determine his position and she's like this is his bum, that he's head down. She double checked with a. She actually had a portable little ultrasound like that hooked up to her phone, which I didn't even know that technology existed. I don't think it's like very good ultrasound, it just she confirmed down low that his head was way down low and that that day was so exciting for me. A lot of women might not feel that excitement, but it was.

Rebecca Twomey: 42:12

It was just like six months of what I had been praying and working for every day came to, came to fruition and that prayer was answered and I knew he would be head down from that point on. So I at that point I just like walked with so much more confidence in my plans for my birth and my midwife she was like starting to get excited cause we had talked a lot about breach and like going over my fears. And that's that amazing thing about working with a midwife other than an OB instead of OB I mean is when you go to OB they're like in and out of the room in five minutes and like don't even talk to you except for asking questions and like do you have any questions for me? Like a midwife like sits there with you, says you look like you need to hug today, can I hug you? And talks to me about all my fears when my dog died, she gave me a special tincture that would help me with my depression. She also is a master herbalist, so she knew a lot of the the, the head, the head junk that I had for breach and she had said once we knew he was head down man, I was kind of getting excited for a breach birth. So I guess you are ruined our fun with all your chiropractic care. So I will say that I really believe that paid off.

Rebecca Twomey: 43:41

I am a huge advocate for chiropractic care in pregnancy. I also this is one of the reasons I wanted to share about this is that if, if I think that every pregnant woman should do this regularly in pregnancy and don't start it in your third trimester, but try to start it at least, you know, some of the time earlier on. It will, and it helps us so much more than just positioning to like back pain, hip pain, heart burn she would help me with. So I I really have a good experience with chiropractic care in pregnancy. I think it's just a great way to support your body, and so another thing I wanted to share with you is that I have a another thing I wanted to get into about preparation and this is something I know that we have talked a little bit about before is also eating and like the supplements we take like not just a prenatal, which I was very on top of very high quality supplements because of where I had come from previously to my pregnancy and if you haven't listened to those episodes, it's my journey with infertility and being being healed and and using supplements was a big part of that for me. So I continued to support my body nutritionally as best I could.

Rebecca Twomey: 45:09

I was very sick at the beginning of this pregnancy so it was kind of hard to take any pill Like I guess what I mean when I say supplements is a big thing that I think is huge in pregnancy is is taking beef liver. If you could do raw, that'd be great. I never in a million years could do that pregnant. So I took dedicated beef liver and even that I would throw up sometimes because you can taste it and they're gross. But liver is so good for you in pregnancy. It has so many vitamins and minerals that your body and the baby needs growing. So I really thought of that a lot.

Rebecca Twomey: 45:47

My really good friend, paula Carper, who we've had on the podcast she's a functional dietitian. She got me a book early in my pregnancy called what is it called, rebecca? You have it too Nutrition for pregnant Real food for pregnancy. It's literally sitting on my desk Real food for pregnancy by Lily Nichols. I highly recommend that book if you're pregnant or planning to get pregnant. It is so informative, it's written very easy to read and also has really great tips and recipes and like food plans and stuff like that. So I read that book and I tried to stick to it as best I could. I mean, I'm not perfect. I don't eat a perfect diet and eat all the eggs and liver, obviously, and salmon. I couldn't do that.

Rebecca Twomey: 46:36

Gross, you're bringing up a good point and maybe we do an episode or two on pregnancy nutrition, because when you say supplements, you don't mean like go to Walmart and buy a prenatal off of the shelf, which I think is what is commonly taught in the obstetric world is prenatal. Yes, the issue with a prenatal is that you need to address the specific deficiencies, these for your own body, and a lot of times these prenatals you're giving yourselves things that you don't need and can't process the right way. So maybe we'll sidebar that to say that's a good idea, because I'm like very briefly glossing over this for the sake of time, but we could definitely have a whole episode on pregnancy nutrition. That I think would be very helpful. I also think sorry to cut you off. I also think you said something before that can spark its own conversation, which is you mentioned.

