Birth Story: A Parking Lot Miracle & Unplanned Birth Adventure with Ashley & Bryan Worley
Show Notes:
[2:02] Our Review of the Week is Katie, who says, "I had felt so defeated after having a traumatic vaginal birth full of interventions and a painful C-section with my 2nd. With my 3rd, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to even try for a VBAC as I had no confidence in my own ability to birth my baby. Then…. as if by divine intervention, I found this podcast during that 3rd pregnancy. It changed everything for me. I went from feeling like birth happened to me twice to going on to have two more babies via beautiful and redemptive VBACs (last one completely unmedicated). Stephanie does a great job informing mothers on their options and potential hiccups in the pregnancy and birthing process so listeners can make the best decision for themselves and their babies. This podcast and the birth course are a must for any woman. My husband was also grateful for the easily digestible information from both the podcast and course. I am forever thankful and still listen to the podcast weekly."
[3:18] Our guests today are Ashley & Bryan Worley, a long time listeners of the podcast and My Essential Birth students! They have one son and live in Charleston, South Carolina.
[4:39] Ashley's pregnancy experience was low risk and pretty easy. They did wonder if they would have to be transferred to give birth at a hospital instead of at the birth center due to a low platelet count.
[5:50] Bryan talks about how the exercises Ashley did made such a big difference throughout her pregnancy. He also encouraged Ashley and made a lot food specific to what her body needed for the baby's development. He was her coach for nutrition and exercise, which made him feel like he was a part of the pregnancy.
[10:30] Ashley went to an OB to have them confirm her pregnancy in August 2020 and felt that the environment was very cold and unwelcoming. They decided to go through a birth center around 8-10 weeks.
[15:03] Ashley did the Fresh Test instead of the glucose test. She was able to do her own Group B test and had a handful of ultrasounds. She failed her one-hour glucose test but then passed the three-hour test.
[18:20] When did they start the birth course? They started the birth course when Ashley was 16 weeks pregnant. The Birth Center also offered an educational course but it was only available later on in the pregnancy. She had already learned everything in the My Essential Birth Course that was covered in the Birth Center course. She did the free exercises and red raspberry leaf tea and dates to prepare.
[20:20] What did Ashley do by herself and with Bryan to prepare? Ashley had Bryan go with her to a PT appt in order to practice what they learned. They also played meditations together and practiced hip squeezes.
[22:05] Bryan's favorite things from the podcast: "Yeah, I think the biggest thing I took away was that my role is integral and, you can relieve a lot of the stressful things, and then just the idea of being supportive and making the environment around us safe. I underestimated the role of even within birth, her feeling safe. And, you know, there's all these things about different women nesting and all that. It was like, well, that's real. But also it's like people just make a home for themselves anyway, but it's like the level that, that it takes on and you realize it's just deeply ingrained and in the role of being the protector and organizing our home and realizing I'm the one that needs to draw boundaries and just understand that making a safe place makes the birth so much easier. And if her body and her mind doesn't feel settled and safe, then it's going to be harder going than maybe it needs to be."
[24:30] Ashley walks us through her labor from contraction to birth. She had some Braxton Hicks and some bloody mucus plug. She drew a bath and talked to her midwife who told her to rest as much as possible. Her contractions were all in her back. She laid on the bed and started timing contractions which were all on top of each other and intense. Her water broke and they decided to head to the birth center. When they arrived at the birth center, the midwife wheeled a wheelchair out to her and asked her to sit down. Ashley told her she couldn't sit because the baby was crowning. She delivered her son in the parking lot of the birth center.
[32:46] Tip for moms with low platelet count: "So I had to have labs done on Tuesday and that was going to decide if I got to deliver at the birth center, if they were going to be too low and I had to go to the hospital and I was just like, I'm going to deliver this baby at home. Like I'm not going to deliver in a hospital and thankfully, they came back. I think I had to be at like 80 or something for them to deliver, and they came back at 81, and I will say for anyone listening, if that happens to you, the week before that, they gave me a steroid pack, which I took and felt crazy on, just a normal dose pack, but it didn't help, so this was my second week of labs, but what helped was a papaya leaf extract that I just got on Amazon, because I couldn't find it anywhere locally. It's not papaya leaf, it's just the actual extract, and it turned my platelets around to start going back up. So that for me is how thankfully I got to deliver at the birth center."
[35:10] Bryan's experience with the parking lot birth: "When I tell people the timeline that from a cramp at 7:00 PM, birth at 11:19 PM, and then we were all asleep at the house by 6 AM, it's so unusual, you know?"
[41:05] Ashley describes her contractions and how Bryan helped with hip squeezes and how being vocal really helped her. Ashley said, " I just remember praising God and thanking Him through every single contraction. I don't even think I thought through like I'm closer to my baby, but I just remember thinking, 'You can, you are, you will.' That was like something that I had told myself through this. Like you are doing it and you did one, you can do another one. I just remember kind of taking it one contraction at a time."
[47:04] Best advice for moms and dads:
- Ashley's Advice for Moms: " Yeah, I think for moms, a theme of my story has been just trust your intuition. I think It is why I feel like from the soon as we found out we were pregnant, just there's something about that mama bear intuition that is so real and just so connected to that little spirit inside of you. Especially through labor, lean into that, but also just random things like the cravings I had that I never normally eat in everyday life that when you look into it, I was like, Oh, he was telling me that he needed vitamin A or extra calcium this week. It's his bones were forming or whatever it is."
- Bryan's Advice for Moms: "If you're a woman who isn't used to saying with clarity, what you need and what you're feeling. There's no better time than to press into that than when you're growing your baby."
- Bryan's Advice for Dads: "I think we alluded to this earlier to to feel like in this in between, you know, during the pregnancy that you're not all that crucial to what's going on, but it couldn't be further from the truth because your first job is to protect her and just trust that when your child is here, you get that reward of beginning the bonding because, she's got that head start of bonding with the little one and, it just gets stronger and stronger the more time you spend with your little one. So if you feel at all disconnected or like you should be feeling more, just focus on her. Whatever she says is what she needs. And if it doesn't make sense, well, then just chalk it up to, you know, her blood is being used for more things in her brain all the time. And, just trust that it's totally worth all of the things that you're working through together.
[49:58] Where to find Ashley:
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