51. Forget the outdated medical charts labeling moms over 40 as “elderly multi-gravida”—it’s time to rewrite the rules of midlife motherhood. In this raw, funny, and incredibly honest episode, guest Sabrina Turner pulls back the curtain on navigating an ectopic pregnancy, managing gestational diabetes, scheduling a C-section around a Fast & Furious movie premiere, and why she is proudly marching forward into her “mom body.”
On episode 51, What happens when your 10-year law school reunion, a trip to Portugal, and a positive pregnancy test all collide? You buckle up for a wild, beautiful, and completely unapologetic journey into motherhood in your forties. Sabrina, a former group fitness instructor and mom of two, Sabrina Turner, to break down the beautiful chaos of conceiving naturally in midlife, managing back-to-back pregnancies with a toddler in tow, and ditching the toxic “bounce back” culture for good.
Sabrina shares the deeply relatable realities of navigating the healthcare system as an older mom—from the frustration of seeing “elderly” stamped on her medical records to the absolute game-changer of choosing a concierge-style scheduled C-section. Whether she’s talking about faking a gender reveal party, setting up a pediatric dentist appointment for a baby that didn’t even exist yet, or comparing parenting two kids to running a “man-to-man defense” on the football field, Sabrina’s data-driven, humorous, and deeply authentic perspective is exactly what every modern mom needs to hear.
About the Guest
Sabrina Turner is a passionate sports enthusiast, attorney, former group fitness instructor, and a proud mom of two boys, Atlas and Roman. Born and raised in Chicago, Sabrina brings a uniquely analytical, data-driven, and refreshingly direct perspective to the conversation surrounding modern motherhood. A self-proclaimed avid fantasy football player and lifelong fitness lover, she spent years teaching everything from spin to bootcamp before trading the gym floor for the beautiful chaos of raising a toddler and a newborn in her early forties.
Connect with Sabrina:
- Instagram: @sjtlifestyle
Key Topics
- Ditching the “Geriatric” Label: Overcoming the frustrating and outdated medical terminology used for pregnancies over 40.
- The Power of an All-Female Care Team: Navigating an ectopic pregnancy and why Sabrina chose to switch to an entirely female medical practice.
- Scheduled vs. Emergency C-Sections: A side-by-side look at the chaotic reality of an emergency delivery versus the “concierge service” feel of a planned birth.
- Data, Digital Predictors, and Toddler Logistics: How Sabrina used digital ovulation kits, navigated a major career change mid-pregnancy, and pre-booked specialized appointments for her second child.
- Marching Forward vs. Bouncing Back: A refreshing perspective on rejecting postpartum “bounce back” culture and celebrating what the 40+ body can achieve.
- The “Man-to-Man” Parenting Defense: Why going from one child to two changes the game, and the unique financial and emotional perks of having kids later in life.
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Transcript
Jamie: Sabrina, welcome to the show.
Sabrina: Oh my goodness, Jamie, thank you so much for having me.
Jamie: So take us back.
Sabrina: I got pregnant the first time in the very end of 2019.
Jamie: Okay.
Sabrina: It ended up being an ectopic pregnancy. We were not trying for that one. Once the pregnancy ended, that’s when I was like, oh, I do actually really want to have kids. Before I was like, if I do great, if I don’t, great.
I got more serious about checking my ovulation, and then the pandemic happened and six weeks into the pandemic in 2020 is when I found out I was pregnant for the second time with my first kid who’s now two and a half.
After he was born, I did a year of breastfeeding and then I stopped breastfeeding and my period came back. For a couple months I was like, you know what, I don’t wanna get too far removed from this so that I give away all of the baby equipment. And I told my bed off that if we were gonna do it, this was the time to do it. So again, I checked the ovulation and got pregnant again. Now I have a two and a half year old and a two and a half month old.
Jamie: Oh, nice. Question about your atopic pregnancy. Did you have to lose your tube?
Sabrina: No, I didn’t have to lose my tube. They caught it early enough, or it was small enough. I had to get which is considered abortion. And if you look on some of my medical records, it’s listed as terminating a pregnancy, a methotrexate shot.
It ended up being two shots. They go in your butt cheek, which is pretty fun to sit down on afterwards. It is not. If there is anything in there you pass it. I didn’t, I don’t think I had much tissue and, or not a tissue at that point, but like uterine lining in that kind of thing. It is technically a terminated pregnancy. Because it is a pregnancy, even if it isn’t viable because it’s in your fallopian tube. I didn’t have to have surgery or anything like that. Not a lot of bleeding. Some pain. But it just the two, two shots.
Jamie: Yeah. I had to do the same thing. The shot didn’t work for me, and a week later I was in surgery having my tube out. ‘Cause I had internal bleeding.
Sabrina: Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.
Jamie: Yeah. So I’m glad the shot worked for you. Before you were, you found out you were pregnant, what made you take a pregnancy test?
Sabrina: I’d been trying to get pregnant, so I had equal amounts of pregnancy tests and ovulation predictors in my medicine cabinet. If I wasn’t taking one, I was taking the other to try to figure out when I was ovulating so that I could figure out when we should conceive the baby. And then figure out when I was pregnant.