Rebecca Twomey: 47:44

Obviously there's fear around, or concern around, breach, because you've had breach before, or even maybe I don't even want to say expectation, but it was kind of almost it could happen. So now I want to do these physical things to try to prevent that from happening. There are a lot of people in the birth world right now that think you can do all the things in the world and the baby's going to quote, choose their position, and I think we could have a side conversation about, or an actual conversation about that at another time. So I just want to kind of put a pin in that I don't. I put my personal opinion and belief is that there's never a disadvantage to exercise, stretching or treating your body with care Right. Yeah, because a lot of times this is said and to people that don't do anything normal I didn't do anything my first two times. Yeah, I didn't do anything my first two times, and I had two breech babies and this time I did do things and I didn't have a breech baby. So it's an interesting conversation to have and I think it's bigger than just what we can go through today. But I just want to stick some pins in some of these many conversations that we're having.

Rebecca Twomey: 48:56

I'm a huge, huge fan of chiropractic during pregnancy, because I do believe our bodies get into a state of misalignment constantly, especially with the lifestyles that we live Me in particular, that I'm sitting for work or I might not. I'm not working my body to the best of its abilities and advantages, and so our bodies do need help sometimes with some of these adjustments. Let's say yes, yeah, absolutely yeah. I think that would be a good topic as well. Yeah, so yeah, go ahead, tell us the last part of what you really want us to experience before we get to your birth, because that's what we're going to talk about next time. So, yeah, the things preparation-wise, other than what I've already gone through, is, as I got to the end, my midwife did give options for a big thing as you go into the third trimester is doing a glucose test, because gestational diabetes can be a big deal late in pregnancy and for the baby and she.

Rebecca Twomey: 50:08

Her big thing was informed consent for everything. So for everything that I is typically done in pregnancy, it was asking if I wanted to do it or not, and if I said no, it was okay. If I had questions, it's let's go through the research together and if you feel comfortable, great, there's your options for what we can offer. If not, that's great too. So there were certain things I declined, like I personally declined the GBS test, but the diabetes test I decided to do. But instead of doing that nasty, toxic drink that isn't even always accurate, my midwife you talked about the flame retardant. Yes, exactly, the flame retardant drink.

Rebecca Twomey: 51:00

The method that is more accurate that she had me do was actually to bring home a diabetes monitor where you prick your finger and you test it and write down and track what you're eating for a week. And the reason is because my midwife's model is all about empowerment and if anything seems a little off, how can they support me and I support my body diet-wise. So actually, when I did that, my blood sugar level came back borderline high, which was kind of surprising. I hadn't dealt with that in the past, although I had taken the nasty drink in the past, and so they supported me in a ton of information and how to eat in a way that wouldn't spike my blood sugar, and because I also had that pregnancy nutrition book who she actually is a nutritionist for pregnant women with diabetes, so there's a lot of information of that in the book I knew what to do, and what to do is to eat more protein than you ever want to eat in your whole life and to be protein forward in everything that you eat. And once I did that for another week or two my blood sugar level was much better. So she said that I went from pre-diabetic to in the safe range. So I was good. I didn't have to keep tracking, I didn't have to keep doing the blood glucose monitoring, but I liked that aspect of and the reason I'm even bringing it up is that it was all about information, supporting my body nutritionally and putting in the work, because my midwife said that there's pregnant women who get those readings and then they tell them what to do and then they still continue to just eat ice cream and chips and candy bars and sodas and then they go full on diabetic. And so having the information it empowered me of not that like I never had a treat again the rest of my pregnancy, but I was much more cautious and careful because I was working my butt off for a V-BAC for nine months. I was not going to go diabetic and let that ruin my V-BAC and she also did.

Rebecca Twomey: 53:28

I think you bring up a really good point here on nutrition, another pin that we could talk about aside from just the prenatal conversation, but just nutrition in general during pregnancy. And if you think about it, if you had chosen to get, even if you did the fresh test instead of doing the toxic one, you could have potentially gotten a reading that was okay and then just moved on but been pre-diabetic and continue to not support your body in the right way. It's kind of cool how that decision to track your diet and all that ended up leading you down a road where you learned about nutrition even more and how important it is and how every little thing impacts the body. I know I'll share this when we talk about my most recent one, but I had an issue where I felt some swelling and ended up having this whole big moment learning about how much caffeine impacts our bodies when we're obviously not pregnant, but also when we're pregnant, and just how a tiny little thing like cutting out coffee, which is going to make a lot of people cry, but it can make a huge difference. I don't drink coffee in pregnancy, yeah yeah, that really will be a great topic to cover, because I actually had preeclampsia in my first pregnancy, which can also possibly be prevented or maybe controlled through diet as well. Possibly that's a little more complicated, but that's a whole other topic as well, the things that I was doing at the end.

