On episode 42, we have Jodie, from Alabama on to share her pregnancy at 40, right before her 41st birthday. She is a grandmother, and this is her 9th child. She has six girls and three boys. Jodie is a stay-at-home mom with eight children at home. She was pregnant with her first son when she was just 18 with her first husband. She says she didn’t find pregnancy difficult then. She was young, healthy and in great shape. They divorced when her son was two and a half years old.
In February 2012, Jodie started having some cramping during her 4th pregnancy when she was about six weeks or so along. Her HCG levels looked fine, but the doctor wanted to check again in a few days. Her HCG levels dropped, so the doctor told her she would miscarry. The cramping started and got worse, so she went to the ER. They tried to do a transvaginal ultrasound, but they couldn’t see the baby because they thought it was too small. They sent her home. The next day, she was wondering why she wasn’t bleeding. She was just cramping. She was in the bathroom, cramping while the pain was getting worse. When she stood up, she thought she was going to pass from the nausea. She thinks that’s when her tube ruptured. She still remembers what it felt like. She told her husband that something was really wrong. They dropped the kids off at her mother-in-law’s house and then drove to the hospital. It was hard for her to breathe. The OB/GYN said her abdomen was full of blood. The doctor told her it was an ectopic pregnancy and would do surgery the next morning. She was already mourning the loss of her baby and then she began thinking about her other children. They must be worried about her, and she had a toddler still nursing. Jodie wanted the tissue so they could bury it which helped her heal. Despite the doctor telling her she might struggle getting pregnant again with one fallopian tube, she went on to have her rainbow baby in March of 2013. She had a miscarriage after her 4th baby and then another rainbow baby. She considered getting her one tube tied, but she was also open to more children.
Jodie has been using natural family planning for over fourteen years. She read The Art of Natural Family Planning and uses Fertility Friend App to learn how to chart her cycle. She’s gotten to know the patterns of her cycle. Although, over the past few years it’s changed a little. She’s not sure if it’s because she’s breastfeeding. This time at 40, she didn’t realize it until she looked back at her charts to realize she ovulated a week late which also coincided with having sex. Both her and husband were puzzled by the late ovulation. Then when her temperature didn’t drop, she knew she was pregnant. She took a pregnancy test a week later to confirm because with charting, you know 7-10 days before a pregnancy test will show accurate results. Her and her husband were excited.
She encourages everyone to chart!
How Jodie Charts: She keeps a thermometer in her pillowcase. (Mostly to keep it away from playing children) To ensure accuracy she tries to take her temperature first thing when she wakes up every morning and at the same time with an alarm. If she takes her temperature at a different time, then she adds a note for that day. The highest temperature should be the day of ovulation.
She describes her pregnancy as rough. She says whenever she had girls, it’s always a rough pregnancy. Her joints and her hips ache to the point where she tosses and turns all night. It usually starts about 4-5 weeks and continues throughout the pregnancy. She assumes because of the female hormones. The gender has been a surprise for the last few babies, and this one was going to be the same. Although, she’s found out before and enjoyed it. With the troubles she was having with the pregnancy, she guessed it was probably a girl. She had terrible morning sickness from dawn till dusk every day until about 18 weeks. She chewed on ginger chews and took zinc and vitamin D to help with the nausea.
I take full responsibility for my body and my baby.
For the last four pregnancies, she’s done her own prenatal care with the help of her husband which includes free birth at home. She used to have prenatal care when she first started having free births, but the more she got to know her body, the more she continued to have no issues or complications. She takes full responsibility for her body and her baby by educating herself. She explains if, at any time, she had any inkling of any complications, she said she would go to the doctor immediately. She hasn’t had any problems. She really monitors how she’s feeling, she has a blood pressure cuff, looks for excessive swelling, and blood sugar changes. She measures her own fundal height, which is an indication of how far along she is. So, if you are 32 weeks pregnant, then your fundal height should be about 32 centimeters. If it is off, that is cause for concern.
She started educating herself about birth long before starting having home births. She listened to Indie Birth Podcast to educate herself, but she sticks with her own methods unless there is an emergency. She decided she wanted it to be just her, her husband and nobody else for the birth. She prepared for birth by reading a lot, watching videos, documentaries about home birth, history of home birth and granny midwives. She wants her birth space to be calm. Her husband is her #1 coach. Her last three births have been between 41 and 42 weeks, so she figured she had plenty of time. She doesn’t really prepare in advance. She has a birth box that has a shower curtain to protect her bed, some baby clothes, and an herbal bath she likes to use afterwards. She has a foot printing kit for the baby.
She craved watermelon. Sometimes she would make watermelon her whole meal. This was a much better craving because when she was pregnant with her first daughter, she craved McDonald’s chicken nuggets. She doesn’t recommend that.
Jodie was 39 weeks 4 days when labor started on a Friday. She assumed it might be a weeklong labor. She told her husband right away she was starting labor, but he was driving back from Oregon with a friend. He was due back Sunday or Monday. She says she never has Braxton hicks nor experiences labor that stops. Friday and Saturday were filled with kid’s events while labor continued slowly. Sunday came and things started to pick up but not strong enough that she had to stop and focus. She also doesn’t check her cervix dilation. She checked in with her husband on Sunday night where he stopped in Mississippi just five hours away to spend his last night before coming home. She wasn’t worried. At midnight her contractions picked up. She spent this time preparing her birth box, the essentials, and washing the babies’ clothes. She paced, rocked in the chair, and sat on the birth ball while the kids were sleeping.
