Stefanie Fernandes: Navigating Birth, Childcare, and Motherhood in Denmark

0:00 Hello, today I have with me Stephanie Fernandez. Stephanie is a certified parent coach with a GI Institute for Parenting and a rapid transformational therapy practitioner trained under Marisa Peer. Recently, she added brainworking recursive therapy to her portfolio to help parents to resolve emotional triggers more effectively. She is also a hypnobirthing teacher, providing antenatal classes where pregnant people prepare for birth with an empowered and confident mindset, allowing for a positive birth and paving the way for a positive and conscious parenting journey. As a cycle starter, stephanie is passionate about teaching mothers in all stages of motherhood applicable tools for a better well-being of the mother and a deeper connection with her children.

0:48 She is convinced that the quality of the relationship a mom has with herself determines the quality of the relationship she has with her child. It all starts with us as mothers. As a rapid transformational therapy practitioner, stephanie facilitates deep healing, often generational, of childhood trauma that still manifests in dysfunctional parenting patterns such as yelling, shaming or emotional neglect. Stephanie's mission is to help raise a healthier next generation. Stephanie is here today to tell her birth stories. She delivered both babies in Denmark and she is going to share those birth stories with us. To connect with Stephanie, you can go to wwwsteffaniefernandezcom.

1:32 You can also connect with her on Facebook and Instagram. Stephanie, welcome and thank you so much for joining me. Hi Kelly, thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I'm really excited to hear about how your births were in Denmark and how that might compare to births here in the US, and also what the support is like in Denmark for postpartum moms. I feel like you have a lot of wisdom to offer us. I'm really excited to be here and thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to talk about giving birth in a very small country. But I feel a lot of people have an opinion about this Scandinavian culture, so I hope to shed a little bit of light today into how this was for me as a foreign mom giving birth here.

2:20 For us birth was different than we planned and even though I didn't plan much because I was just not as prepared as in hindsight I think I could have been but we had a few difficulties during birth and giving birth in a country where you don't speak the language At that time I didn't speak the language you can really have some challenges and to natively. The care is also very different than what I would be used to from my home country and you mainly meet midwives. I didn't meet a single doctor during my pregnancy except of the first two weeks In the first trimester.

3:08 I met my GP once just to confirm that I'm pregnant and that was it. And we attended the birth preparation class. But knowing now what one can do preparing the mind and the body as a hypno-birthing teacher, I can see that there were quite a lot of gaps in how they helped me prepare and other couples there. It was basically just giving us a run-through of who is attending birth, so there are only midwives, unless there is really a medical emergency. So here in Denmark it's very midwifery and I don't know why it's already calmed me down because it gave me the sense of you know, it's not a medical emergency, it's just birth, and the fact that my pregnancy was so uncomplicated really also helped me to feel that Like it's just part of my life.

4:01 This is not an extraordinary circumstance. Even though I am in my body, we're doing something extraordinary. It was very natural. So they gave us a quick run-through. I think it was like 45 minutes birth prep class. If you need medication, these are your options. If you want your partner to be there, these are your options. If you give birth at night, these are your options. If you want water birth, so it's so. So it was quite, very practical. I feel like that's how the Danes are. They like just very practical things, but they are also very sweet and very caring.

4:42 So that was really nice. I felt throughout my whole pregnancy and during the birthing process that everyone was very caring and I actually never really felt out of control. I never really felt there's someone else who decides for me. As I said, I didn't have a birth plan. I was not very well prepared. So now that I work in the birthing context and working with moms, I can see that there's a lot of parents who particularly plan every single thing. I was not one of them, so I was quite hands off and very relaxed about it. I had a backpack and I had a little list.

5:23 In case birth starts at night, what do we need to do? In case birth starts during the day, or labor starts during the day, what do we need to do? So more for my husband, I would say, than for me. He knows whom to call and where the bed is and which documents to bring. And we in Denmark here, we don't go to the hospital when labor starts. So you call and you say I think I'm in labor, because when you give birth for the first time, you are not very sure. But you're kind of sure, but not really. And they just ask okay, so how long apart are the contractions? And you need to provide that information.

6:03 And then they say well, it sounds like you can still stay home for a little bit longer, so we would like you to be home in your environment, without the stress, without the smell of the hospital, without all that excitement, because it can easily happen that labor slows down when you come in at this stage. So we want you to stay home. And that was a bit of shock because I felt a bit like, but I don't know what I'm doing here, like I need to go to a hospital. I need you guys to look at. You know, is everything okay? But they were not up for negotiation. So we hung up, we watched a movie I don't remember what movie.

