39 Daddy Bootcamp 2.0 Part 1 of 2: Three dads share about loss, faith, birth, and fatherhood

From planning the ideal birth to the reality of delivery these dads discuss parental instincts, the inherent strength of motherhood, and how they learned when to speak up or when to sit back and let the chips fall. Justin, Cas, and Chris dive deep into birth education for dads and share their experiences in birth, loss, and faith. 

Looking for a Virtual Doula to create a custom birthing experience and guide you through your journey to parenthood in the United States? Contact Heidi at www.mydoulaheidi.com

For additional free birth education resources and to purchase Heidi’s book, Birth Story: Pregnancy Guidebook + Journal, visit www.birthstory.com.

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TRANSCRIPTION

What does a contraction feel like? How do I know if I'm in labor and what does a day of labor look like? Wait, is this normal? Hey, I'm Heidi. My best friends. Call me hides. I'm a certified birth doula host of this podcast and author of birth story and interactive pregnancy guidebook. I have supported hundreds of women through their labor and deliveries, and I believe every one of them and you deserves a microphone and a stage.

So here we are, listen each week to get answers to these tough questions, birth story, where we talk about pregnancy labor deliveries, where we tell our stories and share our feelings. And of course chat about our favorite baby products and motherhood. And because I'm passionate about birth outcomes, you will hear from some of the top experts in labor and delivery, whether you are pregnant, trying desperately to get pregnant, or you just love a good birth story.

I hope you will stick around and be part of this birth story family. Thank you for listening to the birth story podcast. If you are tuning in for the first time, I want to encourage you to start at the beginning. I want you to go on a journey with me and allow me to be your virtual doula and teach you.

All the things along the way. So I'm just going to give you a couple of highlights as some of the earlier podcast episodes. If you are just now tuning en so very first episode, episode one, you can learn all about me, who I am, why I became a doula, why it is I do what I do and also my very own birth story with myself.

Second child Jagger, then I've interviewed some really cool CEOs. So episode three, Tori Jones is the CEO of shell triangle, and she was also featured on Rachel Hollis's. The rise podcast, episodes seven was Rachel coli. The CEO of can do kiddo. She was just on good morning America. She's an incredible occupational therapists that teaches you how to play with your baby and her.

Birth stories are incredible. Episode 10 was one of my best friends. Amy who had a VBAC in the car. We have done episodes on micro preemies episode, 1821 on international adoption out of Uganda, 24 and 25. Oh, those episodes like get a box of tissues. They're unsafe, Argosy and cancer. We've addressed hypnobirthing fertility, really easy, joyful mitigated birds, really hard, long labors, medicated, unmedicated, everything in between.

So I hope you'll start at the beginning. Let the birth story podcast take you on a journey all the way through and enjoy this episode and then remembered a rewind all the way back to episode one. Thanks for tuning in. Are you guys ready for another daddy boot camp? These are three of my favorite dads from 2019.

Justin, Chris am Kaz, and this is going to be split into two parts. You have to hang in for both episodes too. We recorded for over three hours. I had. All three dads crying, opening their hearts out because they want to teach you and your spouse or your partner right now about what it's like transitioning into Parenthood and father had through pregnancy, through labor, through delivery and all of the ways in which their birth stories unfolded.

Welcome to the birth story podcast. Daddy bootcamp. I've got three of my new dads. I was, well, I was supposed to be all of their doulas, but we'll get into why it wasn't really one of the doulas in a minute. And so first let's just start. Let's introduce who you are, who your Wayfair is, and then how old your baby is.

Go ahead, Justin. Thank you for inviting me. I'm super excited about this all day. Um, my name's Justin drum, right? Uh, my wife Kelly choruses, her main name. I'm a Kelly drum right now. And our. Son was born on May 27th and his name is Grayson Keith drum. Right. I lost that battle. I really want to trust him. Um, she makes fun of me because of the movie, legends of the fall with Brad Pitt.

I wanted to name, I like it. Tell us when she has a drink, she'll tell people this and then proceed to make fun of me for now. Anybody that'll listen, but I'm okay. Well with Grayson and I lost my father unexpectedly three years ago. So that's where Keith came from. Oh, okay. That's good family name. So the next one just needs to be trusted.

Yeah. Yes. Ways. I need to be a boy too. There's two things going on there. I only know how to make boys. I'm like, yeah, it's obvious. You're going to have another boy. Yeah. Tell us what do you do? I work for a healthcare company. We basically build hospital labs from a chemistry, hematology immunoassay. We put the automation tracks in and all the instruments that hookup, and then we do the, uh, software.

Um, that's what I was curious. You were telling me earlier about your job into their LIS or EMR. So most people know it as your electronic medical record. Okay, cool. Do that all over the Southeast. One of the things we're going to get into is paternity leave. So what is your paternity leave look like at your company?

So mine was a whopping two weeks. Okay. So I, it, it worked out well. I actually went back after, let's see five, eight days. So they, they let me keep two and I'm still going to use them later this year, but, um, Kelly had three months. Okay. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. So a lot of people that I interview. Zero paternity leave.

So I'm like two weeks is really good. So cool. All right. Let's move on. I'm directly facing Chris. So I'm going to be staring at you the entire time. Who are you? So my name is Chris Ray and my wife's name is Jessica. Jessica Marshall is her maiden name now, obviously Jessica Ray. And we had our son on August 28th.

So he's six weeks old now. And his name is Ethan Marshall. Right? I work for a company called RingCentral. We do unified communications as a software. So we provide communication solutions to enterprise businesses and I got eight weeks, uh, for maternity leave. So it was, yeah. Yeah. Well, cheers that. So they, uh, yeah, really good benefits, great company to work for.

So, so you're going to go back to work tomorrow, right? You can take the eight weeks and split it up. However we want. So decided to do we're going through. We made a really big announcement actually last week that we, we put up $500 million investment into a existing company. Um, so I've felt like it's time to go back.

I lead our customer success segment for our majors group from Denver East, and I have Canada as well. So my, the managers that. That are on my team, manage all of our customers. So with that type of growth, I don't want to miss out. So I'm trying to position myself, you know, to, to stay there and succeed. So I'm going to go back and then I'll take a week when we're going to go to the mountains.

After little guy gets his immunizations and then, um, from, I'll take a bunch of time off around the holidays when we slow down. Cool. I like that you have the ability and that flexibility to kind of use some of it. You guys, and then use some of it later. So four month old. Six week old and then we've got casts.

So tell us about you. My name is . My wife is Christina mangoes. Her maiden name is mango, and obviously her name is Christina SNI. Then now my daughter Kennedy Kennedy Louis Nathan is three months old. She was born on July 4th, 2019. So a little firecracker baby. Yeah. So it was Memorial day. So we've got a holiday.

Exactly. So my, um, fraternity policy was pretty much kind of, you just do your thing, be with your wife, be with your kid. We're not really going to track it. What I do is a little bit unique, kind of a niche to the market. I guess you could say, I work with charter schools across the state, North Carolina. So I traveled anywhere from Cherokee, North Carolina to Greenville, North Carolina.

Yeah. Working specifically with charter schools, go on campus, teach them how to utilize a program called power school. So it was during our busy time of the year that, uh, that Kennedy was born. And so I had all my trainings book, July and August, August is slam packed. Cause when the schools aren't in session, they want to do their trainings.

So, yeah, that was an interesting position because I was there on the road. Two weeks after Kennedy was born back on the road. Yeah. Christina was adjusting to life with the little one at home. Yeah. But my wife actually had six weeks of maternity leave. She actually got hired on a new job that she could not turn down while she was six and a half months pregnant.

Wow. Someone kind of approached her and said, you should apply for this job. And she did. And. They wanted her and long story short, she worked for about six weeks and then got prey and then not got pregnant, but then had the had Kennedy. And then it was a real quick turnaround that hiring person I really liked, like when people invest in women that are pregnant because they know that they're going to be performers when they get back.

So this brings up my very first question to you guys is talking about getting pregnant because. It sounds like if you could have planned to like the perfect time to have gotten pregnant and then deliver it, it wouldn't have been delivering during your busy season. So tell me about that journey. Like, did you guys have a planned pregnancy and unplanned pregnancy?

And I'm talking, I'm asking casts first, since he was just mentioning about the birth of his daughter Kennedy and his busy season. So how'd that go? So my wife and I have been together. Uh, at that time, about six years when we got married on new year's Eve and yeah. Another holiday there. Yeah. So that's what I married.

Really. You keep the dates, holiday stuff. Don't forget. Absolutely. Yeah. And everybody's celebrating with you. So I like the party energy in this room there. Yeah, exactly. So. So right after we both knew that we wanted to start trying. And so we did, and I took a little while and there were some hiccups along the way, and we were just open to whenever it was going to happen, it was going to happen.

Um, my wife did go to some doctors and get some, get put on some different things to help, you know, hormonally and all of that good thing. Uh, but, uh, At the end of the day, it was successful. It worked out. But yeah, it was just, we were, we weren't really planning anything like, Hey, let's get pregnant this month.

It was more of just, you know, whenever God wants it to happen, it'll happen. And, uh, you know, we just tried our hardest, I really did really tough job. I'm like really right there. So you can see naturally. Well, I mean, Christina Cruz, right? Right. Yes, yes. Yes. I'm going to move over to Chris. I know your story is a little bit different.

So do you mind sharing with us, like how you kind of how you met Jess and how you decided to become parents and kind of what your journey looked like? I don't know if I should share the story, how I met her. No, we actually got introduced by mutual friends. So who connected us on Facebook and I've never.

Have been a friend with someone that I haven't met. So I can't remember if I sent her the request or she sent me, but I accepted. And then I'm older. I'm 42. So I'm a little older she's, she's younger than me than I am cradle robber. I was at the whitewater center with, cause I moved here from, from the Washington DC area.

