I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

I'm Megan Wilson. I'm a mom of four, and we live on a homestead in Texas, and I'm here to tell you about the birth of my fourth child, who was unexpectedly born in the car at 33 weeks and six days.

3333 weeks and six days. So just under 34, weeks in the car. That's a very pre term baby.

Yes, yeah, it was kind of scary, but yeah, the other thing I don't envision is you have a homestead. So to me, you don't have to really travel a lot to go anywhere. You make your own you know, you grow your own food. But ironically, I guess you were in a car for the birth.

Well, we were on the way to the hospital. We were rushing to the hospital because she was so early and I didn't know if she would be okay. So, yeah, my midwife had said that she wouldn't attend a birth that was not at 37 weeks, and she said, If labor starts, you have to go to the hospital. So that's why we were in the car. But her whole pregnancy was just so much different than my other ones, too. She had we had placenta previa with the whole beginning of the pregnancy. So for almost half of the pregnancy, I bled really heavily, which was pretty scary, because I had had a really bad miscarriage the last December. So it was pretty scary for bleeding for most of the time I was pregnant with her.

Can I stop you for a second? Yeah, who were planning a home birth with a placenta previa? Or was it a full previa or a partial previa? It

was covered by, I want to say, like, three or four centimeters, and we were just monitoring it. And once bleeding stopped, I went back and had another ultrasound, and had moved enough out of the way that I was going to be able to have a home birth. But I had had a partial placenta previa with my son, Demi, when I had last time I was on your podcast, but his wasn't as as covering, and I didn't have any bleeding with him, so it was pretty crazy how much bleeding I had with her?

Yeah. So I The important thing for everybody to know here is that placenta a lot of women are diagnosed with placenta previa and think that they can't have a vaginal birth, or they can't have a birth center birth, or many midwives will turn them away from a home birth, but more often than not, that previa moves away from the cervix and giving birth wherever you wish is a viable option.

Yeah, yeah, and the be, actually, when I was very first pregnant with her, I had, I kept having these dreams over and over again. I dreamed what her name was supposed to be. I dreamed that she was a girl, and I dreamed that she was going to be born early, which is why I had my mom planning on coming down here from Montana, four weeks early, four weeks ahead of her due date, because she wanted to be there for the birth, but she still wasn't there in time. She ended up missing it, which was pretty crazy.

We recently did a birth story interview with a mom who also had a premonition in her pregnancy that she was going to have a shoulder dystocia or a complication. I don't think she actually thought shoulder dystocia, but she thought there was going to be some significant complication, yeah, in the birth and she had a shoulder dystocia.

Yeah, it's sometimes you're just fascinating mother's, mother's intuition, but, you know, it's, the interesting thing is, it's always there's a lot of fears that mom mothers have in pregnancy too, and I don't want mothers thinking that just because they might have a fear of something that comes up in birth, that that means it's a premonition. So how did you know that that was a real premonition and not just an anxious worry?

Um, because I wasn't afraid of it when, when it was happening, or when I was dreaming it. It wasn't Um, none of the dreams were fearful. And when I'd wake up, I wasn't feeling anxious about it. Was just like, This is how it's going to be, and it was going to be fine, like I dreamed that she was healthy and what her name was going to be. And so it was never something I really worried about, but I believed it enough that I was having my mom come down early. So I thought for sure it was going to happen, but I just didn't think it was going to happen quite that that early.

I think that's an important distinction for people to understand about intuition, usually when it's a real intuitive thought or premonition. There isn't fear around it. If there's a lot of fear and worry around it, it's generally more of, you know, an anxious thought, right? Yeah, yeah. So the bleeding finally stopped around halfway through my pregnancy, and I had a really amazing kind of end of second trimester. And going into the third trimester, I was just starting to get a little bit achy. I had Braxton Hicks start at 15 weeks with this pregnancy. It seems like they start earlier and earlier with each of my pregnancies. And. Then right around the beginning of 32 weeks, the Braxton Hicks were kind of turning into more of early labor contractions, like they just, it's hard to explain. They just were, like feeling different. They were just feeling a little crampier. I started texting my midwife around the beginning of the 32nd week, and I told her I had had just the tiniest little bit of bloody show. And it really freaked me out, because I was like, I don't have bloody show until I'm about to have a baby. And I had, sorry, this is team I had, I gone to the bathroom and wiped and I had a little bit of pink tinge on there. And I was like, between this and the contractions like this is, this is like, definitely labor starting. So she she had me go on, like, a really high dose of magnesium. I was taking, like, 1500 milligrams a day. She would have me try different things, like lay down and try to sleep when they would start, or go take a nice, warm bath with Epsom salts to relax things, using magnesium lotion. I was trying, let's see, I tried taking progesterone, I tried taking Benadryl, I was, like, trying a whole bunch of things, because she was just like, way too early to be coming --

The idea with all of those things to relax the muscles of the uterus, basically, I think so, yeah, yeah.

