Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 01 The Birth Story Start to Finish

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

Episode 1 of Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew! As promised, this is a special episode where we walk you through Drews birth story from start to finish telling ALL the details. We walk you through all the delightfully painful things Shawn went through before eventually being advised to get a C-section.  If you haven't yet, please rate and subscribe to the show to hear more! And if you have suggestions/recommendations for the show, share using the following link! https://www.shawnjohnson.com/podcast watch on youtube! https://www.youtube.com/user/andrewdeaneast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pumpkin is here at Starbucks, and we're making it just the way you like. Handcrafted with real ingredients like our real pumpkin sauce and rich espresso, sprinkled with pumpkin spice. It's full of real flavors you'll keep coming back for. Made just for you at Starbucks. Drew's going to be listening to this episode sometime in the future. And be mortified. Yeah.

But I remember feeling guilty, please keep me safe through it, too. You felt guilty about that? Kind of. I felt like my purpose was. to bring our child into the world. I feel like all women go into pregnancy and delivery with this plan, this, like, dreamlike plan of how they want it to go. All modesty goes out the window very, very fast.

I felt like as a mom, my first, like, mom moment I had already failed. The only way I can describe it is, you know, what it feels like and sounds like to use kitchen cheers and to cut through a chicken breast. like how a superhero is born, like the start of a Marvel movie starts. What's up, everybody? Welcome to Couple Things with Sean and Andrew, which is us. I feel like it's weird to say that, but whatever. whatever um this is our first episode so disclaimer we've never done this before that's right

disclaimer we have tried to shoot this 12 times before so we should be somewhat versed in how this all goes we almost killed each other in the first 12 that's right we didn't so that's good news you almost said no you did sleep in a different room so yeah that happened um if you guys are new here a couple things is a show where we wanted to take our YouTube videos and make a little a longer form video. So our YouTube videos are usually anywhere from 10 to 20 minute

videos and we said you know what not every topic can be covered in that amount of time so we wanted to say Did you just glitch for a second?

Not about time? You get in my head so bad. Anyways, a couple of things is about relationships. If you follow us on YouTube you know that we do relation tips in a relationship series

talking about everything that we've gone through with dating, engagement, marriage, now a baby. And like Andrew said, with 10 to 20 minutes, it's not enough time to get into the dirt of it. And something that I talk about a ton on our social media,

is how social media in today's society only paints a perfect picture of relationships. And relationships are not perfect, nor should they ever be. And so we thought we'd tell you all the down and dirty stuff that happens. So the show will usually be us talking about some relationship event that has happened or we'll sit down and interview some of our couple friends like Jana and Mike, Jordan Jojo. We're going to have a blast. And if you guys want to request us interview someone, you can do that on the web page or in the link in the show notes down below. But if you haven't yet before we get started, give the show a rating and subscribe to it on whatever platform you're listening to.

Ideally, that would be great. If you think this is a five-star show, right? That would be great. So today is a special episode, and we promise you guys that we were going to be telling the birth story from start to finish. And so it's going to be a little bit of a unique episode, but I'm excited. Are you? Yeah, I mean, nothing like talking about birthing a child. Yours was an eventful story, too.

Yes. So I'll give you a brief summary of what happened. And then we can go back and talk about the highlights. and what we kind of went through. So, baby girl was, her original due date was October 29th. We didn't know the gender. They ended up moving the due date up because they said based on the first ultrasound

that she was actually farther along than we thought. So her new due date was October 23rd. I come around to 40 weeks, October 23rd. I'm not progressing at all, not dilating. Baby girl isn't moving. I mean, she's moving, but she's not like moving down. She's not trying to escape yet. So we go into the doctor for our last visit.

Doc is like, okay, let's start scheduling this thing because baby girl's not doing it on our own. So we schedule an induction for October 29th, the original due date. So she would be 41 weeks, and our doctor said she doesn't like to have anyone go over 41 weeks just because it's her personal preference and as a doctor in her professional opinion. we respected that we scheduled the birth of our child for october 29th we went in the night of the 28th to get induced which is quite the experience because your body's not really doing it naturally so the docs kind of forced your body to do it we went through every measure possible um we went

through pills inserted in places that i didn't know pills go um what I had pills and like taken the way that you would think pills should be taken I had contraptions up the old poop chute that's not how I feel like they should be taken. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

They should be taken orally. Okay, right. But I had that pretty much. I had them up the Right. You're giving a great synopsis. Can we break it down and kind of give the color commentary on it all? As soon as I like get, yeah. Yeah, we got to, like, go back and we'll do the highlights.

So, sure, sure. The biggest highlight so far up to this point is, yes, I had pills stuck up the Susie. I had them taken orderly. I've never heard you say that. I heard someone say that they taught their kid that a girl's parts are the Susie and the boys parts of the Pepper. So it's Susie and Pepper. Okay. Are you done with your synopsis?