Um, about four years, almost five years ago. And I was at the whitewater center and my car was at the ice house, which used to be in South end. And my friend dropped me off in my car and I lived there. I couldn't drive. I was like, I'm going to walk home. And the friends he had been drinking. Oh, okay. The friend that introduced us, sent me a text and said, Hey, we're watching the world cup at ice house.

And I was like, Oh cool. I'm in the parking lot. So I walked in. And I was like, Tony soprano had my shirt on buttoned down to like, I didn't even realize it. Like it was bad and Jess was there and I think we started talking because she had been to Ireland. I'd been Ireland somewhere and she gave me a ride home.

And that's. And were you like you friend requested me on Facebook? Yeah. We're like, I think like we met her dad had unexpectedly passed away around that time and I think that's her friend thought that we would have, you know, we have a lot in common and. So that's how we got it. Wasn't it was kind of a setup.

It was, um, so yeah, we walked in and I was like, Hey Facebook. Yeah. I mean, best recollection. And then we had great conversation and then we were like, after that moment, we were always together, but we weren't dating really? Um, yeah, I was, I, you know, I was coming off a divorce, moved to Charlotte, didn't know anyone.

Uh, it was a rough time. So I wasn't in the good like Headspace. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It was, but I was like, I was honest, like I just, I'm not like I was trying to figure myself out and I took my time trying to do what was right. And then we were, jeez, we just had our third anniversary in August of this year.

So we right after. Getting married in 16. We started trying, I think, I think we might actually gotten like conceived on our honeymoon. So we're very fortunate that we were able to, but we, we lost that baby. And then we had two more losses after that. So our process was different. It was really a struggle and not kind of understanding of our faith is very important to us and kind of did God not want us to be parents?

Did we need to adopt? We weren't quite sure what to do. Um, so we went through the whole. Gamut of everything and no one could figure out what's wrong. So we weren't, it's undiagnosed infertility, even though you can get pregnant, which is kind of weird. Right? So there's a lot of like blaming of, you know, I think Jessica thought that it was her fault and I thought that it was my fault and we did everything like fractionalized DNA testing on me and everything.

You could finally. Or think of doing, we went through and that it's that's. And were you, I'm assuming you were at a fertility specialist? Yeah, we were at one in Charlotte and I was a big fan of the doctor and I'll always credit Jess for doing lists. She had like, she thought that she needed to get a second opinion and I was like, come on.

She went to Duke, you know, I mean, it's like. She's a well respected physician in the field. Um, but one of the supporter and the second doctor that we went to, um, she kind of had some thoughts of what it might be and wanted to do exploratory surgery. And basically she determined that she determined what the issue was, what the previous physician had ruled out as not being an issue.

It was not existing. Wow. Um, so that was like a big, a big moment for us. And it was a, I'll never forget. It's probably a week before. And she was really, I mean, she'd been poked and prodded and tested three years, you know, like taken off time from work and getting monitored and doing all this crazy stuff.

And we, we hadn't dig too much into IVF yet, but we weren't sure if that was an option for us. Like, we were kind of trying to like navigate what we. What we were comfortable with because after the uterine surgery, right then she was evil. Like they were saying, like, because we did the surgery now we believe she'll be able to carry.

Right. So it wasn't that positive. Like it wasn't as definite as that statement was. So we got to the point where she was like, I don't know if I want to write. The surgery. I don't know if I want them to go and see if they're like, if they can determine what the issue is physically or something in there.

And I said, I totally get it. Whatever, whatever you want to do, this is what we're going to do. Right. It's not my body. So support her a hundred percent. Yeah. And she woke up and she was like, God told me last night, we're going to do the surgery. Because when we went to bed that night, we were not having the surgery.

And we started looking at adoption and trying to think what other opportunities, you know, we might be able to, um, to explore. And she woke up that morning and she's like, I don't know if it was a dream or God's speaking to her about it, but she was determined that we we're going to go on and do it. So she was in surgery for 15 minutes and our doctor came out and she had pictures and everything.

And she's like, like there is a uterine septum, which our previous physician said there was not. That showed me pictures and she's like, I resected it and this and all this stuff. And she was like, super, she was really animated and excited and I'm like, so this has gotta be good news. So surgery was supposed to take an hour.

It was like 20 minutes and they were done. So Jess, since she's in the recovery, you know, trying to be like, this is awesome news. Like, what does this look like? We have to wait two weeks where we'd go back and make sure everything's healed up. And then. The doctor was like, okay, so you can start trying, this was October.

You can start trying it in December and then come back in like March and we'll talk about IVF or next steps or whatever you guys want to do next. So that's, it's like you're super high, like, Oh geez. We found out what might be the issue, but there's no. Right. There's no finality to it. Like this is absolutely what's gonna fix or not that anything was broken, but this might give you the opportunity to go beyond.

I think the farthest we got on was 12 weeks, so like super excited and then kind of like, Oh geez, what are we going to? Like, how long can we keep going through the cycle? Because then the stress that puts on the relationship as I'm sure everyone, you know, it's, it's, it can be devastating if you aren't careful the way that you treat it.

And. December comes around. So we start trying again and Christmas Eve, that was Christmas morning. I believe we were doing Christmas with her mom and her sister were coming over for breakfast and she wakes up that morning and she's like, I'm pregnant. And I'm like, okay, it's Christmas Eve. How do you know you're pregnant?

She's like, I don't know. I just think I'm pregnant. And I'm like, there's no way that the art miracle would be this amazing, right? Like I'm, I'm a Christmas nut, like about the material. It's just reinforces one more holiday, which is super weird. Okay. So I'm like, yeah, this would, that would be amazing. In my heart.

I kind of died was we'd been like defeated so many times. It's like, we're just not. So she takes a pregnancy test and it's one of those tweeners, like it's not, it's not pink. It's not white. Is that line? I don't know. I think it would be mind. So doctors open, she goes to the doctor. And take her blood. Yeah, I think they called and they said, come in now.

Wow. So she's like running and she's like, can you get breakfast ready? I made like a cast or I was there like our Christmas celebration expenses and everything. And I'm like, okay, like, well, how does this work? So she runs to the doctor. It gets her blood drawn and comes back home. Her mom and her sister arrived.

We do breakfast in the middle of, she has a phone call and she's very, she answers the phone. She's like, hello, which is kind of not her style. So immediately her sister's like, what the hell is like, what's going on? I was like, Oh, I think it's worked. Cause I'm pretty sure that's what I said, which is ridiculous because for sure, I went into bank works.

So she goes upstairs. She's on the phone for like five minutes. She comes down and she's like, And I'm like, Oh my God, we're pregnant. And she's like, go upstairs. And she's like, yes. So that's how we found out we were pregnant. And that was amazing, right? Like the greatest gift you could ever imagine, but then it's right back to work within the three previous times.

It's like, okay, this is awesome. But when. When did we lose? Like when do we lose? Were you guys both thinking that and communicating about it or were you guys just processing for 12 weeks individually? So I would say we processed it individually, but my processing was done internally. Like I feel it's theirs.

I didn't have anyone to commiserate with or talk with. And I felt like a real strong sense that I had to be like the pillar of support and take. Be there and listen to everything she had because it's different for her. Right. So I battled with, and I have a couple of buddies who I think could empathize and sympathize and I would talk to them, but I still, it wasn't working.

It's probably not what I needed. And I don't think I did my master's mental health. Right. Any, any favors by trying to be the hero as it was for her. But anytime she, you know, there was like her stomach was upset or there was something wrong. But I mean, I know she did because she would verbalize it and I would be strong and try to be positive and be like, no, this is.

This is, this is different. This is the way it's going to be. But a lot of the times it's not the way I felt. Right. And that was hard because then you don't want to be disingenuous and feel like you're being dishonest, but I'm also trying to do what I think is best for, for our family unborn child and for her.

So do you guys feel like you had a moment in time where you celebrated the pregnancy? Like how some people pee on a stick in there, you know, or get their blood drawn and their experiences. You know, maybe like Christina and CAS, like maybe there's was like, yeah, high five, you know, like, did you have that moment at some point in your pregnancy?

We, we, we had a few like snippets of it, but we never got that. And we talk about all the time, how we never had that joy that a lot of people do, which is weird because then you start to feel like you feel that you missed out. Right? And then you feel selfish because you, how fortunate are we to have a baby when so many people don't ever get that opportunity, but then you also.

Start to take friends and family and be like, that sucks that they got to do that. And then you're like, geez, wow. How vain am I for being like bitter at people? I love because they got to have this, this experience that was different than ours. And we really had to talk through that and get to a mature place to be like, it's okay to feel that way.

Right. We're human beings. We can have those feelings that doesn't make us bad, but how do we use that? How do we like. You know, how do we turn it into something positive? How do we embrace our story and embrace the journey that we've been on? And I think after like we did the death, the sex reveal, that was a big saying four, I think.

Us to do with like family and friends. Cause we had told my parents and her mom and her sister on the second loss and we, she got an ultrasound because she felt like something wasn't quite right. And. In the elevator. She started the miscarriage after the ultrasound, everything was great. So that type of like hit was like brutal.

So every time we went to, you know, to get an ultrasound or go see the doctor, it was just like, it was, it was, it was heavy for awhile. And then, yeah, I think we, we celebrate the difficult and the struggle that we've been through. And I think through this, we both made a commitment, especially her to be open and honest and really be advocates for people, especially women can be absolutely brutal to each other, what I've found and not talking about miscarriage and not talking about infertility or unintentionally being judgmental about those things and thinking that it's like.

You know, something wrong with someone's body or, or some, I mean, it's, it can be just it's it's a dark and lonely, lonely place. Not something I would have ever really thought about until like going through it. And then men don't talk about it. We don't talk about it. Women don't talk about a society.

