119. When Rebekah Rhodes turned 40, she told her husband, “We must have one more baby”—leading to a journey through miscarriage, thyroid struggles, and an unforgettable 41-week delivery. You won’t believe how this story ends: with an emergency birth in a gas station parking lot!
On episode 119, Rebekah Rhodes turned 40, she looked at her husband and declared, “We must have one more baby.” Having already built a full life and family on their North Carolina homestead, stepping back into the journey of trying to conceive brought a brand-new set of triumphs and trials. In this episode, Rebekah opens up about navigating her very first pregnancy loss at 40, managing Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, tracking ovulation to finally conceive with her 5th baby, and overcoming the deep emotional fears that so often accompany loss.
What begins as an inspiring story of deciding to try again after 40 takes an unforgettable turn after her labor stalls. After experiencing prodromal labor and making the late-night decision to transfer to the hospital, Rebekah’s birth plan unfolded in the most unexpected way possible, delivering her son in the front seat of their car in a gas station parking lot at age 41. Tune in for a candid, full-circle conversation packed with encouragement, natural health insights, and a birth story you have to hear to believe.
About the Guest
Rebekah Rhodes is a homesteading mother, digital content creator, and natural wellness advocate living in the mountains of North Carolina with her husband, Justin, and their five children. Together, they run a popular YouTube channel documenting their journey toward self-sustainability, whole-foods nutrition, and raising a large family off the land. After welcoming four children earlier in life, Rebekah navigated pregnancy loss, Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, and lifestyle-driven healing before welcoming her fifth child at age 41. She brings a grounded, faith-filled, and encouraging perspective to women navigating pregnancy over 40, home birth, and mothering across different seasons of life.
Connect with Rebekah:
- Instagram: @rebekah.rhodes
- YouTube: The Beautiful Life
- YouTube: The Justin Rhodes Show
Key Topic
- Deciding to Try for a Baby at 40: Deciding to expand their family late in life and pushing past the emotional fear of starting over.
- Navigating Pregnancy Loss: Experiencing her very first miscarriage at 40, processing the grief, and finding the courage to try again.
- Conceiving at 41 & Ovulation Tracking: How identifying early ovulation (day 10) proved crucial after months of trying, along with key lifestyle and diet shifts.
- Managing Hashimoto’s Hypothyroidism: Navigating thyroid medication adjustments every four weeks during pregnancy, postpartum flare-ups, and the emotional side of autoimmune healing.
- An Unforgettable Gas Station Birth: The wild, true story of prodromal labor, deciding to transfer to the hospital, and delivering her son in the front seat of a gas station parking lot.
- The Joy of Motherhood in Your 40s: How having a baby later in life brings a fresh, deeply appreciative perspective to parenting alongside older siblings.
Resources & Links
Note: Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase. I only recommend products our guests truly love!
Story References: Birth Video
Pregnancy Announcement
Gender Reveal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU3Z4UQOj80
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YouTube: Watch Episodes HERE
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Support the Podcast: Donate to the Podcast
Community: Join the Over 40 Fabulous Facebook Group
Transcript
Jamie: Rebekah, welcome to the show.
Rebekah: Thank you.
Jamie: And I am so excited to have Rebekah on. We are sharing her story at 41. Yeah. But before we get started, Rebekah, for those that don’t know who you are, will you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Rebekah: My husband and I homestead with our five children in the mountains of North Carolina. We’re trying to produce as much of our own food as possible is really what our homesteading is about. We just love it and we do have a YouTube channel if you wanna follow along with our adventure.
Jamie: I love it. Y’all are so inspiring.
Rebekah: Aw, thanks.
Jamie: How did this begin? Did you always want kids from when you were little?
Rebekah: So when I was, I think I was in ninth grade, so I would’ve been 14, they asked me what I wanted to do, and I was, “I wanna be a stay-at-home mom. That’s what I wanna do.” And I remember everyone just thought I was nuts, because all my friends, they were, like, thinking of what they were gonna have as careers, and I was like, “I don’t want a career. I wanna be a mom.” From the beginning, I just can remember just wanting a family from the very beginning. I don’t really remember any other time when I thought that’s not what my job was gonna be.
Jamie: Yeah. So you and Justin met really early. What was that conversation like about kids?
Rebekah: We started dating when I was still 16. He was 17. I think the conversation was always that we were just gonna have kids. I was one of two, so there was just two kids in my family, and he came of one of six. I loved his family. I was just a teenager, and I still loved it. And I just remember thinking, “I want between four and six kids. I want a large family.”
I don’t know that we even had a conversation. It was just kinda like what you did. You were just gonna have kids. You got married and you just had kids. There was no discussion that it wasn’t ever gonna happen. This is just what we’re gonna do and we’re gonna have a bunch of them,”
Jamie: so you had four babies before your fifth in your 40s. Yes. How did those go?
Rebekah: We’d started in late ’05 trying to have a baby, and we just didn’t get pregnant. We were working at a group home, and I think it was just super stressful. We worked in that group home until May, I think, of ’06. And then it wasn’t until March of ’07 that I got pregnant. We were actually foster parents. We were doing foster care in our home, and we got pregnant. ’cause we had been trying for so long, I would be like, “Oh, we need to buy a pregnancy test.”
And then it was like, Amazon wasn’t really big then. Pregnancy tests were, like, they were expensive. I said to him, I was like, “I think I might be pregnant. I’m pretty sure my period hasn’t come.” And I think I’m, like, nauseous sometimes. And he’s like, “You’re not pregnant. Don’t buy a pregnancy test.”
I didn’t listen to him. I went and got a pregnancy test, and I came home immediately. I probably didn’t even unpack the groceries, and I took the test- … ’cause I was, like, dying to know. I think he called me on his lunch break, and I was like, “Guess what? I’m pregnant.” He was shocked. I couldn’t wait for him to get home. I had a super easy pregnancy. I was barely sick. I had some morning sickness, but barely any, and it was great. I ended up having a C-section under general and it was a disaster, but also it turned out beautiful. I was 28 when I gave birth to him.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: Then fast-forward to a year later, we’re like, Let’s have another baby. I think that was part of our decision to try, because we were like, “Hey,” “what happens if this takes 18 months?” There might be a huge gap between our children.
We get pregnant pretty much immediately. My cycle returns, it’s six weeks long, but it’s returning and I get pregnant on the second cycle. I had terrible morning sickness, like such the contrast from my first pregnancy to my second. It was a great pregnancy minus the the morning sickness. Fast-forward to 34 weeks pregnant, we went to the hospital for a tour, ’cause I was gonna deliver at a different hospital that did VBACs. They have this big sign on the door that says “Nobody under 18 can go to the mother and baby unit.” I’m like thinking I have a two-year-old, and if I’m gonna give birth here, I’m gonna need my two-year-old to come visit me. I said to Justin, “We’re having a home birth. I’m not doing this. I’m gonna find a home birth midwife. Justin and I went and met her and talked to her, and she had delivered a bunch of VBACs. And she was only a CPM, so technically illegal, but she had 30 years of experience, and I just felt very safe with her.