I mean, we're just getting started. I know. So let's take it back to the beginning and talk about why the due date debacle happened. I got to finish his synopsis. Finish the synopsis. Okay. So I had the pills. That wasn't working.

I had contraptions put up the Susie. They didn't work. I got 15 hours into labor having contractions every other minute. Super, super painful. I was trying to be stubborn and do it naturally. with no meds, which sucked. I then caved at hour 17 and got an epidural. We went on potocin.

Potocin didn't work. Started affecting baby girl's heart. Scheduled the C-section, and it was like 10 minutes later at hour 22, baby girl was here. Now let's go back and tell him some of those highlights. Okay, so the whole due date confusion happened because apparently there's two different ways they come up with the due date, correct? Yes.

One is conception, date, and then the other is the date of your last period. Right. So, based off the date of the last period, Drew's due date was October 30th, correct? 29th. Yes, however, I was very. very irregular and so that made it kind of confusing for the docs to like give us a due date. But the other way, we thought we knew our conception date. Which is a fantastic story in and of itself.

Yeah. So just to give you background, Sean has bougie taste in hotels when we travel. She kind of likes to like, she kind of likes to find the more boutique, like higher end. Hey, let's have this as an experience instead of just. a place to sleep um but on this particular trip we're traveling i just don't like bugs in my bed no i i'm with you on that i have had bedbugs before from a hotel and i was scarred so judge me really that's freaking terrible that's my nightmare i just broke out a cold so i think about that it was awful that's my nightmare we would burn the whole house i actually went into the

bathroom because i googled how to know if you have bedbugs and it said like going to a bathroom turn off the lights and turn a light on i'm out song on me that's terrifying burn it down burn it down the whole thing so anyway we were traveling during Super Bowl weekend and we had to go down to Miami and just we had an early flight and based off of the itinerator the whole thing we were like you know it's going to be easiest to just stay in the airport hotel at the Miami airport it's hard to explain but we were literally flying to Miami staying there and flying back we had like an ad that we had to shoot for an airline right yeah We were literally staying in Miami for eight hours.

Like, yeah, six to eight hours. Yeah. So the airport hotel at Miami is not up to par. It is not the Ritz Carlton. We're talking like, we're talking like six foot ceilings. There was not a window in the hotel room, which I don't know how that's legal. The door was kind of like that. It kind of felt like the cardboard material.

I think there actually was in a window, if you remember. But it was like one foot by one foot. It had bars on it and it was frosted glass over. Hidden behind the AC unit or whatever. Yeah. But like the wallpaper was falling off. And there were bugs. Like the flooring was getting pulled up and the sheets were like that kind of plastic material.

And you guys are thinking Jerusalem. Why would they be telling us this story? Well. All of those factors did not prevent us from having naked time nonetheless. So. And I literally remember laughing. and joking with Andrew after a naked time was over

and I was like I pray to God that we didn't just conceive our first child in this place. But sure enough nine months later a lot comes Drew so I guess that makes her a Super Bowl baby

it does and just like she was kind of born in a motel or conceived in a motel which is fantastic which is great humble beginnings Drew is going to be listening this episode sometime in the future. And be mortified. So, so that's when we thought Drew was conceived, but that didn't match up with the period tracking. Yeah. So whatever.

It's all a gues estimation. But and like half the doctors had, oh, you're due on October 23rd because of measurements or whatever and half of them had October 29. So the whole time we're like, we don't know when the actual day is. Well, and then it got confusing if you remember because during the ultrasounds, the ultrasound text had a different date than the doctor. It was really so confusing. So then her measurements weren't lining up and they're like oh she's you know she's only measuring at 26 weeks but she should be at 27 so she's only in the 10th percentile what she is a 27 weeks yeah it was just confusing whatever so needless to say when you get into those final weeks of pregnancy when you're every single hour is like a ticking time bomb of just like can we get there an extra week was

brutal based off of your experience and what the doctor said pregnancy was pretty fun for you until week 36 and then it just turns I think I truly believe every single pregnancy is different every mindset is different every body is different every baby is different so I really don't think you could ever compare pregnancies my pregnancy was really easy I mean I don't really have anything to complain no morning sickness I got a little nauseous I had headaches I really didn't get swollen too bad I worked out to the whole thing but when I hit 30 I would say 37 38 I was I was done my joints hurt my back hurt I couldn't sleep I couldn't eat because my stomach was squished into a reason my brain was hungry

my body wouldn't let me eat cuddling becomes a thing of the past you couldn't I don't know that wow this is news to me because your bowels and intestines are smudged It's like Yeah It's like stepping on a hose and turning on the water There was no naked time There was not Right

No that sounded awful And there were a lot of other factors too Like you broke your toe so we were like We were pretty active through your whole pregnancy We were doing daily walks Yeah if you guys don't know that story 39 weeks pregnant Yeah 39 weeks

