- I'm pretty sure it probably scared at least one of them
out of becoming a birthing doctor.
(whimsical music)
- My name's Alison and my daughter broke my vagina.
- I'm Kieona and my birthing experience
is something I will never forget.
- I'm Krista, I have one child and he pooped inside me.
- My name is Ashley.
I have two kids and my first baby was born sunny-side up.
- So I had my daughter via scheduled C-section
which I was really excited about
because I knew that my vagina
would not be involved in any way.
But it turns out I was completely wrong.
In fact, it was immediately involved
in the day's proceedings.
The first thing I did was show up to the hospital
like ready to party.
And so they put me in a gown, fine,
but then a woman comes in and she's like,
hey, good morning, Alison,
just gonna shave your pubes.
I wasn't expecting it.
Intellectually, I get why that's necessary.
You're gonna be cutting through that area
and I don't want you to think
I'm somebody that doesn't know
that there's a certain level of grooming involved,
but I hadn't seen my vagina in months at that point.
The second thing that happens,
no matter how you have a baby,
you're gonna be in diapers.
People need to start telling you that.
I don't wanna get into why because it's disgusting,
but just know you're gonna be wearing diapers
for like a while.
The entire process was horrific to begin with.
But then I get out of the hospital, I have my daughter.
Great, she's a gift from the Lord, awesome.
And six weeks later I had to go follow-up,
maybe it was a month, I had to go follow-up with my doctor.
And I'm trying to explain to her
that I think I have chlamydia.
Something's wrong.
A person did not come out of my vagina,
yet my vagina feels like
it's been replaced with shards of glass.
(glass shattering)
So I go to my gynecologist, my OB,
and she's like, how are you doing?
And I was like, I'm doing honestly not great
because I think that there's a shattered mural
where my vagina used to be.
My OB puts me in the stirrups, not comfortable,
and she looks at my vagina and she laughs.
It didn't feel good
when a medical professional laughs
in the face of your vagina.
Yet there I was.
And she said, oh Alison, I don't know how you do it.
It turns out that I had something called atrophic vaginitis.
This is when your vagina literally atrophies.
So if you're not familiar with the word atrophy,
it's basically when something sort of shrivels up and dies.
That's what happens there.
So like atrophied wood, an atrophied fossil,
an atrophied vagina.
This is most commonly found in post-menopausal women,
yet somehow I had been stricken with it
at the age of 36.
So it turns out, in my case, I was breastfeeding
'cause everybody says you're supposed to breastfeed.
I thought I was doing the right thing.
And apparently my body is so (bleep) stupid
that in order to produce milk,
it was sending all the estrogen to my breasts
thereby leaving my vagina a desert wasteland.
I go home.
Now I already have a scar from my C-section
that I need to put cream on.
I'm wearing diapers.
Now I have a third component
which is a post-menopausal estrogen cream
that I have to shoot inside of my vagina
three times a day.
It's like a Push Pop, okay?
You know the Popsicle that's like a frozen--
It's a Push Pop, right?
So in order to get the Push Pop,
you have to push from the bottom.
So you start in like a hurdle position.
You then place the applicator into your vagina
where a baby did not come out of
so I have no idea why I'm doing this.
And you just smash a bunch of cream up there
in hopes that your vagina like comes back to life.
Now, sorry if I'm a little (bleep) busy raising a new baby
and I can't just put cream in my vagina
every time I turn around.
It's a little unreasonable.
Do you understand?
I'm giving her all of her food from my breasts, okay?
I'm changing two sets of diapers.
Like, I have a lot going on.
You think I can just put cream in my vagina in the meantime?
- [Producer] Did it make having sex like impossible?
- Who has sex?
Why would you have sex after something like that?
I don't even know how the second baby got in me.
But in the end, what this ended up doing
is I needed a lot of TLC.
At this point, I needed a diaper change,
I needed help getting cream into my vagina.
And it required my husband
to provide a certain level of care.
You know you have a strong marriage
when your husband is willing to put cream
on your C-section scar and shoot it up your vagina.
- So my first baby was a surprise.