Which, by the way, if, if labor is really underway, unfortunately, it usually doesn't want to stop. I know, I know. You know, no harm in trying, right? Yeah, we, we held off for like, almost two weeks. We got through the 32nd week and almost the whole 33rd week, and the morning of November 7, I that whole night I had been contracting. They weren't regular yet, but they just felt like early labor contractions, like real contractions. And so I ended up going into the ER, and they checked me, and I was only one centimeter dilated, and they were like, you're just having Braxton Hicks. You're fine. And they monitored me for a little while. My contractions actually stopped when I was there. I think it was probably because I was really nervous. I really hate hospitals, and the doctor wouldn't even come see me. It was just the nurse that was there, and they were like, you're just one centimeter and you're just having Braxton Hicks, and you're fine. So go home and rest. And I was like, I was really trying to tell him, like, like, this is my forest baby. Like, I really know what this feels like by this point, and they've stopped now. I like, I realize they've stopped now, but this is like, serious. And they were like, No, you're fine. I was kind of trying to see if they would be willing to do a steroid shot to develop babies lungs faster, because I just knew things were not going to last very much longer.

Did you ask for that? And they said no, or yeah, not even come up. My midwife had asked, or had told me to ask if they would do that, or if they recommended that. And they were like, No, I don't think that you're going to have the baby anytime soon. You're only one centimeter. And they wouldn't, they wouldn't do it, which I mean, looking back, I'm glad they did, because there can be side effects to the steroid shot, and she ended up being just fine. So I'm glad that it worked out that way, but they just did not take me seriously at all. So it was kind of frustrating. But as soon as we left the hospital, my contraction started again to where, like, we went out and got Chipotle because someone was watching all our kids. We're like, Let's go have lunch together. And I'd had to stop walking several times because the contraction would hit me so hard, but they ended up checking me twice while I was there, so they probably did like disturb the cervix and stimulate things to start even more than they were already. So that whole day, I just laid down. I tried to rest. That evening, I tried drinking a glass of wine to stop things, but everything was like, so irregular, like, I'd go like, an hour or two sometimes without a contraction. I might have a 10 second contraction, I might go a minute without having contraction, and they'd have a 92nd contraction. They'd be so like, all over the place. So my midwife was like, they're not they're not doing anything, if they're not regular yet. So she just told me to keep trying to lay down or change my activity or take a bath. So I ended up going to bed early that night. I had taken a bunch of magnesium before bed. I ended up taking progesterone and a Benadryl before bed. It was, I was so, like, sleepy, and I was in this, like, really weird, like, where you feel like you can't open your eyes, and you're so sleepy, but the contractions would just keep coming and waking up every time. And it got to be around 11 o'clock, and I. I was just feeling so frustrated by that point, and I called my midwife, I think she was already in bed, sleeping, and I was like, almost at the point of tears. I was like, everyone's telling me that this is Braxton ticks. I'm gonna have this for weeks, but I cannot do this for weeks like, this is not good. And she was like, no, just take more magnesium and go lay down. It seems like she really didn't believe me either. I was like, I can't take any more magnesium. I was like, already taken so much today. So I tried to go lay down again. Ended up texting her, like, probably half an hour later and telling her, like, I really don't think that these are Brexton Hicks, and she, at that point, still told me to start timing them to see if they were regular. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you. Why do you think was going on that nobody would believe you that you could be in preterm labor? I mean, oftentimes, when mothers are in preterm labor, contractions aren't regular. Is it because you had gone to the hospital and they didn't feel cervical dilation, or maybe, I don't know, and I really don't know why my midwife didn't seem to believe me, because she knew that I had had my third baby early. She came three weeks early and but we had done like, tons of stuff to hold off labor for like, two weeks prior to that, so she kind of knew I had a history of going into labor early, and I don't really know why she didn't think it was real. I don't know. It was definitely very frustrating to know something was going on with my body and have no one think that I knew what I was talking about, and in this moment after you had been to the hospital, did it feel significantly different than what you'd had been experiencing in the couple weeks prior? Or was it maybe that because you had been experiencing it for a few weeks and you had this cervical check and you were one centimeter that it seemed like it was more of the same old, same old.

