Episode 311 Sami's VBAC After an Unexpected Breech Cesarean

Upon arriving at the hospital during her first labor, Sami was told that her baby’s heart rate wasn’t stable, Pitocin was necessary, and a C-section was most likely going to be the safest mode of delivery. After laboring for a while, she was wheeled to the OR but the anesthesiologist was running behind schedule. Sami was checked and discovered she was complete! She pushed like her life depended on it and with the assistance of a vacuum and forceps, was able to vaginally deliver her baby in the OR. Sami was thankful to have had a vaginal delivery, but it wasn’t the empowering experience she hoped for and she knew she wanted something different the next time around. But when her second baby flipped breech during labor, Sami unexpectedly consented to a Cesarean. During her third pregnancy, Sami did everything in her power to set herself up for a VBAC. She found out her baby was breech and exhausted all options to try to flip her. A few weeks after a successful ECV, Sami had a precipitous VBAC, pushing her baby out within one hour of arriving at the hospital!Sami's Fitness AccountHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 01:23 Review of the Week04:26 Sami’s first pregnancy06:41 A vaginal birth in the OR07:55 Second pregnancy and switching providers11:00 Flipping breech during labor13:10 Sami’s C-section and feeling invalidated16:50 Third pregnancy24:19 A successful ECV29:38 Going into labor32:38 Pushing her baby out within one hour of arriving at the hospitalMeagan: Hey, hey everybody. We have another VBAC story for you today from our friend, Sami. She is actually local to me here in Utah. Hi, how are you?Sami: Hi, I’m good. I’m so excited to be here. Meagan: So excited to share these stories. I was going over your story and it’s just crazy to think how things can twist and turn and the unexpected can happen. I love that about stories sometimes and then I don’t love that it happens but I also love the uniqueness of that. Does that make sense? Sami: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like literally and figuratively, my babies twist and turns happen. Meagan: Yes. It’s important to know that going into birth even though we are planning one way, sometimes twists and turns can happen and then it’s up to us to figure out how to navigate through that space and it’s not always easy. It’s okay to not always have it be easy and then sometimes it is easy. That’s another thing I wanted to talk about too is pointing out that to some, a twist and a turn might be no big deal to someone and then to some, it rocks their world. We are all in different spaces here and you definitely like you said both figuratively and actually have some twists and turns. 01:23 Review of the WeekMeagan: We’re going to share her story in just a minute but of course, we do have a Review of the Week and I just wanted to quickly share it. This is by– okay, I’m probably going to butcher this. It is mitaywa. I’m so sorry if you are listening and you are like, You are telling this so wrong. It says, “I hope this plays over the speaker in every OB/GYN office.” I love that. That’s a cool subject. It says, “I cannot even begin to describe what encouragement these podcasts have been for me. I have completely binged on these the past few weeks and they have grown my confidence for my up-and-coming VBAC baby. I cannot stop sharing everything I’m learning and even help encourage first-time moms to educate themselves on how to avoid a Cesarean in the first place. Thank you so much for this no B.S., truth-declaring and empowering platform that I know has encouraged so many more than just myself. Keep being amazing. I can’t wait to share our story in just a few short months. All of my love.” Aw, that’s such a great review. I love that so much. I hope that you got your VBAC and that all went well. I’m so excited to hear that this podcast is doing exactly what we intended it to do– empower, educate, inform, and inspire people to know their options for birth after a Cesarean and like you said, how to avoid a Cesarean in the first place. 04:26 Sami’s first pregnancyMeagan: Okay, cute Sami. I’m excited to hear these stories. Thank you for joining us today. Sami: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It’s a really cool full-circle moment to be here after binging on the podcast for months and months and months so I’m excited to be here. Meagan: All right, well every birth story starts with baby number one, and your first baby actually wasn’t a C-section, right?Sami: Yeah, with my first baby, I got pregnant in 2017 and had him in 2018. I feel like as so many other people on the podcast, I felt like I was pretty informed going into the birth. I mean, I read two books. To me, I’m like, I am so informed. I took a HypnoBirthing class but I had a provider who had just been my OB/GYN for a long time so I decided to stay with her. Even though I didn’t have a C-section with that first delivery and pregnancy, it definitely wasn’t what I was hoping to get out of it. I went to 40 weeks and thought that I would have my baby right then and there. I didn’t have a doula. I hadn’t talked to a lot of people but I was planning on going unmedicated in my delivery and then the days kept going on. I got to 40 and 5 and