Yeah Random weird incident a cinder block fell on my big toe and snapped it in half went to the ER get rolled in Andrew wheeled me in on a wheelchair and obviously when you go through an ER 39 weeks pregnant the initial thought of anybody is oh she's in labor I'm like no guys but no guys I'm here for something else and everyone just was kind of laughing they're like I'm so sorry you can't take pain pain you can't take pain medication you have to be careful with the x-rays yeah i mean so many things made it really complicated every like everything they did they had to put the baby monitor on too

to make sure that yes because i was kind of in shock and in pain my blood pressure was spiking which was not good for the baby so i had to have you know obi come down and monitor me and the baby while orthopedic is trying to take care of my broken foot and it was it was a mess so when we walked in for our final appointment with the OBGYN in at 39 weeks we were pretty much like let's let's do this let's get this thing out because we kept going in and for like the four preceding weeks she was doing her checks and she was like baby hasn't moved you're not dilated baby hasn't moved and I was doing everything I was I was Googling every possible we were eating Mexican food like every night we were having naked time just trying to get baby to

move we had it one time I was distinct remember you You found it. Okay, good. Cut. He's still scarred by this. So I was like, hey, let's have the induction scheduled for October 31st, which is important for two reasons. One, I don't know, Halloween baby, but more importantly, it's my grandpa's birthday, which

I thought was really cool to have the opportunity that... You know what? I want to raise an individual. Papa was amazing, and he is an iconic man, but I want our daughter to be an individual. I get that. But if we have the choice to schedule when our child is going to be born, why not have it? Why not have it on an independent day where they can be their own person? Fair enough. So we chose October 29. I proposed this to the doctor and she's like, no, that's Thursday and Thursday's my day off. And I was like, okay, well, I'm a little offended because there's part of you. You know, I guess I'm maybe as selfish as everybody else

are self-centered, but I was like, you know, this is the birth of my child, so I should have total say on what's going to go on. In my perspective, it's not how it works. If Doc wasn't, that doesn't want to do that day, let's not schedule that day. You got some sass to you right now. Well, could you imagine scheduling?

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Learn more at Amex.ca. slash Y-Amex. Right. I wasn't like super, you know, I had a little different role in the whole thing. So anyway, we scheduled it, and that gave us, it was like six days from when we had that last appointment to when the induction was going to happen. And do you remember those six days? Yeah.

they were kind of a blur I felt like we really didn't talk much we really didn't talk a lot we were just like silent we tried to go on like date nights so we still went out we went to a Preds game yeah I was 40 weeks pregnant going to a Preds game

we went to a concert yeah greatest concert ever it was the most intimate concert with Chuck Wicks Mitchell 10 Penny um Shoot, don't put me in the spot like this.

Leigh-Degro was there. Lee Bryce, Gavin deGraugh. It was cool. There's so many people. It was amazing. It was amazing. We crushed through the Jack Ryan series two, right? By the way, I had so many people saying, like, I was absolutely insane to be going out and doing all of that 40 weeks pregnant.

But it was the only thing that kept me sane. Literally. If I would have sat in the house and done nothing, I would have lost their mind. To your credit, you were really big on the fact that, like, hey, this is our last few. days with life just being you and me so let's maximize it and let's have a good time i can't imagine that it was comfortable for you but i appreciate the sacrifice because we had a great time it wasn't but it also was better than sitting at home i mean because your body is so achy and you really just can't get comfortable doing anything and everything you can to just distract yourself from that

helps and you're so consumed by the thought of like my life is getting like is about to change forever. I didn't want to just sit at home and think about that because I'm now thinking about that for the rest of my life. We bottled some East Fam Honey, the Madison's Reserve. We did. Which was fun.

And we did, the one day that we did kind of sit around and do nothing was the day of where we woke up, we did a workout. Sean's doing thrusters the day we go into the hospital to have the child. Do you remember that? Yeah. With a broken toe.

You're freak. Anyway, then after that we kind of just went on the couch. By the way, I'm not sure any doctor would recommend that. Right. Actually, our OB was all for it, which that's why we get along so well. She was big in the crossfit. But we sat around. Your parents came over right before we left for the hospital.

He said zero words to them. Yeah, it was like, yeah, that was crazy. They came over to pick up Nash, our dog. And it was like not even an hour before we left. We had packed up the car. And it was just that, like, daunting real, like. life-changing moment seeing them walk in because it kind of March I don't know stamps the time of the end of an era oh my gosh we prayed we cried and we were

supposed to get the hospital like what nine 930 so we made it 9.30 p.m. so it's so we literally had the whole day of just like thinking about it like first of all there's I was kind of scared because I had heard stories of friends whose wives had a tough time, whether it's natural birth or C-section, like, complications. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, you kind of overlooked the whole, like, at least as a man. I overlooked the whole process between Sean being pregnant and me holding a child. And there's a lot that can go wrong in that. And so the day of, I was just consumed by like, okay, we just got to, let's get through that.