6:44 I was so occupied and very excited as well. We called again. I think it was three hours later. The nurse on the phone asked my husband so can you give me Stephanie on the phone? Can you hand her the phone? I would like to talk to her to just see how she's doing. And then I just had a contraction and it was very loud. And she says well, it sounds like you guys are ready to come in, so you can come in. And then we went to the hospital. We called the cab. The cab driver knew exactly what was going on, because apparently he does that all the time, because you don't call an ambulance here and then, Mark, you just call a cab and they all know what to do.

7:26 And it was just a very short ride, it was just 10 minutes and we already had a room ready because we were on their list for a few hours already. So they planned for us, which was very nice, and we even had a room with a birthing pool in the public hospital. So that's a public hospital that has that available and we had our own room. So that was very intimate, it was very cozy and it was not very busy. So we had one midwife that was in and out of the room but she never really brought an entourage of people, it was just her checking in on me and it was so calm, like, even though you know when it's your first birth and you don't really know how things will progress.

8:15 You learn the stages of birth but when they happen you still are not really sure. Is that how it's supposed to be? Is that right? Because your brain is not really functioning in a logical way and I knew that I didn't want an epidural. I knew that I didn't want strong painkillers and I think that has something to do with my conviction that I had about myself that my body can do this, like, my mom birthed four kids and I didn't hear I didn't hear never anything about how hard birth was or how painful it is or it's.

8:58 You cannot tolerate that and it's the worst thing that you ever felt. In my home, these sort of conversations didn't happen. It was also not. There was also not a lot of positive talk about birth. There was just no conversation about birth, and I think, while this can have downsides in other aspects of raising kids, that you don't share the difficulties and you don't share the struggle. I'm convinced, as a mom, that it's important to share with our kids so they learn and they develop a sense of realistic picture of how life is, including birth, but the fact that my mom didn't talk about it just gave me this idea.

9:40 It's like the most normal thing on the planet. There is nothing to be afraid of. I didn't even consider having an epidural. For me, this is my body, my body was made for this and I can do that, and I am expecting, yes, that it's going to be very intense, but I didn't have a single doubt that my body can do this. I think that was so much in the forefront of my head all the time of my mind throughout I think it was 16 hours of labor that I can do this, of course. Then I came a time when I said I cannot do this more. I'm done, I'm tired. Sorry, guys, but you have to do this without me.

10:23 I'm out, I cannot do this, and now I want an epidural. And my husband said well, you remember, honey? You said you don't want an epidural. And I said I don't care what. I said, I'm over this. It's going on for way too long and it's so painful I cannot do this more. And the midwife said you came all this way. You know what? It's too late for an epidural. This is the last stage of labor and we are not giving you an epidural. All you have to do now is push this baby out. And I'm like, really, you didn't say anything before. I felt a bit desperate. But when she said it's the last push, it's the last phase, it's really the last thing. You will meet your baby in just a few minutes, so you can do this.

11:07 I thought, ok. Then I went OK, I do this, I'm doing this, let's do this. Are we ready? Are we ready to push? Yes, we're ready to push. And unfortunately he didn't come out as easy as I wished for him to come out. He got stuck and his heart rate decreased or sank. So they got really alarmed and even though before it was just one midwife within 10 seconds, I had, I think, 15 people in the room and they were all there to help birth this baby. They would even have done a C-section on the spot if they would have needed to. And he was born with a suction and they really had to pull him out hard.

11:50 So he was really stuck with the shoulders and the umbilical cord was a bit short, so he just didn't have a lot of space, naturally, which we didn't know. And he also didn't breathe when he came out and he didn't start screaming immediately. And my husband got really upset and impatient and he said why is he not screaming? Why is he not screaming? What's happening? What's happening? And he got really upset about it and all I was laying there and all I thought and I told him he has time, give him time. He has all the time, give him time, he's OK, he's OK. And they took him away because he didn't start screaming and he didn't start breathing.

12:36 So they took him away and it took care of him and he was intubated and he had to go to the neonatal intensive care unit. My husband went with him and he stayed there for the night and we didn't know if he can make it, will he make it, will he have brain damage? And they told us like that, they told us this, just like that. We don't know how he is going to wake up. We are going to wean him from the ventilator in the morning and then we'll see. And we just have to wait and see. There's nothing more we can do.

13:17 I was, interestingly, I was not nervous and I was not scared. I was a bit in shock, of course, because he was not with me. I felt that was not natural, there is something missing. I went for a shower, I ate, and he was not there. And they brought me to him and they put me in a wheelchair. And I'm not sitting in a wheelchair, I'm walking, just like with anything in my pregnancy and during birth. It's like the most natural thing. I can walk. I just delivered, yes, but I can walk, and I had second degree tears and I was walking the whole way to meet him. So I think I was in shock of what happened, just didn't really, I was not really aware of it and I looked at him in that little bed with the ventilator and I knew that he's going to be fine.