Jamie: Yeah. I love that- ’cause I think I would struggle at 34 weeks to change my provider. But I love that.
Rebekah: That my, yeah, that my body knows what to do, so Josiah’s a VBAC. I’m like a week late according to the hospital midwife that I was seeing. I explained everything, so my cycles were six weeks long, so I was actually not ovulating until four weeks into my cycle. The other midwife group was like, “No, we’re doing it by the regular 28-day cycle.” And I was like, “But it’s not 28 days. It’s six weeks.” I actually know when I conceived my child. I’m 100% sure on that one. They didn’t wanna believe me. According to my knowledge of conception, he was not overdue.
Jamie: Okay.
Rebekah: I labored, like, all night. I should have slept. We partied. We had so much fun. I had my friends here. I had my doula friend, she had given birth at home many times. I had her there. I had this other friend here, Justin, my midwife, the assistant. We just partied all night, and it was bad. I should’ve been sleeping, but I was just so excited to be having a home birth. And then, 5:00 AM hits and I’m like, so tired.
Jamie: Oh my gosh.
Rebekah: And he-
Jamie: It’s like a slumber party.
Rebekah: I know, right? He was actually stuck in my pe- he wasn’t stuck in my pelvis. He was not positioned properly in my pelvis. And my midwife was to the point where she was like, ’cause I was so tired, she was like, “We might have to go to the hospital just because you might need an epidural to sleep to be able to push him out,” type thing.
She’s like, “I think we might need to consider the hospital.” And I looked at her with one eye open, and I was you can go, but I’m not.” The thought of getting in the car was like, no.
Jamie: Okay.
Rebekah: My contractions spaced out. I was able to get some good sleep. After the talk of the hospital, my girlfriends were like, “We gotta pray.” And so they prayed over me, and literally after the next contraction, I felt him move. He shifted, and I said, “I think he moved.” And my midwife’s, “Let’s have a baby.” And so I squatted down literally in front of the couch, and he crowned as soon as I pushed. So he was just not in my pelvis correctly, and he came out. In fact, she’s like, “Stop pushing.” “You need to not get him out so fast.” She was gonna give me an episiotomy, and I said, “No, please don’t,” and she didn’t.
Jamie: Oh, good.
Rebekah: I did end up tearing horribly- because it was so much pressure on me. My husband says like a torpedo. She’s like, “I want you to go to the hospital because I can’t do this.”
Jamie: Wow.
Rebekah: And I said, “Why not?” And she said, “I’m not a surgeon. This needs a professional.” And I was like, “Oh.”
Jamie: That’s bad.
Rebekah: It was really bad. Thankfully, in our area, we had an OB who was a rebel, and he did home births. And then let’s see. So Jonah, Josiah, and then-
Jamie: Wait …
Rebekah: then, Justin and I were like, “Let’s have another kid,” like not even a year later. Again, it was like, “Let’s try for another baby,” and then get pregnant on like the first try. And we were like, “Oh, okay. We’re having another kid.” And I used, I had my midwife. We used her. She was great. And I had morning sickness, but it really wasn’t that bad. I had a lot of anxiety with her pregnancy.
Jamie: Really?
Rebekah: Yeah, if it was past 9:00, I was just crying. ‘Cause I was like so anxious about all the world’s problems. I just started thinking about the end of things and like it was just too much. It was just too much for my pregnant brain. I had her in September, so Lily, this is my only girl.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: Her due date was September 9th, and I was like, “The one day I do not wanna have a baby is September 11th.”
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: I was like, “That’s just the one day I don’t wanna have a baby.” It was actually 2011, so it was the 10-year anniversary of it, and there was all this talk about that there could be another terrorist attack on that day and all these th- and as a pregnant woman, I was, again, anxious, and I was like, Stop. I don’t wanna know. I don’t wanna know anything about what all these people think.
Then September 11th, the morning of September 11th at 1:40 AM, I got woken up with my first contraction And I laid there and I just thought, “Okay, maybe this is just like a false contraction,” and I laid there. 10 minutes later it happened again. 10 minutes later it happened again, and I was like, “No. I can’t… I’m not gonna be pregnant for another 24 hours going through this.” My midwife was like, you need to call me as soon as you start having labor, ’cause like it could go really fast.” I called her and she said, “Okay, get up and try to do something else.” So I got up and I started hanging up clothes in the closet and just putting stuff away, and they’re two minutes apart. I’m gonna lay down again.
I ended up getting back in bed and laying down, and they calmed down. My midwife’s she got to us about 3:30 in the morning, and I just kept moving around. Once she got there, I started doing more of the things. Bouncing on the ball and walking up and down the hallway, just like trying to help labor move along. I had her at 8:20 in the morning on September 11th. I know. The one day I didn’t want it to happen.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: So that was Lily. I had Lily when I was 32. It was great. So Gideon’s my fourth.
Jamie: Is that when you had Hashimoto’s?
Rebekah: I was officially diagnosed with Hashimoto’s after Lily’s birth.
Jamie: Okay.
Rebekah: And I had, but I had hypothyroidism since I was 18. It was like 1997. I had just graduated from high school. Nobody told me anything. They just said, “You have hypothyroidism and you’re gonna take this medication for the rest of your life.” And I just said, “Okay,” ’cause I didn’t question anything, and-
Jamie: Right
Rebekah: there was no books, and I never even thought to read a book about what could be happening in my body, and so-
Jamie: And hypo is when you have a slow thyroid.
Rebekah: Yeah. And but then after Lily’s birth, the internet was coming around more. There was more information out there. And so people were talking about Hashimoto’s, and if you have hypothyroidism you most likely have Hashimoto’s. I did get tested, and then I did go to a practitioner, a naturopath, to see if I could get off my medication, and it didn’t work, and it actually made me crash.
His protocol was, like, iodine, and some minerals, and some herbs. I did his protocol to a T. At first when I was taking the iodine, my energy just went skyrocketing, and Justin was like, “Wow,” “you are just the Energizer bunny.” “You’re getting so much done every day.” It was like throwing gasoline on a fire. I had this big burst of energy, but then it burned out. And I had no energy. And I broke out, like I had acne all over my face, and I was just sick. I was so sick. And I was just tired all the time.
Jamie: And how old were you at this point?
Rebekah: Okay, so I would have been 33.
Jamie: Okay.
Rebekah: I wanted to heal my thyroid. I wanted to get off medication. But at that point, I’d already been on medication 14 or 15 years, And I had not done any lifestyle changes. I was still eating gluten that whole time, and I wasn’t, fueling my body properly.