Rebecca Twomey: 54:58

And another thing is when I would have once you're at the end, I was going to my midwife once a week and she would always test my urine to check for proteins, because that is a marker for preeclampsia and also like ketones in your urine, and then it also tests your hydration, and I was always dehydrated. And so one thing my midwives were always pushing on me is you got to drink more water, but not you don't just drink water. You drink water with electrolytes. If you're just drinking plain water, it's just flushing through your system and it actually can do more harm than good. You have to drink remineralized water, whether that's just a pinch of salt or using a hydration multiplier like an electrolyte mix, and so I became obsessive about my electrolytes and I was like, determined, every appointment I'm not going to be dehydrated. This appointment, like, yeah, you're still dehydrated, I could not drink enough water, apparently. But I thinking back, I think that was really good.

Rebecca Twomey: 56:03

And one thing I didn't really realize at the time is you know how when you're having a hospital birth, they insist on sticking an IV in your hand and so that they can give you IV fluids if you need it. As one of the reasons that hydration is so important going into your birth in the final few weeks is so that you are extra hydrated for birth. So if you're not at the hospital, you don't really have I mean, I guess my midwife she could have done IV fluids if I really needed it, but to have your blood you know you're preparing to lose a lot of blood to be hydrated, going into a very intense experience is very important and it'll keep you going. Just like if you were going to run a marathon, you're not going to do that not having drank any water the day before. You need to be hydrated. Yeah, exactly. Or for the last nine months, yes. So I became very passionate about that.

Rebecca Twomey: 56:58

And then, because of your influence and your experience with herbs and being such an advocate for red raspberry leaf tea, I did follow your advice and I made up huge batches of red raspberry leaf tea and had it in a pitcher in my fridge. What I would do because I was so obsessive about the hydration is I would have my cup I always have and I would fill it halfway with red raspberry leaf tea, pour electrolytes in it and fill it the rest of the way with water, and I would drink like four to five of them a day. So I was drinking a ton of red raspberry leaf tea and I liked it. I liked and red raspberry. I also had a mix of other herbs in there, like the blend Nora, which is what nettles oat straw, red raspberry leaf and what's a alpha, alpha, no-transcript, yes, yeah. So all of those herbs are really good for you and your final stages of pregnancy because they are very mineral rich and they're really going to help support your body as you're preparing to do this really hard thing. And also the red raspberry helps tone your uterus and help prepare it. And I really wanted, like I said, I wanted to be as prepared as I could, and then the last thing I did in the final stages.

Rebecca Twomey: 58:19

That I know you are not a fan of is I ate a ton of dates. The recommended amount is to eat three large dates a day from I think it's like 37 weeks on or something, and I did that every single day and there is actually scientific research backing up the dates thing that it shortens the time of labor and softens your cervix and certain things like that. So I really stuck to that and drank my tea, ate my dates and made them in all kinds of different ways that made them actually taste good. Just to clarify, when she says I'm not a fan of the dates, it just means I don't like dates so I don't eat the because I don't like them. I think they're friends when Rebecca.

Rebecca Twomey: 59:18

So Rebecca came, she lives in Tennessee, I live in Texas. She came when I was 39 weeks, five days or something, because she we had planned for her to be at the birth. So we I needed to make it to that point. We didn't know when I was going to go into labor and I was making that recipe. That's like date Snickers essentially you like codamon peanut butter and dip them in chocolate and that's how I would eat my dates and I was like you got to try it this is how this is and she was also pregnant two months behind me and and you did say that that one was okay, but you weren't willing to go through the work to make them yourself. They were good, they tasted good, but to me I was like it didn't make sense to be eating candy date treats. You know, if I had to eat them because they were candy, then it didn't make sense to me and I just, I just can't do dates. They gross me out. Those little roaches I don't like when they're pitted. Obviously you can buy them unpitted, but it was a whole thing anyway.