Doesn't talk about it. It's like this thing. And then everything. Uh, if I, if I hear of someone that has a loss and I hear somebody else say, which I, so many people said to my wife, Oh, she had nine miscarriages and now she has eight kids. I mean, it's okay. Unbelief. Everybody has a miscarriage. Every that's great.

But doesn't that doesn't everybody. I was going to say, I'll jump in. Everyone does not have a miscarriage. Right? 75% of people don't have a miscarriage. Right. It's crazy that people think even if so, is that they that's how they think that they can comfort someone. Right. It's the farthest thing from comforting.

Anyone, if you're going to try to make someone feel bad when someone has cancer, you just like that sucks. I'm sorry. Like you like, don't try to mitigate right. Or. They're lost by saying it happens all the time. We, our culture is really terrible at dealing with grief and talking about grief, you know? And one of the things that you said that really struck me as like, then you find out you're pregnant again.

Right. And. You know, huge high, but, but you're still working through grief. So like we can have joy and grief going on simultaneously. And those things continue to be at battle with each other often until the actual birth of the baby occurs. So I have a question I'm going to come back to on that, that, but I want to hear justice.

Austin's story of conception and kind of like when you decided you wanted to have a baby and what that journey looked like for you and Kelly. Oh boy. So Kelly, when Kelly gets something in her head, it's going to happen. Like Kelly just gets things done. That's just who she is as a person. So, um, we got married new year's Eve three years ago and I wanted to start having kids pretty quickly.

Um, Kelly's two years older than me. And, you know, we weren't up against the biological clock, but I, you know, we'd been together six years. Like, let's, let's just do this thing, you know, and we didn't fight about it really, but we had some direct discussions for, you know, nine months to a year. And then I feel like just sometimes with Kelly, it clicks and I feel like she woke up one day.

I was like, we're having a kid. So you wanted to have a baby first, like you're younger and you wanted to have a baby first. Hmm. You're just like all those stereotypes knocking them down right there. He's the one man who is actually more mature than an older woman. I tell you, it really is personal for me because I'm like I come from a broken home, lost my father really early.

Um, just, just. Just a broken home and me and my brother are best friends like inseparable. We talk probably once, twice a day on the phone have been like that since we were probably 16 and 14. And I always hoped to give, like, I want it to have kids to give them the opportunity to have that relationship to me.

My brother did. So that's why I pushed it and pushed it. Cause I knew, you know, to go into Chris's story that there's probably going to be some problems, you know, let's hope there's not, but we could run into some. Just some stuff. So, uh, yeah, I pushed it and pushed it and that's not really fair. I.

Encouraged. Yeah. Encouraged it. And, um, we got pregnant. We're pretty sure new year's Eve. I mean a Christmas Eve, uh, the first time at about four 30 in the morning, that's pretty, I love it. So like I said, it can, you know, and Kelly gets something in her head. So for, for the past couple of years, when my dad was still alive, I would.

We would get up and we would drive the six hours to Pittsburgh from, I would spend two or three days in Pittsburgh with her mom. Her dad lives in Florida. I'd spend two or three days with her mom drive at the crack of Dawn on Christmas Eve to Richmond. My mom lives in Curry beach, North Carolina. They would drive to Richmond because my stepdad's kids mother live in Richmond too.

So for years we've done. Christmas, literally in a hotel suite, like they cook in like a, like a Fairfield in suites or whatever, you know, it has a kitchen. Like we cook, can we all play poker? So we played two or three games, poker, you know, the wines that heavy. And then we wake up the next day and go to dad's and then I drive to the farm and then stay for a few days with my brother and finally get to relax, you know?

Cause I've been driving them down the East coast and then I come back to Charlotte. But I tell you that story because she was oblating. And we were going to have sex that day before I left for three days, period. It just wasn't an option. So I love this. So when she decided that she was going to have a baby, I'm assuming she started doing observation testing because she was serious about it.

How do you have no idea? You take your temperature too, based on your monitor? Yeah, it's unbelievable. I mean, She is such a planner and so organized and everything is such a scheduled routine. I mean, it's amazing. I think she knew within about 20 minutes when she started ovulating. I mean, it was, it was just Kelly.

Yeah. So we got pregnant the first time found out, you know, a couple of weeks later, we we're back in Charlotte and everything. And unfortunately we lost that one at nine weeks. So, you know, I'll sit in here listening to Chris and I don't like it. It's nothing that he went through. What, but some of the emotions, as he was talking about really hit home for me.

It's you want to be strong and you want to tell her it's okay. And, you know, be there for her, but you're literally going crazy inside. I had an episode and food line where somebody just rubbed me the wrong way and I lost in the line of food line. And it was like the day after two days after the gas company, like I just got sod, don't put, you know, in the front yard, the gas company comes in.

Doesn't even knock on the door and rips up my front yard, Lisa gas line now. And I lost it on him in the front yard rule. So, you know, and I I'm like just. I don't want to use. 'em like I'm hurting bad inside and I didn't have anybody to really talk to about it. You know, my brother outlet. Yeah. One of my groups and has two beautiful kids, never had a miscarriage or anything.

He breezed on her and they're pregnant on other groups in my wedding. He's not married yet on other groups of my wedding has a little boy. So like my tight knit boys, hadn't gone through it. And while I wanted to talk to them about it, I don't want to burden them with it either. It was just kind of like a.

Just buck up and be strong and be there for Kelly and, you know, you'll get through it kinda, how was she handling it? Kelly is to say Kelly Strong, which is not even be accurate. I mean, she's just a rock. Yeah, I got that. Yeah. She's just a rock, but what I got to learn about Kelly and I don't mean that. By any stretch of the imagination, that I'm glad what happened, but what was interesting about what happened?

My relation with Kelly's, I felt like we've we got to know each other so much more like through it. She's she's such, she's like, she's so individualistic. Right? She's so independent that I got to see another side of her that was just made us closer. You know, that like the vulnerability, you know, all of that.

And then. You know, my couple of encounters where I lost my, you know what I mean? It just made us closer. Yeah. She had a dad that was on here once and he said that like, what helped him fall in love with his wife was when she was like, so sick and hurting. And it was like the first time in their marriage, he felt like she needed.

Yeah, no, that's a very, yeah, that's a, that's a very good way to put it. It just, again, it's not a great thing when you stretch the imagination, but it's this whole pro like, I didn't think I could love Kelly any more than I did when I married her. It wasn't even like the tip of the iceberg. Like literally wouldn't even close the way I feel about her now.

And you know, you gotta go through some, you know, what sometimes to, you know, get the Rose and the other. And I think that's a big part of it. You know, some higher beings in place, whatever it may be. It just kind of end up where we're at. So it was awful. You know, Chris was talking about it. Is there something wrong with this?

Is this going to happen? She's 38 or do we run out of time? You know, all those things, you know, we have women have generally they're 50 these days. You're not, you know, but all these things go through your mind and you just can't help it. And then to Chris's point, my. Mentality or mental state mental health, whatever you want to call it.

Like how I was raging, like I was raging and I, um, I mean, it's a terrible thing to say, but there's so few times, like, I was like, I just wish I could get my hands on somebody. Like that's how, like, I'm just raging inside. Did you ever have, like, when I feel that way, I like scream in the car. I like go alone and then I like skirt, you know, but to have an outlet to get that energy out of your body, like I understand.

Stand that what you're saying. Right? So my gym is 0.8 miles up the Hill and I go there and put on headphones and act like a lunatic and let people judge. And then you walk out of there better man in prison, you didn't kill anybody. And you're going to get all the luck alarms, Jim counseling. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what I did. I'm a big outdoorsman, spent a lot of time in the woods. So I spent a lot of time, the farm, you know, hunting with friends, but the more and more I did that, the more and more I Ms. Kelly and want it to be around her too, you know, because we're both hyper individual. I was hyper independent, but this whole thing, like.

It's not that we didn't enjoy being around each other for, we love each other to death, but now it's like, don't hang out with my life. You know, again, not that it wasn't like that before. It's just a more heightened awareness, I guess. Well, this one on, so again, Kelly being Kelly. We're planning again. We know when our population's coming we're let me ask you a quick question though.

Did she miscarry naturally or did she have to have a DNC performed? So that's, that's a good question. I was actually gonna ask Chris that either. Yeah, but I was going to tackle into a what Chris said. So we elected to have the DNC. Okay. Very interesting conversation. I'm a very direct communicator.

Probably a little too candid. I've been told. I asked the doctor, I basically, I was like, what the hell? Like, are you serious? And he told me his number was actually 30%. He said, Justin, 30% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. And it floored me. I thought I was the only one on earth. I read a miscarriage. You know, I just didn't know about it.

I mean, Chris is exactly right. We don't talk about it as society. We don't educate and he's a hundred percent, right. That you can't say, Oh, well so-and-so had 25 miscarriage and now they have 18 kids. I mean, that's just like, you couldn't keep that to yourself. You know what I mean? I don't wanna hear that.

For some reason when he, because he was sorry. Fine. And he, I mean, it was, he was very direct. He would use some profanity back at me and we had this really direct conversation. And I w the three day thing was three days since it happened. For the first time in three days, I didn't feel alone. And it was with a complete stranger.

You know what I mean? And just hearing that, hearing that you have no idea how common this is, this is probably a good thing. His words, this is probably a good thing. She's been on birth control for 20 years and she got pregnant within two months of going off birth control. This is probably a good thing, Justin, the doctor.

Yeah. This was a doctor saying that he got, and he was the point he was making was this is her body getting ready? Right. And I was just like, wow. Do that, so that, I mean, that's huge. And I walked out and not smiling, but not willing to kill people in food line anymore. You know what I mean? Like bricks just floated away.

It was unbelievable. And praise to that doctor and his job. He was amazing. I'll never forget it. I'm like, I mean, if you walked in this room right now, I'd know who he was and hug him, you know? And then by this time Kelly's, you know, in postop and. Like being with her in the bathroom and help cleaning her up and going through that with her and carrying her down into the car, getting her inside.

