078. At 45, Melodie found herself facing the ultimate dilemma: a miracle pregnancy she had prayed for and a partner who had decided he didn’t want a baby. This is the raw and honest story of how she navigated recurrent loss, relationship separation, and the fear of losing everything to finally hold her miracle in her arms.
On episode 78, After meeting her partner at 41, Melodie experienced a profound shift from never wanting children to an intense desire to start a family. However, her path was quickly marked by the heartbreak of back-to-back losses and a devastating emotional turning point: her partner decided he no longer wanted a baby. Facing the impossible choice between her relationship and her dream of motherhood, Melodie moved out to find her own space while continuing to date, eventually finding herself pregnant again at 45.
In this episode, Melodie opens up about the complex reality of navigating a high-risk pregnancy while fearing she might lose both her baby and her partner. She discusses the emotional toll of recurrent loss, the strain of differing family goals, and the ultimate joy of welcoming her miracle at 45. Whether you are dealing with relationship uncertainty or the challenges of late-season conception, Melodie’s story is a raw and honest look at the courage it takes to follow your heart when the stakes are at their highest.
About the Guest
Melodie Ayres is a 45-year-old Geriatric Psych Nurse, musician, and mother living near Portland, Oregon, whose journey to motherhood reflects the same resilience she brings to her high-impact healthcare career. After a profound shift at age 41 led her to pursue motherhood, Melodie navigated a challenging path marked by recurrent loss and a complicated relationship dynamic that eventually required her to move into a separate home to protect her dream. Today, as a proud mother to her daughter, Birdie, Melodie continues to play in a local band and joins the show to share the raw, triumphant story of her pregnancy at 45, proving that life over 40 can be a vibrant balance of career, creative passion, and the fulfillment of long-held dreams.
Connect with Melodie:
- Instagram: @kansasgaltravels
- Facebook: @melodie.ayres
Key Topics
- The Age 41 Awakening: Exploring the sudden and intense shift Melodie experienced from not wanting children to feeling a deep “spiritual conviction” to become a mother.
- Navigating Recurrent Loss: A candid discussion on the emotional toll and depression that followed two consecutive pregnancy losses in her early 40s.
- The “Partner Gap”: How to handle the devastating moment when a partner decides they no longer want a baby after you’ve already begun the journey.
- Choosing Independence: Why Melodie made the difficult decision to move out and live separately to protect her peace and her path to motherhood while still dating her partner.
- Pregnancy at 45: The unique anxieties of a “miracle” pregnancy at 45 and the fear of losing the baby or the relationship during the third journey.
- Trusting Your Intuition: Advice for women over 40 on listening to their inner voice, even when it contradicts their previous life plans or their partner’s desires.
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!
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Depression After Delivery Hotline: 1-800-944-4773
Transcript
Jamie: Melody, welcome to the show.
Melodie: Thank you so much for having me.
Jamie: We have Melody on to share her pregnancy journey at 45, but before we do Melody, will you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Melodie: Sure. My name is Melody. I live just outside of Portland, Oregon. I work as a geriatric psych nurse close to Portland, and that’s super fun and play in a band sometimes. It’s definitely been put on hold since COVID and having our daughter, birdie. I don’t play as much, but play occasionally, so that’s fun.
Jamie: What, what is your family like? Do you have any more kids other than Birdie? Just Birdie and then your partner? Right?
Melodie: And my partner Devin. We’ve been together five and a half years.
Jamie: Wow, that’s awesome.
Melodie: Kind of relevant to the story later on, but I didn’t meet Devon until I was 41, and that was my first real relationship. And so I waited a long time to meet my partner. So it’s really, really nice to have him.
Jamie: We kind of talked about where to start your story before we begin recording, and I think this isn’t your first pregnancy, so would you like to start there?
Melodie: Yeah. So I met Devin I think when I was 41. And like I said, I had waited a long time to meet someone but had never really wanted children.
Even in my thirties, I had. Asked about maybe having my tubes tied.
Jamie: Oh, wow.
Melodie: Because I was just, I was sure that I did not, did not want kids. And I was met with you’re too young, you might change your mind. And I was so, so annoyed because I was like, I know my body. I know I don’t want kids. Anyway, so I met Devin at 41 and.
Maybe like six months later, I just started having this intense desire to have a child with Devin, and I was a new, a new feeling I had like never really experienced before. Mm-hmm. And this might be a little too much, but I think some people can relate. We didn’t use condoms or birth control. We just used the pullout method.
Uhhuh, and, I started like getting really emotional when he pulled out because I just had this like guttural urge to have a child and I just, it was. So strange. ’cause I would cry when he would pull out. ‘Cause I wanted a baby so bad and I’d never experienced that before. Like it was just this intense desire.
