How Desiree Went From Dancing for the Atlanta Hawks to Two Very Different Pregnancies at 40 & 41

On episode 20, we have Desiree who is a prenatal and postpartum fitness coach. She was pregnant twice in her 40’s: one at 40 with her son and the second at 41 with her daughter. They were two very different pregnancies.

I’m 40 years old, time is running out. We need to get going.

Desiree’s journey to motherhood started before she was even ready to have kids in her 30’s. She was feeling pressured to have kids, so at 33 she had her ovarian reserve checked. She had an excellent reserve. Her life got busy and decided to start trying at 39. She was tracking her cycle, so she expected a positive pregnancy test. She was very excited and said, “oh cool, I’m pregnant. Ok… It worked, now what?” Desiree found out she was pregnant the first time right away at 39, but she miscarried at 9 weeks. She calls herself lucky to be able to get pregnant only a few months later at 40 with her son. The miscarriage was so devastating to her, that when she found out she was pregnant the second time, she knew just how much she really wanted it.

Desiree says her pregnancy was awesome and she could have been pregnant for 50 weeks! Desiree was terrified until she got out of the first trimester at 40. Then she went from terrified to nervous for the rest of the pregnancy. She taught at her gym until 40 weeks and was induced at 41 weeks. That baby did not want to come out, she says!

Desiree says having the wrong provider was her biggest challenge during her pregnancies. She switched providers at 25 weeks into her first pregnancy. She says the hospital was excellent for trauma but not if you’re pregnant. They told her she wasn’t able to go past 39 weeks because of her age and continued to tell her the risks of advanced maternal age. She found a different doctor and knew she made the right decision when he told her she could go past 39 weeks if her and the baby were healthy, why not?!

She planned before pregnancy to eat lots of fruits and vegetables. For the first trimester, she ate whatever she could stomach! Her morning sickness was a 24-hour sickness. It felt like the worst hangover she’s ever had. The ginger tummy drops saved her she says. She ate starchy carbs like mash potatoes, buttered noodles and mac and cheese. She says Boston Market saw a lot of her. Her second trimester she tried to eat fruits, vegetables and nutrient rich foods, but she also ate candy and things you aren’t ‘supposed’ to eat.

Move in a way that makes your body feel good and decreases stress.

Desire believes exercise is so important during pregnancy, but it looks different for everyone. She took a prenatal fitness coaching certification prior to getting pregnant which helped with movement and her breathing. She was very active leading up to her pregnancy by doing activities that were familiar to her body. She believes being active helped her get pregnant so quickly. She also meditated as much as she could.

She did not find out the sex of either baby. She did not want to know, but her doctor slipped up and told her a few days before her first was born. She had a feeling it was going to be a boy. She knew the sex, but she didn’t tell anyone, not even her husband. She wanted to hear “It’s a …” when she gave birth. She says she loved not knowing. Desiree believes it takes off a whole section of unsolicited advice when people don’t know the sex of the baby. They got mostly gender-neutral clothes and she didn’t care if she got something of the opposite sex.

She says her first birth was intense. At 41 weeks, the doctor broke her water to induce labor which made the contractions worse. She didn’t know that! She received an epidural not long after contractions started. She was induced on a Wednesday night and active labor began Friday morning. She is thankful for the pain management! The baby’s heart rate was dropping, so they told her to push. Her son was sunny-side-up which made it even harder. She remembers pushing for hours when the doctor told her she was going to have to get him out on the next push or he was going to cut her open. Desiree pushed with everything she had while the doctor put his feet against the table and pulled the baby with the forceps. It was chaos she describes, but her son was here.

She hired a doula but they ended up being virtual in 2020. She said they were texting during the birth. Desiree said it worked out nicely only having her husband in the room with her.

The media doesn’t portray postpartum realistically. There’s a lot of focus on snapback which is a load of BS.

It was tough recovering and took forever! She felt sad because she couldn’t stand up on her own and couldn’t hold her baby without her husband being there. She remembers one appointment, a nurse looking down there and saying “Oh my gosh, you poor thing.” She says that’s how bad it was. She couldn’t sit down without a donut. She said she started to feel ‘normal’ at about 8 months and completely normal took about a year. She saw a pelvic floor therapist because she had rectal prolapse. She said seeing the pelvic floor therapist was really helpful to correct it.

She had issues breastfeeding with the first one. Getting him to latch was really hard. She says the nurses at the hospital weren’t helpful, but a local lactation consultant helped her figure it out. She says she felt so much pressure to breastfeed. Her son was formula and breastfed in the beginning.

Getting pregnant the second time, at 41 was scary for her because of how hard her recovery was the first time, but she said it has to happy now!

She wanted to beat the clock. Looking back she wishes she had done more to retrain her body. She had such an easy pregnancy the first time, it was a false sense of comfort and she didn’t push herself.

Her second pregnancy wasn’t as easy as the first. She wasn’t able to move as much, but she still exercised as much as she could. It was more light weight training, light weight strength training and yoga. She danced when she had to teach. She thinks her muscles were stretched out because of the back-to-back pregnancies. Her belly hung lower and she gained more weight. This pregnancy was during lock down, so she just wasn’t as active. She stopped teaching at 30 weeks because it was so hard and uncomfortable.

That delivery was easy peasy. She flew out like a greased up turkey!

Desiree’s due date for her second pregnancy was Halloween, a holiday she’s obsessed with! She decided she MUST give birth to her daughter on Halloween! She was three centimeters dilated at her appointment four days before Halloween. Her doctor was in on the plan: he told her to rest for that day and the next, but the day before Halloween, be as active as you can to induce labor. She danced! Contractions started the day before and Halloween morning they felt so strong, she knew it was going to happen. She labored at home until her doula suggested she call her doctor. When she got in the car to go to the hospital, the first song that came on the radio was Thiller by Michael Jackson. She knew it was meant to be. She remembers waiting forever for her epidural this time. After the pain medication she says she was good to go. Once she was ready to push, it only look two pushes to meet her daughter. She was eating a snickers bar shortly afterwards, she felt so great.

I work out now because I’m trying to keep up with my two kids!

Desiree was prepared for another hard recovery. She had months of frozen meals prepped in the freezer because she didn’t think she’d be able to walk. She had to keep reminding herself to take it easy because she felt so great. She still went to her pelvic floor therapist. She thinks it was easier because it was her second birth, and her body knew what to do. She had a pretty wide diastasis which is common. She’s still working to close that gap with her stomach muscles. She thinks she was back to normal in six months with this one. She says getting her endurance has been hard to build back.

Mentally, she thinks she had the baby blues even though those words aren’t the best way to describe it. She felt alone and sad. She found herself crying for no reason because the hormones and her body was changing. A year later, she’s past that. She says the first three months were the hardest.

Breastfeeding her second child was easy. She latched right away without any problems. She still had nipple pain, though. Her daughter was exclusively breastfed.

Here are the topics we discuss in this episode: