Our Birth Story! (with Peter)

This week Peter joins me for a special audio-only episode as we share the full story of the day Andie was born - what we expected, what surprised us, and what the experience was actually like from both of our perspectives.

We walk through how labor started, what contractions really felt like, the moments that stood out most to each of us, and what those first hours meeting her were like together. It’s one of the biggest days of our lives, and we’re so excited to finally share the story with you!! 

Audio note: A few moments in this episode may sound slightly fuzzy due to tornado-related internet disruptions in our area during recording. Thanks for your patience with us!

Website: hanaostapchuk.com

Instagram: @hanaostapchuk

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Hey everyone, welcome into Hey Hannah. I'm your host, Hannah Ostopta Krause, joined by my husband Peter. Say hello. Oh, you're kinda like it. What? What do you mean? What was I bad at before?

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Bad at it, you're just getting really good at it. It's like I'm starting to recognize your lean in it.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Uh very consistent.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Oh, thanks, Bo. Yeah. Um, we are podcasting audio only today, even though I really had high hopes for recording us. I even have makeup on this morning, just coincidentally, from Thanks. Um, but lo and behold, we had a tornado warning in Madison at like midnight last night.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Well, I'm on the dot, our phones went off with an extremely loud alert.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

The irony is that I was already awake. Your alarm went off and I was standing, like your tornado warning went off, and I was standing above the bassinet, and it scared the living daylights out of me.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I was calmly woke up, said let's go to the basement.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Um but yeah, I we I bring that up because there's no internet now. The there were no tornadoes, but I think the whole city is redoing its internet right now because everyone's lost it in chunks.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

So there's 80 mile per hour wind still. Like th there's no, I guess, like confirmed tornado landings.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

But the winds were so crazy that a lot of branches and trees knocked out some power, I guess, and some spectrum lines, however, that works.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Living in the dark ages again.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

You know what that reminded me of, and this is full circle with our whole podcast today, is one of the times that I went to the hospital right before Andy was born. Remember, um, the winds were so intense. Oh yeah. The first time it was Friday the 13th. Oh, yeah. And an alarm started going off in the house because the winds were so intense. Some water may have gotten it was like four in the morning and there was an alarm going off, and I thought and it was Friday the 13th.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

And I was Oh, this is the day because the winds are like blowing in the or blowing out the old and blowing in the new.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

What's that song that's like winds in the east? I don't know what that is, but it's a spooky song. That's what I was thinking of, and I was like, I I joked that I wanted my daughter to be born on Friday the 13th, up until that moment. And I was like, I can't have her. I can't have her today.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

The only person I've ever met that likes the 13th. I love the Friday the 13th, specifically.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

I love the 13th.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Well, so you were born on the 13th.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Yeah, and I always tell people I was born on Friday the 13th. Like, I don't know why I say that. I want them to think I'm like a weirdo. Um then I wasn't. I was born on a Sunday. Anyways, we're not here to talk about my birth. We're here to talk about the birth of our beautiful daughter, Andy. Peter, how funny is it that right after we finished podcasting the last episode, I gave birth like a day or two later. Isn't that wild?

SPEAKER_00 2:58

I'm not gonna lie, the last month are all just a blur. I don't I can't believe it. It's been four and a half weeks now. Yeah, four and a half weeks.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Uh it feels like it's been twenty-four hours.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

It has.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Uh like an endless twenty-four hours. I'm exhausted. I am over the moon, happy and excited. It's yeah. It was a sleeping baby and a sleeping dog next to us. Either one of them could wake at any second and make a ton of noise.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Yeah, if we're talking quietly, it's with purpose.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Usually what happens is Daisy gets startled because she's going deaf by the sound of nothing, starts barking like crazy, wakes up the baby, then the baby starts crying, and then it's all over.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

And then Peter and I start crying.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

And I was like, I need to go to bed.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Um So yeah, we're here to tell our birth story. Everyone says you forget it. Do you feel like you forgot it?

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Not yet. But it hasn't been at like the front of my mind because I've been thinking about nothing but like in the moment. And it's funny, people have always said to me, in like their how do I say, like motivation for life and success. Don't look ahead, don't think backwards, just be in the moment.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

I don't think that ever rings more true unintentionally than at this stage of this child's life.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Oh, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Because you're so in the moment of just like, why is she crying? Does she need to be changed? Does she need to be fed? Why am I so tired all the time? What can I do to get this child to go back to sleep so I can go to sleep? Like you're literally just living in the moment, so present.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

That I can't believe that the past has already happened in a month and a half, month and a week.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

And that, yeah, I'm I'm like looking forward to the future, but I'm just trying to soak up it.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

It's true. I'm trying to soak up the moment. And everybody says the newborn stage goes by so fast. And it really has. We already we bought a bunch of premium clothes for her because that first week she wouldn't fit into anything newborn. And now she barely fits into the newborn stuff. We're like, by the way, when that happens, whenever she's getting bigger, people are like, she's getting so big. I take it as like a badge of honor. I'm like, thank you. Thank you so much. I'm putting in hours of work, of physical labor.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

I love a chunky baby.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Who wants a skinny baby? Everybody wants it.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Chunky in the face right now. Yeah. You got a big old head.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

She's starting to get those like real juicy neck rolls, though. I love them.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Like moving down her body.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Her belly's still super lame.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Anyways, okay. So let's go ahead and start from the beginning here. And that's starting with the Thursday before she was born. But this is his first hospital trip. I had my 39-week OBGYN appointment. And I went in on Thursday morning with my mom. Peter didn't even come with me because he had a busy day. And it was like a standard appointment, whatever. Yeah. I wasn't even at 39 weeks yet. I was like a day early for that. I go into that appointment, and I'm telling him, like, I'm pretty positive my water broke last night because like Wednesday night, because I was leaking constantly. And it was just like, you know, when you're that pregnant, there's just like suspicious things happening. You're like, I don't really know what's going on. You can't really see much. And everything feels weird anyway. So you're just like, you don't know what's going on. So I said that to the doctor. He did like a little test and he concluded that there's a large chance my water did break and that I need to go to the hospital to in order to get additional testing. So and he's like, there's no rush. It's not like you started contracting, whatever. Like, take your time. So I call Peter, I tell you, where were you? No, okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Were you freaking out?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