14:08 I just knew it in my body. There was a sense of relief when I saw him and we stayed next to him in that little room the whole night. I was introduced to the pump. They told me I should pump so that they could give him my milk and that didn't work. There was more stress. I think that was more stress than anything because I felt that was not how it's supposed to be and my mind was so much with him that I couldn't relax, letting go of the milk, and I didn't sleep a single minute during that night.

14:49 And the next morning, when they weaned him from the ventilator and he started breathing out by himself and he woke up and he was just fine. From what we could say, what we could tell in the moment, I was not even very relieved because I felt always yes, this is he's good, everything is good. And the fact that we had this midwife almost from start to finish and throughout the night she came checking on me. There was such a bond with her and me. This was so nice and I wish that every woman has that. I didn't even know this midwife, but the fact that she was so dedicated that there was not a lot of distraction there were no other people it was not the doctor who decided, it was us as a team who decided what we are going to do, how I'm going to do this that this was, I think, the most beautiful thing about this whole hospital birth, because I know that hospital birth can be so anonymous and cold.

15:56 I didn't experience this at all that way, and I even felt a bit silly because the day after, when I went for a walk around the hospital, I saw her in the evening coming back to her night shift, starting her night shift, and I was shouting through the hallway her name and I was like you're back, you're back. And I felt like you're my friend now and she was like oh yeah, remember you, how are you doing? And then I felt, ok, that's a bit awkward because we're not friends, this is your job, but I still feel so connected to you because I will always remember you for the beautiful thing that you did and that you helped me with.

16:37 And here in Denmark you receive, if you had a traumatic birth, both the birthing person and the birthing partner. They receive psychological support afterwards and that immediately kicked in. So they immediately got informed about our case and started visiting us in the hospital. We were discharged three days later and we had a home nurse that came to visit and this psychologist, and then we also got referrals to meet a psychologist as part of our checkups in the hospital and I think that was really really nice and it was very helpful to.

17:20 Without being this being a pathological thing, it doesn't need to have a diagnosis of PTSD. Nobody even did an assessment and I felt that was very easy. The barrier for accepting the support was very low Because it was just we can just talk. You are invited to come in and you just tell us what you experienced. How was this experience for you? There's no right or wrong. Your husband experienced it differently than you. What the nurse wrote in her journal is different than what you experienced, so there is no judgment here.

18:02 No-transcript I have. Everyone who brought home a baby knows that you don't sleep, you're excited, you kind of lose not really the connection, but you're not so focused on your partner and that's what happened to us. So I actually never asked my husband how was this for you and he didn't feel comfortable to share how it was for him. For him it was much more traumatizing that it was for me, but he didn't want to burden me with this because we just had a baby. We brought him home. Everything seems fine now, so why make a big deal out of it? And he had the chance to just tell his side of the story and he still says that was very, very beneficial for him.

18:45 And once he told his story how he perceived it, how difficult these few minutes were when the baby was not screaming, when all of a sudden all these doctors entered the room kind of ready to get this baby out, then he felt the rush of emergency. That was the most difficult part for him. And once he told this to someone who was not there just laying it all out, he could sleep again. And I think that's the most profound experience for me because I was so focused on myself and the baby. But then it was him who struggled so much and we focus so much on the mother and I do too in my work but I can see the benefits that working with a mental health practitioner, with the birth thing partner, that has such a huge benefit for the whole family, for the whole team, for everyone.

19:41 So that was really beautiful. And because the first birth was complicated, we were on kind of a list for the second birth. So during pregnancy they asked us to come in much more often for checkups. They also saw us in the hospital, which was a new experience. I didn't have that experience in my first pregnancy and they were very. They were a bit worried, but without saying we are worried. So there I felt the whole transparency and yes, we are a team and we do this.

20:21 Naturally. That was a bit missing during my second pregnancy. They didn't want to alarm me or upset me, but as a mom you feel if there is something off, and why would I go to the hospital? When my first pregnancy I never saw the hospital from the inside. They just wanted to make sure that they are prepared for everything that could happen during birth and it was so easy. I fortunately I didn't lose the mindset and the trust in myself that my body was made to do this. Every woman on this planet birthed before me, every person I meet, has been birthed. I can do this. It's okay.