I did quit gluten in that time to try to see if I couldn’t heal my thyroid with the lifestyle changes that everybody was doing. The difference was, is that people were getting diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, and then they were making these lifestyle changes immediately, and then they were healing within a year.
I still believe that I can heal my thyroid. I have not healed it yet, but I diligently just working and seeing if maybe there is something that I can tweak or do to heal it. Maybe this year is my year to get it healed and get off medication.
Jamie: And y’all are so diligent to go to the doctor and, like-
Rebekah: I know. …
Jamie: go the natural pathway. I love it.
Rebekah: We are. I think it’s been really discouraging. The way my doctor puts it is that there’s been a lot of damage done- to your thyroid in all those years before you made any changes. And so I still believe that I can heal myself. I’ve just, Been on a road trip with Dr. Sina Maccola, and she healed a ton of autoimmune conditions that she had. Yeah. And the one piece I think that I’m missing is the emotional piece, and so I’m really exploring that. So I’m exploring the emotional piece the forgiveness piece. And just seeing okay, is there something that I’m missing in the emotional piece that I haven’t done and if it cannot move the needle for my thyroid, so we’ll see. I’m hopeful.
Jamie: Like forgiveness for taking medication for so long?
Rebekah: No. Oh. That could be it. But forgiveness she was talking about more a forgiveness for other people. If there’s something I’m harboring inside.
Jamie: Okay.
Rebekah: If I’m harboring unforgiveness. It could be unforgiveness to myself.
That could be it. There was one thing she talked about was she was listening to Louise Hay’s meditation, ’cause we were talking about all the different things, and one of the things that was a key for her is that she had to forgive herself for the expectations that she put on someone else, and they didn’t do that.
You have the expectation that your mom or your sister’s gonna be a certain way, and then they’re not that way. And the piece for her, one of the major pieces was that she had to forgive herself for putting that expectation out there, because it was unrealistic.
I’m open to any unforgiveness, that I could have, so yeah. I hope that it’s something that can happen for me. But I also do acknowledge that if it doesn’t, I’m not a failure.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: But that was happening between Lily and getting… So I had Lily in 2011. Then Justin became ill in 2012 he got sick
Jamie: with Lyme’s disease?
Rebekah: With Lyme’s. Yeah. With chronic Lyme. We didn’t know what it was. We were working my illness out, through a naturopath, and then he became ill from a root canal.
Jamie: So y’all in this time, because of y’all’s illness, y’all weren’t really thinking about having another kid?
Rebekah: No. We wanted to have more kids, but we were-
Jamie: Okay
Rebekah: “Pause.”
Jamie: Okay.
Rebekah: This is not a time to have children. He had been sick for about 16 months, and we were like, “Okay, let’s have another kid.” And so we got pregnant. I feel like it did take us a couple of months to get pregnant with our fourth. I feel like it wasn’t as instantaneous as some of the other ones. I had morning sickness. It wasn’t that bad. Maybe because we had really switched to a whole foods diet. Each pregnancy I had gotten better with my food especially after Lily. We had found the paleo diet.
Jamie: Now, was this the time when y’all started the YouTube channel?
Rebekah: No, we had not started our YouTube channel-
Jamie: Okay
Rebekah: at this point. We had been market farming. We had been selling grass-fed beef. He had found permaculture in this pregnancy. We used our tax return to send him to Australia while I was pregnant with Gideon.
Jamie: That must have been really hard because I’m sure that was not cheap.
Rebekah: It was really hard. It was a week before his due date, and all of my babies had been after their due dates. I’d never, ever had anything before my due date. I had been been sleeping, it was like 5:00 AM, and I felt a gush of water. My water has never broken before labor. My water always breaks like nine, 10 centimeters.
Jamie: Wow.
Rebekah: I didn’t wanna get up ’cause I was tired. I was like… But then I was like, Oh, maybe I should make sure that it was water and not an emergency.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: I get out of bed, and I it was clear fluid. I’m having some contractions, but not any sort of regularity. She’s like, Okay, go back to bed. Rest. We went to the grocery store, and my contractions started picking up and I was like, Oh, this is happening. We came home, and I just rested. But it wasn’t serious.
My midwife called me at 3:00 and I was like, I think that I’m in labor. She says, I’m gonna check you out at home, and we’ll see what’s happening. She was concerned because of my water. She thinks my outer water had broken or it popped in an area that then it went up against my uterus or something.
About 7:00 PM, I had a double contraction right after the other. At 8:00, I think I was nine or 10 centimeters. They said, “Do you wanna get in the bathtub?” I love being in water, especially in labor. It’s so calming. I was like I don’t wanna have the baby in the water. I got in the tub, and I felt pushy. I tried to maneuver in the bathtub , my back came out of the water and I was like, Nope, I’m staying in the water. I ended up pushing for about 40 minutes, and he was born in his sac.
Jamie: Cool.
Rebekah: As his sac came out, it broke open, and we didn’t find out with Gideon.
Jamie: Nice.
Rebekah: He was our surprise, so Justin got to deliver him and put him up on top of me. He put him on and say, “It’s a boy,” so it was a lot of fun.
Jamie: Oh, cute.
Rebekah: It was the easiest. It was so easy.
Jamie: Do you think it was the water?
Rebekah: Justin took pictures of me afterwards, and I’m just smiling, and he’s just “You never looked this good after giving birth.” And I feel like my postpartum with Gideon was really great, too.
We just felt really complete. We were like, “Okay, this is it. This is our family. We have our four children.” I was 36 when I had Gideon.
Jamie: Okay.
Rebekah: After Gideon we were just really content. He is a very spirited boy, and we were just like, I think this is it. I don’t think we need to add any more children to our brood. We’re happy. And then I turned 40 years old, and I looked at Justin and I said, We must have one more child.
Jamie: We must.
Rebekah: We must. And he was like, I’m here for it. He was like, let’s do it. Let’s have a baby. Gideon was born in 2014. In 2017, we went on the Great American Farm Tour, and if anybody wants to watch that, there’s a documentary on Amazon. You can watch our documentary.
Jamie: In a school bus.
Rebekah: In a school bus. In a converted school bus. And at the end of 2017, my health just fell apart because of the stress. My nervous system was completely dysregulated. I was having panic attacks, and so 2018 was me working on that. I had an appendectomy in 2018, and we think that led to some of my liver issues that I had at the end of 2018. My liver enzymes were going crazy, and nobody could really figure out why. They wanted to do a liver biopsy, and I was like, I’m not doing that. I went on the GAPS diet to heal my liver enzyme issues. My thyroid was not controlled at that point. We were trying to change my medicine, and it was just wonky.