No.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Do you have anything to say?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

My mind is blank. Um is that? Uh yeah, no, actually, as soon as you said that, I went into like, okay, action mode. So I called my parents, said, I think it's happening. I'm taking Daisy out to you guys.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Brought Daisy out there, came back, started to put the car seat together.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Uh, oh my gosh, because sorry, everyone, we had not had our car seat. We had it ready, but it just wasn't in the car yet. That means it's not ready.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Pulled it out of the box. Oh, this is nice. I'm gonna put it on the floor. We've got like the little nursery area fully set, but everything else.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

No, it was really just the car seat. Yeah. And it's because we kept changing our minds on a car seat.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah, we were gonna return that one and get another one. Yeah. So I took Daisy out to my parents' house, came back home, started to pack the overnight bag. That's what it was. That was not packed. So I started putting together the overnight bag.

unknown 7:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

And that's when you called and said that you basically had like a false positive.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Uh they there's like no conclusive uh evidence that you had broken your water at the hospital, they said.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Yeah. So from my point of view, after I left the OBGYN, I went and got a huge order of pancakes from the original pancake house with my mom. It was like the one thing I wanted. I was like, if I'm gonna go to the hospital right now, I want a stack of pancakes. So we did that. Then we went to the hospital. And yeah, they put you in triage and you're just sort of waiting for a long time. They do the exact same testing and they decide, like, you know, we can't really tell. You have to just go home and continue laboring and see where this goes. So that was upsetting. I think I was a little bit dilated at that point. Like I was one centimeter dilated, which was like nothing.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

So said it could be upwards of like a week at that amount and have no change.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Yes. So then go home. I was so stressed though. It felt like a lot.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah. At this point, we had like said, okay, we're checked out. Yeah. I had just wiped everything from my calendar. Like I had a full day Thursday, full day Friday. I just cleared off the entire schedule at that point.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Which thank God you did.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

And then Thursday night, that's why it's like Thursday night was when it was winds in the east. It was like a crazy storm Friday the 13th. Um, I started having contractions that morning. I already the wind was so insane that I it had woken me up. But then my contractions were coming minutes apart. And they were painful, but they weren't unbearable. Like they were just uncomfortable. I couldn't sleep through them. So what did I do? I woke up, went back to the hospital, went back to triage. They put me through the same song and dance. At that point, I think I was three centimeters dilated.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

And um they said, you have two options. You can either stay here and get what's it called?

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Uh well, they would induce you that night.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

You can leave.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

And then come back, and we'll probably still induce you if you want at night. Or you can just wait it out entirely. Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

So I was so exhausted. I was like, I think I just want to be induced. But then once I talked to Peter, we thought about it and we were like, she's coming soon. Let's just not rush this.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah, we're already a week early at this point. But like there's no signs of distress, there's nothing abnormal. Why would we push something forward that already has a very natural, normal process to it? And so yeah, I just wanted you to take a beat, breathe it out. I the hardest thing is just understanding that you were in pain. And the pain was becoming unbearable to the point where Friday night you were up all night in immense pain and trying your best to get some sleep, trying your best to find comfortable positions, in and out of the bathtub, like trying to stay to some extent. And me just being there to like try and talk you down a little bit and say it it's happening. We don't need to rush it. This is all part of it.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Uh obviously I've never done this before, but this all seems very normal and natural to me. You're about to have a very traumatic experience to your body happen. There's gonna be major shifts in your body in order to make it happen, and those shifts are probably gonna be painful. I have no clue what you're going through, but I feel like what you are going through is pretty, pretty normal. It's just wait it out, and when the time is right, you'll know. Like with everybody saying with love. Everybody's always like, when you fall in love, you'll know. When you know, you know. And I'm saying the same thing with this. You'll know. Your body's gonna be like, oh, it's friggin' time.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Everybody said that. When you know, you'll like you won't be able to breathe through the contractions. At that point, I could breathe through them. So this is now Friday night. I we had left the hospital, we decided not to be induced. We had plans to go to Peter's. I had plans. We, it's our baby. Yeah, all right. Um we're making the decisions together. Uh, we had plans to go to Peter's parents' house for dinner. So we stuck to our plan and I was like, you know what? Let's go. I need a distraction. And like, in hindsight, it's actually really funny to look back on because I was sitting at the dinner table, like full on having contrast. In labor. In labor. We're like eating pork at your parents' house. And everyone with pork.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Shout out to Quick Trip. Those were delicious. Bacon wrap, pork chops. They're delicious. Or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

And everybody's talking about like the kids' games and like how well everyone's doing. And I am in another dimension. I'm just trying to breathe through it. And it's unusually quiet then. Unusually quiet. Yeah. I I almost felt like I couldn't even finish my meal because I was so distracted. Like I was just in pain. So we go home, I take a hot bath that Peter recommended a hot bath. Totally distracted me, let me go to sleep for like 15 minutes. After that, I was up all night. I even woke up again at 3 a.m. took another hot bath, thinking this will help me. Um, but it wasn't. I was just like contracting all night. And then the contractions got more and more unbearable. And everybody said, just like what Peter said, when you know, you know. Like you know the contractions for people who were like, what the heck does that mean? Because that was me. Like I need details. I yeah. I need specifics. I'm here to tell you that it feels exactly like having a Charlie horse in your stomach, inside your uterus. And the Charlie horse gets progressively worse and it sort of freezes. That's what it felt like. So, anyways, around like 4 a.m., I actually got up and was like, screw this. I went downstairs and started watching some Bravo. Because you know me, I needed a solid distraction. Peter was asleep, and I had told him, I really want to go to the hospital. And he was like, Let's keep waiting. No matter what, she's coming, but let's keep waiting. Like, do your best. And it was actually a good pep talk. I was like, no, you're right. Because I we at that point we'd been to the hospital twice. Like I did not want to go back.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Like things weren't changing from what you had already experienced. They're just becoming more intense.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