So maybe like a year later we dece, we briefly talked about. Trying for a child and his version of the story would be completely different than than mine. But in my world, we had talked about having a child and I knew when I was ovulating or I thought I knew when I was ovulating. And so I knew we had chances of getting pregnant.
And the first month I did get pregnant.
Jamie: And Wow. The first month of trying The first month.
Melodie: Yeah. Wow. It was, it was nuts.
Jamie: How old were you when this happened?
Melodie: So I was 42. I had to look at my notes. I dunno, 42. I was, I literally was like four weeks along and had a miscarriage and it was so devastating. When it’s your first miscarriage. It is like the worst thing in the whole world. I had like got my HCGs and then like they started trending down. Mm-hmm. And it was the hardest, probably the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. Had to take a couple weeks off of work. ’cause you get all this excitement that mm-hmm you’re gonna have this baby.
Jamie: I was the same way. You’re so naive. Yeah. Going through that experience.
Melodie: Totally. Mm-hmm. Totally. Nothing prepares you for it. No. And it’s so difficult. Mm-hmm. So then we took a month off. I think we were busy and he also plays in a band, so he was out playing shows and I went on a little trip to go hiking and I came back I purposely came back to town like.
When I was ovulating.
Jamie: Convenient. I know that feeling.
Melodie: So again, like we immediately got pregnant the second time that we tried, which was like three months later. And that pregnancy lasted about eight weeks. And, I like, it’s, it’s like still so vivid in my mind. my band is playing a show that day and I started spotting and in retrospect I feel like I should have maybe like stayed home and rested and done what was right for my body, but I had no idea.
Mm-hmm. Like I just didn’t know I should be resting. But, so I started spotting and then I ended up miscarrying and I was like bleeding through the entire show that we played that night. And that was traumatic. You go to the bathroom and there’s more blood and go get back out on stage, Uhhuh.
Anyway.
Jamie: But you, did you realize you were going to have a miscarriage?
Melodie: I thought it was possible, like possibly I was miscarrying ’cause I wasn’t, I was really just like. Like heavy spotting. Mm-hmm. Which can be normal, they say.
Jamie: Yeah, sure.
Melodie: But then over that night and the next night, I believe it just like continued and a heavier bleeding and then the pain just got so bad I didn’t know at the time.
’cause again, like you said, we are pretty naive when we’ve never gone through something like this before, but. It was like contractions, like my body was trying to push the baby out or the, the placent or whatever it is. At eight weeks, my body was trying to push out of my system and the pain just got so bad and I kept calling my OB like, is this normal or should I be in this mu this much pain?
And they’re like go to the emergency room if it gets worse or you can’t handle it. So after several hours, like I literally thought I was gonna die from pain and Devin drove me to the emergency room and they confirmed that we were having a miscarriage and then ended up doing a DNC that night.
Jamie: Did they give a reason why?
Melodie: No. And in hindsight, like, I wish I would’ve said, can you like test some of the tissue? From the baby, but I didn’t know, I didn’t know anything about that at that time. Yeah. It’s all, in hindsight it is. But so yeah, I wish I would’ve said, can you test like for chromosome abnormalities or what’s causing this?
But we didn’t do that. And then after that I was like, Devin. I decided that he didn’t want to try anymore. Hmm. It was a couple, couple months later. We took a little vacation and I was ovulating at that time and he just like wanted nothing to do with trying to have a child and I’m not like. I’m not like talking bad about him.
It was just we were both going through our own experiences of like, how do we handle this and what’s going on. What do we really want? So we had some really serious conversations and he decided that he didn’t want to try anymore to have kids. So at that point, like I was kind of like. Do I stay in this relationship and not have a child?
Or do I leave this relationship that I’ve waited so long for like, that I’ve never experienced before, leave this relationship and maybe have a baby with someone else, or you know, IVF. And it was a really, really hard like time. Sure to be thinking about all these things and I just, it’s really dealing with a lot of depression.
’cause I had just lost two babies and it’s like, now am I going to give up my partner or and give up babies? Anyway, ultimately I decided to stay with my partner and yeah. I felt like our relationship was something like, I, I just keep repeating myself. Our relationship was something so new to me, like meeting someone that I was so connected.
Mm-hmm. That is really hard to give that up to maybe go have a baby mm-hmm. With someone else. So we stayed together and I would say I was really still battling depression. Like it, it’s hard. To work through miscarriages and just that sense of loss and different milestones of like, my baby would’ve been born.
Yeah. On this date, and I’ll go back to say real quick, just like in the doctor’s office, you know, when you’ve had these miscarriages and they send you in for all these follow up tests and you have to see all these pregnant women. Sitting right next to you. Like I did ask to be like, put in a different room, like mm-hmm.