I mean, again, not that it's a good thing, but this whole process, I don't know. Is it bad for me to even say that I'm kind of secretly thankful for? I don't know if that's the right way to say it? No. I mean, the way I, that other people describe it too, is like, for those of us that have had miscarriages and been through it, is that like little.

Little Grayson would be here, you know, I mean, it's really, I talk a lot about God and my faith on this podcast, but like, I absolutely believe that I believe in God. And you know, I believe that all of these things happen for a reason. I like to hear that a little bit of that underlying story of healing and courage and connection and all of the beautiful things.

In different ways. Like I have, you know, different clients that conceived in all different ways after loss and grief and like, I feel what you're saying and that, um, you know, I, I kinda connect and feel the same way that you, yeah, no, I appreciate that. On the same token though. I do feel a little bad about it too, because if you make the statement, you're, you're, you're not happy, but it made you closer.

So you're somewhat appreciative of such an awful situation. I still feel that it's kind of bad to say because of Kelly, because, you know, from her standpoint, like how dare you say something like that we could have just become, you know, you know what I'm saying? There are other ways. Yeah. What you're saying, careful, how I articulate that.

It's an underlying thing that I think, you know, was a good thing for us. I think it goes back to what we were saying earlier. Like in many ways, grief, losing a child when you're a mom, a dad, no matter what, losing a child, no matter what gestation it's, uh, it's probably a grief that you're gonna feel your entire life.

Right. You know? And you said, you know, it sounds like the Kelly Kelly's pretty deep, you know, in her faith, you know, you guys are as well. It's it's I travel a lot for work. I've got a team of eight scattered around the hall, all 11 States in the Southeast. So I'm on the road a lot. I'm actually getting ready to be an ambassador member for Marriott hotel.

All my life is, but you know, that's just one of those.

Oh, really? I hit ambassador next week. I'm two nights away. Congratulations. Like, do you realize how terrible my life is? If I hit this, is it good that I love my life, but I don't know what it is. Fastener is. So, um, I was there when it happened, like I was home and it was on a random Tuesday when I usually I leave Tuesday and I'm going to come back Thursday.

So. Not to fast forward, but when the miscarriage happened, I was home when we got pregnant, I was home. I mean, obviously of a sudden when we found out I was home, all these milestones throughout, like I was home and I've always looked back kind of retrospect and like, wow, that's, that's gotta be part of the plan, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I would say that was absolutely designed by God. Sure. No, I think that's really, really cool. Um, so I'm sorry. I'm babbling. To answer your question. We, um, so we tried naturally for awhile, obviously with the DNC, it takes a bit, you know, so we're into the, you know, the, the, the better part of a eight months at this point.

Cause we lost two months, you know, everything got straight called months. We didn't get pregnant for two or three months. So we went to a, a good fertility clinic here in town, and we did a, our first IUI. And again, being around, we found out she wasn't pregnant. We were at the farm for a weekend. When I was there.

Yeah. So we're still trying the whole time. Kelly is still tracking, you know, I mean, that was your story. I was just right there with you, the, the peaks and troughs of emotions throughout this process, you Le I mean, as cliche as it is, you can't explain it. Like, if somebody has not been through this, they have no idea know emotional roller coaster and not the ICU.

So we did IUI as well, right? Yeah. Let's define it. Cause there might be some people listening that have no idea what I UI is and how that's different from IVF. So who wants to take the floor on it's in true uterine inception. Yeah. Insemination

so, I mean you, the guy, uh, the shows, fatties movies, it's horrible. Like when I turn those things on, I was like my phone.

I was always curious about those.

I was like, wait a minute, this one's in black and white, or you could like, they did this back lit like categories. You're like, Oh, international.

So you have a time limit. No, no. That's loud the school to be like, okay, I'm going to take my time and be cool. Or you just want to get out of there. Yeah. I tried a whole bunch of, yeah, you try it. I mean, you try to literally close your eyes as much as possible. Quiet everything. Get the job done. And then you get to luckily walk back out in the waiting room, like, Hey, what's up 30 and they're all there to do the same.

wow. You walk out there's grandma's and mom's in there. You know what their daughter having the first bear and like, what's he doing? Don't worry about it, grandma. So, is it immediate? Like, so you deliver your sample and then Kelly's like waiting somewhere? No, it's 24 hours, right? It's so they have to wash it.

Yeah, they wash it. So it can be same day, but sometimes it's like the next day, ours. I think ours were all the same day. I think we did the same day to think so they wash it and then they do the procedure that afternoon. So you like leave, have lunch come back or like, how does that work? Okay. Do you get to be with your wife when she's then getting inseminated?

Oh, we did what we did selfies every time. Cause I want to show grace and I don't know if this is what happened, but this may be how you, yeah. Okay. Here's another introspective. So we had sex the day before and the day before that, and she was obviating, the timing was perfect. And. The physician said, you probably did this naturally, but we're going to go ahead and do it.

So I've held on to that because it was my ego. There you go. You know what I mean? So we do this naturally and he didn't do this. So you had three days of like, let's call it deposits.

And one of those. You got pregnant. It was grace. And so we, she teases me. She goes, Oh no, the doctor did it. I'm like, no, no, no. I did it with bad movies at all. Naturally going back, my ego says we did it naturally. We didn't need his help. But she, she likes the bus. No, you know what on that? So I bet you did though, because you had already been pregnant naturally too.

So, or that next time you talk to her. Thank thank you knowing, but I do like that hearing about Kelly and how much of a planner she is and anyone who's listening, why not double dip, right? Like, Hey, do everything right. I still keep having sex because it's connecting you with your partner and there's still a chance you're going to conceive naturally.

But Hey, if this other thing is an opportunity, like, you know why not? So, and Chris, you said you guys had to, you did IUI also, but that was unsuccessful. Yeah, it didn't work. So, but yeah, it's very similar in surgery. Absolutely. It was before the surgery or we went to the second doctor. So your first one was unsuccessful the IUI?

Yes. Yeah. So it was ours. Geez. I think we were going to do a second one, but we decided not to. Okay. Just cause I was, I was like, I don't get it. Like, it doesn't seem like you didn't like go into the room. Just be honest. I mean, I did think it was really cool. How all you have to do in a public bathroom was put a recliner in there and it just fancies it up into a lounge.

It's like a hospital bathroom.

My mind right now, because I didn't envision a bathroom at all, like little tall floors and everything. Oh my God. I'm envisioning like carpet and wallpaper bedroom. Yeah. Boys must have washed and AeroBlade, I mean the paper towel holder. It's interesting. I'm glad that yeah, my experience is very similar to other, other people's hands, so it didn't work for us.

And again, it was interesting too, because it was more of. We've we've been, I want to say let down, cause I bet that's probably overstepping a little bit I've personally, and I know that Jess who's sounds like Kelly spirit animal or vice versa. Um, just based on the way you describe her sound like you're describing, they need to be friends.

All three of all, three of your wives need to meet and be friends. We were let down by the. Okay. The medical community in certain regards as to how people approach this. So it's like a phone call, like, Hey, you're not pregnant after you do an IUI look. Right. Like I understand they probably do this a hundred times a day and then just told me also, I think she got a bill, right?

A final bill. Yeah. We got a bill for like, for Europe. For the birth of the baby that wasn't happening after a miscarriage, we went, this happened twice at the first doctor we're at I'm proud. I'm proud. Our memories are different. Sometimes, probably correct me after she listened to this, but we. After we had the first loss confirmed as we're checking.

When I walked in, they said, Hey dad, well, we were pretty sure where I lost the baby, like, and on the way out there, like, so you'll be back in eight weeks for your next. And we're like, okay, literally, you just told us that we lost our baby and we were scheduling a DNC and they wanted to schedule our next ultrasound.

And then yeah, they called for a followup ultrasound. So. And I think that happened two or three times. This just makes me want to anybody. God willing that's works in a doctor's office and an OB GYN offices, like listen, figure out a way for your own electronic medical records to catch up. Yeah. So the front desk quickly in our experience, the second, the second facility, the second clinic that we went to was like one 80 completely different experience.

Right. So, and I think technology is a piece of that, but I also think it's, we're habitual, right. Human beings. So I think if you do the same thing, you can lose kind of context and how you should perform what you do is your job. But, you know, like I said, I'm an older guy. But it's always do the best, no matter what it is.

Right. If you're going to flip hamburgers, be the best at it. Yeah. It hurts my feelings. Like when you say you're the older and we're like the same age, I'm older than these two guys. I'm like, let's just clarify, like you might be older. I have a super young I'm like I'm super young. I'm matures like a 19 year old.

Well done. I'll be, I'll be a man. Who's looking forward to that. But yeah, it's disappointing sometimes because you do, you go through the, and our experience with the DNC was it's a traumatic thing, but then it's, I think it's, so it's a common thing, right? And it can be like, It's our way as like a biological entity to when something isn't right.

That's what the body does. Right. And I think that's by design and it doesn't diminish the pain or the emotional, like you mean, you mean miscarriage? That's that type of loss, right? Because it is, I mean, it's, it's a physiological response to something being wrong. Our DNA, something not right there or. And that gives a little bit of like comfort.

Comfort is probably not the right word. It gave me a little bit of like, okay, like that makes sense. I'm a, I'm an extremely like logical deploys, ration and logic. Actually second, I can hold on to that, right? Yeah. Cause that's okay. I get that. But I think that the female experience is a totally different thing.

Then, well there's, I tried my best to be able to empathize and be there and say like, I know you're hurting and I know what it's like. And, but I would never let myself out of those words to Jessica, I could never say I know what it's like. Cause I don't, I don't have no. I mean, she was emotionally attached, like to these beings.

Right? A lot of moms will tell you, including myself. Like I felt like a mom, like I felt conception. Like I was like, Like I woke up and was like, looked at my husband and I was like, I'm pregnant. And he was like, you're crazy. Yeah, no, but like I, and I felt like a month in that moment. Now we're going to take a short break to just share a few things with you.