finally started to go into labor. I was really excited because my OB had scheduled an induction for me I think the next day actually. I got to the hospital and everything changed. We got there. We were excited and fresh-faced. We were having our baby today. The minute we got there, they were picking up a lot of heart decels. They didn’t feel like the baby’s heart rate was doing well. They told me that I needed to get on Pitocin immediately and that I would be really lucky to not have a C-section so my hopes for an unmedicated delivery went out the window immediately. My OB came in and told me, “I really do think that a C-section is going to be the best course of action for us but let’s give you a couple of hours and see how things do with Pitocin, get you an epidural just in case,” and after a few hours, came in and said, “I really think we need to go to the OR right now. We need to get your baby out for his safety.” 06:41 A vaginal birth in the ORSami: We scrubbed up, my husband and I. She took us back to the OR. I was a wreck. I was crying and just so upset because no one had prepared me for that. In my HypnoBirthing class, all of the stories that were shared were really positive. We didn’t really talk about what would happen in this type of situation. Like I said, I didn’t have a doula. We got to the OR and the anesthesiologist was actually running behind. He was doing another C-section and they didn’t have another one on call I guess. She was like, “You’re dilated to a 10 so if you can get this baby out right now, I’ll let you push and try.” So I pushed like my life depended on it trying to get this baby out. He was sunny-side up so she did end up using forceps and a vacuum. We got him out in that timeframe. It was so cool honestly after having this experience that felt really scary and just not what I was wanting, I was riding the high of my life to have still been able to deliver him. So I didn’t get my unmedicated delivery, but I was just really happy to have him there with me. Meagan: Yeah, yeah. 07:55 Second pregnancy and switching providersSami: So fast forward to my second pregnancy, I got pregnant in 2019 and had him during the pandemic in 2020. I decided to switch providers just because I felt like after going through that experience with her, it wasn’t a bad experience, it just wasn’t what I was wanting. To get there and have her immediately pushing a C-section– Meagan: That’s kind of unique. Did she ever tell you exactly? It was just the heart rate? “You’re heart rate is wonky. Let’s put you on Pitocin.” Those two things often don’t match. And then it’s like, “Oh, you’ll probably end up there anyway but we’ll let you keep going.”Sami: It was so bizarre. Looking back at it for me, I do feel like there were signs that she just wasn’t going to be a supportive provider of an unmedicated delivery all along. I told her I didn’t want to have an epidural and she said, “Well, good luck. You’ll probably change your mind, but I support you doing whatever you want to do.” We found out after he was delivered that the cord was wrapped around his neck twice. That was what was causing the decels to happen, but that was what was hard for us to understand too. We were like, “If it’s emergent, why aren’t we being taken back right now?” Yeah. It just felt like she wanted to get the baby out. I was over 40 weeks. I felt like even though I had a great experience postpartum and I was fine, I couldn’t trust her anymore. I didn’t feel like she was a safe person or someone who would honor my wishes during birth. Meagan: Right. Sami: I had heard of a doctor locally. A few of my friends had just raved about him. He is pretty popular in my neighborhood. I feel like a lot of different people go to him, but it’s Dr. Thackeray and INC. Meagan: Oh yeah. Sami: Yeah, so I switched over to him for that second pregnancy and immediately just really liked him. He was warm. He took a lot of time talking over everything, getting to know us in a way that most OBs don’t in the hospital setting and I let go of my hopes of having an unmedicated delivery. It just felt like with my first birth and postpartum, everything that could have happened did happen. I had this plan. I had the birth plan. I wanted to have that unmedicated labor and it all went out the window the minute that we got there. I felt like, What’s the point in even trying to go unmedicated? There are so many unexpected things that can come up in birth. I went forward with that pregnancy. It was a pretty normal pregnancy. Honestly, I felt great. I’m one of those weird people who enjoys being pregnant. I just soaked up the time with my oldest son. We were having another boy, but when the pandemic really started to get serious, we were terrified. We were being told every week that things were changing. You could have people come with you and support you. You couldn’t. My birth partner may not be able to be there with me. We were a little nervous about that. 11:00 Flipping breech during laborSami: I got to 40 weeks exactly and went into labor again. I was so excited. It’s really funny because my husband and I took pictures outside of the hospital. We were both really excited to hopefully have a more normal experience of being able to deliver in the delivery room without all of those interventions. We got