So we didn’t start trying right away because we were trying to get the right medication dosage. I wanna say we didn’t start trying until the fall of 2019 to get pregnant. So we started trying September, and I got pregnant in November. Justin’s dad also passed away in November. Then we had a miscarriage. And this is the first miscarriage that I had. I have not ever experienced that. I get pregnant and I have a baby, and that’s been my experience. And now as a 40-year-old, though, I think fear started building. “Oh, no.” Like-
Jamie: Yeah …
Rebekah: I know that you don’t just get pregnant and have a baby now.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: And it was personal to me. Before it was happening to everyone else, but then it happened to me. And then I was kinda like, Oh, no,
Jamie: And you had a lot of waiting with your miscarriage too.
Rebekah: Yes, because we, we had the positive pregnancy test, and then 10-ish days later we were out on a family outing, and all of a sudden I was like, “I think I’m bleeding.”
And then I’m like, “I’m not supposed to be bleeding. I’m pregnant.” So I go to the bathroom and there’s blood, and I’m like, “What does this mean?” And so then I’m talking to my midwife. I’m talking to my doctor. I’m like, “What do I do?” “Do you think this, my thyroid’s off again?” “Is this just something that happens sometimes when you’re pregnant, you bleed?”
“What is this?” And so yeah, it was really, it was just, it was a lot of waiting and “Am I pregnant still or am I not?” And so then my one friend’s like, “Just take another pregnancy test.” And I took another pregnancy test, and I was, it was negative. And I was like, “Okay.”
“It’s over.” It was final then.
I was like, I just wanna wait three or four months. I don’t wanna do any trying. Obviously something wasn’t working, whether it was my body or whether it was a genetic abnormality with the embryo, whatever. Whatever happened, I just want a break.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: It just felt so intense at that point.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: It just felt like this clock was ticking, and I’m like, “I want this to happen so bad, and why is it not?”
We waited, and then I think it was March, Justin was like, Are we gonna start trying? And I was like, I don’t know. I was almost afraid to start trying, ’cause I didn’t wanna be disappointed. He’s like, let’s just try and see what happens.
So we tried in March, didn’t get pregnant. Tried in April, didn’t get pregnant. May, didn’t get pregnant. So in May I said to Justin, Hey, if we don’t get pregnant by July, I wanna stop. I don’t wanna do this anymore. ‘Cause it would’ve been a little over a year of talking about another baby and it hasn’t happened yet.
So I was like, I’m gonna buy ovulation strips. I’m gonna give it the old heave-ho, and we’re gonna see what’s actually happening with my body. So I started testing at day eight of my cycle to see what was happening, and I ovulated on day 10, which is probably why I wasn’t getting pregnant, because I was ovulating a lot sooner than I thought I was. Which I even hesitated to start testing on day eight, because I was like, ” i’m just wasting these ovulation strips at this point.” But then it popped up “Hey, you’re ovulating” And I was like, “Oh, I’m ovulating, Justin.” So we tried in June, and we got pregnant.
Jamie: You figured out your ovulation.
Rebekah: Exactly. I just never paid attention to any of this before, and I just thought we would get pregnant. It will happen. ‘Cause it had been so long, and so we got pregnant, and I was sick as a dog. I was so sick. I had so many food aversions. Nothing smelled good. Nothing tasted good. I was losing weight, and I was already pretty thin, ’cause we had done GAPS diet, which is a really restrictive diet. This is probably one of the reasons why I didn’t get pregnant, but I was only 118 pounds, which-
Jamie: Wow
Rebekah: That was really thin for me.
Jamie: You can tell in your video that your- … face is just, you’re very skinny.
Rebekah: Yes. Yes. And so if you look at any of the videos in 2019, you can see that I’ve just lost a ton of weight. And so that’s probably why, we weren’t getting pregnant. My body had to build up to feel like it could support a pregnancy. I literally just wanted to eat pizza. And we’re gluten-free. Gluten-free pizza’s not that great, and it’s a big pain in the butt to make. I wanted no meat at all. I’d been drinking broth for GAPS, like gallons of it a week, and I couldn’t drink any broth. I would gag. My whole diet changed. It was wild.
I would eat enough of it, and then I would be like, I’m done. I don’t ever wanna see that again. Then I would move on to the next whatever it was.
Jamie: Yeah … and y’all are so healthy, and here you are like no vegetables. No.
Rebekah: Yeah. I can’t eat a vegetable or e- even fruit.
Nothing tasted good. I don’t feel like I ever had food aversions like I did with Henry. Like Henry’s- That was just crazy.
Up until we found his heartbeat, I was terrified that I was gonna-
Jamie: Sure
Rebekah: lose the pregnancy. I was just terrified. I was trying to think good thoughts, like, “It’s gonna be great. This baby is gonna make it. I had a premonition that it was a boy. I don’t know everybody wanted me to have a girl, and I wanted a girl, ’cause I only had one, and she wanted a sister so bad and so I wanted to give her a sister, even though they would be nine years apart. I was like, I’m pretty sure it’s a boy, Justin. And he’s like you might be wrong,” and I was like- … “I don’t know. I feel like it’s pretty good.” And then-
Jamie: did you find out his sex?
Rebekah: We did.
Jamie: Okay.
Rebekah: We have a gender reveal video. I sent it to you.
Jamie: That’s right. That’s right.
Rebekah: Yes. You
Jamie: did.
Rebekah: So there is a gender reveal, in which poor Lily literally is devastated- … and cries. And I felt, I was like, I feel horrible. I felt so bad, but I was, like, explaining to her “We don’t choose this. This is not a choice that we have consciously made. This is the way that God has made it, that the sperm chooses the sex. And then she’s like, Papa. Oh. He didn’t choose it. That’s his contribution, but also- It’s not his yeah. It’s, but she was nine, and trying to tell a nine-year-old that, or she was actually eight at the time.
Jamie: Yes.
Rebekah: Yes, it’s very confusing. But yeah, I had my thyroid numbers. Right after I got pregnant, my thyroid went hypo again, and I was like, we were trying to figure it out. I wasn’t sleeping at night. I was almost having panic attacks again. They weren’t quite panic attacks, but it felt very reminiscent of that. And I was so concerned, and I was, like, calling my doctor. She’s become a personal friend at this point, and I’m just like, “I’m so scared.” She’s like, “It’s gonna be okay. I promise.” She’s so reassuring, and she’s so great. We figured out my thyroid numbers. I feel like we were chasing my thyroid the whole time.
Jamie: Ugh.
Rebekah: I just feel like we, we were literally testing my thyroid every four weeks the entire pregnancy just to make sure, and I had never done that with any of my pregnancies. I had only just gone in my second and my third once, and my thyroid always was great. And then for some reason in my 40s, I just really struggled to Be on the right dosage at all times.
And I battled a lot of anxiety this pregnancy. Not so much like the anxiety I had with Lily- … but more of the anxiety of is something gonna happen to him? Is everything gonna be okay?