Thanks for listening to the birth story podcast. I am so excited to announce the launch of my book. Birth story, a 42 week guide for your pregnancy. A collection of these birth stories, a ton of doula advice and journaling prompts. You can order a copy [email protected]. It also will mean the world to me, if you'll spread the word about this podcast, so on Stitcher or on iTunes, just leave a review.

Thanks. When did you feel like a dad? I'm curious how we have two. We have three of you guys sitting at the table. Two of you have experienced loss and then CAS, you had a successful first time viable pregnancy. But I was curious like for each of you to answer this question, like at what moment in the pregnancy or the birth, did you actually feel like a father.

Oh, sure. I'll I'll step up. But I think for me personally, the whole fatherhood feeling did not kick in until Kennedy was actually born until I actually saw Kennedy and was holding Kennedy. That's when it actually clicked in, I think the entire eight and a half months, nine months leading up to Kennedy's birth, it was more about.

Just being there for my wife and being a husband before a dad and trying to be the best husband that I could during that time, obviously huge sympathy to you guys and going through what you went through and not having experience that. But yeah, I just thought that my, my goal and my job was to be a husband and be the best husband that I, that I could be.

The fatherhood definitely didn't kick in until I saw Kennedy being born. And then in that moment, I'll say I felt the sense of fatherhood. And then when you leave, you know, two to three days later and you, and you, you put them in your car and you're like, you're just gonna let me leave with this child and just walk out the door.

And that's, that's, that's the end of it. Like, okay, just have five me and we're outta here and send me a bill later. That's exactly how it exactly. It's exactly. Yeah, it is. And you're just walking away with this car seat and this child and your wife's in a wheelchair and you're like, okay, let's be both.

Now let's be both the husband and the father. And then, you know, I think even in the infant age, I will say the connection you're trying to make with a child that is volunteers of purpose is not even really seeing you. If you will, it's almost tough because then you start to feel like, am I supposed to, I feel like I'm not connected, or am I connected or is this how everyone feels?

But again, it's one of those things as a guy, you don't talk about it. I'll, it'll just work out the way it needs to work out. But. Here in the last and Kennedy's three months old, but here in the last, probably two weeks, the word father and dad means so much more than it did three months ago, because she's starting to become aware.

She's starting to see me. I feel like she's starting to smile the interactions becoming and that, and that in and of itself for me is starting to define fatherhood for sure. And that's been my journey. So, you know, I know everyone's a little bit different, but I will say in the beginning, like with the infancy and being, you know, a few days old and a few weeks old, it's like right now, I'm just taking, I'm just taking care of you.

And I don't want you really get to feed you to be honest. I just wake up at 2:00 AM and hand you to my wife, and then she feeds you. And then I send you back to bed. Like, that's my job. And then occasional burp every now and then. It's so you're trying to figure out what does that look like? But man, the amount of time, it's just exponential when they're infants the, the leaps and bounds.

And for me personally, the leaps and bounds from feeling like a husband to a father have been just significant. That's what I like in the last two weeks. Yeah. Can I ask a question? Did y'all read books? Oh my God. Yeah. I can compare notes. Yeah, you did. I didn't until we got in a big knockdown, like knocked down, not knocked out.

Okay. I ordered two books on Amazon doulas podcast. Yeah. Yeah. It was 200 pages in each book of them saying, basically, don't be an ass. Do the laundry, do the dishes right. Step up. Yeah. You know, and I said, honey, like, I'm not reading any more books. I do all this stuff. Right. This is just basically saying pitch in.

Don't be an ass about it. So I was just curious what y'all stake on that was, yeah, I've heard a couple of, I've read it. I read the chapters of the birthing store or birthing method or whatever. I can't remember, but I read one that was on yeah. Baby brand development, like, Oh, that's cool. Wow. That one was all I'm still reading it.

It's awesome. Like heavy neuro yeah. Back in science. So it's uh, he's I think he's a neurologist. Yes, I'm sure. Oh, wow. Like study based, but it's like, just, it's fast. It's mind blowing stuff. That's funny, Justin, just like Kelly is kinda like, uh, you know, planners, like Jess is really like data oriented. Like I learned more from her.

I, nothing she learned from me and that she would, yeah. Send me articles and I'm like, yep. Never read that one before. I mean, I don't even know where she found some of the stuff. I mean, so educated. I can imagine she was like, you have to have all of these things read by tomorrow morning, my phone now.

Cause I get those articles on a daily basis and some of it's great, which is so where do y'all live? We live in a country club Heights, but we live in, um, men in Villa Heights. Okay. Yeah. So we're right down. All right. We're just gonna have to figure it out. We're putting them together. So I have had books provided to me.

Wow. Prior. And then I had a buddy, so, so my best friend we're the same age, you know, younger wives. Didn't weren't sure if we'd ever be dads, he had his son a week before mine. Oh, cool. We both total each other. Yeah. On new year's day, he called me. I was like, you won't believe this. We have news. And I'm like, Don't even tell me.

So he sent me away. He sent me the expectant father, I think, which is, that's what I read. I haven't read it cause I'm not a dad, but it's yellow, right? Yeah. That's one of the ones I read. It's got something recommend it. I wouldn't recommend reading it. I don't cover to back. I think there's some good stuff in there, but if you're, I think if you're a capable husband and man, and.

Then you there's good stuff in there, but there's probably some other resources that might be more beneficial. Yeah. I can see how it would be kind of like degrading if you're, you know, to have a book that's just like telling you how to be a good person. If you already are a good person and a good, a lot of it's common sense type stuff, right.

It's a hundred percent. I mean, it's, it's trying to say this tactfully. There's a lot of guys out there. They should read the book. I mean, let's just be, let's be a hundred percent, let's be a hundred percent honest about it, but if you. Have like, and I'm trying to be too, if you have half a brain and you love your wife and you want to take care of things, I think it's a waste of time because that's basically what it does.

I think that kind of goes back to what I was saying is during those nine months with Christina was focused on being a husband. And I think it comes with the territory of what being a husband looks like around the house. Right. You know? And so he has a. The second book. That's like the first year father.

Okay. That's awesome. I learned that one. I have that and I have another one that's written like a car manual. It's called like the baby manual with diagrams and literally written like the manual for my car. Awesome. I can tell if something's happening, I'm like, okay, this is normal. Like the grunting is normal, right?

Yeah. No, that should be like an app. All right. Well, this brings me to see, I'm kind of biased on this because a hundred percent, I mean, maybe like give or take a few, but like a hundred percent of the dads that I work with as a doula are kind of in your same camp, right? Like, They're really supportive of their wives to the point that they pay out of pocket, a lot of money for a doula.

Right. So the, I feel like these kinds of things go hand didn't hand write like, so I'm not really dealing. As a doula, I'm not dealing with dads that are just like clueless and treat their wives terrible and are unprepared. Like that correlates like a, couple's not going to hire a duel. That's not going to take care of the house and the yeah.

Right. All the things. Yeah. So I want to know, like, what was your doula journey? Like, had you ever heard the word doula before? Did you know how much a doula cost? Like how, like, I mean, you're not gonna offend me at all. So I want to know like how, like, how did you get, how did you get me as your doula? Like, how did that come about?

How come about? Let me pop this. Okay. That's a beer. Yeah. And I should let all the listeners, so not only is everyone drinking beer there, we are eating the inducer pizza. So it's kind of like a famous pizza from hostel. And it's known to send so many women into labor that I just had to get. I had to dry it.

So, and maybe we'll see if any of you guys did anybody like on this little beer break, did anyone have, do sir? His wife had the inducer pizza. Okay. Cassie, you guys dead. Did it send you into labor? Uh, within, uh, due weeks. Yeah, I think we ended up, well, that would be a negative, uh, should have tried it again.

And you guys didn't, we either talked about it so much that I think we did, but then I don't think we did. Okay. Well, I mean, we tried, that's why we didn't do it. So we had planned on it. She was like, right. Ding, ding, ding.  diabetes would put you out of this. Okay. Sorry. All right. Back to the doula stuff. How did you find me?

How did you get convinced? I guess I think our story is interesting too. So when we, we got to the point, so I don't know if it was like 12 weeks or what it was that was like, so let's, we need to be positive and think that this is going to happen. So we want to be ready, like as ready as we can be. And.

Jess mentioned to me, she's like, Hey, I'm going to start looking at, she'd done all this research and she's just started doing a doula. And I honestly, I thought it was like an exercise class I had, I had absolutely no idea. I thought it was yoga. You're right. Like yoga, yoga,

doulas that you sent me a picture on a yoga mat, but go in your back. I'm going to be furious. So. She explained it to me. And I was like, so it's like a, cause I was born by a midwife right. In Texas, back in the seventies. And I was like, so is that a midwife? And she's like, no, it's different. There's like a, and I was not, we communicate very differently, like extremely differently.

So just I'll ask her a question, you know, would you like, I'm getting up? Would you like me to get anything? And she'd be like, Oh, milk would be delicious. I'd be like, okay, I'm getting up. Would you like me to get you anything? Like. I mean, just say, yes, I want a drink or so, and that I have to work on that.

Right. Because I'm very literal. Like I heard glass,

unbelieved not me at all. So. Waiting to me what this speak, Jessica, right? This source has helped us out a lot. Um, what this is, I'm still struggling. Like I can't, I'm not grasping the need or what it is. And then she's said the word advocate. She's like, it's an advocate for us. It's an advocate for what we want to happen.

And it's a support mechanism type thing. And she knows me well enough to use those type of words. That makes sense to me. And I was like, absolutely does. I don't care what it costs. If it's going to make you feel more comfortable and put us in a better place, do what you have to do. And then she went through an interview process and we have a mutual friend from, because we used to go to the church that you go to.