checked into the hospital. They checked the baby’s position and they told me that he was head-down. Then shortly after that, my water actually broke. They called my OB to come in and just check on how things were progressing. When he came in, he checked me and he was like, “I don’t think that I’m feeling the baby’s head. I think I’m feeling the baby’s bum.”They did an ultrasound. Meagan: So breech? Sami: He was breech but he wasn’t even just complete breech. Meagan: Like sideways? Sami: Yeah. He was transverse. It brought up a lot of anxiety and emotions from that first delivery. I’m like, “No. I avoided a C-section. I really don’t want to go back to the OR. I don’t want to have forceps. I don’t want to have all of these things happen.” They tried to perform an ECV. They actually tried for 45 minutes to get him to flip but because– Meagan: Which is also impressive just to say for a provider to do that during labor. That’s impressive. Sami: Yeah, he was. He brought in one of his partners. I could tell that they were trying really, really hard but he would not budge. They told us that because my water had broken, it was just likely that there wasn’t enough fluid in there to get him to flip back. Meagan: Rotate. Sami: Yeah. We don’t know at this point. The nurses who checked us in told me that he was head down, but we don’t know if he flipped when my water broke or if he had been sitting breech for a long time. In any case, he wasn’t flipping. My husband and I asked for some time just to think about our options, but his foot became prolapsed and they told us, “This is an emergent situation. We need to get him out right now. If the cord prolapses, it could be pretty risky.” 13:10 Sami’s C-section and feeling invalidatedSami: They rolled us back to the OR. It was kind of like Dejavu from my first delivery. I’m sobbing. I’m like, Oh, I don’t want to have a C-section. I’ve got a baby at home to think about this time around. I told him I’d be back in two days. Just a lot of emotions were brought up. They took us to the OR and kept having to give me medication after medication. They lay you down obviously. So many people listening to this story are going to be able to relate to what it’s like in there, but it’s freezing cold. They laid me down and strapped me onto the bed. I was shaking. I felt like I was going to vomit. They just kept giving me all of these medications. They finally started to perform the C-section and I just had tears rolling down my face. The anesthesiologist bent down and was like, “Don’t worry. My wife had to have C-sections with all of our babies and she’s fine.” It was just the weirdest situation. Meagan: Yeah, probably out of the goodness of his heart of, “You’re going to be okay. My wife was okay,” but it’s not really what you say to someone in that moment either. Sami: Yeah. It just felt kind of invalidating that I was having a hard moment. Meagan: Yeah.Sami: Ultimately, they got my son out. They took him and cleaned him off and when they brought him over to me, I can barely remember what it was like but I couldn’t hold him. I was shaking. It was a really hard moment to not be able to have that immediate connection with him. We got back to the recovery room and things went fine for the most part. I did have a pretty bad hemorrhage and they kept having to come in. They were going to open me back up at one point, but all in all, it was fine. My son was healthy and I was really grateful for that. I think the hardest part for me was just like I said with the anesthesiologist just feeling really invalidated in how hard the situation was. I wanted to get back to see my son. I’m pretty into fitness and health like I talked about and hadn’t really wanted to have this really long recovery from all of that. People just kept saying, “Well, your baby is healthy. That’s what matters. At least your baby is healthy.” I think that’s a really hard thing sometimes for moms to hear because as the mom of the baby, I want them to be healthy more than anyone. Meagan: It’s a no-duh situation. Sami: Yeah, that’s my number one goal. Funny enough, I found The VBAC Link in the hospital while I was lying in my hospital bed those three days just feeding him and spending time with my baby and I started listening to the podcast then. I just thought, If I ever go down this road again and have another baby, I really want to have a different experience from these first two deliveries. I want to be able to hold my baby the minute that they are born, not be so drugged up that I’m having to come out of being groggy and things. To make a really long story a little bit shorter, my postpartum situation with my son– the recovery was okay but it was really hard. It brought up a lot of postpartum anxiety for me, a lot of different things with the pandemic. We weren’t able to have visitors, not be able to be outside or move around the way I wanted to immediately. The podcast really helped me get through a lot of that. 16:50 Third pregnancySami: Fast forward to 2023 and I got pregnant for a third time, I was just excited to hopefully do things differently this go-around. We had two boys and found out that we were expecting a girl. I’m a pretty type-A person so I devoured all of the information that I could about VBAC and realized that I really hadn’t known that much