It was September of last year and it was like. My in-person fantasy football draft with a league of women that I’ve been playing. We actually played real football together and then played fantasy together. So there was a huge party where I’m an avid drinker and that makes me sound crazy, but bear with me. I knew I would be drinking and then my law school 10 year reunion, which got postponed two years because of the pandemic. My best friend from law school were in town for a weekend for our reunion. the week after that me and two of those friends were going to Portugal for a week for one of them’s 40th birthday. So I had a series of events where I knew alcohol would involve, and I made it through two of the three, so the fantasy football draft and the reunion.
Then I took the pregnancy test between the reunion and Portugal, and that’s when I found out and I was like, I’m going to this place with all this wine and all these like uncured meats and soft cheeses. In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t taken the test beforehand. ’cause ignorance is blis, but I did. So I had less of all of those things. Still some, but less of all of those things than I would’ve.
Jamie: So were you on a schedule just taking the test to see?
Sabrina: I’ve been fortunate to be able to conceive naturally every single time and for it not to take a long time. I don’t wanna say it was like a one and done, but it probably was like two times, two times within four days of each other. And then I was pregnant the next the next, after you wait two weeks or however long until you’re supposed to and to take a test. Yeah.
Jamie: Wow. So you hadn’t even missed your cycle yet.
Sabrina: My cycle never came back super regularly. I stopped breastfeeding anyway. It came every month, but it was sometimes one day, sometimes five days. And yeah, so I, I didn’t know how long it was gonna be then.
Jamie: That’s really impressive.
Sabrina: My mom told me when we were, when I was younger years ago, she said, we’re really fertile. I had never been on birth control, but I’d also never been in a serious relationship until my current partner, so I never really had any need to be on birth control. So I never had a chance to like, test my fertility.
I thought it was just something that moms say sometimes just ’cause they’re like, oh, we are, we have childbearing, hips, or whatever the stuff that boomers say. But she was right. The older I get and the longer the more friends I have that have kids and are trying to have kids and all of these things though, the more I realized that is that is not necessarily super common, and it is a blessing to be able to say, okay, this month I’m going to get pregnant.
Jamie: That’s great. And how was your pregnancy?
Sabrina: Ooh, honey. This one was markedly different from the first one. And the main difference is that, and it’s wild. ’cause at my first I was 31st pregnancy, I was 39, and it said geriatric pregnancy in my record. And that’s what you see all over the internet. And that’s the joke like, ha, I’m geriatric. That’s rude. Over 40. It’s literally said elderly multi gravita in my, yes. Elderly multi gravita and multi gravita just means you’ve been pregnant more than once. So that’s not a scary word, even though it’s, long. But I saw elderly, I screenshotted it and it made me feel very angry inside of myself.
Like why haven’t we figured out better terms to talk about something that’s fairly common at this point, like advanced maternal age is still not very nice, but at least it’s descriptive more than and not as rude because whatever, but yes. So the, there was that difference in my records.
There’s some people that like, have one sonogram picture of their babies with built pregnancies, but specifically the second one. I had, I have so many sonograms. Every time I open the back page of a book or a planner or look in a pocket of a purse that I haven’t looked at in a while, I find five pictures because I was in the place getting sonograms and having them check on the baby like every other week.
It was a lot, it was a lot of time to have to go back and forth to the hospital. But the hospital and the doctor, they’re like next to each other and they’re not far from me, but still I know where the best lunch spot is in the hospital. I know like exactly where to park to get in as quickly as possible.
Jamie: That’s funny.
Sabrina: There’s that, there’s the elderly, the having to go all the time. And then I got gestational diabetes this pregnancy, but there’s a lot of reasons behind it. It was a lot less healthy and in shape than I was with my first full-term pregnancy. I’d spent my life teaching group fitness and up until the pandemic, I was teaching like nine classes a week of between Spin, Zumba, bootcamp. Those are the three main ones I taught. So I was in really good shape. I was not skinny by any means ’cause that’s not how my body works.
But I didn’t. But once I got pregnant and I got tired, I never went back. And so with the second pregnancy, I didn’t have the nine years. I still have it in my body, but I didn’t have it the same way. So I feel like a lot more stuff went wrong. I had the gestational diabetes, so I had to adjust my diet.
So the day that I found out I was pregnant, this when I this 40, the time this time that I was 41, I was 235 pounds and I’m only five three and that’s a lot. The day I gave birth, I weighed less than the day I found out I was pregnant. And I weigh even less now. So the gestational diabetes was, it’s not a good thing, but it is a way to control your weight during pregnancy, which I guess it’s supposed to, yeah, it’s supposed to. Yeah.
So there’s that complication, and then I had to have, not, I had to, but I decided to have a. A scheduled C-section with this one because I’d had an emergency C-section the first time. And I am, I’m black, I am old and I’m overweight, and I hadn’t, and no, even if you have a vaginal birth after a C-section, you, it’s still the same prize at the end. You don’t get any extra points for giving birth vaginally after a C-section. So I was like, why am I gonna complicate something that’s already somewhat complicated? I’m just gonna. Going in there, let my friend doctor pull this baby out.