Like, once I'm holding the baby, I'm going to be good. And then it's also like this, yeah, like you were saying, like, okay, you're prepping for the biggest event in your life. It's, I remember being kind of a confusing time for me. I mean, leading up to the pregnancy or leading up to the delivery and during the delivery, because I'm a believer. So I pray, we pray a lot. And I remember being so confused about my prayers because I didn't want to be selfish at all. Which I think is something moms probably deal with a lot is trying to balance that. But I remember going into it praying for nothing but like a safe delivery for our baby.

No matter what you had to go through. No matter what I didn't care what I had to go through. Like I truly didn't. I thought it was selfish of me to pray for a painless, you know, quick delivery. I don't care. I don't care what I have to go through to deliver our child. but I remember feeling guilty kind of like throwing it at the end

throwing it into the end of a prayer saying like please keep me safe through it too you felt guilty about that kind of because that makes me sad well and I don't mean it to like a depressing thing but it was it was just this weird feeling of I felt like my purpose was to bring our child into the world

so I don't know I didn't feel like I could pray for anything more than that I wanted them to be safe I just got the chills but anyways did you get the pregame jitters oh absolutely you know this I was shaking through the whole thing

I was so nervous yeah I was nervous and excited and just filled with adrenaline and fear and your body just kind of goes into shock especially when I was laboring for 14 hours, the pain got really bad, especially with all the contraptions I had in my body.

At one point, when I was still natural, so I didn't have any medication, we did what they call a folie bulb. And so they basically insert this balloon into your cervix and pump it up to try to like manually open your cervix. And that mixed with the contractions, that I was having every other minute that were already very, very intense was a lot.

And I remember I was in a cold sweat, I couldn't stop shaking. I could not talk through my contractions even remotely. It was just a lot. From what I've heard, people who get the fully bulb, that's how you say it? I think. It's more painful than actually giving birth naturally.

Well, I mean, I didn't give birth naturally, so I would know. No, I'm just saying like that. You handled that like a champ, so. I'm sure if you did birth through naturally, it would have been... I had most moms tell me that labor is worse than birth. So, like, by the time you're there, you're there. Let's walk him through the progression.

So we get to the hospital at 9.30 after we made an obligatory stop at Wendy's, which is very important in my family. I couldn't eat after 2 p.m. that day, and he was stuffing his face with fast food. We used to have family reunions at Wendy's, so it's a special place. Anyway, we get to the hospital. and they get us onboarded, like registered and everything, and then pretty much had to strip you down, get you in the gown, put you all booty hanging out, looking cute. Thanks.

You were so excited at this point. Obviously, like, it had been 10 months. Pregnancy, by the way, is 10 months, not 9, like they teach you. Yeah, nobody really tells you that. It's like 40 weeks. It's 10 months. Yeah. Whoever missed that calculation from day one.

really blew it it is 10 months anyways it's 10 months of anticipation of your child and of that day and it's not like my water just broke and we went rushing to the ER like it it was we planned we packed we prepped we drove there and I was so excited yeah it was like I was walking into the Olympics again so after I mean it was pretty much a half hour I feel like from when we parked to when They were, they had you hooked up to everything. And you had no contractions leading up to the hospital, correct? Correct, except if you remember, when they put the monitor on me, I was contracting. So is that considered Braxton Hicks?

I don't know. You don't know. You're asking the one person. Okay, so the little monitor was picking up, right. So. So they started giving you a side attack, correct? Mm-hmm. Which is what?

It's something I think that helps. soften your cervix to help you dilate essentially dilate and like encourage labor okay they give you a dose of that every four hours is that correct it's kind of a blur about it's it was that you were being kept up because the doctors would visit you the nurses would visit you like every half hour we're sitting there jamming the 10,000 hours by dan and shay on repeat literally on repeat the freaking greatest song ever yeah but they kept checking me with side attack we went through like four doses of it and it it was working but really really slowly after the fourth dose that's when doc said let's try the folly bulb but warned me it does

hurt which was like 12 hours into us being in the hospital we did the folly bulb i was still walking around um and we also started potocin then which started intensifying the contractions immensely we went through two rounds of potosin and things were progressing, but very, very, very slowly. I was dilating, but baby girl wasn't dropping at all. So she wasn't getting any closer to coming out. And you were dilating slowly too. Yeah, but I was contracting a lot.

So can you just describe as best you can what a contraction feels like? I tried to explain it to Andrew. So for a woman, it's like the worst period, or period cramps you ever had in your entire life times a million. um times one million but i've also heard again every delivery is different every labor is different for me it was intense because of the fully bowl because i didn't labor naturally because of the potosa and everything so things were very intense for me um but i tried to explain it to ander i'm like it's if you remember the sickest you ever been like with diarrhea okay okay it sounds terrible but you know how you know your like stomach turns into knots and it's like cold sweat if you don't get to a bathroom

something bad is going to happen yeah I want you to pause that moment you can't go to the bathroom that's terrible you have to hold it and then times that by maybe 100 do you think it's do you think it's worse than the contraction simulator absolutely we're going to have to get you no we're not because I went through it. I imagine contractions it's like, it's like your muscle just flexing really hard, but it's not like that. It's like you're going to put your pants.

I thought it was going to be like that. I mean, you really can't prepare for it. It's not like that. It's not like an electrical shock to your muscles. It's like your intestines and your insides tying into a knot. That sounds miserable.

Yeah. So we go through that. Yeah. No, no, not we. You. I. Thank you. I get 17 hours in on a few rounds of potosin.

They kept upping the dosage. Nothing was, we weren't progressing fast enough. And I was hurting. So I was like epidural time. I'm checking out, which was really hard for me. Because I feel like all women go into pregnancy and delivery with this plan, this like dreamlike plan of how they want it to go. which is a joke because you always learn that nothing goes to plan.

But I've explained it to you and we've had conversations that I think it's so important and I feel like women hang on to that plan so tightly because it's your first moment where you truly feel like a mom. It's like your first decision. How do I want to bring my child into the world? And for me, I had my plan. I wanted to do it naturally for whatever reason. I wanted to birth her naturally

I didn't want a C-section in an ideal world that's what I wanted and when that had to change I felt like as a mom my first like mom moment I had already failed

which brought on guilt I soon I very quickly like forgot about it because the epidural felt so good but it was a rough moment I felt guilty I felt weak If I could pause and give you kudos for a second, I feel like so many people,

I've said this multiple times that depending on who you ask, everything is okay and nothing is okay when it comes to pregnancy and raising a child. And whether it was us going in to get induced at 40 weeks as opposed to waiting as long as we could or us getting induced period or you're getting an epidural or us getting a C-section,

there's literally 100 different decisions that need to be made that people are super passionate about And while you did have a plan, you were super humble about it and trusted the doctors. You trusted me and us having conversations about, hey, they say this could affect a baby. Is it worth it? Yada yada. And so I just feel like you navigated it really well and you didn't beat yourself up about any of the decisions that so many people put some maybe unwarranted. importance on you know yeah i would i would also say though i think that's just something that we

needed and we kind of ran with i've said this before i think every parent parents differently and every parent should respect other parents way of parenting it's a lot of parent the word parent this episode is brought to you by defender with its six hundred and twenty six horsepower twin turbo v8 engine, the defender Octa is taking on the Dakar rally. The ultimate off-road challenge. Learn more at landrover.ca.

But for us, we aren't doctors. We don't know this. We haven't done it before. And so for us, it was, we found an OB that we trusted and we liked and that held our hand through it and walked us through it. And so we trusted her opinions. And

we just kind of chose, we chose to. she respected our opinion she respected if we had questions if we wanted to push back but at the end of the day we kind of had chosen our path of what comforted us in bringing our child into the world and i feel like every single mom out there and dad does that in their own way and you just respect there's just there's so many like context contextual things that affect the decision making progress like religion or everything yeah like the community you're in and that say, hey, you can't do this when it comes. Don't let your baby get this medicine once they're born.

And it's like, don't, look, make informed decisions, but it's probably going to be okay. Like, all the decisions that are presented to you by these different people, it's probably like there's not like an absolute wrong one, you know. You have to be careful in saying that, because that's under an umbrella of very, very controversial topics where people truly believe in right and wrong. We do too.

That's what I'm saying. I know. I understand what you're saying, but. I'm saying I respect all the decisions. I dislike how some people are made to feel like they failed like you were, like you were. I don't think that's right. I agree. So make really informed decisions, be thoughtful about it, but don't beat yourself up about it.

I agree. So that's all I have to say. So moving through the progression. So Patosin was an interesting balance because they couldn't give you too much. because it affects the baby. But they wanted to give enough to start progressing labor. And again, it was moving slowly, so they gave you the fully blown. Early afternoon on the 29th, they broke your water.

They broke my water, which is a crazy feeling. She did it so casually, the doctor. She was like, all right, we're just going to pop up. There goes your water. And then do you remember the freaking mucus plug? No, I can't see. You didn't see the mucus plug? You're lucky.