It seemed really similar that that whole day after I was in the hospital, and even going into the night, it seemed like the same thing that had happened the two days before that, but they'd go, kind of go through the night, and then normally by morning, they'd stop. And this one, it was like 11 o'clock. I called my midwife. Let's see. By by 12, I got up, and I was like, No, this is real labor. I called her again, and she was like, try to take a bath. And I was like, I really don't think I can take a bath right now, but I will try, if you really want me to. I was like, starting to get a little bit mad. I woke up my husband, he went and filled the bath. He was like half asleep, and he filled it with, like the most scalding water ever.

Nobody was being helpful right now, no.

And so I and I didn't realize it, but at that point, I was in transition, looking back. And so I our hallway is so long, like our bedroom is on one way end of the house, and our our bathroom is on the completely other end of the house. So I had to walk all that way in transition. And I was just like, terrified to take every step, because I, I don't not like to move when I'm in transition. Well, that says a lot to your fourth time laboring, mom and for you to feel uncomfortable or scared about anything says a lot. It really is a it's a warning that something's going on that's different from the usual. Because right, being your fourth time having a totally natural birth, you normally wouldn't be feeling that way at all. Right, yeah, but the not being taken seriously is the big thing that women talk about not being or providers saying, like, Oh no, you're nowhere close. Or women don't like that, no.

And it was kind of getting inside of my head, because even though I was like, experiencing these transition contractions, and I know what that feels like, I was still like, in the back of my head thinking like, maybe these are just practice contractions, and I'm just like, a really big sissy. I just was like, yeah, it was kind of getting inside my head a little bit, but I got, I made it to the bathroom. I tried to, I tried to step in, and my foot got burned. And I was like, What are you doing? You have to adjust the water. And he, he like, woke up all the way at that point he realized, like, things were real. He was like, trying to drain the water and refill it with the right temperature. And at that point, I was like, no, just turn off drain the water. We have to get in the car right now and go to the hospital. I call the midwife again. I was like, we are going to the hospital, and you need to meet us there, because I'm about to have a baby, and we live 35 minutes away from the hospital. Luke called his sister, who lives just a few minutes away from us. He was like, Come here, please, and sleep in the guest room and watch our kids. And we just got in the car and left. I remember time was this what time was this night? Yeah, it was like, I. 1215 maybe 1230 around there, and getting in the car was like the worst part of the labor, having to walk down our steps and climb up in the car. Like, I just feel so bad for women who have to, like, get in the car when they go into labor, to go to labor to go to the hospital, because it's like the worst thing ever to get in the car and have to sit and normally, my husband helps me so much with getting through the painful labor contractions. But he was driving, so he couldn't help me. We started going down our driveway, and the electric fence had fallen over the driveway, so he had to stop and get out and, like, fix the fence. And I was, like, sitting there, like, what are you doing? I was like, so upset. And we started driving. He normally this drive takes like, half an hour, and he got there in like, 15 minutes, like, he was driving so fast, and it was, Wow, that's, that's quite a time savings, 30 minutes down to 15. Yes, he was going really fast because he knew he knows at this point, like when I get at this point in labor, where I get really quiet and I can't talk to him, he's like, she's about to have a baby. Like he, at that point, realized how serious it was. And it's weird remembering, like, the car ride, because I was like, kind of leaning back in my seat and using my hands to, like, lift up my bottom, to take pressure off my pelvis a little bit. And then I would just, like, lean my head way back, like, kind of the headrest was right here, and I leaned my head, like, way back next to the headrest. And I was just like, I close my eyes and I would just breathe, and whenever I'm in transition or pushing, it kind of looks like I'm sleeping, because I'm just like, all my energy is going into keeping myself under control, because it helps. It hurt less if I can keep myself under control and not make any noise. And I just want to say, you weren't just about to have a baby. You were about to have a premature baby, which both of you also knew. Yes, that's a very different scenario.

It is. Yeah, it definitely felt very different.

Megan, how many hours was this past your discharge from the hospital?

I think I had gotten discharged from them, from the hospital at like 11 o'clock that morning, and this was that that evening, so it was a little over 12 hours after, yeah, and all that day, I didn't even know how much I dilated that day, but like those transition, contractions were so intense, This was definitely my most painful birth. It just like, opened it up so fast, and I I started feeling like dripping, like blood from the cervix opening so fast, kind of like with my second birth. But this one was even faster than with my second isn't that interesting? It was your most painful birth in your words, but presumably it was your smallest baby by far,

yeah, smallest baby and fastest birth. But I kind of find that those fast births, they just hurt so much more because they were mildly open faster.