21:01 The first experience doesn't have to determine the second experience and I'm glad that I could. I could enjoy that because with the second pregnancy also, there's a ton of running around, you're more tired, you don't have so much motivation and time. I think it's more motivation to write a beautiful pregnancy journal, take a bump picture every month. Things are just different with second birth and second pregnancy and I'm happy that I had a very good second birth, very fast and an excellent midwife who you know how. It's funny when midwives kind of know what you need to kind of support you during birth.

21:46 I didn't know her, so it was a different midwife and when the last phase of birth started, I was so scared. I was so scared all of a sudden and she said Stephanie, you're so strong, you can do this. And being strong has always been very important for me because I'm short and I'm not, compared to other people, not very strong, but I was always so determined. I don't let my height define what I can achieve. I was always very good at sports. I was always very fast in running. Sprinting was my most favorite sports.

22:27 I did volleyball and rowing. I did everything and this inherent need for me to be strong just helped me kick this through and see, you're so strong and I'm like I know I'm strong, let's do this. And then the baby was out and I get goosebumps because you hear about all these birth affirmations and have those affirmations ready and your birthing partner reads them out. But if they don't, if they don't touch your heart, if they don't speak to your personality and your needs and your wishes and your convictions, then birth affirmations are just sentences. So make sure, really, that these affirmations are yours and you own them, so that in those difficult times when you feel I cannot sorry, guys, I'm out, I cannot more, it's so hard, and when you hear such an affirmation, you are strong, whatever it is that works for you.

23:23 For me it was that you're so strong and yes, I am. And there he was. And I gave birth alone, without my husband, because he picked up our toddler from kindergarten and we live here in Denmark without family, so we also didn't have anyone who could just pick him up and watch him while I give birth. And so they were at the trampoline the minute that my second one was born, and it's actually a cute story that we tell him when we go to the trampoline in that park. They say you know, your big brother was here jumping on the trampolines while you were born, just over there in the hospital, and it gives all of us kind of a sense of we were still connected even though we were not together.

24:08 So that was really beautiful. And in Denmark, just after a few hours after birth, you're being discharged. The first thing was fine. So we were discharged just a few hours later and going home with a brand new baby, with a very positive birth experience second time around. But I also have to say that even though the first birth was problematic, it was positive and it can be difficult but it can still be positive. So that's the paradox about difficult births or pregnancies, or difficult postpartum because we feel everything that happens, everything bad that happens, is kind of this overshadowing cloud and then I cannot see the good.

24:52 But once you've cleared that cloud with support, with therapy, with help, whatever it is, with a mom, with your best friend who comes to support, you can clear that cloud and then in the end you can look back and still remember this. Yes, it was tough, but I have to say it was positive. It's actually pretty beautiful. So it's six years ago and I still feel very connected to the experience. So I have implicit memory stored in my body. I can feel that when I'm talking I get very emotional and I don't know if it will ever leave me. Probably not, maybe even because I don't want it to leave me. I want this to be part of me and when I look at my six-year-old, who started school a few weeks ago, I cannot believe.

25:35 And I tell him you know, just six years ago you were in that hospital bed and we didn't know that you will. You make it. How will you make it? And now you are so smart and so beautiful and such an amazing boy and also knowing me at times very much is your job and it's just part of our story and part of our relationship as well that we have with each other. That's so amazing. I really love how that experience that turned scary was still a positive birth experience for you, and that's one of my biggest goals in doing my podcast and as a labor nurse.

26:15 I really want moms to feel both empowered and, even when we have things go a little bit, not how we expected, to be able to understand that we are trying to help them and we can work together as a team for the outcome that we all hope for. So I really love that you were able to give birth naturally and have a shoulder dystocia, which can be incredibly traumatic and painful, but also you were able to frame that as a positive experience because you had people that were supportive of you emotionally and that you trusted, and I think that's really important.

26:56 I have so many things that I want to talk about. The first thing that I want to address is the shoulder dystocia. I wonder if you remember the interventions other than the suction that you mentioned, so the vacuum that they put on the baby's head. Do you remember what else that they did? Did they change your position at all? They? didn't change my position. They cut me. Okay. And then I didn't see what they were doing, but I felt a hand and then the relief was there in the moment, got it. So when they cut you, that's an apesiautomy. Did you feel that?

27:36 Did you feel pain when they did that? They did it during a contraction and they told me that we're going to wait for the next contraction. And then we cut you. Yeah. And I was really scared because it sounds so scary, like I don't want anyone to cut me, and she said you will not feel it. And it's true, I didn't feel it. She said focus on the contraction and breathe and hold my hand, but not so strong, because I really squeezed her hand, not so strong, you're hurting me. And then the contraction was over and then the cut was done. Yeah, Okay. So what it sounds like they were doing was, first of all, waiting until your baby's head was stretching your perineum enough that those nerves were stretched that you wouldn't feel the sharp pain of the release of your perineum.