So, and Emily was. Part of our wedding and her husband baptized me and married us. Cool. I didn't even know that. Okay. As Emily. So she was like, yeah, Emily, you know, set me up for introducing me to Heidi and she's awesome. And I don't want to, she might not have actually interviewed anyone else. I think she had some schedule and she met with you.

And so it was a done deal. Okay. So it was very easy decision for me personally, to say, do whatever you so advocate and support. Yep. Those are your big can I think is a huge thing, right? I mean, especially with the way the insurance companies are and with how, you know, litigation and lawyers being involved in everything out there.

I think anytime you can have someone else willing to be on your team, it's, it's crazy right now. And we're going to get to your birth stories in a minute. So I think we'll do that next. Maybe not. I felt like there was a lot of advocacy that was, yeah. Ultimately there was a lot of those two words kind of came to life and you and Jessica's burger, you know, even.

So I'm gonna go back to both you guys. So had you heard of a doula? I personally had never heard of a doula until Christina mentioned it to me, in which case I did some Googling and some homework and some research. Uh, Christina is also one of those people like your wives. I haven't got to share too much about Christina, but she is very set out plans.

This is how it's going to be. And then in a lot of ways, I go back and burns. Oh my God. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. In a fantastic way, but yeah, way too much. But I knew right away she was going to have a natural childbirth because I was like, she's never going to, there's not, I couldn't imagine a world where she was going to actually, not the time that I knew it was definite.

Is she sitting there bouncing on a medicine ball in our living room and you're like, Christina, do you want to have a natural birth? And she was like, yeah. Um, and you're like, if you say, um, you're not gonna make it. And she's like, then I want to have a natural birth. And that was that. Exactly. And so from that point forward, that was kind of, Christina approached me about it when we first got pregnant, that she wanted to have a doula.

Again, didn't know anything about it, did a little bit of homework, talk to her a little bit about it, and then just kind of back-burnered. It was like, well, you know, we'll see what happens, but Christina is one of those people that puts her mind to something and it's done. So within. Yeah. I mean, I am a very faith based person.

Yeah. Within three weeks of her saying that we're at church, uh, at, at watershed at church. Sorry. That's fine. Church. I didn't know her name. Absolutely. No watersheds. Fantastic. Yeah, absolutely. They're looking for somewhere. That's a spot. Yeah, exactly. So Christina's about to do a little thing on stage that watershed and she's sitting there and it literally just so happened.

She's sitting beside you that day, right? Somehow she met her. I didn't know she was pregnant exactly. Right. Very early on. She mentions the word doula and you're sitting right there and she comes off. The stage comes this woman. She's like, I found our doula and I'm like, Where it's just yoga. That's yoga.

We talked about a couple of weeks ago that what just transpired in the last 30 minutes that I'm clueless about because I saw you on stage that to her. Absolutely. Mr. Dried in her ear from the second row. So, uh, from that point we, uh, we set up a coffee date with Heidi. We sat down and talked. Obviously, we don't have a massive money tree in the backyard.

So the finances were definitely a piece of the puzzle. If you multiply what you paid me by two times per month for a whole year, I also don't have a big money tree or fact, but you know, every, every dime counts I should say. And especially when you're talking about bringing a child into the world, You know, the thing that the average report says, you know, it costs this much money to have a job until they're 18.

So everything scares you from a financial standpoint. So adding an extra bill that we did not see coming into play was definitely a concern for sure, for me, but in and of itself, I had told Christina, if this is what you want, Then this is what we'll do. I just want to feel comfortable in knowing what my role will be, what Heidi's role will be and what this will look like.

And at the, the coffee sit down that we had, it was laid out perfectly. Everything was explained well, and it really came to light that having a natural birth was something that Christina wanted and was something that she, I would say needed. You. To accomplish. And at the end of the day, she was able to accomplish that due to you being in that room because it's, it's not an easy process.

And I think you tell everyone that upfront, this is, this is not going to be fun. This is not going to be something that you're going to love. I mean, something you enjoy is going to be a very hard and difficult process and potentially the most difficult thing you'll ever do in your life. Or as a organ to get to your birth stories, but as a husband, it's also very difficult to see.

Absolutely. And I don't think that resignates until you actually see it. It's one of those things where in the moment being told, it's going to be difficult to watch versus watching it two completely different things and being a husband and being a man and wanting to protect your wife and seeing her helpless and knowing you can do nothing worse.

Um, and. Touch her wrong and that's the wrong spot. I mean, it, it's just a, it's quite a difficult process, but yeah. And just to get back to what, to what we're talking about. Having you was what may Christina achieve what she wanted to achieve out of the birth and brought Kennedy into the world. And, and I wouldn't trade it for a minute cause it's what Christina wanted.

And you know, I'll support that. Yeah. And I can't wait for us to share our stories and guys, it was so beautiful. All right. And then Justin, we can laugh now because. I mean, I don't want to skip too far ahead, but I'm going to be honest. He, you know, but no, there was no doula touch your birth, but tell me when Kelly, like, you know, approached you and said, Hey, and she was planning to have a natural childbirth.

She's a marathon runner and this was something she was. Pretty interested in. So tell me what your first reaction was. So, um, advocate would not be the correct word for me. I wasn't a hundred percent against it from the start. Like I said, we're both very independent people and I felt like somebody was being hired to take my place and I was not having it.

Like I wanted to be there for her. I want it to be the rock. I want it to be, you know, To help through the problems, talk things through. And I wouldn't have that. I told you that on the couch, when we first met, I was like, I did, I really, I feel like you had this intuitive, like there something there, right?

Like there's this intuitive sixth sense almost that kind of knew all along. I think that you knew all along, it was going to be, you. And you wanted it to be you. So when I met you, I told you, you remind me so much of my mother. It's scary. I mean, she was, you're very young mother. They look, they look, it looked like identical twins.

Love it. Like the hair, the dark eyes, the skin, the laugh, the smile. I mean, they look identical. That being said, I sorta want her

when I met with Justin and Kelly too, for the first time. Every couple is so different in what their needs are. And I remember telling you like, okay, I'm a coach. And if you're, and I knew that Justin, I was getting that feeling like he just wanted to do all of it. And I was thinking in the birth plan, Heidi, your role is to just show Justin how to be a hero.

Like that's what I was thinking. My role is, is like, if Justin gets stuck, if he gets stuck anywhere, it's just going to be like, show him what to do. And that's fair. And. Anybody that is considering a doula. I would really take what I'm bout to say to heart because somebody gave me some phenomenal advice.

So I was doing research and I was checking into things and I started reading about how the American family is no more, you know, divorces her mom lives in Pittsburgh. Dad lives in Florida. My father's passed away. My mom's at the beach that the American family has kind of broken down in the traditional sense where grandparents like the generations are not together anymore.

One's in Colorado, Washington, D C you know, whatever. So it's not there. So if you think about a doula taking the place of the women in the, in the traditional family, In that way. So, you know, traditional childbirth for the last century or so aunts, grandparents, mothers, older sisters, like people that had childbirth and experience are always around to kind of carry the woman through childbirth.

And I got that advice and it clicked for me immediately. And I, uh, I was against it. Kelly got a big fight about it. Like I was completely against it. We're not paying this money, not taking my job. No, it's not happening. And I got that advice and. I would really invite anybody to sit down and really think about that if they're against the dual process, because the level of support like Kelly always asked me my opinion.

Always nine times out of 10, she goes and gets a second opinion today just to make sure mine. Yeah. Let's just touch on Kelly it in her head, Heidi, to text a call to go through. Like, you could see it. It was just a lift off of her, you know? And yeah. And then it got like, the more we went down, I got, when you're asking me it's XID for, you're going to text her anyway, text it.

So I want you to fold right into your birth story though, because I just feel like we can't jump around from this guys. So, yeah. So we're you hire me? I'm texting. We're doing some prenatals, like we're Lando. Yeah. And about five w when was your due date? Yes. So let's start with that. It was father's June 17th and then May 27th.

So were, were you in Orlando? Okay. So I'm like, Hey Kelly. Yeah. Over and says, Hey, by the way, I'm going to be on vacation for a couple of weeks. It's no big deal. You all aren't do. Yeah, cool. Whatever. I was like, I've got a backup doula. You don't have any signs and symptoms. I was like, you know, I feel pretty comfortable taking my kids to Disney world for a couple of days.

This is going to be great. And literally the second I drive away, I don't know if you know this part of the story I called Kelly. And I said, Kelly, I said, I don't, I'm just getting like a weird, she told me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, I'm getting a weird feeling, but I really like, you need to, this is Sarah's number, the backup doula.

I'm like. Just in case, you know, and, um, Hmm. So I think, I can't believe it cause to regret of not really, I can't believe I'm blanking on this. I think, I think it was June 17th was our original date. Does that sound right? Well, I have it in my phone 15th or June 17th. Anyway, I think it was June 17th. Okay.

It was June 17, but I'm Mo my mom lives at the beach Curry beach. So every moral day we go to the beach and hang out with my brother and his girlfriend and basically party all weekend. So obviously we're not doing that, you know, she's a month out, three and a half weeks, three weeks out. So it didn't go down.

I think I played golf Saturday, got up, played golf Monday with one of my best friends. And it was a, like an 8:00 AM, tee time. Thank God. And when the 3:00 PM tee time, I'll never forget it. We're all whole 13. And. I look at my phone and I never check my phone. Usually when I'm playing and I had five text messages from Kelly and dude something told me like, just, I knew it.

I was like, look at the phone. It's like something told me, dude, look at your phone. And, and I, thank God. I'd only miss a text, but like two minutes at 10 42, she texted me a picture of her water. We're going to the bathroom. Wow. Whoa. So me and my best friend were playing these, these two random guys. They both have kids and I'm did you get, hold on.