Jamie: Was that because of your loss, or-
Rebekah: I think it was because of my loss, but I think it was also because I was 41, and I just knew that all these bad things could happen. Yeah.
Jamie: I think, also, since we’re young, we also think- nothing will happen to us.
Rebekah: Exactly, yeah. And the older I get, I realize the less I know. So I’m just like, Okay, something bad could happen, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” and I would say, “What if?” And I would say, “What if?” And say something bad, and Jessa would say, “What if?” And it’s good. Just because don’t focus on the bad. Bad things could happen, yes, but also it could be great.
I was trying to focus on that. And finally my appetite returned, and I had energy, and it was so great. And I’ve actually never had a pregnancy like I had with Henry. So all my pregnancies usually started in the very beginning of the year, and I had all fall babies. And so I got pregnant with Henry in June, and I had him in February. I was in winter with a baby, being pregnant.
But then I got my energy back in my second trimester, and I could eat food again, and I wasn’t fussing at people about eating. And I had to smell a hot dog if somebody would warm up- … a hot dog. I was like, Ugh, like opening the windows, like- i have to go outside. I can’t be in here. That all ended. And
Jamie: What about your midwife? Didn’t she reti- she was semi-retired, right?
Rebekah: So she was semi-retired. She was only taking clients who she had delivered previously. She wasn’t taking anybody new at that point.
Jamie: Okay.
Rebekah: Because she was like, I just wanna deliver people who I know them and how they’re gonna act. And in fact, we actually paid… So her office is at her house now, and she wasn’t doing an office in town. And so then I said, “Hey, can we just pay you more to come to the house?” And she did, she’s just almost like a second mom to me, and I just love her.
We’re so bonded, I feel like, because of that. With Henry, It was during COVID, and Justin and Jonah were gonna travel out of the country, and my midwife was really nervous. She was like, they could get stuck in that country, ’cause the country could shut down at any time. And I’d be just really nervous about him coming home to you being so pregnant. So they ended up not going out of the country at all because of that.
I started going into labor 10 days before I actually had Henry.
Jamie: 10 days of labor.
Rebekah: Yeah. I had prodromal labor, which I’ve never had before. I was dilating and everything. I had my midwife come ’cause I was doing my contractions, and I sent her my numbers, and she’s “What? This is just happening?” And I was like, “Yeah. It just picked up. I guess I’m in labor.” So they came out, and then about 11:00 it all fizzled. Like all of a sudden we were just sitting on the couch, and she’s “When was the last contraction you had?” And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” “They’ve stopped.” And so she’s like, “I might see you tomorrow. It might be 10 days. Who knows?”
Jamie: What was your plan for his birth? You wanted to have him At home, right?
Rebekah: Yes. Yes, in
Jamie: my home. Is it in the bath? Did you care about that this time?
Rebekah: No. We have our bathtub and where I delivered Gideon, and so I was like, maybe, in the bath. Just kinda like whatever happens. I didn’t… With, I feel like with all my subs- the my, my previous pregnancies, I’d always thought “Oh, I’m gonna do this,” or, “Oh, I’m gonna do that.”
I’ve always had a premonition. Like with Josiah, I had a premonition that I was going to squat. And with Lily, hands and knees. Gideon, I don’t know that I thought I was gonna be in the bathtub. But I had some sort of feeling about it. But with Henry, I really actually struggled to manifest his birth. That was a big thing then. I couldn’t actually envision a delivery. I just really struggled, and I could never say “This is how it’s gonna happen.” I don’t know if it was the fear that I had or what, but I just really struggled with that. I would try to do birth affirmations and all this, and it just was not coming. I definitely felt almost stuck, if you will.
Then when his birth came I started going into labor, and then my midwife was just checking in on me, like, constantly. Hey, what’s happening? I would have contractions throughout the day, but nothing too serious, and never organized. It would just be here or there. It seems like it would pick up, and then it would just fizzle out. It was just 10 days of that, and it was so annoying.
I was so ready to be done. I was like, Why? Why does this have to happen? Why is this happening like that? I had an appointment Tuesday, February 23rd with my midwife, and I was like, “I really feel like this might be it, that today is the day.” ‘Cause I feel like it’s starting to organize more.
They came back, and it definitely had picked up, and I was definitely feeling like, Okay, this is it. This is happening. And so I had hired a photographer who also happened to be a doula. And then I had a friend here as well who was So a couple of my kids had said that they wanted to be at the birth. My midwife was like, I’m fine with that, but I want a point person for the children so that if they need anything, they go to that person and they don’t come to you or Justin.
Jamie: That’s a good idea.
Rebekah: Which was great.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: And so I had asked my friend, and she was like, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. So she was here, and then we had the doula, and then we had the assistant, and my midwife, and Justin. Again, it was just a party.
About 5:00 my midwife was like, I wanna check you, because I was still talking pretty regularly in between my contractions, not during my contractions. But she was like I want to just check you to see where you’re at, because if you’re not going anywhere, then we’re gonna go home. But I was at eight centimeters at 5:00. So everyone was like, Oh, this baby is coming so fast. He’s gonna be here soon.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: And it just dragged on. I got in the bathtub. I was 10 centimeters by that time, and I would push and nothing was happening. So my midwife’s like, “Okay, let me check you again.” And she checked me and she’s “He is so high up still.” And so then we were doing pulling up the belly, and we were just doing all these things to try
Jamie: to, like- Massages and stuff.
Rebekah: Yeah, to try to bring him down.
And to see if we could. I think I just had a lot of fear. Still, like the fear was just brewing, ’cause he was still so high up, and Jonah had been so high up. I finally was like, I think I wanna go to the hospital. My midwife’s “I can break your water, but there’s concern of prolapse, because he was still so high up, that if I break your water and he comes down, we could have cord prolapse issues. She wasn’t saying that to make me fearful. She was telling me everything that could happen.
Jamie: To help you make the right decision …
Rebekah: yeah. I just think that’s the best decision for me. It’s 10 o’clock at night by this time. I have just been in labor for forever, and I’m just ready for it to be over with, and I’m just… I think the fear was just mounting. This is not a birth of conquering fear, that is for sure. And so my midwife, and then I was, and then I had fear of going to the hospital because home birth isn’t necessarily looked upon with admiration in our area, especially at the hospital that I was gonna have to go to.
I was like, “They’re gonna be mean to me. They’re not gonna treat me, they’re gonna, they’re gonna question, whether I had prenatal care or whatever,” and my midwife was like, “No, I’ve heard some, stories of transfers that they’re doing okay,” and I’m pretty sure she just lied to me to help me do it. So we get in the car and drive away, and it was the most painful drive I’ve ever been on. I-
Jamie: All the bumps and everything …
Rebekah: I was just trying to find a comfortable position. I just remember pain radiating from my abdomen through my whole body. My arms hurt, my fingers hurt my legs and my feet. I just was, like, it was just I just was in so much pain. It was just the most uncomfortable thing ever. In my head I feel like I was screaming at Justin Go faster. Go slower. Don’t hit the bumps. It’s too hot. It’s too cold.