28:25 So when they cut it, they're releasing your perineum and I'm sure you know all this. I'm explaining it for listeners because this sounds scary, but I want people to kind of wrap their heads around some of the potential things that can happen during the birthing process so that we don't enter with fear. And when you cut that apesiodomy with a shoulder dissociation, that is definitely one of the interventions that can be deemed necessary to make space in the body for the baby's shoulders to come out. And if it's stretched appropriately, those nerves are stretched. There isn't as much sensation down there. So you start with the ring of fire when the baby's head starts coming down and begins to stretch the perineum and then after that, people that have had natural births say that it starts to go away, especially when there's more pressure and more stretching.

29:15 So they probably waited while that baby's head was stretching the perineum and they did the cut and then it sounds like if you felt them stick their hands inside, they were probably trying to release that posterior shoulder. So the anterior shoulder that's kind of perpendicular with your pubic bone and running into that pubic bone. That one is the one that's quote unquote stuck. The one that they're trying to get is the one that's posterior and they bring the arm out. If they can deliver the head and the arm, then usually that top shoulder, the anterior shoulder, will release and you can deliver the baby and it sounds like they did that really effectively. So those are two interventions that are done for trying to relieve a shoulder dystocia and I have an entire episode on shoulder dystocia so I'm not going to go into all the other maneuvers because you can go and listen to it.

30:04 My friend, dr Goldstein, explained so much better than I can how to relieve a shoulder dystocia. So the other thing that I wanted to talk about was did you do hypnoborthing before you delivered your babies or was that inspired afterwards? That was inspired afterwards. I didn't do it before. Amazing. In fact, I didn't even know about the concept. And only afterwards, when I came across this concept of how to prepare for birth in a more holistic and mindful way, I realized that how many boxes I naturally ticked without even knowing yeah.

30:46 Yeah, because the way you did describe it sounds like the mindset of hypnoborthing, and I really like that. You are able to kind of come at it from a natural perspective and then just align with those principles once you realize that there is something out there that is very similar, because I never had the experience either of hypnoborthing and so now that I've talked to people that have gone through the process and I understand it a little bit more, I'm really excited when I get somebody that's doing the hypnoborthing, because I want to be able to help that process and kind of see it in action. So I think that's amazing. My understanding is that it's basically like you are saying that birth is a natural process and that your body's meant to do all of it and the sensations that you're feeling are not pathological, that they are your body doing what it's supposed to do, and so I think that it's so interesting that you went into it with that mindset and how effective that can be, when you think that the sensations that I'm feeling are not dangerous sensations, they're natural.

31:44 And I think what we have, at least for the most part in the culture in the US or where I'm working, is a lot of people thinking that those sensations are not natural, and so then their mindset is that they feel like that they're being harmed by it. I think, yeah, I had a friend who, before birth, told me just remember, I'm just giving you one advice. Just remember, the pain you will feel does not harm you or your baby. Nothing is breaking inside of you. There's nothing wrong, because when we feel pain we're so conditioned that there's something wrong and we need to go fix it.

32:24 And the birth pain, labor pain, is actually the only pain, or nothing is wrong. Everything is actually very fine and every contraction brings you closer to your baby. That's what she told me and I couldn't really understand. But then, when I felt the contractions, I thought this is what she meant and I really visualized how every contraction brings me closer to my baby, like really pushing the baby down a bit every time, a bit every time, and I really visualized this as not something breaking or something being wrong, but just moving the baby out. That was all that. That was all I needed to help me stay calm with it.

33:07 And of course, I had amazing midwife who constantly assured me everything is fine. I was not on a monitor all the time so I could just get up to also feel. She said you know, you can get up, you can hold yourself here. Here's a ball, here's some some exercises you can do, like easy exercises, like you sit on a really low chair and see how that feels, like you can walk up and down the hallway, you can walk stairs, like it's fine, you don't have to lay here in bed. So these these feelings you have, these sensations you have in your body. They don't have to stay the same. Just you don't have to stay the same. You can move with them, move your hips and move around.

33:49 You can get up, and that just also showed me that they don't have to constantly monitor me and the baby. That means it's actually everything, okay. Yeah, yeah, and we are trying to do that at the hospitals that I work at more and more. We do, trying to think of what the policies for both. But just a summary is like 20 minutes on and then 40 minutes off, or you can do an hour, depending on what the treatment plan is if it's an induction and then be off for a couple hours. So that's usually early labor. For natural labor it's a little bit different. You can be off for a while. It just all depends on what treatments were potentially giving.