I’m gonna go to the movies the day before. I’ve seen all the Fast and the Furious movies in the theater, so this is probably the biggest complication is I’ve seen Every Fast and the Furious movie in the theater, and it’s my favorite movie franchise. And the movie came out the date was the date of my scheduled C-section. So I was like this is rude. I can’t take a one week old into a movie theater. So I saw the movie the day before. Because I could plan my C-section, I could plan the movie, so I got to do it all. My child even has the name of one of the characters in Vast Nefarious.
Jamie: Oh, that’s fun.
Sabrina: Yeah, it’s Roman.
Jamie: I love it. Now going back to your doctor, how did you use the same one for the previous?
Sabrina: Yes, but, so my original ob, GYN was, is my mom’s ob, GYN, who is also my grandmother’s towards, but towards the end of my grandmother’s life. So not like this, she’s like a family, like a second or third cousin. So she’s like a little bit older than my mom, I think.
She was my OB GYN for a while and with my very first pregnancy, the ectopic one that she was still my OB, GYN. So I was going to her practice, but her practice merged with another practice. And so when my, partner and I had to go in to get the news that we were having an ectopic pregnancy.
The person that delivered it to me was not my cousin doctor, it was this random little old man who I had never met before. He was as nice as he could be, but I decided right then and there, that number one, I never wanted a stranger giving me news like that again, and I never wanted a man giving me news like that again.
It ended up that one of the doctors that treated me in the hospital with the methotrexate for the ectopic pregnancy, ’cause I switched to a hospital downtown closer to me instead of out where my mom lives.
One of the doctors who was there, I liked her so much that I was like, I’m now coming to your practice. So she did the methotrexate shot and then all the treatment, follow up after that. And then she was there with me through my first long-term pregnancy, full-term pregnancy. And then this one. She’s my actual OB now, so I go to my annuals with her too.
Jamie: What was important to you when switching?
Sabrina: I wanted an all female practice. In fact, on the door of my hospital room when I gave birth, wrote a sign that said men are not to enter, or something like that. I wanted all female providers, like from the receptionists and the nurses to the doctors to the lab techs, everybody. I never, and I’m not like super girly like that. I just know that this is something that men can’t emphasize with at all, like in no shape or form.
And even women who’ve never been pregnant, don’t wanna be pregnant, all that kind of stuff. It, even women like that still have some sort of empathy to the body parts that I have and to the understanding of how they work and what they can and cannot do.
Was, for me, it was important that all women practice. The only dude I wanted in there was my partner and my brother if he had wanted to come. But he didn’t really, he just came later. Like he didn’t care about coming to the hospital, but the first time, no one could come anyway ’cause of the pandemic.
As much, as many times as I had to go to the doctor in the hospital, if it had been that far away, like my old ob, GYN was. I spent so much time in my car on the road when I should have been at work. So I needed to be able to like, get in and out quickly and not have to, I could walk, I walk to the doctor sometimes.
Jamie: Oh, that’s nice.
Sabrina: I can’t anymore. I actually, I can, from my new office, I can walk too. My doctor. Yeah. I park like halfway between them.
Jamie: Did you have morning sickness or anything like that?
Sabrina: Nope. I’ve never had morning sickness. My first trimester, I was exhausted, like fatigue in a way that like I wanted to go to bed at 5:00 PM every night, and when I woke up I was thinking about when the next time I could take a nap or go to bed. I was like so tired.
And then second trimester. Magically I got energy back and could do things. That’s the only trimester I ever like worked out. I like dusted off the Peloton for a little bit.
And then third trimester tired again, not nearly as tired as first trimester, but tired again, and then just uncomfortable. Just no, no position that you sit or lay is comfortable and you have to pee every couple hours at night. And that’s when I am like, these little boys gotta get outta here. They have to go. They can no longer stay. Their time is up. Yeah.
Jamie: What about the gender? Did you find out the gender during pregnancy?
Sabrina: Yeah the fun thing about being old is that you get a lot of tests done and you have a lot of pictures, but also that they genetically test you. So like I got the NIPT, the non-invasive prenatal test where they look for chromosomal abnormalities. So instead of doing an amniocentesis where they stick a needle into your belly, they just take some of your blood because there’s always some of the baby’s DNA mixed in with yours.
Don’t get me to talking about science in a way that I don’t understand it, but that makes sense to me because I’m growing him. When they give you the form, it says for me it said no Down syndrome, no trisomy, I think it’s 13, 18, 15. I forget the three, but none of the three.
It also has the big, like giant symbol on there. And then underneath it, like in bold it said mail. I wanted to find out both times, and you find out at like week 12 or something, inordinately early because of, this testing that they do for older moms. The first time we did it, we just were sitting at the computer and I was like, all right, I’m gonna click and open this email. And Zev was like, all right, let’s open this email. And we said, oh, we’re having a boy.
The second time I was like, all right, I’m gonna let my brother open it and let him plan. I told him he need to plan something. But the problem is I was too busy trying to make sure that the baby didn’t have any chromosomal abnormalities. They’re like, I didn’t wait. When it, when the record comes in, I get it the same time as my doctor in my chart. So I didn’t let my doctor read it first and write me a note. ’cause they knew I didn’t wanna find out. I like read it.