It was gross. I was like, what? just happened welcome to the life of a girl what just happened welcome to the life of a girl I'm sorry you're scarred by that moment so yes they break my water they keep upping potocin but they keep having to bring it back down because her heart rate was being affected um how many hours are we in now like 20 I've gotten the epidural I have a catheter you had so many things I had so many tubes. Like literally you had two IVs. You had your freaking epidural. You had the fully blown, fully bold. I don't know why I can't say that. Fully bulb. And then you had a doctor

checking you up the old Susie, as you would say. Every 30 minutes, which the lack of shame and privacy in hospital is like, all modesty goes out the window very, very fast. It's like spread them wide, strip it down. Literally laying on the table with your with your legs and crisscross aval sauce. Yeah. Just opened the world. I am super fortunate. I feel like we were fortunate in having awesome doctors and an awesome hospital. Life, like, life-changing doctors. They were, I, I'm not the most modest person, but because of the world we live in, I'm very cautious.

Okay. Shy. Okay. What would you say? I didn't know what you meant by saying modest, but you're saying, like, with your. yeah body I don't

I don't love to just show everything to the world I don't walk around naked in front of people yeah yeah and especially because

the world we live in where we have a name the idea of someone saying like oh I saw Sean naked or whatever I don't know

it just like freaks me out of it so to have such incredible people that made us feel so comfortable and just immediately

was awesome Yeah. Sean's going through all this. Meanwhile, I am the most emotionally and maybe physically fatigued I've ever been because I was in like a full-on flex. It's stressful. She's sitting there shaking. She's nervous.

She's like going through the contractions. I'm so glad you got an epidural just because for you, it seemed to be a game changer of like it was a misery. And then you had the epidural and is way better. And so it's like, hey, you've got to experience contractions. Awesome. Let's move on. Like I told you, the heart.

part for me and the reason why I ended up tapping out and saying I need the epidural is going through all of that labor with zero progression was so defeating because it wasn't like I was making progress yes I was dilating but since she wasn't dropping at all we are still at start line 17 hours in and I just like it's hard to find motivation yeah but I get that so at 7 p.m. I'm downstairs eating a burger with my parents. And I get a FaceTime call from Sean. Yes, the doctor had come in. She had checked me again.

She was like, okay, it's been 20 hours, 22 hours. 22 hours. You have not progressed at all. You're dilated 5 centimeters and 22 hours on so much side attack and potocin that we can't up it anymore. She said the baby has not moved, like hasn't dropped even a centimeter. She said she could feel her head, but her. Her biggest fear was that since the baby hadn't dropped, that the baby wasn't fitting.

Yeah. She could kind of feel the baby, but she said she thought the baby was stuck in my pelvis and was unable to drop. And she's like, I think our safest option right now is to talk about a C-section. And honestly, I didn't want a C-section. But at that time, I was just like, okay, let's do it. Let's do what we need to do for a baby. And I face-time Andrew because I didn't think I should text you or call you.

And I was like, so doctor is talking about a C-section. You're like, I'm on my wait. I sprinted it up there. Just to give you some stats, I thought this is interesting. Sean's, like her size on percentiles of females, your second percentile. In height. In height. Drew's head was 98th percentile.

yeah she's a big girl so to me the math was never going to add up and the doctor said this baby was not going to come out naturally yeah um and i guess i guess your athletic background with like you just being so active also made your muscles tighter and so it more difficult to have a natural delivery is did you hear that or no no i was kind of in a coma anyway so we get the call run upstairs and everything happened rather quickly okay by the time andrew got up to the room you had your hair net on we had our we had drew in 10 minutes yeah it was insane and i remember doc even saying like as soon as andrew gets up here i'll talk we'll go through this again we'll talk about our options if this is what we want to do and we did and we talked for five minutes and she's like okay let's do this and she stood

there and i was like why aren't you leaving like i literally had the thought i was like why are you just hanging out and she's just standing there if you remember she's in her scrub She's got her arms crossed, and more people start coming into the room. And I'm like, so do we schedule this? And she's like, no, we're, let's do it. And I was like, what do you mean? Let's do it. So casual.

I was like, we're going right now? Again, this is so funny. Like, all these professionals do this multiple times a day. But for you, when you're in the moment about to have your child, you're like, why are you not stressed out? This is crazy. But again, it's so comforting how chill they are. Yeah, it's good.

And I know they're not like always chill in every situation. there's a lot of emergencies, but still their bedside manner is incredible and it was so comforting because it's such this crazy process. So they get me like hooked up. They upped my epidural to like numb everything, which was insane. I couldn't even like lift my leg, which was such a weird feeling. They roll me back to the OR. As soon as they get to the operating room doors, I go in, Andrew has to stay back just for a few minutes while they get me prepped. They stripped me down they scrub me down um they put me on the table they put up the curtain doc is talking to me the tech is talking to me i remember the assistant um i don't remember what his name was

i probably shouldn't say it anyways too um the assistant i remember him as he was like helping prep me he's like don't worry girl you're still going to be able to wear a bikini and i'm like thanks and I'm shaking and the anesthesiologist is she's holding my hand and the head anesthesiologist is behind my head and he's talking me through it and it was just so for such a scary moment it was so comforting to have so many people just walking me through that moment you didn't mention me in the whole comfort this is just well no like the prep so they let you come in yeah and I walk in and Sean like visibly shaking she's crying and that was a special moment for me just just to sit there and hold your hand and to watch you go through all this suffering, the contractions, all these decisions, it's like so, there's so much that's taxing you during that process. And to see you do it so willingly and strongly and bravely was, like, just made me proud as your husband, which was cool. And then for us to share that moment of, like, you can get protein at home or a protein latte at Tim's, no powders, no blenders, no shakers.