34:33 So we've tried to be more open to that and I feel like we're having better outcomes. The second, that there's any indication that the baby might not be tolerating labor as well as we'd hoped, then we would stay on the monitor longer. Or if we're moving around so much that we can't monitor the baby for those 20 minutes. So usually I try to get someone in a real comfortable position for that time so that we can be off the monitor for as long as possible. So those are options that I think are becoming more and more available. They're being recommended more by the governing bodies, acog and AWAN, for obstetrics and nursing. So I think hopefully we're moving towards a less pathophysiological birth more of a normal pathophysiological process.

35:18 I was really interested in the psychological support that they gave you after the delivery and then they sent a home nurse and a psychologist to your house. Is that what they do for all families, or do they just do it for people that had a difficult birth? So the home nurse is standard. She comes home two days after you've been discharged, and then a week later, and then a week later, and then for the first year of a baby's life. She comes regularly and not so frequent if everything goes fine, but she comes regularly throughout the first year and even now my youngest is four and we just had the last visit.

36:02 Wow, she was just checking in on him to see how is his speech, how are the teeth, how is his motoric skills, how are his social skills, just to really catch early things that otherwise a GP doesn't have time for, or in school, where they are not trained to see certain things. So yeah, it's amazing, it's really, really helpful and because of that one also feels more supported. Like I had a really tough postpartum period. The first three, four months were really really hard, but I'm not even sure if it was because of the baby and birth.

36:47 I think it was more because of my transformation, the hormones and, all of a sudden, the responsibility I had and the lack of support because I didn't have any family and I didn't know how to reach out for help, like just quickly asking someone can you hold a baby? I can shower. I didn't have that and I didn't have the courage to actually ask a friend to come over. And this home nurse her name was Liz Lotte I think she saved me. Like with that midwife, she became my friend, like from my perspective. I was looking forward to her visit. She was so kind and caring. Yes, she was there for the baby, but she was also there for me.

37:29 She came to check on me and she did a screening with me because she said I think, stephanie, you're not well, you need to see if you have depression so that if you have depression, that you can get the help you need. And I did have depression, I just didn't know. And nobody asks these type of questions that lead to an outcome of yes, you know, all this sounds like depression. It's more like how is the baby sleeping? How are you holding up? These questions are not really reflecting your internal state when you ask a new mom. But can you shower? Do you eat well? Do you cry? How often do you cry? Can you calm yourself when you cry? Do you feel that when your baby cries, that you are getting too distressed?

38:13 Do you call someone? Do you isolate yourself? All these questions really led to a picture of me understanding it's not healthy how I am and how I lead this new life and I didn't know what new moms do. There is no such thing as a blueprint for me, because in my family, my cousins and all that, it was not very we didn't share many of these struggles. So you see the new mom, but she looks good and the baby is cute and you go visit and it's all fine. So I just didn't have an understanding about it, even though of course I knew about it. But when you are in it you cannot make sense of it. And she kicked off the whole process four months after delivery for me to get the therapist and even though I had already won for the trauma of birth and to resolve that and it seemed fine, they didn't say well, you know, you're good, we cleared you.

39:08 They rolled up the whole thing again and they gave me support, the support I needed, and it was not a lot of support that I needed, just a little bit. And a little bit went a long way because just a few months later I already went back to work and I was so fine then I could leave my child with my husband, I was comfortable leaving him and I was comfortable going back to work and that was just, I know from me. I would have not asked for that support, I just wouldn't have. I was so embarrassed for not being able to shower, for not being able to eat well, for having to hold my baby 12 hours a day because he wouldn't sleep somewhere else.

39:48 I just couldn't put him down and I thought it's my fault. I thought there's something wrong that I did. But now, looking back, I see he also had a traumatic birth, this little guy, and everyone around me just said well, don't hold him so much, he gets used to this. And then he doesn't sleep, of course, and at night he would sleep so well, he would sleep in his crib. He would just wake up to nurse. I would put him back and he would continue sleeping. And I was not overtired. I had really good nights of sleep in the first few months, but the days were difficult and if that whole nurse didn't show up, if I didn't have the mental health support, then I couldn't have been as present for him as I was able then to be and just happier.

40:32 Life is just so much better when you're not depressed. Yeah. That's just the fact, yeah, and that was really lucky, that was really nice, and they also put me in a mom's group. It's also something they have here in Denmark so you're assigned to a group of moms who gave birth around the same time and you exchange contacts and then you meet for coffee, for a walk, for whatever you need, and we're still friends and we could share how hard things are for us and I could see. Well, actually, you know, I'm not the only one who struggles with washing her hair in the morning, and it's not the worst thing. It doesn't determine whether or not I'm a good mom?