If my mom is listening to this, me and Zev and Matthew and Ty, we faked it. We knew it was a boy, but we had the party anywhere. So my surprise face was not that the powder inside of the football was blue, it was that there was powder inside of the football and exploded all over me. I already knew I was having another boy.
Jamie: So what did you think when you saw that you were having another boy?
Sabrina: Part of me was like. Okay, great. I don’t have to buy any new things. Like I have all, I just had a boy, I have all the clothes and then I was like excited. ’cause one of my friends from college will tell you that apparently I said I wanted to have a whole house, a football team’s worth of boys. That’s what I wanted to have.
I don’t remember saying this, but Jamie swears I said it. And then I had a little bit of a disappointment because I am in a sorority and I wanted my daughter to be in the same sorority as me if I’d had one. And my mom and I are sorority sisters. So I’d wanted her to do that also. But and I went to all girls school, so I wanted her to go, if I’d had a daughter to go to my school. So I missed out on having another having a mini me. But I also will never have a teenage daughter in my house with me. So that I feel is a blessing.
And boy, moms, I’m wearing a t-shirt right now that says, boy, mom, like I, I so far, I’m only two and a half years into this game, but boys love their moms.
Jamie: I love it. And was there any products that you couldn’t live without that helped you during pregnancy?
Sabrina: The first one is that ovulation predictor. That’s one. When I was thinking about how to answer this question, that was the one that that stuck out the most because there’s so many different ovulation predictor kits and I, despite my not understanding. The exact science of how the NIPT works. I am, I do have a science background, so like for me it’s data collection.
So the one that I got is the digital one. So instead of you having to judge the colors on the strip, it literally gives you a flashing smiley face, which basically means go have sex, go do it now. Because this is the time you can make a baby. And that I found, I use that with both of my pregnancies and it’s was really helpful. So don’t try to guess with a strip, what color, how dark the strip is or whatever. Get the one that tells you like, same with pregnancy tests. Get the one that says either pregnant or not pregnant. Don’t leave it up to your eyes ’cause you’re lying. You’re lying. Lying eyes. Lying eyes or lying eyes. Yeah,
Jamie: Uhhuh,
Sabrina: you’ll convince yourself of whatever you wanna convince yourself of. But if it’s a word or an actual digital readout, it’s easier. And then giant water bottles and cups. I’m now addicted. I have 50 million of these in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. I don’t have a Stanley because honestly, because I couldn’t find one, not because I wouldn’t have purchased it. But I have simple modern, which is very similar and they help with water throughout your pregnancy. And for me, I’m breastfeeding now, so like I was be drinking a crap ton of water.
Then everything else is it’s all regular stuff. There’s no specific lotion you should use, but make sure you’re moisturized. There’s no specific. Exercise product, everything else is just whatever is your creature comforts. Do those things. Get a giant, get giant cups of water and leave them all over your house and make sure they’re cute. ‘Cause then you’ll drink from them.
Jamie: Definitely. And how did you prepare for birth in the baby?
Sabrina: Prepare for the baby. The first time I went all overboard with not painting his room, but putting up a mural and like doing all this stuff. This second one, I’m sorry for anyone out here who is a second child. ’cause I’m not, I’m an oldest child, but my guess is your parents are similar to me and my partner. Like we didn’t really do much of anything for him. Poor thing. And Roman, if you’re listening to this years later, I still love you, son. I just. He sleeps in our room, his clothes are in the guest room, and we change him on the changing table in his brother’s room. Like he doesn’t have a home. He is like roaming, like he’s, he’s no actual docking station, poor thing.
What I did was make sure that like I had the zero to three month close in the newborn clothes back from the friend that we lent them to. And I made sure he had a place to sleep. So I pulled the old bassinet out and, I made sure that I had a job ’cause I actually switched jobs mid pregnancy, which I don’t don’t advocate doing. That’s a bad idea, but I had to do it.
And then we talked a little bit about who was gonna watch him once I went back to work and all that kind of stuff. But this time I didn’t spend a lot of time in the preparation. Because I was too busy taking care of a two and a half year old, and that’s, and looking for a job. And so that’s hard. I never had a birth plan, not with either kid. My birth plan was epidural and everyone comes home alive. Those were the only two things when my birth plan both times.
Jamie: That’s a good one. Do you think that you got less stuff this time because of your age or because he was a number two?
Sabrina: Because he was a number two. I don’t think that anyone cares how old I am. And I’m not the only person my age around me having kids. Yeah. So I think that it was because it was a, the second one, and I asked for less, like my registry the first time had 209 items on it, and they all got purchased. My registry this time had 50 something and I think like 38 of ’em got purchased.
Which is fine because at some point I was just putting stuff on there so that people would have something to choose from in case they wanted to buy something. But we really didn’t need a whole lot. We got a double stroller, which I can’t use yet because the baby can’t hold his head up yet.
We got a mattress for his crib. I got a, I didn’t buy him a good crib. I like went to fa, like someone was giving away a mini crib in one of my parent groups on Facebook. And I was like, I’ll take it. So I got a free mini crib and just bought, I just bought him a new mattress for it, or I put a new mattress on the registry.