So it's telling me like nothing dramatic is happening yet. Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

It's not like I'm the same.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

So um I I think I said, like, I'll wait till 6 a.m. And you were like, deal. So I went downstairs to watch TV because I wasn't sleeping. And then when you got up around six, my mom, who was staying with us, also got up around six. She's like, what's going on? I'm like, like, she's coming.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

We just took everything out to the car that wasn't already out there. Everybody got showered. Like we got ready for the day. Like you're just kind of sitting in it.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

I think I stayed downstairs watching Bravo and I put on whatever the heck outfit I could find and was like, let's GTFO. I was ready to go. Oh, this is a funny thing. Um, and then when we're ready to go, we're sitting by the door.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Peter said, He I had just gotten downstairs. It's been like 20 minutes at this point. It's not been like hours, and I'm hungry. Like we're about to go sit in the hospital where I know there's probably not gonna be food. And I need to give some energy to like keep you amped up, keep it going.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

No, I clown on him for this, but like I actually in the moment I was still trying to be a supportive wife because I whatever.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

The point is that he said he said Do you guys mind if I make some oatmeal real quick?

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Yeah. I looked at him like I think my eyes just closed as I turned my head towards you. And I was like, mm-hmm. I couldn't even speak. So Peter made his oatmeal really quickly, and then we left for the hospital. But it is a funny memory where like my mom and her are sitting by the door, bags packed. I'm like sitting on the stairs, breathing heavily, and Peter's like, um, I'm gonna make some oatmeal real quick. But I I honestly I I knew that you needed to eat and I needed you to be in my support system. So I was like, do what you gotta do. Do it quickly, though, you know?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

I don't know. Like my instinct was just telling me that nothing was gonna happen in the next several hours. Right. We would get to the hospital and we'd be continuing to do the same thing we're doing here, just in a hospital.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

So what was the point of like panicking and rushing? I think it almost like it was telling me to like bring down the stress of everything and just like know that life goes on, uh make some breakfast, we're gonna slowly get the car together, we're gonna walk out to the car, we're gonna drive slowly to it. Like even when your mom's like, drive faster. I was like, no.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

But you're right though, because and I knew that in theory from listening to what everyone had said about giving birth, it's like everybody said, do your best to do the as much laboring at home as possible. So even though it was annoying, I knew you were right, and I was like trying my best to listen to you, which was good. I needed you to be level headed because I wanted to do everything with haste, you know? Like I was like, let's go now.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Fast, fast is slow.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Yeah. On the car ride, I did want to kill Peter. That was like when I was getting I was almost getting emotional. I was in so much pain. Um second song. Yeah, what you put on, he put on a song. You put on the song Tumba Wumba. Like, what were you thinking?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

I get knocked down. Just to break the tension. You were getting so stressed out. It's like, this isn't good for anybody. What's like just trying to labor through it at least with a laugh? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

I wasn't laughing.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

She laughed, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Not it. At that point, I don't think I was laughing that much. But uh Did I really laugh? Yes. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

And it probably told me some choice words. I was like, we're just gonna move it in the right direction, guys. And not everything else, just change the music.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Um, at that point though, I was begging not to go back to Triage because it's simply a waiting room, right? It's like the the file department where they figure out where to put you in the hospital. We get to the hospital, I walk up to Triage, and they just said, Oh, are you Hannah? And I was like, Yes. They were like, you can go right up to OB. I was like, thank God. Because we had already called the doctor on the way. I had told her everything I was feeling, and you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Yeah. Uh your clinic for women.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Oh, Fitchburg was fantastic. They were so on top of everything with communication. There's always someone that would answer and then pass along the information to where you would show up and they would know. Uh shout out to them. They didn't.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yeah, it's called Physicians for Women. They were fantastic throughout the entire process, honestly. Okay, so now I actually I don't remember this part. We go, we get up to the hospital, we get up to the room.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Yep. I parked a car, came met you up there, doctors come in, ask a bunch of questions.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

The room was great.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Yeah, the room was really great. I felt like we're in like a a suite.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

I don't remember much about that first room. I was just laying there.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

It was big. It was really big. We had a beautiful like window looking at the other side of the hospital, but it was big and open. We got some sunshine. Um it was a TV. You turned on some we put on basketball because it's March Madness. We put on like granted it was too early for basketball to start at that point.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Because at this point, it's 8 a.m. on Saturday, yeah, the 14th.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Comes in, checks your dilation. You're now five centimeters. So they're like, okay, you're in it. This is this is happening. We're here. Uh we're going to continue to monitor things. And if things aren't progressing in two hours when we come back, uh we'll think of another plan. Basically.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

When I remember, we decided to go for a walk because everyone said the contractions feel better if you walk.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah. Yeah. We started walking around the hall.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

So we started walking around the hospital. I think we only went down two hallways, and I kept having to stop and lean on the railing.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

And then we found out that's why the railings were in this portion of the hall.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Oh, it's just crazy.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Or the leopard grabbed the wheel pretty much. That was so cool.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Peter was doing this thing where he was pushing my pelvis. Yeah, my back. I don't even know what you're doing. It was really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Anyone who was going into labor have It basically like you hinged over and I pushed your pelvis from like either side of your upper butt cheek towards your spine and tried to like pull together and push up to help rotate your pelvis open. Yeah. I don't know if that works. It seemed to work right.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