starting at 17 grams per medium latte Tim's new protein lattes Protein without all the work at participating restaurants in Canada We're about to have this child We're about to meet this child any second And we're sitting there both crying Both like you were shaking more than I was

But it's like this wild emotional ride I want you to describe The feeling of when they actually cut you open First, it is such a crazy moment I remember when you walked in I don't know I've had knee surgeries four of them. I've been

on the operating table many times but that one it's such this unique feeling as a woman getting ready to give birth because it is so sacrificial I mean you're not there

for you you're not there for any benefit to you you're there to give life to someone else and it was such this vulnerable feeling of again that's where like the prayers came in i was just like please protect our baby and please let me be around not to be like depressing um okay so in the middle of surgery so you can't feel pain but you can feel everything going on with the epidural so i didn't have a spinal block i just had

you you mean like pressure and people like kind of touching you yeah so you can feel them touching you in pressure but you can't feel like pain um so at one point i'm like i can feel what they're doing and i can i know about surgeries enough um to know like what it is that they were doing i've researched C-sections i've done all of that um research to know and i was kind of walking through the process as they're doing it i can't see but i can feel and at one point you know the only way i can describe it is you know what it feels like and sounds like to use kitchen cheers and to cut through a chicken breast. It's literally what it sounded like and what it felt like.

And at that moment, I was like, okay, they're cutting through my abs, my uterus, one of them. I think they actually pull your abs aside. So I think they're cutting through the uterus. But I was like, this is interesting. Oh, that's terrible. And then I ended up telling Doc afterwards during my checkup afterwards. but I was like I don't know if you know this doc

but in the operating room there's an electronic clock that is in sight when you're on the table and if I looked at the clock it was like a mirror and I could see everything they were doing in the operating table

and I was like I don't know if you know that but you might want to move it did you ever feel like you were going to pass out if you looked at it or anything? No because it didn't even feel like my body since I couldn't feel the pain And it was kind of like, well, anyways, they cut me open, they pulled her out.

What did that feel like? What? What did that feel like? Just a lot of pressure released. Wild. They pushed so hard on your abdomen. I felt that. Like, I felt like they pushed all the way through the table.

And then all of a sudden it was like nothing was there. Our friends filmed their child getting pulled out. from a C-section, and to see the doctor, cut, make the cut, and the head literally violently pops out. I didn't witness any of that because I was just locked in on you, but it's, what a wild thing, you know. It was nerve-wracking. So, again, since I couldn't see anything,

I was listening to the doctor. I was listening to her voice. I was listening to the tech, trying to, like, read the room pretty much. and when I felt them pull her out they didn't say anything about the umbilical core being wrapped around her neck but I ended up seeing that in footage later but all I could hear was doc

she was happy the doctor was happy she was laughing that little girls our little baby's feet were up by her head and she's like yeah she would never have come out and she's like she's such a big girl and all this but through this like 30 seconds that she's excited the doctor the baby's not crying so i'm looking i'm looking over the curtain and i see the doctor holding drew face down drew's purple not making a sound not moving and like

worst case in error comes through my mind yeah because i don't know they don't really prep you for that moment no they don't and so it took 30 seconds and then drew cried and it's like oh i can literally hear it now yeah and then i started hyperventilating crying i it was I was trying to think about what it was I was feeling. I was thinking about this today. I don't know how to describe that moment because it's relief. It's happiness. It's fear.

Like I'm scared because baby's here and now life has changed. I'm happy because baby's here and she's crying and everything's good. It's like you cross the finish line of the longest marathon of your life because you've been pregnant for so long and gone through everything and it's like, It is just. And then you realize it's just the starting line. But I truly remember not being able to breathe. I was crying so hard.

I was crying and laughing simultaneously, which I'd never experienced that before. But that's when it happened. 7.49 p.m. October 29th, baby Drew came out 8.5 pounds. 8 pounds, 8 ounces, 20.5 inches. That's right. I want to talk about the cord blood registry. So one thing we did was a core blood registry where they can take the baby's umbilical cord and some of the blood.