When I figured out exactly what was going on
like at that moment in my car,
I was like, I'm pregnant.
I had literally just decided
I wasn't gonna talk to the guy I was dating anymore.
I was like, I'm done with him, I'm tired of him.
He's like stood me up for the last time.
And we were pregnant.
It took me a few days to tell my
I guess baby daddy at this point
that I was pregnant.
And when I did tell him, he was like,
all right, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do.
We're gonna figure this out.
You know, I'm gonna take responsibility.
When I was like six months pregnant, we moved in together.
When it was labor and time to have the baby,
he was game, he was there for me.
We had our like labor ball
and we went to our classes together.
But it was still very strange.
It's like such an intimate thing
and me and him were still
kind of getting to know each other.
We like made this super magical miracle thing happen
and the two of us are just like young and like (screams),
I don't know what's happening and who are you?
So my labor at the end of the day was 43 hours long.
That's probably about maybe 10 hours of like
oh, bad cramping and then like 30 hours of like,
I can't believe what's happening here.
My daughter wasn't progressing.
I stayed at two centimeters forever.
Like you have to get to 10
and I was just hanging at two centimeters.
And I found on when I got to the hospital that my daughter,
instead of being face down, she was faced up.
My spine was just hitting the back of her head
every contraction.
And so that's called back labor.
And so even though I had an epidural,
I felt every single contraction
with an intense amount of pain.
Because she wasn't progressing,
I had to get pitocin which makes everything worse.
So it was just a lot, it was a lot.
My daughter's about a week late,
so I got an infection.
I had a really high fever.
I remember having tunnel vision.
Ice packs all over my body.
I mean, it was just absolutely crazy.
At some point, I remember the doctor just saying,
we might have to get a C-section,
but really, really want to try not to have a C-section.
I remember saying, have the C-section, get the baby out.
But apparently they didn't and we stuck it through.
Because of back labor,
they wanted to try to flip the baby over.
So towards the end of labor
once I started getting around eight centimeters,
they put my legs on these blocks
so I'd kinda lay on one side
and then I'd be like on the other side.
And apparently that worked and she came out face down
the way you're supposed to.
And it all worked out
'cause me and my baby daddy are married.
He's my husband now and we just had our second child.
- So I had been in labor probably for six or seven hours.
I already was in this moment in time
where I was super nervous because I went in labor
on Halloween night on the weekend
so it was on the on-call doctor.
Never met him before.
The whole, like, birthing idea of everything going smoothly
was kind of out the window.
I had some other lady that was gonna deliver my baby.
But it was fine!
I was going to trust whatever was going to happen.
These are professionals, right?
After I'm in all this pain, right, I get the epidural.
(singsong voice) It's amazing!
And then I find out my child poops inside me.
It's this thing called meconium.
It's a weird moment of, what?
He pooped in me?
But also very scary because it can be, you know,
threatening to their life.
Babies typically don't have their first poop
until after they come out of you.
Because of this and I don't know if it was positioning,
but his heart, they monitor the baby's heart rate
with this little, it's like a little belly band,
and anyways it monitors the baby's heart rate
to make sure it doesn't drop or anything like that
while you're in active labor.
They noticed his heart rate started dropping.
There's all these nurses and doctors running in.
I'm like, what's going on, what's going on?
Freaking out, not knowing what's happening.
They come in and they're like,
everything's gonna be fine.
We need to do an emergency C-section.
His heart rate's dropping.
We need to make sure we get him out.
And because of the meconium that he had,
it's just probably safest that you have a C-section.
I was looking up at my mom who is actually a nurse
so she was able to explain to me
in terms that I understood what was happening,
why I should trust them and why I should just go through
and just do whatever they say.
I'm gonna not try to fight them
trying to do the best thing for me and my baby.
So you can only take one person into a C-section room,
so my husband puts on like all of the stuff,
the shower cap looking thing.
They suit him all up, they get me all prepped and stuff,
wheel me into the operating room.
I had already had the epidural at this point,
so I don't know if they were planning on numbing me,
but they put the curtain up, right,
and they're getting the doctors ready and everything
and I just remember holding my husband's hand.