I can’t sit here and wait like for my appointment with all these private people. Yeah. Anyway, I just think that’s something that should be addressed in the future, like. For all women. Yeah. Because that we shouldn’t have to be waiting in the same waiting room if we’ve experienced something pretty traumatic.
Jamie: Yeah. You know, my doctor, whenever I was going through a miscarriage, she said, Hey, you don’t even have to go in the waiting room, just go at the back door and knock on it and they’ll, they’ll let you in.
Melodie: That’s awesome.
Jamie: Oh, thank you. Yeah. That’s so awesome. It was so nice.
Melodie: So I stayed with Devin and about, let’s see, actually like almost exactly a year after our second miscarriage I decided that I would move out and like. Not cut ties with Devin, but I moved out of our house together. We both needed a little bit of space and I, we initially broke up, but then we decided that we would keep dating, but just live in separate homes.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melodie: So I was living in my little tiny home. I moved in there and
Jamie: was it like an actual tiny home?
Melodie: Yeah.
Jamie: Oh my gosh. So fun. I love those.
Melodie: They’re so cute. And that’s so nice. Just then, you’re not like sharing walls with anyone. You have your own like four walls. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I had this cute little tiny home and we continued dating.
I moved in there at the very end of November new Year’s. Weekend or whatever. We had just three days off where he came and stayed at the tiny home and all we did was eat and relax and be intimate. And he was still using the pullout method, but the, on the third day he, for one time, he didn’t pull out all the way.
I said, oh, don’t worry about it. You’re probably shooting blanks at this point because that’s what they say. Like anyway sure enough, like two weeks later I started spotting. I spotted with all my, all my pregnancies, just like implantation bleeding. And I had a friend over. And I was spotting a little bit and I said, I just hate it when I spot because I always think I’m pregnant.
And so later that day I was like, well, I’ll just take a pregnancy test. And I did, and it was positive.
Jamie: Wow. What were you thinking?
Melodie: I was thinking, I’m pretty sure I was like, I’m so excited. You know, I had no idea what. What Devin was gonna say,
Jamie: you were still excited even after the two miscarriages.
Melodie: I mean, I wanted a baby so bad.
Jamie: I’d love to hear that though. That’s so good.
Melodie: Yeah, so positive pregnancy tests and I was like, how, how am I gonna tell Devin? Yeah. Because I know, I know that he doesn’t really want a baby. And he came over and I was like, well, let’s go for a walk. So we went for a walk and I was like, oh, I can’t remember what I said to him, but told him we were pregnant and he was, he was not very excited.
He like, honestly, he said he would rather get a dog than have a baby. I was like, okay. We had a pretty rough conversation and he was just like, this isn’t what I want. He is like, if I, if I leave, I’m letting you down. If I don’t leave, I’m letting myself down and I don’t know what to do. And I was crying and like, like so emotional, like worried that I was like, these emotions were gonna trigger another miscarriage.
Mm-hmm. Right. But I was just basically like, I can do this without you, so you’re welcome to stay or you’re welcome to go, but I can do it on my own if it’s not something you would wanna be a part of.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melodie: And he left, and I don’t know if it was that night or a couple nights later, just called and was like, okay, let’s do this together.
And he really did a 180. It was still hard for him. I mean, you could tell he was just trying to be supportive and work through his own emotions at the same time. But he would come over and feed me. He just wanted to make sure I was eating healthy with this pregnancy and we decided I settled.
If I’m gonna have this baby, I don’t wanna be living in this tiny home by myself. Like I think that we should move back in together. And then we were like, should we move back in together? Like what if we have another, another miscarriage, like if we have another miscarriage, like, are you still wanting to be together?
So we ultimately decided that we did want to try to be together again and we would still stay together even if we had a third miscarriage. So then I moved back into to his house.
Jamie: What a tough experience like you’re, you have the pregnancy after two miscarriages and your relationship like that must have been really challenging to go through.
Melodie: It was really, it was a lot. It was really challenging, but it was also very exciting at the same time.
Jamie: Sure.
Melodie: And obviously very nervous too that, you know, when you’re looking at toilet paper every time you wipe, like wondering if you’re gonna have another miscarriage. Yeah. And then while, while I was still in the tiny house, like I fell down, getting out of my shower.
I never fall. Like, yeah, why, why am I falling now? So I called my doctor when, after I fell, and she was basically like, you need to rest for 24 to 48 hours. And if you don’t see any like signs of bleeding, then you should be, should be okay. So everything, everything turned out okay. Wow.
Jamie: Still scary. So your pregnancy, how was it?