I got a second photo. What happened right before the water break? Did you get that? Okay, I'm getting to that. So the picture of the water breaks, and then another photo comes in and it's the mucus plug. And the two guy were playing with two random guys. I think they both had two or three kids and I'm like, you know, we're not going to have the kid for 24 hours.

Can I finish this?

do you want to know what I told Kelly? I'm talking to her and she's very calm. Like she's not really having contractions. It's about her mom until kind of after the fact too, which is a whole nother thing. Yeah. But then I was talking to her on the phone. I'm in Florida and she's like, Justin's golfing. And she's like, do I need to.

Stop his golf round. And this is me. I said, no. I mean, I'm like your water broke. Contractions will probably start in six to eight hours. You know, I'm like, you're probably having a baby today or tomorrow, but like I said, like, let him finish. The golf crowd will be 24 hours, 52 on the 13th hole. That's no lie.

Right on. Is there a veteran? No lie. I am two over three 14.  exactly. That was like one or two under, through the, through the, through the fall of the battle. Of course I don't, you know, going back to, we were talking earlier, like things kind of happening. I don't know what it was. It's just, something said, get your ass in the car.

And I told Ben, I was like, get your ass to golf court. Believe it. So here's an interesting thing. So whole 14 we're playing out at 'em a lot. I'll say the golf course. We're playing out a red bridge, like 35 minutes away from Charlotte. So it's good little hike. And when me and Ben play, if Ben's driving, I always drive his car cause he drives like a 95 year old grandma.

Nice. So he's not an aggressive driver

on the pod. He will tell us about you. I mean, he'll, he'll tell us about himself. So getting the golf off cart and whole 14 is the furthest away from the clubhouse. So we just start tearing backwards through the golf course and we hopped one tee box with people on it. And people like you could see are furious Marshall.

Oh man. So we hit hit the 15 tee box and Ben like literally. Hanging out over the cart, going his wife's water chest, bro. And there's like there's anger and fury and all these guys just go to like, like, Oh, congratulations, this goes on for three or four holes until we finally get there. We get in the car and where I maybe 20 red lights.

I ran on the way home, maybe 25. I mean, we got home from Redbridge and about 15 minutes, I mean, we were rolling. So I get there. I'm like, what are we doing? Like. We still got a day to chill. Like you want to go pack a bag? Like, what do you want to do? She goes, we should probably go to the hospital. I'm like, well, we've talked about this.

We don't want to sit there for 20 hours. You know, let's go get some neat. She goes, let's go to the hospital and make sure everything's cool. I was all right. Yeah, no problem. So we get in the car, go to the hospital, check everything's straight. Like, yeah. You're at one centimeter. Like, cool. We're leaving.

See you later. We went back home. Yeah. So we're hanging out at what time was that? So here's the thing. So 10 42 is when I got the text. Right. Never forget. As long as, as long as I left, we got to the hospital at one. Cause when I got home, we packed bags, took a shower. Like we already had bags packed, but get a few other things together and just made sure we were ready.

And she was having some contractions very, very small. Okay. Small contractions. So we got the hospital, they checked everything. Kelly's straight baby straight. No big deal. Like we're leaving. Doc saying, no, you're not. I'm like, yeah, we're, we're leaving, dude. I'll sign a release, whatever you need. So we signed the release and we left, we got back to the house at one 30.

I swear. As soon as we walked through the door, the contractions hit like a hammer. Bam. I'm like, Oh man. I would just like to say they likely wouldn't have done that. If you stayed at the hospital, all those fluorescent lights would have just like weren't. My arms hurt for weeks. So we laid in our bed and she just gripped my arms like this.

And this one went for three hours through about four 30. Yeah, about four 15, four 30. I was like, call, give Heidi a call. Like, you know, Heidi, 20 seconds. You heard her maybe 30. Yeah. Yeah. So usually I'll stay on the phone and just like, listen to how someone sat. You know, my experience is how you, it. Sound right.

Like when we get to cast story, we'll talk about the sounds of LinkedIn. I know. So I'm talking to Kelly on the phone for like 30 seconds and I am hearing her in transition. Yeah. Like, I mean, deeply in transition and this light bulb goes off as I'm talking to her. And she had mentioned to me while I was at your house, that her mom had a very quick.

Labor quick and early. And her mom had both her and her sister three weeks early. She had Grayson three weeks early in the day. So I'm talking to her. I can hear her in transition. Yup. I know her water's already broken once your water's broken transition, baby can that urge to Bush can come at any time.

Right. And this label is going off like quick LIBOR early. And she just w and I could hear it in her voice. And I'm like, yeah, you're going to need to, like, I know I'm in Orlando, Florida. I mean, I'm going to call your backup, do a lot, like right now, but I'm like, but awesome. So Kelly's a marathon runner.

And so her pain tolerance is very high and she did not recognize, transition as transition. She was just like toughing through it. Like, I think in denial, like there's no way I could be having a baby this quickly. Right. Kind of left too. When you said, you said Christina was stubborn, I kind of snickered.

I'm like, well, she knows Kelly, you know, I think they're all going to be like, jeez. Yeah. I'm like, they're all going to be best. Hyper independent. Stubborn. Yeah. This is just Kelly. So Heidi says to our own speaker, I can tell by the sound of your voice, you need to get to the hospital right now. Yeah. Cause you, you helped her with in the room.

And then I'll never forget it. We got to, you know, like the longer couch in our den, the one that I was sitting on, who me and you first met, she was like, leaning over that during a second or even a third, I think. And you coached her through all of that. And then you were like, dude, go like right now. And so yeah, we got off the hospital at.

Four 50. I got her upstairs by 5:00 AM. I'm going to interject right now. I'm texting Justin and the backup doula. How about that? That's right. The backup doulas is on her way and all of a sudden. Justin goes, radio silent. Here we go. And I was like, dang it. I forgot. Oh my God. I'm so curious to hear your side of the story.

Cause on my side of the story, your radio silent communication has ended with Justin back up. We're pulling out of the driveway and this guy lives across nicest guy in the world. He's he's like, Oh, he could see us coming out and he could figure out he's got three kids. He could figure out what was going on and was like running, like trying to get the Ronald one.

And I'm like, Hmm. Shut up, get out of the way.

And his face was like, okay,

so we parked the, parked the car right there. You know, you put your blinkers on, he'd go up and everything. And I got upstairs at five o'clock and she could barely walk down the hallway and the nurses, I don't think, really realize how far along we were and just how close we were. And yeah, because you were just there once they realized that this was go time.

I mean, it was like a. Flurry is people. I don't even think all the people were in the room yet. So one of them tells me to get something in the bathroom and I come out with a bucket and a pan

plunger, literally this what you mean? This guy? Get so and so, and I'm like, uh, alright. I went in the bathroom, grabbed it and walked out and she just shakes her head and takes one thing

every day. Did you feel like, from your perspective, was Kelly like in lots of pain or did you feel like she was controlled and like, did you understand kind of how much pain she was in? I could, you know, I've seen her run marathons. I could tell she was in a lot of pain, but I know how tough Kelly is too.

So. So you knew she was okay. I knew she was fine. I knew she was fine. She throwing up? No. Okay. No. So upstairs at five, o'clock get in the room at five Oh five, five, 10. She had a country to country actions in the bathroom and like one of the nurse goes, you can't have the baby in the bathroom. It can't be born in the toilet.

Get in here. She gets, she gets on the bed and. It was four big contractions and four big pushes. We didn't see any of the first, second one crown rescinded, third one crown fourth. And he was born. Wow, insane. That's unbelievable. I mean, it was the first, it was literally like an, I caught it like me and the doctor.

That's crazy. What? So we weren't even in the hospital. Literally 45 minutes and this kid was born. I'm not sure  no, but then I think the doula shows up, like rate, she shows up like right afterwards or something, you know, like misses the whole thing just in time to see the burst of water I'm walking, I'm walking down the hall.

I'm like, She's already had it in their

classes. It was no longer needed, you know? Oh my goodness. It was great though. Cause she helped Kelly a lot with, you know, talking about it. What to do next and what she's going to feeling and what's happening. So I think Kelly not, I think Kelly really appreciated her being fair because once again, it's, you know, it's her husband telling her it's okay.

Instead of, you know, you know, somebody else. So it, it, it, it was. To answer your earlier question to the whole ballet. It dawned on me when it happens, but that's, that's who I am as a person. Like I don't get excited about things, really nervous about things until it actually happens to me. So, uh, that was, you had that dad moment at birth?

Yeah. Yeah. It's in, I'm really like I'm a protective person. I was really protective. Kelly did all natural. They started to put the IV in and I literally yelled at a nurse. I was like, don't you dare put anything in, you know, cause she'd made it that far. And I was like, I'll be damned to somebody who's gonna screw this up for her.

So she wanted a natural. Yeah. Yep. Good job advocating for adjusting go. That was going to happen. You know, she, she made that decision. I think I owe you one. Buy one, get one free, mean for your audience? Like what I said earlier, I would really invite people to think about it that way. I think it is Chris made a great point that any extra support or effort, like you'd be crazy not to utilize.

Right? Absolutely. I really don't when you put it in that way and then you put it in the way that. The generations aren't around to help out too. It's just, you know, I think we're a lot of like being logic based. The logic is square one, for sure. And I think afterwards too, like I'm not a postpartum doula, but I always tell everybody I'm a mom, you know?

So I try to talk to Kelly and like all of your wives as much as possible, like after the birth too, just to find out like, how's everything going and do you need help? And you know, how's are seeing, and you know, all of that. Kind of thing. So, all right. Who, like both of your stories are so different? I don't even know where to start with between Chris and CAS.

So who wants to go Chris? Chris? Totally opposite. Yeah. Yeah. So let's do the total opposite and then we'll do the in between. How about that? Okay, Justin, and your story wood was our birth like idea that we wrote down with Heidi. Right. That's a really stuff to go and it couldn't have gone more sideways. So yeah, my wife is.