It it worked. It was whatever it was, it was like a distraction too. Like he was pushing on my back. So it was like it would stop me from thinking deeply about my contractions. But I remember we went for a walk and every two seconds it seemed like we had to stop because I had a contraction and we were against the wall.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

That part I actually think when I think back was the worst pain I was in. Like that was the peak pain. I was always on the fence about getting an epidural, literally for no reason other than the fact that like my mom didn't get one. Our, you know, a lot of our parents' generations didn't get one. I've sort of been like, do I need one? Like I don't, I've never been in that, I've never had the feeling of a contraction before. So how will I know? Like I never had a birth plan, quote unquote. I just was always like, I'll decide when I get there based on how much pain I'm in. You know? So I decided to get the update. When we got back from that walk, I was like, okay, you can call anesthesiologist.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

I left at that point.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

You had left to go get a sandwiches for you and my mom. That's what it was. Which was good because we were at that point, it was like noon one o'clock. That's right. We've been there for a while.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Um Lake Size Freak.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Peter comes back. I waited for him to get the epidural. He comes back and we start the epidural process. You said that that was scary to watch. I obviously had no idea what was happening.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Uh yeah, like they're sticking a needle into your spine, the most important nerve of your body. Uh, if it goes down, everything below it goes down.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

I also was trepidatious about the epidural for that reason exactly. I'm nervous about needles, the concept of a needle going into my spine.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

I know it's like so standard procedure and it's not risky at all, but there's something about it that always like we have a personal friend who had an epidural, and a few days after giving birth, she realized something wasn't right. Uh, I can't remember. She's like basically like bedridden. She couldn't get up, couldn't stand up, couldn't go to the bathroom on her own, anything like that. And come to find out that they had created a little tiny puncture that continued to bleed from the epidural.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

And that was causing some issues that they had to like go in there and close it up somehow, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

It was like an air bubble. Is that what it was? Yeah, in her spine.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

The risks are so minimal.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

But there's risks. And it just scared me because it was still something that's like newer, if you will, in uh like our medical capabilities. That I was just like trusting this complete stranger to do what they've been taught. To do and like you're not gonna screw it up.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

The epidural part was difficult because you're still having these super painful contractions, but you're sitting upright and someone has a giant needle in your back and you can't see them, you don't know what's happening. But I could gather that there was like tension in the room, and it just like your body's contracting and you're shaking, and then you know this needle is going into your spine. Like you're like, oh my god, you're like trying not to freaking move while you're having these painful moments. So that part was interesting. And then afterwards, I think it eased the tension in me for a little bit until I realized that it didn't fully take. Um so weirdly enough, I got like a double dose on my left side.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Well, no, you got basically just a single dose on your left side. It had only taken on the one side. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

I got a double dose on my right side, and I got nothing on my left. That's how it felt. It felt like I had nothing happening on my left side. Yeah. Because I still felt everything. You could have cut my right leg off, I wouldn't have noticed. It was so numb.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

At first, you had just the one dose. It took on your right side, not on your left side. You told that to them, and then they gave the option like we can either just move forward or we can try again, or we can pull the like the the needle back a little bit and inject this other solution that is like twice as strong pretty much. And so we chose to do that, and what that did was knock out your right side entirely.

unknown 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

And your left side was unaffected. And so you were getting like you could like I had to hold your leg on the right side the entire time because you had no control of it to where your left was like kicking free.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Nothing changed.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Yeah, they were like, wiggle your toes. Like I could wiggle my toes on my left side. I could still feel all the contractions on my left side. And I was laying on my left side, like really hoping that it somehow would just transfer over, but it never did. Um and I remember I called my cousin because his head of anesthesia in Florida, and he was like, Oh, you need to have them do it again. And at that point, I was like, I'm so tired.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

I don't even I don't want to now we're thinking like a third shot.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Yeah, a third shot.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

I was like, it we've already like done this twice. There's risk both times.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yeah. At that point, I was like, will I ever get feeling in my right leg again? I was so numb. Peter was helping me push, like holding my right leg up. And at one point, if he he like let go of my leg, my whole leg like fell off the bed. Like I had no control over it. I really could have sunk a cruise. Anyways, how long until that did we start pushing?

SPEAKER_00 24:35

That was at like 10 30, probably. And maybe 11. You start pushing at one o'clock.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

Okay, so this got funny because the date was obviously 314, which is known as pie day.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

The pie number is 314-159-26.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

Peter was obviously looking this up.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

And obviously, it's 2026. So I'm thinking to myself, it's 314. If this baby is born at 159, 159 on 2026, it's like uh it's the perfect baby. It's it's like the baby that can never be replicated, just like Pi. So I was rooting for 159. And they're like, Peter, a lot's gonna have to happen in the next two hours, basically, for this to happen. I was like, never say never.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

The spoiler alert, I did not make it to 159. We 1 p.m. Yeah, we pushed for for many hours. So three hours. I thought it was crazy when you started pushing, everyone left. Like everyone was in there checking on you. And the whole time we had this nurse named Jory who we were obsessed with. She was so freaking sweet. Okay. She was checking on us the whole time. Um, and then she was like, Okay, it's time to start pushing. And everybody left the room. And it was just me, Peter, my mom was there too, and Jory. And she's like, So this is the fun part where we spend all this time working together, and then everybody will come in at the last minute and take all the credit. And I thought it was so funny because she was right. Everybody, everybody exited. Yeah. And we were able to put on some music, which we struggled with, by the way. If you are planning to give birth anytime soon, take time to make a playlist. Because Peter and I didn't, and we kept being like, no, this isn't the vibe, and then changing it and being like, no, this isn't the vibe. We ended up with our classical like jazz music, which is what we always listen to. I don't know why we didn't start with that, but I was interested in I was putting on some worship music.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

And yeah, the worship music threw me off.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