going into my first birth. I thought that HypnoBirthing class was enough and it really wasn’t. I hired a doula who was local here to me in Salt Lake. She is amazing. Her name is Jamie Kowalk. A friend had referred her to me. I just got to work on a lot of different things. I did chiropractic. I worked with a pelvic floor PT. I actually worked with a therapist too to go through some of the postpartum anxiety that I had experienced after the second time around and hopefully have someone in my corner in case I had that going on again. But once we found out that we were pregnant, I did consider switching providers again. I just thought, Can I go through another delivery with the provider who did my C-section? I did interview a couple of other providers. We met with a midwife pretty early on and had a weird experience. I don’t blame her. I don’t fault her or anything, but she was the first person to give me an ultrasound when I was pregnant and she had thought that we were having twins so she gave me the ultrasound and said, “You know, I’m kind of seeing two babies here. I don’t see two heartbeats. I think it’s likely that you lost a baby fairly early.” When we went to get an ultrasound after that that she recommended, the tech was like, “That’s not two babies. That is a yolk sac. This is just the baby. This is the yolk sac. You’re only pregnant with one.” Yeah. It was a surprising experience but what I realized from that was that I had wanted to call my old OB the whole time and just verify everything that she was saying with him. I just didn’t think that I could fully trust her because I already had a pretty strong relationship developed with him. I did choose to stay with my same provider. I had some friends who had known him and shared stories of him doing VBACs that they had heard of. I talked to him about it. The one thing that was kind of hard was that he was really VBAC-supportive when I shared my plans to hopefully have a VBAC, but he wasn’t a huge cheerleader. He wasn’t like, “I’m going to get you your VBAC. We’re going to go in and do this.” It was really realistic. “We’ll try to do everything that we can and see how it goes.” Meagan: Right. Sami: I appreciated that ultimately. I had a fairly normal beginning part of my pregnancy. I found out we were expecting a girl which was shocking to us after having two boys and then I got to the gestational diabetes screen which was something I had never worried about. Like I said, I’m pretty involved in health and fitness at a high level. I watch my diet really closely. I failed the screening pretty badly, like pretty terribly. Sami: I ended up going on to pass the 3-hour test which was good but after that, I really felt pretty excited about the VBAC. I felt this hope that I could do it. I feel like meeting with my doula was really powerful because we went through not only my ideal situation and scenario of what would happen but also what things could look like if I did have to have another C-section. I think that was one of my favorite parts of the process of working with her was just planning with her when there weren’t emotions at stake in it and not trying to make decisions in the heat of the moment in labor but making them far ahead of time. Meagan: Yes. It’s so important. Sami: Yeah, it’s a total game-changer. But then we got to about 36 weeks and I had been doing, when I say all of the things, I really had been doing everything in my power to hope for an optimal positioning with the baby. Like I said, the chiropractor, the Spinning Babies, and everything, but I asked my provider for an ultrasound that they don’t usually give at 36 weeks unless there is some type of indication that it’s necessary. He had been feeling the baby externally and thought that she was head down, but I just didn’t want to go into the delivery with any unknowns or surprises. We got that ultrasound and went in. The minute that the tech touched my stomach, they were like, “This is a really breech baby. This baby is completely breech.” Yeah. That brought up a lot of emotion for me from my previous deliveries like, What am I going to do? We haven’t had a baby in a good position yet. I’ve already been doing all of the things to hope to get her in an optimal position. When I met with the nurse right outside the room, she was like, “Well, it’s fine. You can always have a C-section. It’s not a big deal. We just did a couple today.” Meagan: You’re like, “Again, not what I’m wanting though.” Sami: A lot of my hopes and dreams and everything went out the window. From there, I got to work on all of the things that I could do to get baby to flip. I was reading forums. I was Googling. It was honestly so exhausting. I look back on that time and for anyone else who has had a breech baby and tried to get them to turn, it is an emotional rollercoaster. Meagan: Oh yeah. Sami: Yeah. We did acupuncture. I did moxibustion. I did the Spinning Babies “Flip a Breech Baby.” It is so funny, but I downloaded this hypnosis track to try to get your baby to flip. I was doing hypnosis. I went to the pool and I attempted to do handstands in the pool at 37 weeks pregnant. I was not successful. How anyone can do that, I have no idea. But I was lying upside down on an ironing board trying to encourage her to flip. I put ice packs on the top of my stomach. It was completely exhausting. In hindsight, I wouldn’t change the effort that I put into hoping to get her to move, but it’s hard to be in that space where you are so far along pregnant and then trying to do that and being unsuccessful. Meagan: It’s consuming. It consumes you because you are like, I want this so bad. It’s sort of within our control, but a lot of it is out of our control. Sami: Totally, yeah. Yeah. I actually ended up posting in the Facebook group and just asked if anyone had recommendations local to me for a provider who would consider delivering a breech baby. Someone recommended Dr. Silver at the University of Utah. We actually did meet with him when I was 38 weeks pregnant. That may be wrong. It may have been 37. 