Melodie: It was, it was really good, I have to say. Mm-hmm. Like, my ob, GYN was about the same age as me, and she basically, and it was the same OB, GYN. I’m gonna backtrack a little bit. Who did the DNC with my second miscarriage? Mm-hmm. And she had said like the two years prior, she was like, you will have a baby.
And or she said, we’re gonna get you that baby, or you will have a baby. Something that I carried with me and I was so mad at her for like two years. ’cause she said she had told me I was gonna have a baby and I hadn’t had a baby. And so when I went in to see her, I was like, I was so mad at you after that D and z because you told me I’d have this baby and I didn’t.
But now, anyway, but she was my same age, so super supportive. And she said basically like, anytime you’re ready to get out of work, just let me know and I will write you a note to your employer. And so at six months or unit at the hospital was getting pretty chaotic and we were having lots of, more increased violence on our unit. And it wasn’t anything that I wanted to be around having already had two miscarriages and I didn’t wanna like accidentally get hit Yeah. In the stomach by a patient. So so I left work at six months and it was so great to be home. Like I had all this time to read books to rest.
Jamie: Yeah.
Melodie: But, and it was still during. COVID. So it was pretty isolating. Mm-hmm. The only thing I did was go to the, I literally went to the gym every single day and walked for like an hour and a half.
Jamie: Wow.
Melodie: And then I would go home. I walked slowly because I did have for several months, birdie was positioned on my hip or spine in a way that caused a lot of pain. Can’t remember what that’s called. But so I, I would have to walk really slow ’cause it was painful. Mm-hmm. But she eventually moved, well, I tried physical therapy and all these things to get rid of the pain and none of that seemed to help. So she eventually moved positions and then everything kind of eased up. As far as pain.
Jamie: Now you’re calling her a she, did you find, when did you find out the gender?
Melodie: Pretty much as soon as you can find out. I can’t remember if that’s how early on that is. I wanna say like three months. But that seems really late to be finding out the gender. Was it a blood test? It was a blood test.
Jamie: Okay. Yeah, we, we did that about the same. It was like 10 weeks or so is ever we did it. I think you can do it a little earlier.
Melodie: Yeah. 10 to 12 weeks sounds. About right as far as when we did it. Mm-hmm. And I wasn’t gonna do it, but ’cause the same blood tests or they draw ’em all together was for chromosomal abnormalities. And I was like, I don’t really wanna know. ‘Cause we’re gonna have her one way or another. Mm-hmm. Excuse me. But my ob, GYN essentially said like, well. It’s helpful, helpful for us to know if there are abnormalities. ’cause it’ll make a difference as to what hospital you deliver at.
Jamie: Mm.
Melodie: To who can handle like harder cases.
Jamie: Sure.
Melodie: So we went ahead and did the blood tests and yeah, those all came back normal and I just cried my eyes out ’cause I was so thankful. We would love any baby no matter what, but. It just felt so great to not start with those initial issues.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melodie: And then we went out to lunch at a golf course ’cause Devin likes to play golf and we listened to a voicemail of the doctor saying what the gender was or something. And so birdie is actually a golf term. Mm-hmm. I don’t play golf, but Devin plays golf and so he was like, what would you think if we. Named Interpret. That’s really cute. It is really cute. So, so yeah, we did find out the gender. I like to be prepared. I know of some people like the surprise. But yeah, I wanted to be able to plan and mentally plan in my head for, for who we were gonna have join our lives.
Jamie: Now, you talked about exercise. What was your diet like during pregnancy?
Melodie: Diet I ended up I was positive for gestational diabetes. Mm. So that really controls your diet big time. I have a whole new respect for people dealing with diabetes.
Even being a nurse for 14 years, I never really understood like how hard it is to control those numbers. So I really, you could only eat, I could only eat like 15 grams of carbohydrates at a time. I may have been able to have a little bit more like. For breakfast and lunch or something, but I was constantly checking my numbers and like measuring out portions. For a treat, I could have a third of a cup of ice cream. I had to measure it with some almond milk, and that was so exciting to me.
Jamie: Now did you, were you able to control it without medication? Just with diet? Thankfully, yes. Oh, good.
Melodie: Yeah, but it was like a full-time job trying to figure out what you’re going to eat.
Have you done the glucose test yet?
Jamie: Not yet. She says that’s like the end of the second trimester. Gotcha.
Melodie: Yeah. Yeah. I, I thought for sure I would pass it. Like I would have no problems ’cause I was exercising all the time and not, not eating terribly. But no, I failed so bad the first test that they didn’t even have me do the second test.
Jamie: Wow.
Melodie: Yeah. So yeah, it was like, no, no bread, no this like, even a banana was over too much. Yeah. It was crazy.
Jamie: So what was a, one of your typical meals like?