And he’s like, Actually, you were pretty quiet. In my head, I was just screaming, and he had it on the GPS so I could look and see how far we were from the hospital.
Jamie: I love it how your brain is processing this, “And I’m ready for this moment.”
Rebekah: I know. And so we get to a stoplight where he’s gonna turn right, and we’re gonna be, like, 15-ish minutes from the hospital at that point. I’m like, I have to pee. And he goes we’ll be at the hospital in 12 minutes. I’m like, I can’t wait 12 minutes and then my water just breaks, poof. The whole reason we were going to the hospital was to have my water broken in a controlled environment and deliver this baby.
So Justin’s like what do we do now? ‘Cause your water broke. Do we go home? So he says, Should I pull over? And I said, Yes, pull over. And so the midwife is behind us in the car, and so he pulls into the gas station, and she pulls into the gas station, and he jumps out to go tell her Hey, her water broke. Do we keep going to the hospital, or do we just go back to the house? What do we do?
By that time I start screaming, Help. Help. And I’m trying to pull my pants off. So for whatever reason they couldn’t find a skirt in my closet, which is hilarious, ’cause I had skirts, but they just couldn’t find them. So they had just put sweatpants on me. But then when my water broke, they were wet sweatpants, and they were, like, a little too tight, ’cause I’d gained some weight. And so I’m like-
Jamie: And they’re wet, so they’re just-
Rebekah: Yes
Jamie: even-
Rebekah: And they’re wet. And so I’m, like, ripping at my side. I’ve got my thumb hooked in there, and I’m, like, trying to get it off and I can’t. It’s not really computing that I’m giving birth. Like, all of a sudden I’m just trying to strip my clothes off, but I’m not sure why.
And then I start screaming help me. They hear me screaming, so they come running over to the car, and the midwife, I think, knows what’s happening. I think she’s like, She’s giving birth. I’m like, “Get my pants off.” And then the lights have shown into the car, and it’s dark. It’s 10:30 at night, so the lights are shining into the car, and Justin’s thinking, Rebekah wants her pants off, but everyone’s gonna see her naked.
Jamie: Yeah, ’cause you’re at a gas station.
Rebekah: Cause we’re at a gas station. And it’s lit up, ’cause it’s a gas station. So there’s bright lights everywhere. But then the lights come on in the car when the door opens, and Justin’s like- the lights. And I was like, I don’t care, just get my pants off. And he’s just Ok- are you sure? He’s like literally what is wrong with her?
They’re ripping at my pants to try to get them off, and they finally get them to come at least down, and they’re still hooked in one leg, with my underwear too. I was wearing underwear. And the midwife’s “You’re giving birth.” I guess I knew it intuitively, and then all of a sudden my body just pushed, and his head was born. And then I did it again, and his body was born, and I was like, “What happened?”
I was almost in shock, so she brings him up and puts him on me, and of course he’s all wrapped in his cord. She’s trying to get him unwrapped and up on my chest, and and he doesn’t cry right away. She’s rubbing his back trying to stimulate him.
He’s moving. We have a video of it. ‘Cause my husband was there, and he had his little pocket camera. He pulled it out and he filmed it, which is amazing. I loved that. I remember looking up, and he’s holding the camera up over me, and I remember thinking, I’m so glad he’s filming this. Because I’m gonna get to experience it through the film.
Jamie: Yeah. That’s how you’ll remember it.
Rebekah: Yeah. ‘Cause I just it was just all happening so fast. Yeah.
Jamie: And it’s amazing that he remembered to do that …
Rebekah: I know. I think it’s because the midwife was there. So because she was there, he didn’t have anything to do. And in fact, he calls our house and tells them, Rebekah’s having the baby at the gas station. Because everybody was a little sad that I had to go to the hospital. Sure. It was… It wasn’t like, like there was no, like there wasn’t some crazy emergency, where it was like terrifying. It was more just oh, she didn’t get to b- have the birth that she wanted- … which was at home.
They can hear. Justin’s “We’re at the gas station having the baby.” He’s also filming. Just his awareness was amazing. Then, Henry finally cries. But you can see him moving. He’s moving his hand and his body. My midwife said, I wasn’t concerned because I could see him moving.
He had just been born very quickly, and so we get him to cry, and I’m like, “Ah.” And then my midwife’s I need to go park my car, because we’re just in the middle of the parking lot. Literally we just pulled in here two minutes before. They’ve talked. I’ve given birth. It’s just wild. So Justin takes off his sweater and hands it to me to wrap Henry in, ’cause my midwife’s “We need something warm for him to be wrapped in.” And so Justin’s ripping off his sweater, gives it to me, shuts the door ’cause of the, the cold, ’cause it’s February.
And shuts the door. She’s like, “I need to go park my car.” And Justin comes running around, gets in, turns the heat on, makes sure that it’s a hot environment for the baby, and then he looks at me and he says, How are you? And I was just like, Oh, my gosh. That was the most intense thing I’ve ever done.
Jamie: You don’t know yet …
Rebekah: I’m just still in shock that I gave birth at a gas station. She parks her car, gets back into, gets in the driver’s seat. We have a console, and then, me. So she’s sitting on it, and she’s “I need to check your bleeding,” so she literally takes her arm. She’s wearing a sweater, and she just goes like this to the chair to get everything that’s on the chair, which was a, a blood, a bloody mess, and I also did poop, so it’s just gross. And she’s just “I need to make sure you’re not hemorrhaging,” and so I get Henry nursing, and Justin says, we better leave before someone calls 911. ‘Cause we don’t wanna go to the hospital now. We wanna go home.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: Do everything at home. We drove. Justin was like, “I was so nervous driving.” Thankfully it was, 10:45 at this point. Nobody’s on the road. There’s very few traffic. It was a Tuesday night, so it wasn’t like there was a lot of traffic on the road at night.
Jamie: And here the cord has not been cut yet.
Rebekah: No. No. We literally just get in the car and start driving home. My placenta was hanging out at this point.
Jamie: Okay.
Rebekah: She checked that. She’s like, “Oh, your placenta’s already here.” It’s already been, like, detached and hanging here. We had brought a bowl for me to throw up in. So we put the placenta in that. I’ve never had any hemorrhaging or anything like that after any of my births, so this was no different than that thankfully. She was concerned because he did come so quickly that there could be concern for hemorrhaging.
I got him nursing, and it was so amazing. I just remember us driving home, he’s nursing on this side, and we were just staring in each other’s eyes. It was like, I just remember just taking him in and he was just taking me in. And it was just so beautiful. It was just so amazing that he was here. And I had wished for him to be here safely, and he was. And he was finally in my arms, and I could hold him.