Rebecca Twomey: 1:00:19

So let's summarize how you prepare. You prepared First of all spiritually. That's the number one thing. It was communicating with God, praying Lord, please, please, bring this baby out. Naturally, head down, all that good stuff. Then you also prepared with your nutrition. You were on top of it. You had the right care team. You did your research on your care team. You physically prepared Cairo, stretching, other things, and then some of the pregnancy things like red raspberry dates, all that kind of stuff.

Rebecca Twomey: 1:00:54

What are we missing? I feel like there's one thing that's there is. There is a mentally yes, the mentally. So just to go through that really quick. I we had on our podcast early early on Brittany from the biblical birth school and she's a great resource on Instagram and she has classes training birth workers, christian women who want to become birth workers, whether it's a doula or something like that and she also came out with a course for pregnant women preparing spiritually and mentally in birth, and so I purchased her course and I took that as well. That that was my mental and spiritual prep, taking her course, and it was. It was really helpful of getting me thinking about certain aspects of things and focusing on certain things and highlighting things for me to pray about. So that was that element for for my prep.

Rebecca Twomey: 1:01:52

I know and we'll talk about in your birth story episode again that you are a big advocate for hypno babies and so I went a different route and it looks differently, but there were aspects like just having you as my sister and you being, you know, such an advocate for the hypno babies mentality that I inherited a little bit of thinking positively, like I didn't dwell on negatives yes, there were, like you were would always talk about the fear clearing you need to clear your fears of a rich baby or things like that. And so you know I would do that in my own way of bringing it to the Lord and and praying about my fears. But, like I said, I really didn't have any. I really felt very confident. I was dedicating my life to this birth and and I knew that the Lord was with me and God's design for your body yes, I was. I was trusting my body, I had the right team.

Rebecca Twomey: 1:03:00

So I will say to to wrap this up, that I believe number one, the most important thing you can do if you want to have a physiological birth, is to bring it to the Lord and to trust him and to bring him into your plans and to walk, have him walk with you through that. And number two is picking your team who is going to be at your birth, because you get to choose that. You don't have to just go with who's convenient. My midwife, once I moved, was still an hour away and I think that I hear that a lot from women of like, oh well, you know, I want to go to this birthing center because it's really close to me, it's 20 minutes away. It is better to deal with a commute and to choose someone who's going to support you and share your values than to choose convenience. So that, to me, is what I did over and over again throughout my prep is not choosing convenience, choosing the hard thing and knowing that I could do it, that my body was made for this and that the Lord was with me. Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, which we're going to talk more about next week when we talk about your birth story.

Rebecca Twomey: 1:04:25

Is there anything else that you wanted to mention in this episode before we move forward and then we'll reflect back on how how your prep helped or didn't help during labor? Yeah, no, I think. Did you go into labor? Am I so clever? This is, this is. I will say that we're going to leave off on. I do have a cliffhanger. There was one thing that I think I could have improved on prepping, and that is being more physically fit, like working out, doing upper body and yes, I was doing stretching and I walked every day for the most part but actually like staying fit in pregnancy is the one thing I did not prioritize and that came back to bite me in the butt a little bit for my labor. So I'm going to leave us up there that.

Rebecca Twomey: 1:05:26

In my labor story I will talk about how that was actually really important. So perfect, perfect. Well, thank you for sharing with us today the pre story. I'm sure everybody can't wait to hear what happened, because this is pretty wild. You are about to share about laboring and birthing physiologically after two breach C section births. So stay tuned for next week we're going to talk about Rachel's story, and thank you for tuning in and being on this journey with us. If you'd like to follow along outside the podcast, you can still do it on Instagram and Facebook, same place as always, or on YouTube at the radiant mission, or you can watch it as a video on YouTube. That's the difference. Today. We're going to close with Proverbs three versus five through six. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. We're wishing you a radiant week and we will see you next time. Bye everyone, bye guys.