41:13 Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. Do you know what the tool is that they use to screen moms for postpartum depression? Like what questions, how they know what to ask? It was a I think it was 20 questions. I don't know that. I don't know the questionnaire. It's a governmental approved thing that they use, all the same, the standardized process. Yeah, we have. We use the Adenberg scale and I've noticed a lot of parents it'll catch some postpartum depression. I've noticed it's not necessarily as all encompassing as it should be, because I've been learning a lot about what's called perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.

41:57 I've been trying to focus a lot on that in my podcast because I have some friends that are therapists that are certified in perinatal mental health and I noticed that the Adenberg scale that we use for postpartum depression doesn't bring up intrusive thoughts. It doesn't bring up symptoms of postpartum obsessive compulsive disorder or postpartum anxiety, which is different from postpartum depression, and some of the symptoms that you'll see with any of these perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are different from what you would see if you were not in the perinatal space.

42:37 So regular anxiety might show up differently than postpartum anxiety, and I think it's important to have tools that can help moms know that they need to seek mental health and then also have mental health readily available in the US. Yeah, and that's the key for everyone, which it's complicated now, even if you have money, sometimes insurance doesn't cover it and it's so expensive rightfully so, because people are trying to maintain their business. It's just it could be done so much better. So I'm glad that you had the opportunity and the resources and I think that, learning from how people have had those good experiences in other places, I think we could probably try to start doing better here, yeah.

43:23 It's incredible how much can happen just in one year. And I got better. I got out of it well, I entered the workforce, I was able to have another baby. My marriage didn't fall apart. Yeah, I'm strong, like mentally strong, and I am resilient because of that, and we didn't have financial worries about any of this Never, and that's such a relief from what I can understand. If you need to kind of finance your own treatment, if you kind of need to check, well, can I afford this? Do I want to? Do I really need this? We never had these kind of conversations. Whatever you need, stephanie, whatever you need, you get it, because it's important that you are well and the baby is well and your husband is well.

44:10 Like even that extended part of me kind of got the mental health support that he needed without even ever spending any money on anything and we could give back to the community, we could give back to the economy, like we are fully functioning people with two kids and a healthy family, and I'm convinced because we got the help we needed and we didn't have to make those difficult decisions. Can we afford this? Do we want to afford this? What if the baby needs something else and then we don't have the pillow of money anymore. What if something else comes up when your car breaks down?

44:52 And I wish that this would be the norm for everyone, because otherwise it's such a burden, such a burden. Yeah, so then what does child care look like in Denmark? So everyone has guaranteed child care in a public daycare institution as of six months old. Wow, but you can stay home on maternity leave up to one year. So you can stay home and divide the time of leave between you and your husband or you and your partner, even if it's a same sex marriage or same sex couple. You can just stay home up to one year and then everyone has a guaranteed spot in a public institution and you pay really little, like it's so affordable.

45:41 They provide food there. It's amazing Like they helped me raise my kids. They are really dedicated, attentive. It's not without flaws, but because they're humans it's normal and we were super happy with our daycare. Our kids stayed there from one to six and now the oldest started school. They started school at six years old and it's a very smooth transition because kids here learn how to be kids, how to integrate in a society, and they don't learn how to read and write and sit and know all the rules about academic success, of whatever a parent might be afraid that their kids will not achieve.

46:27 Here it's more about how you climb trees and how you make fire, how you dig up an animal and how you make sure that you know what mushrooms you can eat when you go to school Survival skills that's awesome. It's really great because it's so good for our kids' mental health. They are free, they are kids and when they enter school they are ready because school is here not the first two years, it's not. You know. You sit for six hours here. It is still very much like you go out and play and you learn how to count and do math and you learn English while you are out.

47:08 People are just integrating learning in a very natural way, and my son even says it's quite boring at school because I thought that we are really going to do the hard math now because I know all these things already and so they really help us here to raise amazing humans. For us, for us, it's a blessing. Yeah, I'm starting to consider how I could move to Denmark, making it very tempting, but I guess I should stay the course and try to make here a little bit more family friendly. They need you. They need you, yeah, kelly. I'm just like thinking about all the things I could have done if I'd had that support. That'd be amazing. So I know in certain countries they have support where they automatically put you into see a pelvic floor specialist.

47:53 Is that something that they do in Denmark as well? No, they don't. It's an interesting thing. There's a big gap. I have a friend who is a pelvic floor specialist and she is booked. So many need her support because once you're cleared from your GP, you're out of the system. That's camps for mothers and the body. So they say, well, it all looks good, you're healed, green light for being intimate with your partner again, and if you don't want to become pregnant pretty soon, then this is what you need to do. Then they just give you a list of contraception, but that's it.