We got his brother’s old car seat back. So we have that back and yeah, just using the same things. He’s got some monogram stuff with his own name on it, but mostly it’s the stuff from Atlas is still new. And when with babies, especially with Atlas, we got so much stuff that we weren’t able to use a lot of it. So there’s still stuff new with tags that I didn’t use for my first one that I got to use for my second one. Yeah.
Jamie: That’s nice. And what about classes? You probably didn’t feel the need to take any,
Sabrina: no. So the first time we took the, my first baby is a pandemic baby, we took the classes, but they were all online. I’m an extrovert. I love to talk to people, I love to hear people’s stories. So I would’ve loved going to class and making new parent friends. But there’s no time to socialize over cookies or whatever on the internet.
So I didn’t do that, but I am now, there’s a new parent support group that meets every Monday, and I go to that. Even though I don’t necessarily need the same help with breastfeeding that some other people do, but I introduced myself the first day and told everyone I was here to make friends because I didn’t get to do this with my first one. If you have any questions or if you wanna hang out, let me, yeah.
But we took a birthing class and a breastfeeding class and a newborn care class the first time. Varying degrees of usefulness. The problem is, I think that they’re timed wrong. I think that having the birthing class before you birth is a good idea. But I think that like the information in the breastfeeding class and the newborn care class, it’s not useful.
I didn’t retain any of it from before. My pregnancy to after I, I had him, I think that I would rather have taken a breastfeeding class after having a baby because there’s so much to remember and so much that they do and give you in the hospital and there’s someone coming in and out of your hospital room all the time. It’s just a, it’s a lot of information to give a person who’s never had a kid before or who has a kid already. It’s just a lot of information ahead of time that is much more useful afterwards.
Jamie: Plus it would be good to get hands-on like techniques, right? When you’re trying to breastfeed.
Sabrina: Yeah. And they do that some at my hospital, but it’s much more useful afterwards.
Jamie: I love that. Who was your support group through pregnancy?
Sabrina: How many hours do you have? It starts with my boyfriend, Zev and my mother. And it goes to all of my different girl friends, the ones I talk to every day, who I consider like my best friends. Some have had kids, some who haven’t. It goes to like girls. I went to high school, women I went to high school with and graduate school and undergrad with who I may not talk to every day, but like we have these intense conversations on Instagram about momming and parenting and those kind of things.
It goes to like people who are pregnant. I’ve been lucky both times to have pretty close friends pregnant at the same time as me do within a week or two with me. I got to go through it with friends both times and that’s like literally go through it with friends both times. That’s been an absolute joy. Like one of my friends, we ran into each other in our ob g Yns office, her coming out of the bathroom, me going in, and that’s how we each found out the other one was. Our children were due within a day of each other.
Jamie: Wow.
Sabrina: But they ended up about four weeks apart, but yeah.
Jamie: How fun.
Sabrina: And then, the general accounts like, like yours, podcasts, like yours, those kind of things where you can find like niche communities, like I was in a Facebook group, a due date group. Called 35 plus mamas due in January, 2021. That’s a specific as you can get. And then I made another one for May, 2023, but but I found, I found a lot of support there because those people are literally going through exactly what you’re going through.
Jamie: Oh, great. So you went to the movies, how was it?
Sabrina: It was amazing. I’ll give you my whole birth story.
Because it’s very me. I had that whole week planned that Monday was my last day at work because one of my bestest friends, she actually started at my office that day, so I was not gonna leave her high and dry. So my first, my last day, prince first day was Monday, Tuesday. I like ran all the last minute errands Wednesday I went and got my nails done, manicure and pedicure.
And then Thursday I like finished up the errands and then my friend Maria and I, planned this weeks in advance. She was the one that went to the movies with me because she has a 7-year-old, but when she had her baby, she actually ended up driving herself to the hospital. So I was like if anyone can get me there, it’s Maria. If something happens and we need to go to the hospital immediately, it’s the one that drove herself to the hospital,
Jamie: Uhhuh.
Sabrina: So she and I had lunch, I had. Raw tuna and a glass of Prosecco at lunch. ’cause I was like, this baby’s coming out tomorrow. There’s no damage I can do between now and tomorrow. Then we went to the movie. I only had to pee twice during the entire, and then came, I came home and, finished the last bit of packing and I couldn’t eat past midnight because I had a scheduled C-section. So I like ate my last meal. I actually don’t remember what I ate at 1130, but I know it was like at 1130.
The next morning we woke up, our nanny got there. 30 minutes earlier than she normally does ’cause we had to leave to get to the hospital. I left what I thought was a tiny baby. As it turns out, he is a big boy now. And I left him snot coming down his face, not ’cause he was crying because he was sick. Left him to do nanny share for the day. Went in, put on a full face of makeup and an outfit that I had on for 45 total minutes.
We drove to the hospital, parked the car went in, and if you ever have to get a scheduled C-section, I highly recommend it because the comparison between the unscheduled C-section and the scheduled one is like it is a concierge service. Like we went in there right this way, Ms. Turner, here’s your room. And they like got me all ready and put all the IVs in and everything. We talked to all the different doctors that would be there, including my actual doctor. She was the one that ended up being able to deliver this time. I queued up my music on my Bluetooth speaker and we actually ended up in the same operating room we were in the first time too.