Melodie: Geez, I can’t even really remember. I know I would eat a lot of cheese.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melodie: And probably chicken and I would have. A little banana with almond butter. I ate a lot of almond butter. It’s like I could have one gram cracker with almond butter on it. I’m like, well that makes it easy not to gain a whole bunch of weight ’cause I can’t eat anything. You hear all these people are like, oh, I just ate whatever I wanted and it was great. And I’m like measuring out everything that I did. So long term or. In the long run it helped, but mm-hmm. But in the short term, it was pretty difficult to have to monitor that so closely.
Jamie: What about products? Was there anything that helped you during pregnancy that you could recommend?
Melodie: I really didn’t use any products. Okay. I think I tried to use like a belly stretch cream at one point and then never ended up using it. Just didn’t do, didn’t do anything. I didn’t have any nausea or vomiting the whole time, so I didn’t need to.
Jamie: Wow.
Melodie: I know. Like it was a really good pregnancy. Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. Tell us about exercising and hiking. ’cause you have some beautiful photos.
Melodie: Yeah. Like I said, it was really easy since I had the last three months off of work to just do whatever. So would take a lot of walks around the neighborhood. There’s a lot of waterfalls and mountains around here. So we would take some little trips. I’ve had totally forgot all about it until I sent you pictures. Mm-hmm. But we went camping when I was six or seven months pregnant in the heat of the sun.
And that was really challenging. But the reward was, you know, seeing the beautiful mountains and the sunsets and things like that..
Jamie: And how did you prepare for birdie to come? Like how did you prepare your home and also how did you prepare your body?
Melodie: Didn’t do much to prepare our home.
We got a swing put up and a crib built, and that was about the extent. And then preparing for birth. I didn’t really do much for that either. I took a prenatal yoga class, but that was pretty much just so that I could be around other pregnant women. ’cause I didn’t have any friends that were pregnant at the time.
Mm-hmm. And I could have cared less about the yoga. It was just nice to, to go be around some people like me and hear some of their stories. And it was like, we started every class with, well, what are you going through this week? And so those first 15 minutes were, it was like what I lived for. My only interaction with anyone other than Devin. So that was really great.
Jamie: Sharing your experience is so powerful.
Melodie: Yeah. Just hearing other people are going through what you’re going through mm-hmm. Is so helpful.
Jamie: Yeah. Is there anything else you wanna talk about your pregnancy wise before we get to your birth?
Melodie: I will say. During my pregnancy well postpartum, I dealt a lot with intrusive thoughts. In hindsight, I can look back and they started during my pregnancy. And I’ve had to do my own research on intrusive thoughts. ’cause even when I spoke with my doctor, I didn’t get a lot of information about what I was dealing with.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melodie: But things like standing, I was pregnant and standing at the kitchen sink and like holding a knife and having like a random thought go through my mind of like I could hurt someone with this knife or I could, stab someone with this knife and you just kind of like pause and say, what the hell am I thinking?
What is going on Like this? The thoughts were so scary, but they were so like few and far between during my actual pregnancy that it didn’t really give, give a lot of consideration to that. Okay. It wasn’t, and we can talk about it more later, but it wasn’t till after I had Bertie that those thoughts kind of started to worry me.
Jamie: Well, about your birth, how did it start? How far along were you?
Melodie: So I wanted to be induced at 39 weeks ’cause I had done a lot of reading about, just increased chances of stillbirth. Mm-hmm. After, after 39 years of age or after 39 weeks. Mm-hmm. So we did, we did plan for an induction at 39 weeks.
I know that we talked about this before we started, but I do have herpes and that can be a concern when you’re pregnant just as far as transferring it to your child through the birth canal. So the day that we were scheduled to be in, I kind of felt like I might. Be starting to have an outbreak.
And so that really concerned me. I wanted to give it another day to see if something really was going on or was not going on. So we actually moved our induction date to the next day. The next day I still didn’t really know. If I was starting to have an outbreak or not, but they said, go ahead and come on in and we’ll do, we’ll do an inspection and see if we see anything.
So we went in and they didn’t see any like signs of an outbreak happening, but intuitively, like I still felt like maybe something was going on. You get used to knowing what it feels like when something’s about. About to start. Mm-hmm. So I, I still felt like a little uncomfortable and apprehensive about trying to give birth naturally when I didn’t know if there was something happening down below or not.
But they went ahead and induced me. We were still like planning for not a c-section, but just a regular natural birth. I didn’t wanna do the epidural if I didn’t have to. So they induced me on Monday night and all day Tuesday nothing really was moving forward or progressing. And Wednesday morning still not really anything was happening other than really painful contractions, sporadically pain.
Jamie: Now were you on, were you on Pitocin?