48:36 So there is unfortunately a big gap on providing care for coming back to a good state, and that's not a good thing. Yeah, yeah, that's how it is here as well. I think there's a lot of challenge and I don't think there are many mothers that know what to look out for, because there's so many different signs and symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction that aren't just the obvious ones, because once you get the real obvious one, something has gone pretty wrong, something that I ask all moms. There's two things that I ask moms, and I think it's always different with people that have had natural deliveries.

49:16 So the first thing, you kind of answered but what was it? That major brain understand how to push the baby out. Was there something like was it difficult at first and then you kind of got the hang of it? Or was it something that, because you were having a natural delivery, you could feel everything? It all felt natural and you just went with what your body was telling you? I was very surprised how strong the urge is to push, Like now, when I think that there are doctors or midwives telling birthing people to wall the baby in because we don't have time to help you. I don't know how that could work, Because I felt in the moment that's it, the baby's coming.

50:02 I didn't feel I have control anymore. It was more like how do I channel all the energy that I need and how strong do I need to push? For me it was more the questions well, what do I need to do? When she said, you don't have to actually do much, you just follow the urge and the instinct and that was it. So I didn't overthink too much. But I was quite surprised how intense and different it was from the contractions before. And then can feel a little bit scary. That's different. What's going on now? Yeah, I have big feelings about people telling moms not to deliver their babies. I mean, that's an impossible thing to ask. It's terrible, it's the.

50:44 I agree, yeah, I Babies are going to come out, and that's a natural thing. Exactly. Exactly I tell moms. I just say if the baby comes out, the baby's going to come out. You know. As long as you're in the bed and there's a place for the baby to land, it's fine. And if I'm not in the room, a lot of people are worried. They're like what if you're not here? Call me If I'm with another patient at that time and I don't know that you're ready to deliver. I mean, most of the time that doesn't happen, but sometimes it does, especially with a really good epidural and a mom that's had multiple babies. It can happen where the baby you look up and the baby's suddenly off the monitor. You go on and readjust and you're like wait a minute, there's a baby here, you know, and we call on the team to help to make sure that the baby's okay.

51:27 But it happens and it doesn't have to be terrifying. And you know we call the doctor or midwife when the baby is crowning to actually deliver. That's the protocol. If they don't make it not the end of the world. I have hands and then when they get there and like here, take over, there's a placenta that needs to come out. There's probably some things that you need to repair down there that I'm not qualified to do, but the baby coming out is not something that you really need to. I mean, unless it gets stuck, it's not a whole lot that needs to be, and also we're trained on the procedures If it gets stuck. So, and hopefully by then everybody's come to help, so it doesn't have to be terrifying for the baby to just move into this world.

52:12 And I feel if a woman holds it back it's so much more painful, which just increases the fear. And then you know, you're kind of in that cycle of, of course it hurts so much. I'm just trying to hold it in, which was so painful. And a stress response and trauma and so much that happens just because you're not letting nature take its course. The other thing that I ask everybody is if you could go back to prior to your birth experience and talk to yourself. What would you want to tell yourself? That's a nice question. I think I would tell myself that the postpartum period, especially the first six months, I'm not liking the movies Sometimes.

52:55 I mean, I know that birth is not like in the movies and I knew that it's not like your water breaks While you're standing in the kitchen and you have this huge pond underneath you and then you go to the hospital and the baby's here. I knew that, but I didn't know that about the postpartum period, I thought it's going to be this pink cloud that I'm sitting on. And it's perfect and it's easy and it's so natural, and my baby and me will be in the perfect symbiosis and I will be this mom that prepares homemade meals, and it was such an unrealistic expectation of what I thought it was going to be. I wish I could go back and tell myself, however, this is going to be, it's just fine, it's just right.

53:40 You don't need to do anything, you don't have to look anything particular and your child doesn't have to do anything particular. All you have to do is be there in the moment and present and be a bit more courageous of feeling what you're feeling, because that was difficult for me. Yeah, I think all moms need to hear that. That's really good. Well, Stephanie, is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to talk about? Not really. I think it was a really nice and comprehensive conversation about my experience. Yeah, I'm really excited for this episode to air. I think a lot of moms have to hear about your experience I think that would be really helpful and providers as well.

54:21 I think we can all do better. I'm often holding back with telling my story because I feel it was, it has this traumatic side to it. But I'd like that you, that you gave me this opportunity to tell my story and still being able to show people that it can be positive. Yeah, and I think I really want to turn that narrative around and help moms kind of take back their birth stories and be able to really honor them. Yeah, exactly. Well, Stephanie, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure hearing your birth stories and hearing your perspective.