Jamie: Oh, neat.
Sabrina: We took the same picture outside of it. Only this time I was standing because they hadn’t given me the spinal medicine yet. So standing and but put on the music. Turned it up loud. We walked into the operating room. The nurses are dancing to my playlist the whole time.
One of the nurses took my camera and she was like, I’ll take all the pictures. And she took pictures, she took selfies of herself. She took pictures of everybody. Like they everyone was like, this song is I could see like people actually enjoyed my playlist. And that’s one of my skillset sets.
I went in for a scheduled C-section at eight 30 in the morning. Roman was born at 11:26 AM so yeah. And then we, they wheeled us back, made sure they let me start breastfeeding immediately. Like they actually laid him on me while they were still sewing me back up a little bit. I got to hold him like with this much of my body, but, yeah. Then we went up to the room and I was like, this is amazing. This recovery is great. My mom, and my best friend had flown in from Chicago to stay with us, to help take care of the bigger one once we got back from the hospital. But yeah, it was great and it was great. Until the moment that my 2-year-old stepped on my incision.
Jamie: Oh,
Sabrina: poor thing. Ow. And and it, so they tell you not to lift anything heavier than 15 pounds, but it’s very hard to tell a 2-year-old that his mom can’t lift him. So he stepped on it. And I hadn’t taken, and this was in the hospital. I hadn’t taken pain medicine recently.
It was the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life. And I was like, it was basically like, everyone needs to leave this hospital room right now. They need to give me this medicine. Everyone’s gotta go. We’ve all got to go because the first time no one could come to our hospital room. I wanted people to come visit me this time ’cause I didn’t get that experience the first time.
But yeah, once once the big baby stepped on me, I was like, this can’t happen again. Everyone’s got to go. Yeah. But I recovered from that and I yeah. And then we stayed there for three days and I wanted to stay longer because you have all this help in the hospital.
My poor partner was tired of sleeping on, the sofa, the very uncomfortable sofa. On the side of the, so we had to go home allegedly and raise our children by ourselves or whatever. Yeah.
Jamie: What about breast feeding? Were you able to do that again?
Sabrina: Yes. So the first, with the first time, it was a struggle. Like we. My, because with c-sections, as is office is common, your milk doesn’t always just come in the same way. If your body goes into labor naturally and sometimes c-section mamas have a little bit of a difficult time getting kick started. And I, for, with my first child, for the first, I think six weeks, six or eight weeks. We just kept trying and it hurt so bad. And we were doing some breast milk, some formula. He was crying ’cause he was just angry and hungry all the time. But we finally got a lip and tongue tie cut. And once we did that, it was like I had a completely different baby. I was able to breastfeed without pain and to like up my supply and to keep it going and to do that for 14 months.
So this time I already had it in my head. So much and lip and tongue ties are somewhat genetic and I have a gap here. And so to my, both of my kids one doesn’t have teeth yet, but the one that has teeth has a little gap also. Before he was even the second child, was even born, actually made an appointment for a human being that didn’t exist with a dentist to make sure that I, ’cause this dentist is in, like this pediatric dentist is in everyone loves him, so they, the appointments fill up.
But when I went to have the two year olds teeth clean for the first time. I made an appointment for the baby that was coming in three months. So I already had that appointment for a month after I gave birth to go in and get the lip and tongue. And I figured worst case scenario, he doesn’t have a lip and tongue tie and I could just cancel the appointment.
But I also was able to breastfeed and I knew what it felt like. So like when they said pump at the hospital, I said, instead of being like, no, I don’t want to, I just said, okay. And I pump, I pumped to, stimulate the supply. Fed, fed the baby and pumped. This baby has had significantly less formula than his brother. I think that he’s had one bottle maybe in the hospital, like one of those tiny bottles, the hospital size ones they give you. But other than that, I’ve been able to exclusively breastfeed him for almost three months at this point.
Jamie: Wow, that’s amazing.
Sabrina: Yes, thank you. But part of it is just my confidence. Like I just, I knew what to expect. I knew what I was going into. I knew how it was gonna be. I knew that I’m surprised he’s let me go as long as he has right now without being like, I would love to eat right now. Mother please feed me.
But, I knew that like I, if I wanted to do this again, I would have to compromise some of my own physical body for. If pregnancy’s only 40 weeks, this is only a year I can handle it. And then after that, I’ll get my breast reduction and lift that I’ve been planning before my 45th birthday. That’s my
Jamie: oh goals.
Sabrina: My plan is to finish breastfeeding and then get the lift and the reduction and step into 45. A smaller chest.
Jamie: Nice. So what are your goals when breastfeeding? Do you do the 12 month mark and wean ’em off, or how does that work?