Melodie: Pitocin? Yeah. Okay. And they kept trying to up the Pitocin, but every time they would up the Pitocin birdie’s heart rate would drop. Mm-hmm. And then they’d stop the Pitocin and her heart rate would come back up.
We moved to a different room at the hospital and one that had like a bathtub. So I got in the bathtub to try and ease the pain, but that just did not help at all. The pain just. So bad that I was like, okay, just do an epidural is totally fine. I don’t really care that much. So as soon as they did the epidural, it was the best pain relief I’ve ever had.
It was wonderful. But same thing, birdie’s heart rate kept dropping after that. And so a new doctor had just come on and he said you can keep trying to have this baby naturally, it’s totally up to you, but that’s not what we’re recommending. We recommend that you have a C-section like right now because her heart rate is dropping every time we do the Pitocin.
And so I said, can you just give us a few minutes to talk about this? And they’re like, sure, no problem. And Devon and I talked it over and ultimately, you just want a healthy baby and. We were like, yes, just, just do a C-section. So literally 30 minutes later, we had a baby.
Jamie: They’re so fast,
Melodie: I just so fast. I couldn’t believe it. I was like, like, oh my goodness. It was like, okay, we’ll do it. And then they wheel you into a room, slice. You open and here’s, here’s your baby.
Jamie: Do you remember any music playing or anything about the OR room?
Melodie: Not at all. I remember everyone. Everyone was so friendly and I really liked the doctor that we had.
But other than that, the only other thing that really stands out to me is that once Birdie came out, she like never left our site. She was with us the entire remainder of the hospital stay and I really appreciated that She was never like swept off for testing or. She was just with us the whole time because I don’t know.
Jamie: That’s nice.
Melodie: Growing up in the eighties, you hear about all those. Baby swaps or, yeah. So it’s nice to know she is my baby.
Jamie: Yeah. I’m sure your maternal instincts are kicking in too, and you’re just like, I want her close too.
Melodie: Yeah, totally. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So. It was such a relief to not have to try and push her when I didn’t know if something was going on. As it was far physically. So like I was really grateful to have a C-section and just not take that risk.
Jamie: Yeah, definitely. And you were saying that if you do give birth vaginally, and if you were there was an outbreak, then it might blind the child.
Melodie: Yeah. And gosh, I feel like, saying it out loud, I’m like, am I totally off my rocker, but I know that I’ve read somewhere like that. Yeah. If, you know the baby comes in contact with the herpes lesion, it can cause blindness. Wow. And that’s a huge Yeah. Weight of concern. Mm-hmm. And I just didn’t wanna take that chance, but I also didn’t have the nerve to say, I don’t like, just cut me open and give me a C-section.
’cause I don’t know if. I’m having an outbreak. It’s not something you talk about very often. Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so, so yeah, birth was relatively smooth. It was a day and a half of extreme pain, and I think it is more painful if you’re in Doist. Not that competing for the worst amount of pain here, but I have heard that it’s more painful when you’re induced. Yeah. Just because your body’s not doing it naturally.
Jamie: Mm-hmm. What was the rest of recovery like?
Melodie: It was good. So birdie did latch on pretty much immediately for breastfeeding
Jamie: so when you were back in the room, I guess.
Melodie: I think they transferred us to like an intermediate room where they did a couple more tests. And that’s where they had her latch on there.
Jamie: Okay.
Melodie: They told us I didn’t have a lot of milk production at first, and they say that’s pretty common when you have a C-section. ’cause your body doesn’t know that you’ve had your child yet, so it’s not kicking out the milk production. So we did, eventually have to supplement a little bit. And they gave us a choice of supplementing with formula or with donated breast milk, which I don’t think I had heard anything about. But we chose to do, donated some donated breast milk and we had to like pump it in through a little and they give you like this tiny little syringe and a long.
Long tube that goes into her mouth. Mm-hmm. So she latch, she latches on so that she, you want her to think that she’s getting your breast milk, so you have her latch on, stick the stick, the tube, the tiny little tube in her mouth while she’s latched on and like push the additional milk in there.
Jamie: I haven’t heard of this before.
Melodie: Oh really? Oh my goodness. It was quite a, quite an ordeal.
Jamie: And it worked.
Melodie: It worked, yeah. Wow. It’s, it’s expensive to get donated breast milk we found out after, after the fact, but it was, it was a really great option to have. I don’t know what I had against Formula at the time because we ended up using formula like eight months down the road or something.
But at the time it seemed like a really great. Option. Mm-hmm. And I’m really glad that we did it. But yeah, it was every, every feeding was a challenge of like, okay. And it took like two people with Devin, like, sticking the little tube in her mouth.
Jamie: Yeah. So how long was it before your milk came in?