I was like, it's not doing it for me on the I just needed to be in that spirit. Um, but that music was it was almost too intense. Like I needed something that was just really calm. And I told everyone this, but the minute we started pushing, I weirdly started to enjoy myself. Like it's because it gives you something to do during the contractions, you feel like okay, I'm doing something now. I'm actually putting forth some effort, like I'm working on this. Whereas during contractions, everyone's like, breathe, just breathe through it. And you have nothing to do but just like freaking sit there and hold your breath. So the pushing felt like I was doing something positive. And I don't know, it almost made me feel like I was doing like a workout. Like I was like, okay, go. Like it gave me action, an action item that I could work towards.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah. I I thought it was cool that you continue to like learn as you went. We didn't do any of the laws classes, the books on like how to push and all that kind of stuff you hadn't really done. So we were kind of figuring it out together, plus the help of Jory. And the doctors would still come in from time to time and check on you and check like dilation and check on fetal heart rate, all that stuff. And uh the baby's heart rate dropped a couple times, so there's a little bit of like concern during those times. The doctors wanted to like make sure everything's okay. But you were learning how to push, like what what muscles were being engaged? Where did you hold your rib cage? How did you open your legs? We tried knees in, knees out. Like you were you were doing this for three hours.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Yeah, we kept switching positions.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Yeah, tried on your side a few times, both sides. One side really worked, one side didn't work at all.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Yeah. Yeah. That was so interesting. My personal favorite part of the pushing experience was the fact that, like, I would say, probably about an hour into pushing, Jory, the nurse that I just mentioned, somehow brought up Bravo. I don't know how she brought it up. She brought up that she watched Bravo.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Can't alarm.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

And I was like, wait, you watch it? And she was like, Yeah, are you caught up on Summer House? And we just went into talking about everything. We talked about all the details of Summer House, our thoughts and feelings on every person. Same with Beverly Hills, then same with New York. Like we just kept going to the point where Peter was like, You guys are speaking the other language.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

I'm watching the monitor this whole time. Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys. There's a contraction happening. Can't wait, please put.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

It was so distracting. It was it was great. But yeah, that that like took off some edge. And then I think Yeah, she was awesome. She was awesome. And my mom turned the TV off as soon as we started pushing, and I was like, no, no, put the TV back on.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Like the Badgers were in the uh Big Ten championship game against Michigan. So that's in the background. The doctor comes in. It's so funny. Doctor's like looking at you and then looking back at the TV while talking to you and watching the game and continuing to talk to you, look back at you.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

I was like, I like didn't mind. I'm so yeah, I'm so that way that I'm like when my mom tried to turn the TV off. I was like, put it back on. Like I I didn't care who was playing. It literally could have been like a Super Mario movie. I wouldn't have noticed. I just needed the distraction of movement.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Um we were one of only two families, if you will, in that wing of the hospital that whole day until like long after you had given birth, did some other people start to show up. But basically it was all hands on deck for you. No one else was really getting any assistance at that point. We had heard a baby, we think, being born around 11 a.m. I want to say. We heard the screams and then we heard the baby cry. Yeah. Which was awesome. And like that gave me the chills. Like, oh, this is happening. This is the place. It's like it's happening right next door.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Uh but other than that, like everybody was in there with us, they're checking on us. There was students coming in left and right.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

He didn't give a rip who was in there. By the way, Taylor Swift could have walked in herself. I would have been like, hi, I can't talk to you. Feel free to stay and chit-chat, but I can't see. Yeah, the there were students who came in. Peter's mom came in.

unknown 30:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

I just like in for the birth.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

So she came in at hour two and stayed for the last hour of it, which was really cool.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

Yeah, I I was odd and faced. I really it didn't matter to me who was in there. Um dad sent out the waiting room.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

I guess he my dad said he could hear everything happening because he was just outside the door pretty much. And then it got to a point where there's a lot of silence, and he's like, okay, the baby must be here. But that's when like the transition happened of they're they're at a point where they know like the the nurses and doctors say, like, okay, the baby's gonna be born with the next couple pushes.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

All of a sudden they clear the room and they all come flooding back in with a bunch of like suits on and a like a bag that all the body fluids go into. They drop the end of the bed and all of a sudden, like you're right off the end of the bed.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

I couldn't even see any of this. I had at that point, four hours in of pushing, three hours in of pushing. I um had started dozing off in between contractions. Like I was so sleepy. You're getting tired at that point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

You start trying to get juice to get your up.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Yes, they had to go get me orange juice and apple juice. Peter came in clutch with these moments, and we had talked about this before, but I was like, I cannot make decisions during the hospital visit. So Peter was the one being like, hey guys, she looks a little low energy. Like, let's get some stuff for her blood sugar. Like, what can we give her?

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

So I think I ate like a popsicle, um, and I had some apple juice. Maybe I ate the popsicle afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

He had apple juice. Apple juice. Yeah. Apple juice just gave you a shot of blood sugar and you were right back in it.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

And he Peter kept like every time I had a thought that was like, oh, I could use another sip, you somehow knew and you're like, guys, where's the apple juice? She needs another one. Okay, good thing. Yeah, we did. Um, Peter was holding my leg and then he was rotating holding my other leg. At some points he was standing behind me, at some points he was standing in front. Like, I don't think did you purposely decide if you were gonna see or not see anything?