24:19 A successful ECVSami: We went and met with him. He told me, “This baby is breech and if you want to try to deliver her, I’ll do it but I think that you should have an ECV first and exhaust all of your options.” I was a little hesitant to go into another ECV after having one that didn’t work. I didn’t have high hopes. I went and met with Dr. Thackery and he did perform an ECV. I didn’t use an epidural or any medications but she actually flipped really easily. Meagan: Good. Sami: It was super quick. Yeah. It was really cool. I think something that I didn’t share, but leading up to that, I was working with my therapist a lot just on my mindset. I was pretty devastated when I found out that she was breech. I had to come to terms with the fact before we even went into the ECV or met with Dr. Silver or any of these things that I’m trying to control all of these different variables. I’ve done this with all of my births and it hasn’t really gone the way that I wanted to. With my first baby, I thought it was going to be fine to do unmedicated. My second baby, I was like, I don’t care what we do as long as I don’t have a C-section, then it ended in a C-section. Then to have her be breech, I was exhausted from all of those things that I was doing, but I just had to realize that, I can show up and I can try to flip this baby on my own and I can try to get an ECV and I can try to hypnotize myself all day, but if that’s not what’s best for her and if that’s not in the cards, there is a level that is outside of your control when it comes to birth. I feel like that was one of my biggest lessons. When I was lying there as he was performing the ECV, I was just talking to myself and visualizing her flipping but I was talking to her and just saying, If there is a reason why you can’t flip, if this is not going to be safe for you or if this is not what’s best for you, that’s okay. I’m going to do whatever you need me to do in order for you to get here healthy. It was only an ECV but that was actually a really powerful moment for me in my third pregnancy in just letting go and letting the outcome be whatever it was going to be. Meagan: Yeah. Sami: She did flip like I said then after that, I was doing deep squats every day. Meagan: Get that baby engaged. Sami: Yes. Get her engaged in my pelvis. I had a few more appointments with my provider and every time would ask him to do a scan just because I didn’t believe that she would stay head down, but she did. I felt like we had overcome our last hurdle. I was utilizing HypnoBirthing tracks again. I don’t think I mentioned it, but I did want to try to go for an unmedicated this go-around just because I found that every time I would get the epidural or get Pitocin or get anything, that’s when everything would go wrong. I was trying to prepare for all of that. We found out that our provider was going to be out of town a few days after my due date. He got asked to go on a last-minute family vacation and said yes. A lot of the other providers in his office are VBAC-supportive, but I didn’t really feel comfortable with anyone else being the one to deliver my baby. I had to just again let go. I’m like, Okay. We’ve almost had gestational diabetes. You’ve been breech. We did the ECV. Now if we can just deliver this baby, it will hopefully all go well. Yeah, I just kept doing those things the last couple of weeks of pregnancy and on the Fourth of July, I started to go into labor. I was so excited. I started to feel those familiar contraction pains and didn’t tell anyone. We went to a barbecue with some friends. I didn’t say anything and then I decided to stay up all night on the Fourth of July because after you’ve had two babies, who would stay up when they are in labor? I’m like, what was I even thinking? But I stayed up all night watching TV and timing my contractions, getting excited. I didn’t want to wake my husband up or anything. But in the morning, they kind of fizzled out. There wasn’t a lot happening. I had an appointment with my doctor later that day. I should say at that point, I was 39 weeks and 3 days, 39 and 4. I went to that appointment. My husband ended up driving me and we brought our two kids with us because we didn’t have any sitters lined up at that point. He said, “I think that things are going to pick up in the next day or so. I think that you’re going to have this baby.” We were going to do a membrane sweep that day. That was something I felt comfortable doing but we ended up not doing it. We drove back home because we live about 45 minutes from the hospital that we were delivering at. I decided to make dinner and give my youngest a bath. By the time I had that bath water halfway filled, I couldn’t even do it. I was just laying on the floor trying to breathe through contractions, but not able to do anything. 