Melodie: I wanna say like a week. ’cause I know that we. Continued to buy, donated breast milk the next, the week after we left the hospital. And so then it was the milk did finally come in and I would feed her and then I would pump after feeding her to try and increase my milk supply to trick my body into thinking we needed more milk than we actually needed. It is very time consuming and challenging when you’re like sleep deprived. But yeah, you’ll do, you’ll do anything for your baby.
Jamie: Yeah, that’s right.
Melodie: So I was like, okay, feed the baby, pump, sterilize the equipment, like try and rest for a minute and then feed the baby. Do it all over again. Yeah. Yeah. So, oh, but you’re running on adrenaline and it’s like. So it’s just so amazing at first that you don’t care at all.
Jamie: And what was it like bringing her home?
Melodie: It, it felt really natural. It was wonderful. She did end up having some jaundice, so we did have to do, like a bilirubin light blanket at home for a couple of days. So we’d have to like, put these goggles on our eyes and tape it with like, I don’t know, some stretchy coband material and layer on the blanket for as long as we possibly could.
And I just remember being so scared that that. The goggles were gonna fall off her eyes and the light blanket would damage her eyes forever. So I was like just staring at her nonstop, making sure she was okay. But she did fine. After a couple of days, we got to take her off of the light blanket.
Jamie: Mm-hmm. And how was the rest of your recovery?
Melodie: It was really good. It’s isolating at first. ’cause if you have a C-section, they don’t want you driving for about six weeks. So you’re dependent on everybody for everything. And you’re at home, or I was at home alone most of the time. Devin had to go back to work, so it was really isolating.
But other than that, it was really wonderful just. Getting to know your child and spending so much time with them, like just having that time that you’re not gonna get, get back, like just that bonding time was so wonderful. Yeah. And then like the intrusive thoughts I spoke about earlier they got pretty bad and I didn’t talk to Devin about it.
Because I was worried about what his reaction might be. Sure. I was worried about what anyone’s reaction would be if I said, oh, I had thoughts of I could throw our baby down the stairs today. I was so scared that if I told anyone, then someone would take my baby away. So. I just dealt with it by myself for a long time and then it just got to be so bad that I did call my doctor and go in for an appointment and it really wasn’t helpful.
They, they didn’t explain to me what was going on and I still wasn’t being completely honest ’cause I didn’t feel like I could, I was just, more of saying things like, oh, sometimes I have these thoughts of hurting my child. Oh, well that’s normal. And I’m like, well, no, it’s not normal. They just basically said like maybe postpartum anxiety or like sleep deprivation, and I knew it was more serious than that and ended up going home and calling like a baby blues hotline.
It was the best thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t actually talk to anyone, but they like called me. I don’t know if I, they call, I must have talked to someone or texted someone because they did send me a link to a podcast about intrusive thoughts and that just changed my world completely because it finally gave name to what I was dealing with.
Mm-hmm. Like, okay. Okay. It’s intrusive thoughts. Like the thing that really helped was it said a hundred percent of a PE of people with intrusive thoughts do not act on their thoughts. And to me that was like the biggest Yeah. Relief in the world. ’cause I was like, what if I have like some kind of psychotic break and I do start acting on these thoughts and like nobody’s here and I’m home alone with this baby.
Still just like so worried, like if I tell anyone what I’m really thinking, they’re gonna take my child away from me. But that podcast just really helped me to understand what I was dealing with and that it was going to be okay. And just, yeah, that, that I wasn’t, more than likely I was not gonna act on these thoughts.
Mm-hmm. But they’re scary.
Jamie: Do you remember the name of it?
Melodie: No. I always think, oh, if I could go back and find that podcast. ’cause it was some, it just happened to be, I got this lady who just happened to like text me back from Baby Blues and she had like just been to this conference about something and she’s like, here’s a link to this podcast.
Oh no. I wish I. I would totally listen to it again and recommend it to everybody, but I have no idea what it was called.
Jamie: I know, but I mean, what a simple solution to such a big fear of yours.
Melodie: Yeah. Yeah. And it wasn’t until. Honestly that I reached out to you to do this podcast that I talked to Devin about the thoughts that I was really happy.
Jamie: Oh, wow.
Melodie: Yeah. ’cause I was like, I feel like I really need to share about intrusive thoughts. And this is what I was really thinking, you know, back when Birdie was first born. Like it take a knife and stab the baby or throw the baby down the stairs or walk out into the middle of the road and have a car hit me .
Jamie: I’m sure there was relief, right. Telling Devin about it too, right?
Melodie: Yeah, yeah. Just being like, okay, whew. Get it off my shoulders. Like this is what was really going on, and I don’t wanna hide things, but when you’re so scared and you have no idea what’s going on. You trust no one.