SPEAKER_00 32:16

As I started uh like early, early on in the process when I saw from like the the lower half up what was happening, I was like, I'm just I'm gonna be here when it happens. Like I want to see it all happen.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Uh how weird was it to see that? I couldn't see anything, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Well, it got to a point where my biggest worry is I just didn't want to watch you tear. Yeah. That scared the shit out of me for many reasons. Like I I just couldn't stand to see you in that amount of pain and trauma. And I just didn't want that memory to be baked into my mind. So I made a joke. I was gonna wear a mask because other men in my life had told me about how smelly it could get, especially if you were to sh poop yourself.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Uh in this moment. And so I said I was gonna wear a mask, and you like ripping anyone.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

I ripped him anyone. I was like, if you wear a mask, you can frickin' leave.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

I didn't wear a mask. And I'm glad I didn't, and I was just watching the whole process.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

And by the way, I did not, this is TMI, but I did not poop, right? No, um which I thought was weird. I also did not tear, but the pooping, the pooping thing, I have to say this, just for girls, I'm so sorry, this is like all a lot. But a few days before I gave birth, one of Peter's best friends, Anna, at the gym, said to me, You'll know you're gonna go into labor because you're either gonna feel like you're gonna poop your pants or you're gonna vomit. And I remember being like, Great, thanks so much. So excited for that. But I told her, I saw her like a week after giving birth. And um, I told her, I was like, you were spot on because that morning when I was downstairs watching Bravo, I ran to the bathroom like twice and went to the bathroom. And I remember thinking, oh, maybe Anna's right. Like maybe she is, like maybe this is happening soon. So yeah, I was an empty tank by the time we went to the hospital.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

It was for the best.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

It was for the best.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Yeah. So then the baby's head started to become visible and it was just like a black dot. And we realized the black dot was because she had a head of hair.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

Full head of hair.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

We're talking like it was looking like a like a stuffed teddy bear was coming out.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

I had heartburn, but dang, I didn't know it was that bad.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Yeah, come out and go back in. And we're by coming out, I mean, like become visible, not visible, more visible, not visible, more visible, not visible. And that was so wild to watch with each push how she just got closer and closer to the exit and then got to a point, like two hours into it, I would say, where she was two and a half hours into it, she was just like stuck. You could see that her head was crowning. Her head was there's like a maybe like a one and a half inch wide, two inch wide circle uh sticking out of your birth canal and full head of hair. And every time the doctor would like stick his fingers in there to try and assist and pull things apart a little bit, he'd come back out and a length of hair like two inches long would come with and just stay sticking out. So you had like a troll's head of hair. Sticking out.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

What's funny is she still has that hair. It's like her hair sticks straight up. So funny.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

You finally got to the point like, okay, if we can't get through this canal, like we'll have to try some other things. And that's when you started flipping side to side and all kind of things like you're crushing the baby's head. Like every time you lay on your side, the baby's being squished. But she would start to come out a little bit further with certain angles. Um, and then they're finally like, okay, you're getting the most power on your back.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Let's stay there. Yeah, that was the easiest laboring position for me. Every other one was like a mind game. Like I had to really internalize. They were like, think of this. And they tell you all these different tools to think of while you're pushing to help. It's sort of like a workout. Like when you're working out your glutes, you have to think of your glutes, right? So it's that same process of like trying to think of these ways that they're telling you in the moment. And it's but it's hard when you're flipping positions and you're like, you know, you're also pushing for your freaking life.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

You got to a point where you were you had been pushing three big pushes, dropping it down to two big pushes and all your effort. And then there's a couple times where the doctor like encouraged you to go into a third and you just had no energy.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Like you're pushing so hard in those first two. And that's when the baby's head finally like peaked out. And I would say she was like almost to her like her her eyebrows. And that's when like all things changed. Okay, like she's coming with the next couple pushes. So they they cleared everything.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

And all the doctors come rushing in.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Rushing in, like full garb, sleeves, masks, all that kind of stuff, like fully ready.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

Yeah, what were you thinking at that point?

SPEAKER_00 36:39

I was like, oh shit, okay, it's happening. Like this is this is it. Like this is exciting. This is that part was so like really, really cool.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

That part was so cool because it was like, oh my gosh, we're do we're doing it. It's it's like finally. And I like No, no, it was it was like two more push-ups.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

And then she just shot out into the doctor's hands. Yeah. Immediately picked her up and she immediately started to cry. She immediately took a deep breath, and her arms are kind of like up by her shoulders, and her legs are kind of like wailing. Yeah, like kind of like jiggling around.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

And she's just this skinny little light pink blue baby. And her hair was so matted and curly. Uh we both had like, whose baby is this?

SPEAKER_02 37:26

We do not have curly hair. So we were like, what?

SPEAKER_00 37:28

But obviously it was from all of the talking about like, is this from like my dad's side of the family? Like, they have some pretty curly hair.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Yeah, my mom's hair is a little curly. So we're like, maybe she has my mom's hair. But then of course, once we gave her a bath way, way later, we realized her hair was stick straight.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

No, it's as soon as she came out, it was like the floodgates opened. Like, it's like all of our energies got sucked out of her body, and we both just broke down.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Oh my God, we were sobbing.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Sobbing. Like I said, I was unconcerned with anyone or anything else in that room at that moment. I was just like eyes fixated on this baby. She's crying. She's perfect. Like I just I was ball.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

We both were bawling. And what's funny is my mom had her phone all up in us, like all up in our faces during the birth, which I didn't I don't remember. But when Peter and I went back and looked at some of the photos my mom took, you just see Peter and I from the worst angles ever, like sobbing uncontrollably. Yeah, these will never see the light of day. They're so funny. Um, but yeah, the umbilical cord was a little short. So when they pulled her out, they, you know, they normally put her on your chest. She didn't make it to the chest. She just like, she was sort of sitting on my stomach. And I was so emotional, but I was like, hello, can I hold my baby? It was like, where's my baby? Like I was trying to hold her.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

That's the thing about how the umbilical cord should stay on for a while. Yeah. And you should try and like hang out with the baby on your chest while the umbilical cord's still there.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

And then cut it off when it's white. And I'm like, the umbilical cord's already white.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

So right from the very start, I was like, obviously, I don't know what I'm talking about. So whatever you guys want to do, I trust you, you just do what you gotta do. And I don't know if it was five minutes, ten minutes, thirty seconds later.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

I think it was I think it was like one minute into her being alive. I think so. It's pretty quick.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

They said, Do you want to cut the umbilical cord? In my head, I'm like, it seems too fast.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Yeah. But this is why I say having a birth plan is like you might as well take it and throw it out the window because you have no idea. Like, how was I supposed to know that my umbilical cord would be really short? So in order to hold the baby, little.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Like it was very skinny.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Was it?

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

In order to hold the baby, he had to cut it in order to put the baby on my actual chest and not on my stomach. Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Um But it was like cutting through a dense rubber hose. Very very low.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

It's also fascinating to me that I can't feel that. Like that thing was living in my body for I know. It's crazy.

unknown 39:54

Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

That was tricky, though. I was like, am I gonna hurt her? Should I cut this? What if I miss the spot? Like, how am I gonna miss this spot that they've sectioned off that's like three inches long? Like, I'm gonna miss it. I'm gonna chop off her leg. Like, what if I actually cut off the baby's leg? It was everything in your head, my head just went to shit in that moment. And it all began. It was like, and now the overthinking of everything that I do has begun.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

Yeah. And here we are, 30 days later. I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

45 minutes seeing if she's breathing.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Um God, so where do we go from here? Baby was born great times. She was born six pounds, six ounces.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Yeah. Twenty inches long.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Twenty inches long.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

Seventeen inches.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

Yeah, her feet are the size of her shit. Yeah, the size of her.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Which is also an excellent ankle uh flexion. I'm very impressed.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

Yeah, Peter was like, I wish my ankles could do that.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

Wait, I could squat if my ankle did that.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

How long until they moved us into the other room?

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Ooh, good question.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

I don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

A couple hours, I would say. I think they kind of like let us hang out at that point. Put you guys both on monitors.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

There was no one else in the hospital at that point. We were the only ones.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

The baby was cold. They said the baby's temperature was low at that point, which like obviously made me a little nervous. So we had to warm her up. So we did some skin to skin and that helped a lot. We both did some skin to skin for a while. That really helped. Uh my dad came in, so now it's your mom, my mom, dad, all hanging out. Everybody held the baby. Uh dad didn't hold the baby, but he was there checking it out.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

I later asked you if any point was scary for you, and you said there were two times that were scary, and you said one was the epidural and two was the placenta.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Yeah, so now all the baby is like in your arms and you're having your like skin to skin time. They started to remove the placenta, and there's blood just coming out of you the whole time. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to be like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

I don't do well with blood, and I did peak, and I was like, nope, can't look, because it seemed to me like an in an insane amount.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

And then I made the mistake of watching that show as we talked about in a previous podcast. Oh, yeah. Like before your birth. And uh it shows a woman dying because she has preclampsia. And so I'm shitting my pants the whole time that they're cutting this, and I'm just fixated on that, making sure I'm asking a ton of questions. Like, is this okay? Is this okay? Is that normal?

SPEAKER_02 42:22

These science, is that that's also I just have to say that that show, the reason why she died wasn't because of that. It was actually because it was like post-apocalyptic times. She was not. It's from the show Medical Help. It's from the show Paradise. It was like it was a drama. Ruin it. Whatever. Anyways. I just don't want people with proclamsia thinking like the world is ending. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, no. Like it was it was purely a dramatic moment for um a post-apocalyptic.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Yes. Um that was scary. But then it was all done and fine, and they said everything looks like a little suture. That was it.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

Because you had to push the placenta out, which I my friends had warned me, like, by the way, just so you know, when you're done pushing the baby, you don't have to you're not done pushing. You're gonna have to push your placenta out. And I was like, what? But it actually came right out, it wasn't that bad. The crazier part was the amount of like pushing they would do on your stomach afterwards, which is so bizarre as someone who was pregnant 30 seconds ago. I couldn't even lay on my stomach or like, you know, put any pressure on my stomach for long. And then suddenly you have all these doctors pushing heavily on your stomach, trying to get all the excess fluid out. I was like, whoa, it was the weirdest sensation. And they're like pushing on a waterbed, and then like fluid is just like pull pushing out of it. It was crazy. Another funny part is once we got into the upstairs room. So they take us upstairs. We're in this like nice room that we'll be in for a few days. Yeah. Um, we also had a great experience in that room. I've heard a lot of people. say that like once you get to once you leave the actual room where you give birth, it starts to become very hospital-like and like clustered and sort of gross. Um but our experience was not that way.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Like beautiful suite it's not with a view of the city.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

A blizzard was happening. There were not a lot of people at the hospital. At that point, yeah the blizzard had fully started yeah and it was just like a quiet No it was snowing.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

We told your mom to go home because the blizzard was coming and she's from Florida and we didn't want her driving in the snow. So we sent her home and sure sure enough that night we got I think it was 11 inches of snow.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Which was so cool.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

So we woke up on Sunday morning to just like a full snow globe. We woke up about six times that's true.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

His screaming babies that Sarah nurse in the second phase.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Yeah she was also excellent.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Yeah she came and took the babies twice that night and just allowed us to sleep in like an hour and 45 minutes or two hours what it was of sleep that we got like allowed us to recharge I felt like a new human yeah so I didn't even finish what I was saying before.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

I'll come back to that in a minute because I'm gonna say what I'm gonna add on to what you just mentioned. I had a friend tell me her biggest regret was not allowing the night nurse to take the baby so her and her husband could sleep. You know, there's so many articles about like don't let anyone take your baby it's so important that you stay with that baby. In the moment it was like two in the morning and obviously Peter and I hadn't slept. She was like do you want me to take the baby for an hour, 45 minutes, an hour and a half while they sleep and get them to sleep. And I was like yes, do it. And it was great it was the only time Peter and I had to fully just like reset and relax and not be so worried because those first 12 hours you were like are they breathing? What is their left eyelid doing are there is there enough oxygen coming through their nose? Like you're on super speed. So the only way for you to sleep comfortably is to have that is to have the baby almost like in the hands of a qualified person out of your eyesight. Because if if they're in your eyesight you're gonna be worried you know so yeah like when she came back in bouncing her bouncing her in the most I don't want to say aggressive way, just like the most intense way of like is this concerning?

