Hard Postpartum After Back-Labor Induction, with Sarah Fowler

What can you do after a truly exhausting birth leaves you in a daze, you’ve got intersecting breastfeeding issues and postpartum anxiety, you feel you are bonding more with your breast pump than your baby, have to return to work, and you don’t know how to ask for help? Sarah Fowler shares her experience. Check it out.

To listen here, click the play button on the player above, or click the button below to listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Play.

What we talked about:

• Setting down her birth intentions, gathering the birth team
• Asking for a membrane sweep
• Deadline of 41+5
• On the induction ride
• Intense, strong and fast start
• Stop looking at the monitor!
• Doula brings the calm
• Adjusting to not being able to get in the tub
• Fentanyl, tens unit, nitrous oxide: nope, nope, nope
• Exhausted and drained
• Intense back-labor pushing with high baby
• Stop and try again later
• Seeing hair, but needing a vacuum
• “I just want my baby.”
• Feelings of missing out
• Anxiety and not asking for help
• All the breastfeeding issues
• Being a slave to the pump
• The relief of stopping breastfeeding
• On processing it all

Done being pregnant.

Resources and links to info mentioned on the show:

• Rib Pain During Pregnancy – 9 Tips To Relieve Sore Ribs, from BellyBelly
• Evidence on: Induction or C-section for a Big Baby?, from Evidence Based Birth

Sarah’s 11-pound baby

Related podcast episodes:

• The Problem with Due Dates, with Gail Hart
• Taking Care of You, with Mar Oscategui
• Suck, Swallow and Breathe, with Alison Hazelbaker
• Tongue and Lip Ties, with Dianne Cassidy
• When Postpartum Anxiety and Panic Come out of Nowhere, with Kayla Sanmiguel

Sarah’s newly born son

Title music: “Vibe Ace” by Kevin MacLeod, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).

Sponsorship music: “Air Hockey Saloon” by Chris Zabriskie, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).