I remember driving by this one person’s house, ’cause he has a light. I could really get a good look at Henry when I was holding him. And I was just like, Oh, my gosh, This is my baby. He’s here.
Jamie: Cause it was at night- And I, it was and there weren’t any lights on in the car.
Rebekah: No. No. Yeah. We had the dashboard lights, but they’re not super bright.
We came home, Justin went past our house and turned around so the other midwife came out. We had one in the car with us, and then there was one here who was cleaning up. She came out with a towel, and wanted to take Henry in. She got him from me and wrapped him in a towel and brought him inside.
Jamie: With your placenta?
Rebekah: Yeah, yeah. I guess she grabbed the bowl too. I’m, like, trying to think. Yeah, ’cause it was in the bowl.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: And maybe the other midwife that was in the car with me went in with her. I can’t, I ca- I can’t even remember. And Justin was like, he came. He got out, and he was, like, coming around, and he was like How are we gonna get me inside. And he was just like, “I’ll just pick you up.” And he just picked me up and it’s crazy ’cause I’m wearing slippers still.
I still have the slippers, and my underwear and the pants are, like, hanging off one leg. It is such a disaster. And they get me in the bed. They had Chuck’s pad laid out. I don’t even remember. I laid in the bed, and then my midwife’s like, “Let me run a bath. We’ll get you in a bath right away.” And ’cause, I was just a mess from all of that.
Jamie: You were kinda sitting in it, too, because of the seat. Yeah. You didn’t have anything underneath you. Yeah.
Rebekah: Yeah. No, I didn’t. I know, I was like, “I should’ve sat on a Chuck’s pad. What were we thinking?” And so I go… And Justin, bless him, he leaves to go start cleaning the car ’cause it was so bad.
And we have a video. There was just blood and some poo, like- … smeared all over. It was so bad. We ended up having to have a biohazard company come and clean it. And when they came to take it away, which we had, It was a couple weeks after. We had cleaned it, obviously. Hosed it, hosed out what we could, and then wiped everything down really well with disinfectant.
They got into a full body even had a mask on to drive my car back to their place, and it would cost us $750 to get it cleaned.
Jamie: Geez.
Rebekah: If anyone has a baby in a car, you can call the restoration companies that night, and they will come and pick up your vehicle. You don’t have to clean it at all.
Jamie: But who would think that?
Rebekah: I know. Who would think to do that? We were “What are we gonna do?” So Justin was, like, cleaning it that night. He disappeared, but I had plenty of people in the room with me. I had the two midwives, my, my friend, the doula. Our kids woke up and came and met him, two of them. ‘Cause two of them spent the night at my parents’ house. They’re just up the hill.
And then two of them were down here, the ones who wanted to be at the birth. Which was hilarious, by the way. They were like, “When’s she gonna have-“
Jamie: Who was it?
Rebekah: It was Jonah and Lily. Jonah. And they were like, “When is she gonna have this baby?” They thought that literally you have a contraction and then you just push the baby out. They didn’t know that it was, like-
Jamie: a thing
Rebekah: Hours of things. You know-
Jamie: Yeah
Rebekah: … hours of contractions. It’s really funny, ’cause they were like, “What is going on?” Anyways so they woke up and got to meet the baby, and it was just a really sweet time. I was just so glad that it was all over.
There’s this one picture of me where I’m, like, I’m g- I’m, like, holding him, and I’m just like, “Oh, my gosh,” and I’m just so glad. I was just so glad that it was over.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: Because the last 10 or 15 minutes before he was born, I was just in so much pain. I can’t explain it. It was just so painful, and I don’t really know why it was so painful. It just felt like it was just one contraction after the next. I don’t feel like I got any breaks. It just felt like one literal contraction.
My whole plan was to go to the hospital and beg them for a C-section under general anesthesia. ‘Cause I was so ready to be done. I was so thankful to be at home.
Jamie: I do have one question.
Rebekah: Yes.
Jamie: I feel like you manifested this birth in the car. Because of your thoughts, I don’t want to go to the hospital. Do you feel this?
Rebekah: It definitely, it, it definitely could have been. My midwife, the one that wasn’t in the car with us, she was so shocked that I had him in the car. She was like, “He was so high up. If I would’ve known that, I would’ve just ridden you down the road, and then come back.” She’s just I would’ve just never guessed, ’cause he was so high up.
They were shocked when we called them and said, “We’re coming home.” “We’ve had the baby.” She was like, “What?” But I mean-
Jamie: Wow
Rebekah: … I am really anti-hospital. If we can avoid the hospital we really do. So maybe I did manifest this baby. It’s interesting my friend and the doula who were here- did pray that I would have the baby before we got to the hospital.
Jamie: Ooh.
Rebekah: And then like literally as soon as they got done praying, the phone rang. And so maybe it was. Maybe it was a manifestation of me not go- ’cause I really didn’t wanna go to the hospital. I’m not opposed. To Western medicine. I just don’t wanna go there unless we have to.
Jamie: Yes. What about your recovery? Tell us, it wasn’t easy. Tell us about that.
Rebekah: So my postpartum with Henry was definitely more difficult.. My recovery, I didn’t really tear. I had a skid mark, is what she said I had a little, maybe a slight tear, but nothing that keeping my legs together wouldn’t heal up on its own. So she wanted me just to make sure that I was keeping my legs together and I was resting. She wanted me to make sure that I prioritized rest.
Some people on the internet thought that I stayed in bed way too long, and I was like I was just following the orders of the person who was taking care of me. I don’t know if it’s because of the Hashimoto’s diagnosis or what, but I am a slow healer. I always have been. I’ve never been, this fast quick healer.
I did end up having some issues with my thyroid medication too, because I had a med adjustment pretty close to my labor, and then I just kept taking that dose. My doctor had given me the freedom, like, “Hey, back off once you deliver,” and I just forgot to do that. Then my thyroid medication was just way, way too high. I was getting really anxious, like I was afraid Henry was gonna die. I was just having a hard time sleeping because I was, like, afraid that he was gonna die, which is completely unfound. I think it was because my thyroid medication was just-
Jamie: Okay …
Rebekah: ramping up. I did end up having an episode where my heart went really high, and I started vomiting and all of this. And my mid- my, my doctor, my functional medicine doctor had me go to the hospital to get checked out just to make sure that everything was fine, but my TSH was extremely high. With TSH, high numbers would be… It was, like, .05 is a high number, and so a low number for your TSH is five or six.
Does that make sense? It’s opposite.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: So my TSH was extremely high. It was, like, .05 when I went to the hospital, which is really high.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: So that’s why I was having those crazy symptoms. I just didn’t take my thyroid medication for a week. She put me on a lower dose. We tested again in four weeks just to make sure that we were on the right… she gave me her home number.