Just super, super headstrong. She's stubborn. She's very stubborn. She's super researcher. She knew exactly what she wanted to do. And she, throughout the whole pregnancy, right before we got pregnant, we eliminated chemicals from our home. You know, we started kind of focusing on prayer maybe a little bit more than we had in the past essential oils.

Anything that she thought, Oh, the essential oils. Yeah. Yeah. And I've become a fan, which might be the most, um, disappointing or shameful thing in this whole story. We got like 38 dispensers, which is just fencer. No, we have diffusers in every room believable. That's so, so fun. So she, she took every step.

Anything that, whether it was quackery or there was science behind, it didn't really matter if it wasn't going to be. Detrimental to our lifestyle or our home or anything. She was going to try it. And I really respected that she wanted to have a natural birth, and that was our plan to do everything that we kind of, we could do.

And the background. I think I was like, knowing our journey. I didn't expect anything to go the way that we had planned or be easy, but I was hopeful that it would, and I was going to do whatever I could to support that. So why did she want a natural birth? Because it's so much, there's a lot of signs about how much better it is for the baby.

Right. So I think my takeaway from listening to your wife too, was that she was. She had heard about how much the interventions could disrupt nursing. And that was something that was a really big for her. Yeah, it was, it was huge. And she's, you know, she's had surgeries, so she, she wanted to try to eliminate any type of stress on the baby and any of that potential for additional risk factors that come into play.

And that also that, that went a little bit sideways, kind of early on. So she, when she went for her. Just whenever they do, the gestation was like around 27 weeks. Yeah. She like had passed all of them, but the last one and she missed it by like two points. And so she kind of had it, but she never went on medication.

She always kind of controlled it with, with her diet and she didn't really have to alter diet too much. So that was a good thing. But that was kind of like the first, like, it wasn't a misstep, but it was the first thing that we didn't plan on happening. Right. And. Like just for everyone listening. It's like the very first thing that you're like, Ooh, they're gonna push in an early induction.

Right. Or C-section or whatever. And her, her, so not our, the physician that helped us kind of get to where we were. But her doctor at that point had even art, like after that had thrown out, like scheduling a C-section and she's the most anti the right, that wasn't part of what we wanted to do. And she was very firm.

She has no problem being direct to being from, or speaking your mind, which, which I love about her. You know, in addition to so many other things, but she was always, um, and they, she built a really good relationship with her doctor because they would banter back and forth and she's like, that's, you know, that's not, that's not part of our, part of our deal.

So when Heidi came over, And we wrote down like what our birth story was. I remember it very vividly when you were like, tell me what you, what, what you want your birth to be. And she was like, I think, and I want to do this. And I had to like, stop her and be like, don't think just, yeah, we had to like redo it because she already had a little bit of that.

Doubt kind of creeping in on, I totally get what, like, she's way stronger than I could ever be. She's the fiercest like lover and she's just, and I mean like a lover of people love her. She's just, she's a beast. Right. And I don't have that strength. So I just wanted to give her that like, just whatever you want, let's make it happen.

Let's just throw it out in the universe and see what happens. So we got that, what we wanted to do, or we're going to go in and we're not going to get an induced. Right. We're going to go into labor on our own. And let me interject here too. Like when I was at your house too, like one of the things, I don't know if this ever happened with Kelly, but one of the things that was happening with Jessica was that those previous losses were all that grief came right back to the surface because it's like, you know, those are many labors, right?

Yeah. So one thing we didn't say earlier that I think it's important for people to understand. Once you have a miscarriage, at least for us in the, or I'll just say me, I won't speak for Kelly even up til it until until the baby is born. You always have that factor in your mind. I mean, you're, you're scared, you know what, you know what lists until he or she is there and they're breathing and they're okay like that, that fear just will never, ever leave you.

And I just, for the listeners that. Have gone through it that you're not alone in that that's that's yeah. Thanks for saying that, Justin. Yeah. And I think it's so part of our story, it's important to note that the loss prior, right? Our last one, my wife was at a cupcake making class with my mom who had recently moved to Fort mill from Florida.

So my parents relocated up here to be closer to us. That's awesome. Yeah. It was really cool that they did that. And so they were having like a bonding day. Right. And she's texting me and she's like, Oh my God, I. I think I'm losing the child and I'm like, like, you know, how do you, how do we, how do I navigate?

What do we do? And when we went to the, to the doctor the next day, they basically told her flat out, they were like, you were laboring for about 12 hours. Right. So to try to naturally have this happen. So she'd experienced that. Yeah. And I think it was that night when we were talking were that, that was the first time it came into her head.

She's like, Oh my God, when I go into labor, am I going to think about. That situation, uh, which is smart. That's like, that's the intelligence side of her brain saying like, Hey, be ready because this is coming because it makes sense that that could happen. But then there's the part that's like, why can you just keep that locked away somewhere so we can focus on other things.

Right. But unfortunately that's not the way that's not the way things work. So we, we had our plan and as we got. Every time we went to an ultrasound, they were like, Oh, he's seven pounds, or he's going to be 10 pounds for all this stuff. And it's funny how we can, you know, we can send a camera to Mars to take pictures, but we can't really tell how big a baby is in uterine.

Right? Like there's like a pound difference. I mean the 10% of variation. Right. I'd agree with that. I mean, so we're kind of going through that and. Her physician is like, we're probably going to schedule a C-section and we're really fighting against that. And then basically what happened is, I can't remember when it was, it was close by, but she had low amniotic fluid.

So it was the 0.2 or whatever the threshold is. Yeah. You have to have like each pocket has to have at least two centimeters of fluid and she didn't have any pockets. Right. So they said, you know, I mean, it's so hard again, we don't know what we're like. See it on there. Right. And we can tell there's not a lot, but it looked like I'm not doctor.

Obviously it could have been a map of Asia. I wouldn't have known that ultrasound. They couldn't find any pockets that had more than two centimeters of fluid. They were all very low. So our due date was the 31st of August. And they had recommended if we weren't. In labor to do an induction. I want to say I'm like the 23rd.

And after that appointment, they moved that Friday appointment to Tuesday, Tuesday at 1:00 PM, one or 2:00 PM. And it was what I tried to like really ended up being 10 days. Yes. Prior 10 days, an induction, 10 days early, trying to say like, Hey, it's all for like, right. The goal is to have a healthy baby. So if this is what they're saying to do, let's go and we'll do everything we literally for a week.

Did everything possible? I mean, anything done on the internet or anywhere that you could read? We did to try to get her into labor, like eating the prunes, the whole, the whole nine yards. Yeah. I might've gotten. Some nettles off the internet. I don't even know a lot of stuff happened there. Raspberry is a red raspberry leaf tea.

There's a lot of stuff going on. So we chase I'll try it. There was something that morning that really threw me off. Oh yeah. She's like, Oh, I just booked a last minute massage that I think you'll have just some ladies house in Elizabeth or something. I don't know what it was, but we went, she had a massage and then we couldn't feel like I was tired factor.

That that's what it was. It wasn't a massage. It was a chiropractor. Yeah. So she had an adjustment and then I was like, well, I have to do this stuff for work. So can you come back and like, And we couldn't and then we had to like be held. The whole thing was weird. So we figured that all out, we got the car parked, packed up, went, she got her adjustment done and then went right to the hospital.

So I did the same thing while I was at Presbyterian. So bowl spot blinkers on and go upstairs. Right. We meet the nurse. I go, yup. Eight, eight, eight, 28. I can't, I should know this. So get Jess in the room. They're not super busy that night, which was a full moon. So I figured, you know, we'd probably be in like a hallway, but we weren't, which was cool.

And I run down to get the rest of the bags. By the time I get up the mood, all the nurses has already completely changed why something has happened. There's no doubt. Some things happen no way. Yeah. Your heart drops a little bit. I was like, just, is she, I mean, she speaks her mind, right? She's a very, she's, she's forthright in her feelings and her opinions.

And usually in a very like tactful way, you know, she's respectful. She's a sweet Southern girl. And I, I, she looked at me, she's like, Oh, that nurse hates me. She's pissed. And I was like, okay, like what happens? So the first thing they did is try to give her an IV. She said, I'm going to little delay the IB, like there's no medical need for me to have the IB and that set the nurse off.

Right, right out of the, literally within the first five minutes of being there. So I'm like, this is going to suck. Like I don't want to, I want to just kind of go home and play Xbox or something. This is how it's going to be. Um, but the doctor came in and Jess was very articulate based on I'm sure I'm in a good parts of conversations with Heidi about.

You know, it's not medically necessary. Let's delay it as long as we can. She wants to be on the birthing ball. She wouldn't be in the tub. Right. All these things. So doctors like cool. But if there's any signs of like us going to the next level, were you not there? Where was this? Another one? Yeah. Yeah.

Did you miss another one? No one for three candidates. I made up for Justin and Kelly's birth with Chris and Jessica about she actually could have gone to Orlando and then came back. Yeah. Three times. Okay. Alright. Now she was a big part of it. No, but what I, one of the things that we should list tell listeners is that one of the things I had coached Jessica and Chris on is that inductions can take up to five days.

Right. And Jessica had a conversation with her provider and he said, that will never. That's not going to happen to you. That'll never happen, you know? And I just said, okay, well, I'm just letting everybody know that like, yeah, I'm going to come. Like, my role is still to be with you in active labor, but I still am going to come often, you know, and just check in, check out, make sure the room and the environment are good, but, but I'm not going to sleep at the house.

Right, right, right.

Now stick with us for the very next episode on the birth story podcast of daddy bootcamp. These three dads are continuing their birth stories and discussing their transitions to fatherhood.

Thank you for listening to birth story, Michael, if you will walk away from each episode with a clear picture of how labor and delivery might go and that you will feel empowered by the end of your pregnancy to speak up plan and prepare for the birth you want, no matter what that looks like.