29:38 Going into laborSami: I’m yelling at my husband in between, “Please come upstairs. Give Harvey a bath.” We had not packed anything. I feel like we were the worst third-time parents. We were not ready to go. I think there was so much pressure getting her ready to flip and trying to prepare for all of these other things that I think it would almost jinx it to be super ready for the delivery. We were throwing things into a bag. We had my mom come over because she was going to watch our two boys while we went to the hospital. We just turned around and essentially went back. It was really funny because when we went to go get checked in, they brought us back to a room. I was like, “Are you guys going to check me? Are you going to triage me?” They were like, “No, you seem pretty serious. We’re just going to admit you and you can stay.” Meagan: Awesome. Sami: Yeah. We were really excited about that. Again, I wanted to be really excited like I was in my second birth with taking pictures and everything. I have a friend who uses the term “cautious optimism”. I think about that a lot. I was optimistic but also cautious because of everything that had happened in those prior experiences. We did get checked in and we called our doula who decided to come in and meet us, but we didn’t get a nurse for 10-15 minutes. I felt like my contractions were really picking up. I remember I opened the door and was looking around like, This hospital is dead. Where are all of the nurses? Why is no one coming to do anything?She finally showed up and it was pretty clear. My doula got there about that same time that our nurse was not super unmedicated supportive. She also didn’t seem super VBAC supportive. The minute that Jamie walked in, I was just like, Okay. Now I can breathe. I have someone here who can advocate for us and be an ear to bounce things off of. She started to check me in and go through all of the paperwork, the insurance stuff, and I remember just being on the birth ball. We were trying a couple of different things because I felt like my contractions were pretty strong. Probably 15-20 minutes after Jamie had gotten there and our nurse had come in, I just started screaming, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this,” at the top of my lungs. I remember it feeling almost like an out-of-body experience. I didn’t feel like I was screaming anything. I didn’t feel like I was saying anything, but there were just words coming out of me. My nurse said, “I think that we need to check you.” 32:38 Pushing her baby out within one hour of arriving at the hospitalSami: They checked me and I was complete. Meagan: Whew!Sami: Yeah, it was wild. We had not been there long. They started to get everything ready to go and I thought from doing HypnoBirthing and preparing and hypnosis and meditation and all of these different things that I would be able to be calm and present and that was not my experience at all. For a long time, I should say afterward, I felt embarrassed. You hear these stories or you watch Christian HypnoBirthing in these different cities of these people smiling and singing and they are quiet as they are having their babies. That was not me. Now I can look back on that and I’m like, That’s okay. I was just loud. I was roaring through birth. It all was happening so fast. I felt really comfortable being on all fours. I was in that position trying to start to push, but when my doctor came in, they actually did have me flip to lying on my back which is something looking back I wish that that wouldn’t have happened, but yeah. I flipped over and probably had her within 20 more minutes. When we look at the timeframe, it was an hour after we got to the hospital that she was born. It was just the most amazing, incredible moment of my life. I think one of the coolest things about the whole thing was after she came out, they just handed her to me and put her on my chest and they were like, “Do you want us to wipe her off? Should we go clean her off? Do you want us to put a diaper on her?” I was like, “No. No one touch her. Just leave her right here.” Yeah. We got to snuggle and cuddle and had that golden hour. It was incredible. Meagan: You got that experience that you were waiting for. That minute where you were like, Okay, I did this. It’s all over. I don’t have to question anything anymore. That happened. She’s here on my chest. I love that. I remember having that feeling. It was just utter joy feeling that human right on top of you. I feel like your photo is exactly that. It just says it all. It says it all exactly how you were feeling. Sami: Yes. Meagan: Just pure joy, amazingness and I am so happy for you. I am happy that even with the curves along the way with this baby, she was able to flip really easily, you were able to go through and show the efforts that you were able to do yourself and truly have this better experience. That is so fast. An hour after getting there and not really having too much going on from being at your visit to going home. That’s quick. Sami: Oh, it was shocking. It was really shocking. I feel like for me that was part of the reason why I was so loud. It was hard to believe that it was happening so fast. Meagan: Oh yeah, that transition. Sami: I told my doula, “I want to do the rebozo. I want to try all of these different positions,” and we didn’t really get to do very much. Meagan: You didn’t need it. You didn’t need it either. 