Sabrina: My goal is to do 12 months. It ended up being 14 the last time just because I was at 12 months on my son’s first birthday. The first son, I called one of my best friends who has two daughters, and I was like, he’s one, I have to stop breastfeeding. And she’s you don’t just have to quit cold Turkey today, Sabrina. She’s you can figure out a way to taper it off. Just come up with a plan. And I’m like. Sounds be your idea, sounds better than mine, which was to cry about how it’s very obvious that if I have to stop breastfeeding today, he’s obviously going to college tomorrow, getting married on Thursday and is going to leave me. It’s just one step closer to him leaving me, so I am going to cry all day. And she was like, you could stop and be normal.
I quit pumping. Like on New Year’s Eve, ’cause my kid was born in January. I was like, I’m done pumping. I’ve frozen breast milk and I have what’s in my boobs. So and then I dropped a feeding here, dropped a feeding there, started giving him full milk and like more food. So he wanted less breast milk. And then we got it down to a morning and an evening feed. And then I went away for a week and I was like, this is it. And I was like. When I fed him right before I left, I fed him the night before I left to go away and I’m like, this will be the last time I feed this baby. Breastfeed him. But then when I got back, he needed it two more times and that was it.
Jamie: Wow.
Sabrina: So I would rearrange my schedule for me. So with this one, obviously they’re different babies, but something similar. At 12 months I’ll start to cut. I’ll cut the pumping first, and then cut a feeding, and then cut a feeding and then get him more interested in food and slowly not, yeah. Take a couple months to taper it off. It might happen earlier because my life is busier this time, but the goal is still to make it to 12 months with actually nursing and then let them drink the frozen breast milk that I have, after that. Till it’s gone.
Jamie: And mentally, how have you been?
Sabrina: Once again I feel like my poor second son always gets compared to the first one. But I guess that’s my data set, right? It’s two, two pregnancies and the, I feel fine. I feel good and I mentally in a much better place than I was two months after having my first child.
There are a lot of differences. The first one is that I’m comfortable with having a newborn and I know what to expect. I know how often I have to breastfeed, how often I have to wake up in the middle of the night. Nothing like feels super taxing the way it did the first time because it was unfamiliar. The second thing is it’s summer and so this baby was born in the summer versus my first one was born in the winter. So I can go outside, I can go places, I can sit outside, I can go to restaurants. There’s stuff to do. There’s outdoor fest. There’s just so much more. Stuff.
And then the third thing is that we’re not in the middle of a global pandemic anymore. So I can take him to parties and to people’s houses. I went a lot of places pregnant this time that I didn’t get to go pregnant the first time. Like other people’s birthday parties, the movie theater. Yeah. How other people’s houses, work court, like just a bunch of things that I, didn’t get to do the first time and a bunch of, yeah, a bunch of people I didn’t get to see that the second time. It just felt I feel better.
There’s hormones coursing through your body for like the first seven years after giving birth, I cry a lot more easily at like emotional things. Like I’ll see a commercial about, like, when I was telling you that story about Jerome Baker. I almost cried. I was like, hold it together. Sabrina, you’ve told the story a million times. You love that video. There’s no reason to cry about the fact that a grown man loves his mother. But that, I think that’s to be expected given the amount of hormones that you need to make a human.
My mom will tell you this time, I’m a lot better. I don’t kick people outta my house as quickly as I did. I had to kick my mom out once, just talking about spending the night, like a month after I had the baby. And I was like I texted my boyfriend was like, you have to tell her she can’t stay. I can’t do this. Like she’s, it’s a lot, it’s emotionally draining. Whereas this time, my best friend literally stayed with us for a week. And to be fair, I also wanted to kick her out at some point, but I didn’t, and not in the same way that I wanted to kick my mom out. And also the amount that she was helpful was far outweighed, me being like, somebody’s in my space.
Jamie: I get that. Is there anything else you wanna mention about your pregnancy or birth?
Sabrina: Yes, there’s a lot of focus on women’s bodies and on the bounce back aspect of it. And I want to caution anyone who’s worried about when their body will quote unquote go back to what it was beforehand.
First of all, my metabolism quit at 30. So after 40 it’s even more. There are even more changes in your body that are irreversible. You’re never gonna go back to where you were when you were 21, even if you have a baby at 21, right? So imagine having one after 40 and the second is I don’t understand why you would want to go back to anything. You’re a new, you’re a new person. If you go back to the you that wasn’t a mother.
So instead of bouncing back, I’m ca I’m telling people that we are we’re marching forward into our mom bodies in whatever form they take in however you make them useful because you need them to. Feed children, whether it’s, breastfeeding or cooking or pouring formula or whatever. You need ’em to feed children, to hug children, to wipes, naughty, disgusting noses like upstairs in my house right now to carry them around. You don’t need them in the same, to be fair, you still need them to look cute at the bars or on the beach every once in a while.
They have like dual purpose at this point. So don’t bounce back. That’s dumb. You don’t wanna go backwards. You wanna go forwards.
Jamie: I love that. And do you have more plans to have kids in your forties?
Sabrina: No, but I don’t know that I have a solid birth control plan. The children are very expensive and I think part of the joy of having children in my forties has been that I have more money now than I would have had I had children in my twenties or thirties.
I have more money, more patience. So when there’s a problem, like if they’re not sleeping or not eating or something happens, I’m like, what is the product or service that I can purchase to help me solve this problem? So that is a benefit of having children in your forties, but also it means that you need a considerable amount of money to be able to do that. Having more children means less resources.