Yeah. Because you don’t wanna lose your baby. Sure, sure. And I didn’t want Devin to be like, oh, okay, I can’t leave you alone with the child now, so, mm-hmm. Now what are we gonna do?
Jamie: Right. Do you have plans to have more kids in your forties? I hope
Melodie: so. We are trying. Mm-hmm. I’m taking all the vitamins that I possibly can to like improve a quality. I’ve listened to so many podcasts and watched so many YouTube videos on what you should take if you’re trying to pregnant. So I’m taking every vitamin in the world just hoping. Hoping to get knocked up again.
Jamie: Now how old are you? Just to tell the audience now.
Melodie: So I’m 47.
Jamie: Awesome.
Melodie: Bird two. And putting words together now in little sentences and the cutest. So cute. The cutest thing in the whole world. Yeah. So we’re hoping to have another one if not like we have started talking about adoption. And different routes that we can take. Mm-hmm.
Jamie: Now how long have you been trying?
Melodie: Let’s see. We started trying four or five or six months. I’m not sure. Okay. Of trying. It’s been a little bit, but it’s also work. We’re remodeling our, well, we moved out of Portland and bought this fixer upper, so we’re kind of like in a camper part of the time and in a house part of the time, and there’s not a lot of privacy from birdie.
So like scheduling time to have sex, like not super fun. So it’s been a little challenging trying because it’s just like you lose all the fun. I don’t know all the sexiness or fun when you’re like, okay, yeah, let’s go a Thursday at noon and birdie’s taking a nap. Let’s try. So our trying has been limited, but we do try and stick it in at least once when I’m ovulating.
Jamie: Well, that’s exciting.
Melodie: It is, it is. I’m really, really hopeful. And I know you had a, another guest recently who read or talked about spirit babies. Mm-hmm. Did you ever, did you ever look into that book?
Jamie: I haven’t read it. Uhuh,
Melodie: it’s about communicating with your spirit baby, and like calling them, calling them into existence or calling them to you or whatever. So I just started reading that. It’s pretty fascinating just like trying to communicate with them before they’re here. I don’t know. I’m trying everything To get a baby to come to us is essentially, yeah.
Jamie: Why not try everything. Right?
Melodie: Right. Yeah. And I’m also like, just praying, like I, I’m, I’m okay having a baby. I’m also okay a hundred percent with adopting. So maybe God will just drop a baby in our lap and if it’s meant to be, it’ll be.
Jamie: What has been your biggest challenge being pregnant at 44?
Melodie: I really can’t say. For me, there wasn’t a challenge since it just happened, so I wanna say easily, but it didn’t happen easily ’cause there was that whole year. We had the two miscarriages. There was that whole year in between miscarrying and having a baby where we did have some unprotected sex, even when I was ovulating and I was sure like, maybe, maybe it’ll happen. And I was hiding my, my desire for having a child since Devin wasn’t interested, but it didn’t happen for a whole year. I can’t say that there was a big challenge other than timing.
Jamie: Okay. And yeah, that’s okay. Great pregnancies are great pregnancies. Is there anything you recommend that would help prepare someone for pregnancy and birth?
Melodie: I hear a lot about just staying active and being as healthy as you possibly can. It makes your pregnancy so much easier. Yeah. So literally I have nothing to compare. Compare it to like, maybe it makes it easier, maybe it doesn’t, but it helped me.
Jamie: Yeah. And what advice would you give yourself when you were pregnant, if you could go back?
Melodie: I think just like allowing myself time to rest. I mean, I did rest, but I always felt guilty resting. So just taking the time that you are pregnant and allowing your body, all the rest that it needs, all the calm that it needs, just yeah, doing whatever your body needs at that time and knowing that it’s okay.
Jamie: And we have a lot of listeners who are in their forties trying to conceive. What advice would you give them?
Melodie: Just keep trying, keep going for it. Just keep following your dreams and don’t give up on that desire to have a baby. You can do it.
Jamie: That’s perfect. Yeah. And where can our listeners find you on social media?
Melodie: So I am not on social media very often, but I am on Facebook as Melody airs. There’s, if you’re looking for me, I’m wearing a cowboy hat and birdie’s right next to me.
Jamie: Will you spell that for us?
Melodie: So M-E-L-O-D-I-E-A-Y-R-E-S. Okay. Feel free to Facebook message me, messenger me. I probably won’t respond very quickly, but I will try and respond to you.
I’m also on Instagram, but I’m not there super often. But I believe it’s Kansas Gal travels ’cause I’m originally from Kansas. So yeah, those are my two places.
Jamie: Awesome. Well, melody, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
Melodie: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it, and I love your podcast so much, and I’m so excited for your baby to get here.