Now it was 4:00 am on Monday morning: She’s to the point where she needed help. It was getting intense. This baby was coming. She called her husband crying to come home. Then she called her mother-in-law that’s only a block aways to come over and help her. Between the two calls the contractions were two minutes apart and were intense and caused cramping. It was like a runner’s cramp. She worried something could be wrong with her uterus or with the placenta. She found deep breathing helped her through the pain. Jodie thought something was off and told her mother-in-law she wanted to go to the hospital. That was the first and only time she has ever had that feeling. In the car, she really wanted to tell her mother-in-law to turn around and go home. She didn’t want to go to the hospital.
They got to the hospital about 4:45 am. Of course, since she’s been having home births, the hospital has no record of her seeing a doctor. She was in active labor giving them her information. They called Child Protective Services about 30 minutes after she got to the hospital but didn’t tell her.
She got into a room about 5:20 am. They wanted her to change into a hospital gown, and she declined an IV. She went in the bathroom to pee in a cup, and when she went to stand up, her water broke. She could immediately feel the baby coming. She called her mother-in-law into the bathroom to help her get back in the bed. She could feel the nervous energy from the nurse. She scooted back to the bed because her pants were around her ankles, and they were soaked from her water breaking. Jodie told the nervous nurse it was going to be ok and asked her to put the back of the bed up for her. She prefers to deliver the baby on her knees while leaning on the back of the bed. From her previous experiences she knew she was less than five minutes away from the delivery. She was cold and exposed, so she also asked the nervous nurse to cover her up with a sheet. She waited for the next contraction and put her hand down to cradle the baby’s head. With one push her baby was out at 5:31 AM as Jodie laid her onto the bed. She let go when she was safely on the bed. She looked at her mother-in-law and calmly told her she was here. The nervous nurse said to herself as she lifted the sheet, “Please don’t be a baby under the sheet.” Jodie had a strong instinct to hold her daughter. She asked the nervous nurse to help turn her around so she could lay in the bed as her mother-in-law handed her daughter to her. Jodie laid there in the bed holding her screaming daughter as her mother-in-law answered a call from her husband on speaker. He heard his daughter’s first cry and said, “What!?” Jodie replied, “Yeah, she’s here. It’s a girl!”
Jodie got situated on the bed and could finally hold her baby and got her to latch. Then the nurse started tugging on the umbilical cord. Jodie kept telling her to stop and tried to push her hand away. The nurse said it needed to be removed, but Jodie told her she always left the umbilical cords and placenta attached, as it wasn’t hurting anything. She realized that by coming to the hospital, she had to let go of some of her own choices. She still had to be her own advocate, though. An ER male doctor came in while she was exposed and began lecturing her about the risks of not delivering the placenta in the next five minutes. She told him she was going to finish nursing, then she was going to turn around and the placenta will come out. She just needed a little bit of gravity. Finally, the nervous nurse stepped in and told him they would get it out. After he left, her mother-in-law, which is a retired nurse, examined her daughter. Jodie was ready for a shower after all of that hard work, so she was ready to birth the placenta. She flipped back around how she was for the delivery and asked for a bowl. She could already feel it coming as she turned around; the nurse barely got the bowl under her in time to catch half of it. Jodie also wanted to keep the placenta. Then she cut the cord for the first time, a job usually for her husband. The nursery nurse asked if she could take the baby to the other side of the room to the check the baby. Jodie agreed only if her mother-in-law was allowed to go with her. What she didn’t know at the time is the nurse put an alarm around her ankle. Jodie went in the bathroom to take a long-awaited shower. Afterwards, Jodie wanted to sign the needed paperwork to go home. After two hours and many delays, including a chat with her upset old OB, she was finally able to leave. She walked out because they didn’t offer her a wheelchair. She didn’t need it anyway.
She didn’t have a car seat when she came to the hospital. She called her sister-in-saw while she was waiting to leave to buy one and came to the hospital to take her home. She didn’t think she needed a car seat because she assumed she would be at home and didn’t want to go anywhere. She was home with her sister-in-law by 8:30 am. As they pulled into the driveway, her husband also drove up in front of the house. He met her at the car as she handed him their daughter to hold for the first time.
Jodie’s recovery was great. As they were walking into the house, her husband’s friend said, “I just can’t believe you just had a baby.” She’s never had any real difficulties with postpartum. She would have her down days. There is always a transition when a new baby is added to their family. Jodie is also a lactation consultant, so breastfeeding went well too. Today, her daughter is 14 months old and still nursing. Jodie usually nurses her babies on demand because they get nutrition and comfort from it. Once they get older, she redirects or distracts. With her other babies, she usually nursed all throughout the next pregnancy, but once the new baby comes, she doesn’t really like tandem nursing. When the new baby comes, she begins weaning the older toddler because they are usually 24-26 months old by then.
She did get a call from CPS after she got home. They were asking questions about her other kids and why she went to the hospital. They asked her if she home-schooled. They wanted to do a house check to make sure her other children were alright. Jodie told them, “No, they are fine, you don’t have to check.” The other woman on the phone told Jodie she would have to check with her supervisor because they’ve never had someone refuse. Jodie replied, “Ok, I’ll talk to you when you call back.” The woman never called back.
Resources:
Over 40 Fabulous and Pregnant on Instagram
The Art of Natural Family Planning
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