SPEAKER_00 46:17

I trust this person, but should I be allowing this to happen?

SPEAKER_02 46:21

Yeah and Andy loved it.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

And he immediately calmed out that's what she's doing.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

The second part of what I was going to say is before that night even began um I was talking about the placenta and everything and the changes in your body after giving birth I stood up for the first time. Yes I stood up for the first time to go to the bathroom once we got up to that room I was like I really need to pee. I mean feeling like maybe 75% I stood up and I'm not kidding it was like Niagara Falls we peed everywhere and we're talking like gallons. I peed everywhere I didn't even know that it was Pete we thought it was water and then Peter is the one who's walking me to the bathroom and he goes oh no that's Pete Oh I smelled it so bad. Oh my god those moments after birth are so humbling because your body is still just not yours. It's like you're a machine and you have no idea what's going on. But yeah at this point we also didn't even have a name yet.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

No not for like almost 48 hours.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

We went back and forth on two names. We were between what her name is which is Anderson nickname Andy and a couple others and a couple others.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

They wrote on the board and then the night nurse told us that they were having bets.

SPEAKER_02 47:39

They kept coming in saying like okay so we have two more votes for this one or three more votes for this one and then they got so bored the next night because the blizzard was in full swing. And no one was there. No one was there that they started looking up in the system how many names were born of our options within that year. And so there were no Andersons.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

There was not a single female Anderson within their records.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

Yeah there was Andes.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

Yeah but there were only like three Andes in the past like oh in the hospital they're like no in our entire database which was I believe all epic system. Yeah which is hundreds of thousands if not millions.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

That was so fun and so nice of them. Yeah my mom came in with donuts the next day for us to give to the nurses.

SPEAKER_00 48:29

From Greenbush bakery yeah those were good I ate every meal in that hospital. I They were like sir you can order only one meal per person. I'm like I'm hungry I eat two meals he was trying to order I could pay eight dollars for an extra meal I couldn't get another one. I was like can I just pay eight more dollars like man so then I went down to the cafeteria that one time and they had like the lunch meat set out so you could make your own sandwiches. I put probably a pound of lunch meat on this one sandwich and brought it up and it was seven dollars like why I've been wasting eight dollars on all these other meals that I needed two of I could have been doing this. So I ate a cold slightly frozen turkey sandwich that was about three inches thick.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

I'm sure that was delicious. It's actually quite good. Um yeah the food was tough I was freaking starving oh my gosh. The craziest part after giving birth is that you go through this like insanely traumatic experience on your body and then they just like tell you to whip your boob out and begin breastfeeding. Yeah. And you're like what? It's like you need a minute to collect yourself and then that's motherhood and then you're just in it for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

I think it was funny how you said and then they just let you leave with your baby. You don't have to check out really they do some paperwork. They tell you about the birth certificate and the social security number they kind of give you that information I would say. Yeah. And that was it. They they they do a lactation consultant there in the hospital.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Uh someone showed us how to swaddle. Someone showed us how to change it.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

Yeah everybody was so nice. Oh that was really good and helpful and oh the funniest part is that if we go back to that first OB appointment I had on the Thursday before where my doctor said I think your water is broken. You should go to the hospital I stopped and got pancakes the whole bit that doctor was on call on Sunday when we were checking out I'm sorry on Monday when we were checking out he comes in meets the baby he's like I knew it he goes so your water was broken. Did they tell you that? Like he's like it was leaked it was there was a tear in it it was leaking it wasn't like a big break and I was like oh because we skipped that part they did break my water in the hospital. They had to like use some weird thing to break physically break my water. Okay. Um he's like they couldn't see it from that angle but it had a leak in it towards the top so you weren't crazy. And I was like you're Rika. Thank you so much, sir. I really appreciate it. Taking her home from the hospital was funny because there was a whole blizzard and we were like going the slowest we've ever driven.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

All the times to have a blizzard is the biggest snow we had the entire year. Why today as we have a brand new precious baby in it.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

Although I'm grateful she she didn't like wait a day because then we would have had to drive to the hospital in the blizzard. I would have rather drive home from it.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

Together I would say it was a incredible experience. Like everybody kept asking how it went I was like it could not have gone any better went well everybody is healthy everybody is happy it it was as perfect as I could imagine it being it's just the coolest process. Now we're in it because now there's no one to take her in the middle of the night except for us.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

And that first week was the first week was brutal but it actually No the first three days I would say were brutal.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

Because by the end of the week I was almost bracking to people of like she's actually only waking up twice a night. She like feeds and goes back to bed it's great. Like we're sleeping.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

And then as soon as that first week was over it flipped.

SPEAKER_02 51:57

And that's when it was my friends told me that they were like when your baby turns two weeks they will come alive. Yeah. And that was when it happened it was she just decided I don't like anything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:12

That's been that way ever since it's getting better.

SPEAKER_02 52:16

We're starting to figure her out I think she's starting to figure herself out we've had just a few bad days where she was super gassy and really difficult to for us to figure out how we could help her. Um like that was scary you know the first time your baby is clearly in distress you're like trying to do everything to fix it. But we were saying last night the more time passes, the easier it gets in a sense because we know her more we're like we're getting to know her more and obviously she changes so much, but we know her sounds now and we know when she's tired or hungry or when she needs her diaper changed all of that. So that process is getting a little bit easier. But it's just the greatest thing in the world.

SPEAKER_00 52:57

It is fantastic. It truly is the best thing.

SPEAKER_02 52:59

It's the best thing ever.

SPEAKER_00 53:00

Yeah we'll talk more about the baby on the next oh he's coming back.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

I gotta go I know he's gotta go eat lunch. All right well thank you for listening if you listen this far that was like a full detailed version of our birth story. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you soon. Bye for now.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

Bye bye