They send it off to be stored for when Drew or the child grows up. They can use the stem cells to treat up to like 80 different ailments. And so as part of that, they do a lot of these tests. And even when Doc pulled baby out, she said... Well, to give background. Sure. We had a two-vessel cord baby. Right.

which was terrifying when we got quote-unquote diagnosed because you do this ultrasound, you come back to the doctor's office, the doctor's like, well, things look okay, but there's only two vessels in the cord instead of three. It can be risky for the baby. She might not get enough oxygen, nutrients. They tell you all the things that could go wrong now with this

instead of like, hey, here are like the optimistic numbers. They're like, hey, this could be an indicator for Downson. and this could be, they could have kidney problems and like this list of things. So when she was here and like we had made it to that finish line, it was like, okay, we overcame this hurdle of the two vessel cord. So when the doc pulled her out. Typically a two vessel cord would be frail and kind of wimpy compared to like a three vessel cord, but the doctor was describing it to us and she was like that, that two vessel cord had more blood in it than a three vessel cord, like most other three vessel cords that I've seen,

and it looked very robust and not the frail that we had kind of expected. So they packaged it up pretty much and sent it off to the lab to be stored. And we get a call from the lab, and they say, hey, typically when we do these samples, we're looking for like on the good end of things, one million stem cell samples. for Drew's we've never seen anything like this she had 1.5 billion stem cells and so I'm not a hundred percent sure if it's stem cells so let's just put that disclaimer in there I don't know if it's stem cells it's some sort of cell keep going sample cells protecting us thank you there you go so again we don't really know what that means but it's kind of like what

one of our friends said it's like it sounds like how a superhero is born like the Star of a Marvel movie. So. But they were, they ended up testing her sample multiple times because they kept thinking they were making a mistake. But they said, yeah, we've never seen it before. She had 1.5 billion healthy cells that we could store for her instead of a million, which is what we look for. And it was just like this proud moment because it was kind of a scary pregnancy because we

didn't know how a two vessel cord was going to turn out for her. And it was inspiring to me. Yeah, for her to... She's a fighter. Yeah, to have this hurdle and she just crushed it was so inspiring. I also want to say, I think it was cool. I've described this to you before. The moment that they handed drew over to us in the operating room,

and I got to do the skin on skin and actually see her and hold her. It's this instant change in life, and it's not something you can really describe. I'll try, but people always tell you that babies are. life changing and babies you know put everything into perspective and it's like okay well how does that happen just over time but literally in an instant the second i held her i just kind of knew nothing in the world would ever matter again i mean i don't care about work i don't care about my like i don't want to say myself but everything selfish goes away and it's like my my life is now you. And it was the most peaceful moment ever, just having the three of us there.

The Conjuring Last Rites, only in the theater September 5th. I feel like there's like nine months of anticipation and anxiety and just a lot of questions. Like, are we going to have a healthy baby? You know, we didn't know the gender, so that was exciting. And so once we held Drew in our arms and like everything was great, the three days after was so heavenly just because there was nothing else, as you're saying, going through my mind. It was just us cuddling with Drew talking about Drew, and it was awesome, but what a time. I just say, I feel like there's so much more. We could talk about the time, the four days you're at the hospital, and just me being overwhelmed

and the emotional side and the hormonal side and the not knowing how to change a freaking diaper. I'd never changed the diaper in my life and just this overwhelming fear of being a parent. But it was, it is and truly is, or it was and truly is the greatest thing we've ever done together in our life. It's pretty cool. Pretty special. And I do want to say something that we're working on, it hasn't been easy so far, but something that we promised each other, Andrew and I, at the hospital. I said this to you before we even had her.

I said, you will forever be my number one. And I mean that. but Drew will always be our number one and I think the reason why I said that to you is I think the only way to raise our child in a healthy way is for us to be

each other's priority the better our relationship is the better parents we can be and it has not been easy in the past six weeks we've learned a lot so we can maybe do another episode again this is kind of a unique episode

about the birthing story start to finish. If you guys want to hear about all the things, all the wonderful things we've learned since we've had, Drew, all the wonderful fights. All the breakdowns we've had. We can maybe make that happen. But thank you guys for the patience on this episode. We launched that trailer and people went crazy over it. And so we were advised not to launch another episode until the new year for a bunch of different reasons. But we were like, we promise our audience this. So sorry it came And we were also trying to get back on two feet with a newborn. Yeah, we really have no idea what we're doing.

But anyway, hope you guys liked this show. I had fun doing this with you. Me too. This was better than the other 12 times we tried to do. This is better. This has been the best one so far. If you guys haven't, subscribe to the show on whatever platform you're listening to, whether it's YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, and a rating and a review.

I don't know how that works. You don't? No. Well, maybe you should rate this show. yourself okay i'll try do that um but thank you so much for listening hope you guys like this longer form conversation i think we definitely disclosed some details we hadn't talked about before um but that's all we had for you we'll see you next time guys peace fam out