Yeah, yeah. They're very, very intense, yeah.

Um, so we, we we got on our highway, and we, we get to this town, and at that point, my body starts pushing on its own. And then we get, like, halfway between that town and the town that has the hospital. And I decided to check and see how far away the baby is, and I reach in, and she's like an inch away from coming out, but her water hasn't broken yet, so she's kind of like doing that frustrating thing where the contraction, like pushes her and then she kind of sucks back up, two steps forward, one step back. Yes, yes. And as we got close to the hospital, I just like, got this, like, incredibly strong feeling that she needed to come out before we got there. I was like, she cannot be born in the hospital. She's gonna get stuck in the NICU. I just like, had this overwhelming feeling like she is fine, like she's a fighter, she is not gonna need any help, and I have got to get her out. And so I actually reached in and broke my water with my nail so that she'd be born faster. So she ended up coming out. The next contraction, after I broke my water, her head came out, and then I kind of kept pushing, and her body came out, and I picked her up, and she started crying, and right at that moment, we pulled into the ER parking lot, so she was born, like, right before we got there, and she was crying, and her color looked good, and I was like, let's just not go in. Let's just we just sat in the parking lot and waited. For my midwife to get there, but we just didn't go into the hospital, because I had just heard so many stories of this, this particular hospital, of like them, doing things without parents consent. They did, like a spinal tap on a baby without parents content, consent, and like all sorts of things. And I was like, if we go in there, they're gonna insist that she's in the NICU, even though she looks totally fine to me, but they're like, rule is that babies have to stay in the NICU until their due date, no matter how good they're doing. Wait a second, what? Yeah, when I was there, keep them there. And when babies are full term at 37 weeks, they just keep them there till the due date. If they're born early for that season. That's what the nurse told me, because when I was there that morning, I asked her, How long, like, if I do go into labor and have the baby, how long do you guys keep babies in the NICU generally? And she said, we normally just keep them until their due date. And I was like, Okay, well, I'm not to have a baby here, that that's unbelievable because, I mean, that just makes zero sense if a baby is doing fine. I mean, maybe till 37 weeks or something. But even still, that's unnecessary. Many 36 weekers and even sometimes 35 weekers do fine, I know. Wow. So wait, what did it feel like? Just to go back for a second, what did it feel like? What was the experience? Like for you in breaking your own water?

Well, I think she was really small, the waters, or the sack was, like, really thick, and it was actually really hard to break. And I was like, afraid that I was gonna hurt her soft spot on her head. So I kind of, like, was trying to go to the side, and I, like, tried to break it, and I was like, No, it's not gonna break. And then we got a little closer, I was like, No, I have to break it. And I like, just reached in there and dug really hard with my nail, like, kind of to the side so it wouldn't hurt her soft spots. And I broke the water, and it gushed everywhere. And, yeah, it was just it made a huge mess in the car. But, and then was she, was, she born moments after that, did you just feel like the next contraction?

Yeah, she came out in the next contraction? Yeah, it was. She was so close. She just the water. I think was just like, kind of making her suck back in every time. So,

so go back to this decision you made. You're in the parking lot. You called your midwife, and you said you're not going in there. I'm so surprised to hear that, and I'm so curious to hear the rest. I'm sure our listeners are just in shock at the notion of not going in, not going into a hospital, when you're holding a 33 week baby. Is that actually what you did? You didn't go into the hospital at any point?

Yeah, no, we never went in with her. I was like, because she came out and she was crying and she looked good. And I was like, and I remember thinking, like, with one of my other pregnancies, like, if I ever have an early baby, I think I'll just go to the hospital parking lot and have the baby in the car and just not go in and let because we're right there if we need help, like, we could get help immediately, but I don't want to get stuck in there if I don't have to. You know, that's the first I've ever heard of a woman willing to plan on a car birth, right?