Jamie: Oh, how nice …
Rebekah: she had me take 50 McGs in the morning, and then another 50 ’cause she just wanted to make sure that I got on boarded really slowly- just in case- I still had too much TSH, to-
Jamie: Yeah
Rebekah: … if I had too much thyroid hormone in my body. So she was so great. She was like, Do not hesitate to call me. So it was really great to have her.
Everything was going great, then Justin got campylobacter when Henry was just shy of four months old. It was food poisoning, and he was just so sick. It terrified me, we did not sleep in the same room with him because I was like, If we catch this this would put Henry in the hospital. It was bad.
Jamie: Sure.
Rebekah: We slept in the living room for the first night, and then I realized this is gonna be longer term, so we ended up moving into the guest room. We ended up sleeping in there for probably two weeks.
But in that time, Henry had his four-month check. I said to her, So I think my husband has salmonella, and I don’t want Henry to get it, really, is what it comes down to. I’m not so worried about myself. And she was like would he do a poop test? I was like, Yes, he will, ’cause I’m gonna make him. Cause we need to know what this is because we have a four-month-old. It was Campylobacter.
3 to 5% of people who get food poisoning get something called reactive arthritis, which is an arthritis that is coming from the bacteria in the gut.
Jamie: Wow.
Rebekah: And so it’s basically an arthritic condition. And so he basically, it started in his hip, his right hip. He couldn’t walk right, and he was like, “Why is my hip hurting?” And then once the doctor called with the results of the test, Justin just mentioned “Hey, I’m having these others… my wrist is hurting. My hip hurt.” So she actually sent him to the hospital to get blood work, and he had crazy high inflammation numbers. His sed rate was, like, over 50. His CRP, I think that’s the right one, was, like, over 90, which is inflammation markers in your body. And they were just extremely high. And it just basically had to run its course. It was, like, five, six months of him just having insane joint pain. Different joints. It would move around his body.
That was probably the hardest part of the postpartum because- he couldn’t do anything. He would hold Henry for me while I was doing things for the family. But yeah, that was probably the hardest part of postpartum, I would say.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: Thankful Justin has made a complete recovery and he has no residual effects.
Jamie: That’s amazing.
Rebekah: Henry just turned five, and i’m so grateful that we had a baby in our 40s, because I have an 18, 16, 14, 11-year-old now, and a five-year-old. I’m always like, to women, I’m like, If you can have a baby later in life, do it.
Just do it because it’s so beautiful, because you just appreciate it differently, definitely. And I’m just a, I’m a different mom, yeah. When I was little, I had a bunch of littles, and now I only have one little. And not that I’m spoiling him a lot. I am spoiling him a little bit. He still sleeps in our bed with us, which like none of my other kids. ‘Cause there was always a new baby coming.
Jamie: Yeah.
Rebekah: They couldn’t, they couldn’t sleep in my bed, but now he can. Yeah. And I just love it. I just love it. I am so very grateful that we had… In fact, I’m kinda sad that we didn’t have a second in my 40s.
Jamie: That’s what I was gonna ask you. You think you’ll have another one?
Rebekah: I don’t. I’ll be 47 in May of 2026. Maybe I could get pregnant ’cause I think I’m in perimenopause, and I had a 45-day cycle like a couple months back. I was like, “What is this?” I’ve been a 28-day cycle girl my whole life, and then now I went to 45 days, and I was like, “I don’t know what to do with this. I went to acupuncture ’cause I go once a month and I was like, “Hey, so I just want you to know I’m pretty sure it’s perimenopause, but I haven’t had my cycle yet. I’m on day 40 or whatever.” And she was just like, “Okay. You could be pregnant, Rebekah.” And I was like, “I don’t think I am,” ’cause I didn’t have any of the symptoms. I get nausea pretty quickly. And I was like… She was like you do know your body the best, so I do recognize that. But also, I’m not gonna do any points that are contraindicated with pregnancy just in case.
And she was like, “I think if you wanted to have a baby, I could help support you have this baby.” And I was like, “I don’t know if I wanna do that.”
Jamie: What has been your biggest challenge being pregnant in your 40s?
Rebekah: My biggest challenge is I think just I feel like it was more emotional, and I think that’s probably just because I wanted it so bad. I wanted this baby so bad, and I was so afraid that it wasn’t gonna work out, and I think- … that was… it was just felt so emotional. It was just really… I was just so worried that I wasn’t gonna get to have that dream that I really wanted.
Jamie: Yeah. Is there anything you recommend that would help prepare someone for pregnancy and birth over 40?
Rebekah: I would say just eating a whole foods diet, like, making sure that you are getting enough protein. Don’t overdo the protein, but just get enough, you don’t have to go crazy. But eating… I would say just eat as much whole foods as you can, fruits, vegetables, dairy, eggs, meat. Just be making sure that you’re on point with your diet.
Also, I think, honestly, I wonder if it would’ve been easier if I would’ve done some emotional work prior to it. Maybe that could’ve helped me release some of that fear and not been, and not manifested a car birth On accident.
It’s funny one of the kids’ tutors, I said to her, I said, Yeah, I’m not trying to have this baby in the car.” And that was the last thing I said to her, and then I had the baby in the car, and she just laughed. She thought that was hilarious. She was
Jamie: That is hilarious
Rebekah: I thought you were trying not to have the baby in the car. I wasn’t.
Jamie: That’s funny. What advice would you give yourself when you were pregnant if you could go back?
Rebekah: I think I would say stop stressing. It’s gonna be okay. And like what Justin said, don’t look at the what-ifs in the negative, look at the what-ifs in the positive.
Jamie: Yeah. And we have a lot of listeners who are trying to conceive over 40. What do you say to those women?
Rebekah: I hope it really happens for you. I can understand that desire, and I just feel like, if it’s meant to be, it will. And I know that’s not what everybody wants to hear ’cause everybody wants to hear it’s gonna happen for sure. But I think just working on ourselves and our emotional state and… And also, I do know acupuncture is really great. So if you haven’t tried that, maybe give it a try as well.
Jamie: Perfect. And would you like to tell our listeners where they can connect with you?
Rebekah: Yeah. So on Instagram Rebekah.rhodes. On YouTube, my husband’s channel is Justin Rhodes, if you’re in my DMs on Instagram, I try to even look at the requests. If you’re not following me I still, I try to get to everybody. So if you have any questions or need encouragement or whatever, you can just DM me there.
Jamie: I love it. And all… The reason I know her story is because- Okay … I’ve watched the video a couple times. So if you wanna see these videos, I will link ’em in the show notes.
Rebekah: Yeah.
Jamie: So amazing. Rebekah, thank you so much for coming on
Rebekah: Oh, you’re welcome
Jamie: on the show.
Rebekah: Thank you for having me.