We both have literally no idea what's going on.
Kind of just speechless at that point.
And then the little monitor starts like beeping normally
and the doctor's like, um, okay, hang on.
And then he grabs another doctor
and then she's like, okay, change of plans.
The heart rate's back to normal.
It's probably best we just have you do vaginal delivery.
And we're all like, what?
What?
So my husband gets undressed,
they wheel us back down to the hall
and I remember my mom's like, what's happening?
And I'm like, I don't know!
They bring me back in and they're like,
you're gonna give birth vaginally.
Your son's heart rate went back up.
It's fine.
I think he was further like down into the birth canal
and it's getting ready to be at the moment
where I was gonna start pushing.
I'm all like flustered with everything going on.
Then this other lady or nurse walks in
and she's like, it's almost time for you to start pushing.
Would you like to participate in having students watch you?
It would be really beneficial to them and very helpful.
In my mind, I'm thinking, oh God,
like that would be such a good deed that I do.
Sure, I'll do that.
So I sign the paper and then shortly after, you know,
it's time for me to start pushing.
And it just feels like you have to poop.
I didn't really think through
and know that the whole student thing was gonna be an issue.
I just remember my feet being up like this,
seeing the doctor right here who was a little bit lower
'cause she's like eye-level with my vagina obviously.
And then seeing four terrified students
just staring directly at my vagina.
I'm pretty sure it probably scared at least one of them
out of becoming a birthing doctor.
So then I gave birth vaginally.
My son came out.
They suctioned his lungs.
Luckily, it didn't pose a threat to any of his health.
But I was flustered on top of already being so nervous
about giving birth in general.
So I think if you have a birthing plan, you know,
just have one, but also know that it could go out the window
and you just have to trust that, you know,
whoever's there, your doctor,
your midwife if you're doing a home birth,
is going to do the best possible thing
for you and your baby.
- I was enjoying a pizza
and later on, I start experiencing these pains.
Now, I've watched enough television,
I've been around enough women to know that
hey, I was in the later part of my pregnancy.
It was time.
But I wasn't due until the 12th.
It's April 2nd.
So I'm having these pains.
I call my friend and I'm talking to her and I'm like,
I think it's time.
And she was like, what do you mean?
And then all of a sudden, this pain kicked in
and I just hung up.
I was like (sharp gasp).
Then I was like (groaning).
And then all of a sudden, the pain was gone.
And I look at my boyfriend at the time
and I'm like, I think it's time.
And he was like, are you sure?
Because on television, you know, everyone's water breaks.
My water did not break.
But I was going through some serious pain.
And I was like, okay, I think we need to go to the hospital.
I think we need to go to the hospital.
So this was at like two in the morning.
We grab my bag and then we go to the hospital.
This was like, get to the hospital.
Automatic doors opened and I went (mimicking vomiting).
Threw up right there in their freaking doorway.
They get a wheelchair for me
and then they rush me and him to this room.
And, you know, they check me and everything.
And I'm like, can I have an epidural?
And they said, oh, honey,
you're only dilated a centimeter and a half.
I wanted to cry.
The pain was just so intense.
I just wanted something but they couldn't give me anything.
So I went into this room
and I was one and a half for at least three hours.
And I'm going through all this pain.
He's sitting in the chair in the corner
and I'm just trying to deal with it.
All of a sudden, I hear this dude start snoring.
And I mean he's snoring loud.
I was so mad!
I was like, Samuel!
He got up like, what, what?
I said, you asleep?
You're going to sleep?
I'm over here dying and you're going to sleep?
And you're snoring?
He's like, I'm sorry, I'm so tired!
Was I supposed to have some sympathy for that?
I had none.
I was so mad.
I was like, I bet you better wake up
and you better stay up with me.
And he was like, okay, okay.
So he sat up in his chair and he's just looking at me like--
I'm looking at him like, I was going through it!
The pain was intense.
Finally, when they came in and they checked me in,
I was at three and I was like, okay.
We went to another room and they gave me that epidural.
After that, smooth sailing.
I mean, I got something wonderful out of the deal,
but let me tell you--
(upbeat jazz music)