And honestly, to take it back to football, which is. Obviously something that I love. We were, it was a double coverage with two parents and one kid. Now we’re man or man defense one-on-one. I have no desire to do a zone defense with children because they are crazy and unpredictable and they don’t know the rules to football yet. So they would not stay in bounds. They would be completely uncontrollable. So the fact that one us can grab each one. We’re good now. Plus there’s not enough rooms in my house. Perfect. And there’s the chance that I could have that teenage girl. And I don’t know. Or that I could have three boys and then my house really will smell for 20 years.
Jamie: Uhhuh, what has been your biggest challenge being pregnant in your forties?
Sabrina: I guess the thought, getting over the thoughts that like if I had done this earlier, I would have more years with my kids and I might be able to be a younger grandmother and all of that. ’cause of course I skipped straight to the end game. I skipped straight to, while we really have kids, it’s so that one day I can be someone’s grandmother.
But it’s that if I had done this sooner I would have more time with them and they’d have more time with me and they wouldn’t have to process the loss of a parent earlier than some of us do. I process the loss of a parent at 30. So it’s not something that’s guaranteed anyway. But those are the, that’s where your brain goes when you’re pregnant in your forties. It’s like that.
And then also that, like a lot of my friends some of my friends, their kids are starting college when I’m mine are starting preschool. So there’s the FOMO of missing out on some of the stuff that we’re all doing. Now that we’re established in our careers and stuff and I get, I have the fear of missing out on a really good time or a really good opportunity because my kids are young instead of them being like teenagers and stuff like that.
You’re looking at me, Jamie. I don’t know that in real life I always appear as a 42-year-old. I look younger than I am, and that is not, that is a humble brag a little bit, but it’s also something that it, it hurts me in my career a lot. People don’t always take me as seriously as I feel like I should be taken because I think I am significantly younger and or less experienced. So I’m quick to tell people how old I am. Just so that they stop mansplaining. It is interesting when people it’s hard being pregnant in your forties when people, when you’re in your forties because people think you should have done it earlier.
And I get by not looking that way. But once people know then yeah, it’s a, there’s still, there’s not a lot, not a huge amount of judgment, but people also, they assume a lot of things about someone who’s pregnant in their forties. They assume that you had trouble conceiving. They assume that all these things and that’s not the case. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s just a lot of assumptions.
Jamie: Yeah. Is there anything you’d recommend that would help prepare someone for pregnancy and birth in their forties?
Sabrina: Prenatal massage. So I got a Massage Envy monthly thing, a membership that helped a really good chiropractor who can do the, forget the name of the method, but there’s a specific method that relates to pregnant people. ’cause you may or may not have more aches and pains in places that you didn’t think you would have them.
Be open to all sorts of things happening. I had carpal tunnel with my first one and then some sciatic issues. And with my second one. So just know that your body is 40, right? So you’re gonna have to treat it as it, it’s 40 and growing a human. So all the normal things.
I’m ordering the baby to come down. Now all the normal things that you’d be going through in your forties are still, your body’s still gonna go through, but plus you’re growing a human. So be kind to yourself, but understand that like you are gonna need all sorts of medical intervention and you might not, but be open to all sorts of doctors and things and find the best ones, get recommendations from your other friends who are in their forties for acupuncture. I meant to do acupuncture, but just didn’t get around to making the appointment.
Jamie: I love it. It really is amazing. Yeah. Yeah.
Sabrina: We need to try it now because I still have some pain points in my in my body. Yeah,
Jamie: it works too. It’s amazing. Yeah. What advice would you give yourself when you were pregnant, if you could go back?
Sabrina: I think it’s part of the reason I had a second child was so that everything I wanted to do in my first one I did in my second one, but myself, it would be, I would actually tell myself to work out more. And not to the point of burning a couple hundred thousand calories or whatever I was doing forehand, but to move more.
I did tell myself that between the first and the second one, but then promptly ignore my own advice. But moving more walking. Jogging, spinning, dancing, whatever makes you happy, makes whatever made me happy. I wish I’d done more of it. And then also to save money, to not order every little baby thing.
Jamie: And where can our listeners find you on the internet?
Sabrina: My oh, come here. Rome.
Jamie: I’d love that name. We’ve talked about that name too,
Sabrina: Roman. It’s a good name.
Jamie: Yeah. Hi buddy.
Sabrina: Can you say hi? You can’t say anything. You’re only two months old.
Jamie: He is so cute.
Sabrina: Thank you. You can find me and pictures of Roman and Atlas on Instagram and SJT Lifestyle, but my initials are S-S-J-T-S-J-T Lifestyle.
Yes, believe the hype of the ads. If the ads have come across your Instagram, it’s K, and this is not even sponsored, right? K-I-Z-I-K-S. Kiza. They are the best tennis shoes for pregnant people because bending down is hard and stupid and you can just slip them on and go free pair. I should have bought them sooner.
Jamie: Love it! Sabrina, thank you so much for sharing your story!
Sabrina: No problem. What are you smiling? What are you looking at yourself? What are you looking at?