Yeah, yeah. And, well, the other thing this hospital does is they will just they start all preemies on two antibiotic IVs no matter what, and then the next day, they will test them to see if they actually needed them, and if they don't need them, then they'll take them off. I'm like, we are not going to start her life off with antibiotics. Like, no way. I was like, that was a very bold and brave move of you to just decide to have her in the car knowing that you know she may struggle with breathing. I guess you knew that you could go into the hospital if that were the case, but, yeah, it's just so it was such a powerful, powerful move, like, but you totally trusted yourself. You just knew you were, it's like you had a download from the universe saying it's okay do this. And you were like, I gotta take care of this right now. What a difference it made. Was it okay? Or did you just get lucky? Is that not a legitimately risky thing to do, or is there not any particular concern with a premature is your opinion? So then, was it risky to do this, or was there really a way for Megan, as the mother, to know she didn't need to go in. I mean, Megan, can you talk about that whole part of this? You know, sometimes it would make sense to go in. I mean, the red flags of that hospital were definitely pretty significant, and it's very cool that it worked out the way it did. But what about that little possibility of like, did you, I guess you left it in the hands of your midwife. You trusted your midwife to make that assessment. Is that it? Yeah, I mean, it took her 20 minutes to get down there, because she lived even further away from the hospital than we did, but I was, she was asking me questions on the phone, like, Is the baby doing this? What's her color? She was hearing her crying. And like, I would have felt a lot more scared to do that if we weren't like, right there, like we could have run in the ER door and gotten her health immediately. And my midwife was on the phone being like, I mean, she sounds really good. Like she sounds She sounds good. And she was like, since her color is good and she sounds good, and she actually started trying to latch right away. She's like, just wait until I get there, I guess. And she Yeah, it took her, like, I want to say, 15 or 20 minutes to get there. And she looked her over a little bit, and she was like, my birth center is only like five minutes away. Let's go. Let's just go to the birth center and give her, like, a full check over and make sure she's latching and make sure her oxygen is good and everything. And then we can always bring her back here if she's just not quite doing well enough. Um, instead of going all the way back to our home, that was like 35 minutes away. So we took her to the birth center, and she put on the oxygen thing, and she was listening to her lungs and checking her pulse, and she was just like, doing so well. She had, like, at first it was like just a little over 90% oxygen, and then, as she was, you know, out for longer, it was like staying up at 100 and she was just like, her lungs sounded so good. And I was like, this is just such a miracle that she is like this well developed. And she was like, latching within like, 25 or 30 minutes of being born and nursing, even though, like some sometimes preemies, they don't even have their suck reflex developed yet at that point, but she was nursing and, yeah, maybe she did really good. How much did she weigh? Megan, five pounds, even five pounds. Okay, wow. And it was actually not a bad size for 33 plus six.

It's not and you were very certain about your due dates. Was there any chance that she was a little older. I don't know I was going off my last period. And I had also had three ultrasounds during my pregnancy where they measured her right at what I was supposed to be at. So, I mean, maybe she could have been off, but I don't know. My midwife doesn't really think so, just because I did have all those ultrasounds, but, and did she have some signs of being premature, as far as just her physical evaluation? I'm sure your midwife did a age assessment on her.

Yeah, and she said that she looked to her more like 35 weeks even though she doesn't really think she was preemie, but like how she looked and presented more like a 35-weeker, and did she go on to breastfeed exclusively, with no, no issues at all? That's incredible.

Yeah, she never, she actually never dipped below her birth weight. She started gaining immediately. She She's nurse of time, and she's, she's like, two and a half months old now, and she's doubled her birth weight already. She's doing really good.

Very impressive.

Thank you. Yeah. And the other crazy thing with that, my mom was supposed to be in town for this whole thing, because we have one milk cow that my husband can't milk because her teeth are too small. And my mom was supposed to be taking over kind of my farm chores for postpartum if she wasn't here yet. So we came, we came home that night, and the next morning, I went out there, and I was milking the cows already. Wait, wait, wait, hold on, why can't you so you were out there milking the cows 24 hours after giving birth outside the hospital.

It was probably five hours, because it has to be in the morning, five hours after giving birth.

Megan, do you love this birth story? Or, like, how do you feel when you think about it? Do you love it now that it's behind you? Or do you just kind of shiver and think, oh my gosh, that I would never want to go through that again? How do you feel about it?

I really love it, it. I think it's probably my most empowering birth so far, just because I had such strong intuition, even though everyone else was telling me something else, and I just listened to my body. And it just feels so good to know that I listened and my body knew that she would be Fine. And, yeah, it was, it was really cool.

Thank you for joining us at the Down To Birth Show. You can reach us @downtobirthshow on Instagram or email us at Contact@DownToBirthShow.com. All of Cynthia’s classes and Trisha’s breastfeeding services are offered live online, serving women and couples everywhere. Please remember this information is made available to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is in no way a substitute for medical advice. For our full disclaimer visit downtobirthshow.com/disclaimer. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, hear everyone and listen to yourself.