35:56 Fitbliss FitnessMeagan: That is so awesome. I know you had mentioned in your summary that you are a personal trainer, right? I would love to talk about that too and all of the things that you did during pregnancy that you would suggest to anyone checking it out. I know physical abilities are always different in pregnancy, but can you tell us about that too? Sami: Yeah, absolutely. I am a personal trainer and a coach with a team here. We actually started local to Salt Lake called Fitbliss Fitness. I’m a coach and I’m also our COO. We coach women in bodybuilding, powerlifting, strength athletes, and macro coaching but primarily I’d say the bulk of my clientele are women who want to get stronger, feel empowered, and change their body composition in a lasting way that is not just a 6-week shred or a quick fix. It’s all about creating sustainable habits and then getting strong while you do it. For all three of my pregnancies, a huge part of that has been resistance training at a high level and it’s been different throughout each one. I was actually, it’s a sport called powerlifting. I don’t know if you are familiar with that, but it’s essentially bench presses, squats, and deadlifts where you compete to try to get your best number or PR, a personal record. I power lifted throughout that whole entire first pregnancy. Meagan: Nice. Sami: There has been some research to support easier, quicker, labor and delivery when you are familiar with resistance training and that’s something that you are doing consistently. The second and third, I think I did go a little bit easier not in the sense that I wasn’t still training. I trained 4-5 days a week, some weeks 3 throughout my entire pregnancy but just listened to my body more and not feeling like I had to prove anything or be as strong as maybe I once was. Yeah, so the big things that I focused on during pregnancy was resistance training specifically. Still doing movements like squats and core work that is important for a pregnant person– not things like crunches or obliques or twisting but things like pall-off press, side planks, and there are a lot of different movements that you can still safely do working on transverse abdominal breathing throughout my pregnancy. Then the other thing that I focused on the other side of the coin there was just my nutrition at a high level so a lot of protein intake. Protein is huge. Fiber in my diet throughout, a lot of veggies, fruits, getting in really good sleep each night, sun exposure, and just a lot of different things to take care of your body during a time when it’s doing so many different things. It’s not only filling you but also your baby and if you are depleted, that’s not going to be ideal for either of you. Meagan: Right. Absolutely. I feel like with my first, I kind of started doing the running. I was like, “I’m going to train for a half marathon,” then my provider was like, “Oh, you have round ligament pain. You can just stop. Stay walking.” That was such a bummer to me that I did that and that I stopped. Then I didn’t focus on my nutrition at all. I mean, seriously my husband worked 2:00-10:00 and I was eating Chinese food all of the time. My protein was probably not even close to 50g a day. It was really, really, really bad and I think that’s another one of the reasons why I feel so passionate about good nutrients and physical activity because yeah, I ended up training and becoming a Barre coach and stuff but really dialing in on that. I really do believe what you were saying that studies have shown. I had a better postpartum. I had a better labor along the way because I was able to focus on that. One, I love that you did it and two, I love that you help people do it and break it down and understand. If someone wanted to check you out, do you do only online? Do you do just in person? What does that look like? Sami: Yeah. I used to be a personal trainer in a gym here locally alongside my clients but now ever since COVID, it’s fully online. We have a website that is fitblissfitness.com and I’m on Instagram at sami.g.fit. Yeah, it’s really cool. There are a lot of stereotypes out there about what women can and can’t do when they’re pregnant and oftentimes, it’s not the advice that we need to hear. I remember someone in my first pregnancy saying, “Oh, don’t move that chair over. You’re pregnant. You wouldn’t want to hurt yourself.” You can still lift and be strong. You can enjoy foods that you like still too while eating enough protein and giving your body what it needs. Meagan: Getting the right nutrients, yeah. That helps you and your baby as well. Okay, I love it. We will make sure to tag you so everyone can go find you and we’ll put it in the show notes. Thank you so much for sharing your stories and I’m so stinking happy for you. Sami: Thank you. Thanks for having me. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan’s bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands