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Welcome to another episode of the Y ‘all Are Crazy podcast. So excited to be here again. I have my mom attire on today.
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You look like a Chandler mom.
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I look like a sports mom because this is how I’m dressed. I feel like most of the time right now because we are usually at a ball game of some kind.
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usually yes so this is my normal attire and today we’re gonna be talking about the blessing of birth so I thought what a better way to celebrate that than wearing my mom hat my mom colors and dressing like I normally am well cracks me up about your mom hat and the style now as you get the gold chain you know across the top yeah like a megaphone deal on my little cheerleading megaphone it’s been the most fun season at any given time I have a set of pom -poms what are those bills called yeah cowbell yeah I could bring Lucy the porch goose to any given game at any given time because she shows up to embarrass our children and it’s a lot of fun yeah
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So it’s been, it’s a really fun season that we’re in right now and yeah I just love supporting our kids. So we’re gonna talk about today about the topic of birth. We get asked about this a lot. I want one of my favorite things to talk about so I thought it’d be fun to share some of our experiences with birth and with all the times we’ve been through it. Like we have some stories and the ultimate purpose is to encourage women and families that yes birth is hard, yes it’s scary, but is it worth it? 100%.
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Right.
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So.
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And I’m glad we don’t have to do it.
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Amen to that.
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If all the women and the men can give an amen to that because we often joke that if men had to do it No, we either wouldn’t have any or it’d be one the world would be much less populated Yeah, so but I also feel like every time we have a baby. It gives you a new respect for me I’m thankful. It’s not me. It makes you love me more.
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Yeah. No, it does.
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That’s true brings us closer Yeah, so we often joke that Having a hospital stay after I give birth is a vacation to me.
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Yeah. Well, you’ve turned it in I don’t know when this started on number four or five six seven. I don’t know but you know now it’s like a Little mini vacation for you.
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I mean our plan well and we we
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We give birth at the nicest facility. I think The brand new we have we have to use a brand new one and it’s like a hotel room yes, you know, you kind of like go into the building and check in at the desk and You know go up to your room and it’s of course the husband still has the little hard couch thing in the corner Yeah, so they don’t don’t treat the husband’s very good, you know, we’re chopped liver. We’re just there We’re lucky to get a blanket, you know Do all the work you do Anyway, but what I was saying is is you you’ve kind of turned it into a little vacation And I think this last one you had a duffel bag made with like your name I was like what is going on at your name on it.
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Yeah, you had your own gown you had
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You’re checking in to go do your thing do my thing Yeah, I do like having my own gown because when you have an a hospital gown, it’s just not as comfortable It doesn’t you know, obviously look as nice for after you have the baby. You want to have some good pictures Yeah, and you you like it’s nice to be you’ve been the only one that’s worn it Yeah, and you like it too because you get to go up there for What two days or so and started? Well, here’s the problem with our first few children We were always like get us out of here as soon as possible. Yeah, we don’t like hospitals We still don’t really like cost no hate doesn’t but We were just like get us out as quick as possible. Well, when you have your first baby Not that big a deal second. Maybe not that big of a deal
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But after you have a few children, what’s waiting for you at home? Yeah Your children to take care of right your home to take care of and when you just run out of the hospital Go back home like you’re a mom now, so you don’t get to stop I wouldn’t get to just go set at home and relax like it’s that’s not the case at the hospital I get to have two days to bond with the baby. Most importantly Establish a good nursing routine get the baby comfortable with with breastfeeding latching on super important Do that before you leave the hospital? Secondly it gives my body a couple of days to recover because if I go home, I’ll be vacuuming I’ll be like doing stuff around the house. I’ll be picking kids up You don’t want to do that like the day after you give birth, you know
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years ago women would like lay in bed for two weeks after they had babies. Like this was our grandmas, great grandmas, not that long ago. Now it’s like we expect women to just jump right back into life two days later. And I think, I think God made our bodies to do amazing things. But I also think we need to honor our bodies and rest for a couple of days. So I remember, I think it was baby number five, our doctor was like, do you want to choose the 48 hour plan? And I’m like, what’s that? She’s like, I can write it up so you don’t have to check out at 24, you check out at 48. And I’m like, oh, that makes me kind of nervous, but I’ll try that. It was amazing. Cause I got to lay in the hospital bed and Oklahoma Grassfed Beef food was brought to me for two days. So it was wonderful. And so now every time I’m like, 48 hour plan, sign me up. I love it.
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It works good though. I mean, you get to.
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rest and be served and taken care of and, you know, have a little bit of time.
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And I always look forward to going home, like I look forward to being back in our routine and with the kids, I love it, but it’s, gosh, that hospital time, it’s just the sweetest.
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Yeah.
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So take care of yourself as a mom and don’t be afraid to take a little more time to rest. Now, part of that’s calling the kettle black because I seem to jump back into real life pretty quickly. I always have, when you’ve been pregnant for nine months, I think you just feel so good to not be pregnant.
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Yeah.
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That it’s just, you just are like, I can breathe. I’m just ready to go live life again. So normally within that first week, we are back at church on Sunday. I’m usually, you know, working deals on closings. I have worked several deals in the hospital bed on closings.
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Right. Thank you.
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I think maybe all. I have been like literally in the hospital bed on the phone, texting, emailing, working counter offers, getting things signed. I know this time, the day of, I closed two deals before we went into the hospital, but it felt so good to get those like signed. So I do think there’s a lot to be said about just resuming your life, but also like just, yeah, giving yourself, I love being in the newborn bubble after a baby’s born and just soaking that all in and like letting the rest of the world just kind of staying out of that as much as you can. So that’s beautiful too. This time after we had our baby, I got mastitis for like, I think we had gotten home, so maybe baby was like three days old. I got mastitis. Literally one of the most horrible experiences of my life.
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and it was very, very painful. I got very bad fever and chills and felt terrible. And we had a meal train from our church. Church meal trains for the wind.
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Oh, they’re the best, you know. There’s nothing better than the older ladies in the church bringing you food, you know. It’s like crock pot meals, casseroles. It’s like, let’s go.
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I felt so loved during that week because I was unable to cook. Yeah. I felt so bad.
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Yeah, that was the sickest as I’ve ever seen you, so.
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Yeah, I wasn’t able to get out of bed.
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Right.
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And I had the newborn. I was like, just let the baby lay by me and I just can’t move. I would get up and take a shower and just.
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Just it just laid right back down, which is really weird for me. But yeah church meal trains amazing They’re the best so some stories did kick off our birth stories When we first had our first first child we did the Bradley birth method. Do you remember this?
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I do remember that Yeah, it’s husband coach childbirth going to those people’s houses and watching those traumatizing videos And yes, I’m sitting here going what in the world are we getting into?
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Yeah We really from the beginning wanted to do birth in our own way And and I say that to say we wanted as little medical intervention as possible Yeah, we just felt conviction about that I have always been a very strong proponent proponent as as a woman that you should take control of your own Healthcare in that you shouldn’t let a doctor tell you what to do
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You should be able to make your own choices in that and so for me, this is a fun fact I’ve never done a gestational diabetes test, right? That is very weird to people and you still get pushed back on that every time Yeah, but I go to a great doctor who is like you make your own decisions. Yeah, whatever you want to do I respect it.
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Yeah, but usually the nurse or whoever that’s saying hey now it’s time for that You tell them no they kind of look at you like what are you talking about?
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You can’t say no Yeah, I could say no There are other tests that I do each time, but I think it’s just up to our own convictions. Yeah What we want to do with our bodies so that is important to me I would highly recommend you go to a doctor who will allow you to choose what you want to do and what you want For your birth with that being said going into that birth. I think we we had a birth plan We were very set on like this is the way it’s all gonna go and this is what we’re gonna do Oklahoma Grassfed Beef
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It didn’t really go that way. No. That was a long birth.
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Right. It was like 66 hours, I think.
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I was in labor for about three days.
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Yeah.
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That was long.
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Yeah.
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We did a lot of walking hallways. We got sent home once because I just wasn’t like in active Oklahoma Grassfed Beef labor yet. Once I was in active labor, it just was very slow and drawn out. And when you’ve never done it before, you don’t really know what to expect either. So with that one, oh, it was long. And then I ended up pushing for like three hours. So it took a long time. And she was our smallest baby.
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Yeah.
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She was seven, two. So that was a long birth. But with our second, total opposite.
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We almost didn’t make it to the hospital in time.
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That was still my favorite birth to date.
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Yeah. That’s just because it went so quick.
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God blessed us immensely in that the first one was so long and the second was sweet and short.
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I remember waking you up at about 11 p .m. maybe, we hadn’t been asleep long, and my water broke in bed. Still, the only time my water’s ever broken spontaneously. So I woke you up and I said, babe, we need to go to the hospital, my water broke. And I think you were like, are you sure? Are you sure? Because it was so long the first time.
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Yeah, I was thinking, man, we got 60 hours, like, if it’s 11 o ‘clock, we can wait until the morning, it’d be just, but I mean, obviously you can’t when your water breaks.
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And then my contractions started really quickly. I think we called both of our moms, and my mom was like an hour away, yours was like.
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20 30 minutes and cuz she had one had to come watch our daughter and one was going with us to the hospital Yeah, so it was literally like they rolled in our driveway and we rolled out drove so fast to the hospital. Oh, yeah and Got there and he was born 20 minutes later, right?
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Yeah, they were trying to check you in and make you go through all these steps and you’re like Listen, I’m getting ready to have this baby No, how I walked in because we had to walk in and go up an elevator Yeah, go to that triage thing.
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I literally don’t even know how I walked up I remember having to stop and like take breaths and breathe and I remember it hurting really bad and just praying like Lord, please Like this feels like I’m like ready to push
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I just like I needed relief and I remember going to that triage and I was like I need to push and they’re like Oh, honey pee in this cup. Let us take your blood pressure filled this paper I was like I need to push right now and they don’t believe you know and they checked me and they’re like Oh, you’re a nine and a half. Okay. Yeah, I had him in triage With a midwife. I’d never met. Yeah, so that was a great great birth because I was like I’m already done Wow, this was fun. So and then when we had our Well, I will say he was our only baby that was born early all of our babies have gone over. Yeah our first I think I was four days over Our second one was five days early the only one
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Yeah, he’s still fast and furious. Yeah, I’m just can’t Still the world and yeah, so that his personality fits that hundred percent with our third I actually carried him to 42 weeks, which is another unusual thing that Doctors or nurses will push back on you. They’ll give you a due date and say the baby’s gonna be born this day Yes, you know and you don’t have to agree to that That’s right. You do not have to agree to inducement No, and and we’re not here to like bash the medical field or nothing like that But what we’re saying is is you have more freedom in controlling your destiny and doing what you want to do than you think you Do because they it’s not like the doctors will sit there and ask you what do you want? They just give you a roadmap and here’s what you’re gonna do And for a lot of people they don’t have any plans that probably works very well But if you have your own plans and what you want to do and what you feel led with
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body and your kid then do it you know absolutely we’re just very convicted of doing things as naturally as possible right so that’s what we always strive to do like our body I always remind myself before every single birth my body was made to do this because birth is scary and it’s hard it’s really hard and so I always have to remind myself your body was made to do this God made right and it’s important though I mean I don’t know I’ve never had a baby right but I just your body’s got to be ready to have that child and if they’re trying to push you a due date that’s I don’t know three weeks before your body’s really ready because if you went to 42 you know you’re too past the 40 a lot of people what get induced at the 38 39 weeks something like that you know I mean that’s a big difference in allowing your body time to be ready
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You know and what happens with a lot of them is oh now you it’s not going well So emergency c -section, you know, and it’s like well you saw that coming a mile away because you’re not ready yet Yeah, and c -sections are have a have a purpose.
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Absolutely, especially in life -saving situation.
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Yeah 100 % Absolutely.
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I’m so thankful doctors can do them But I will say most of the times the c -sections are not necessary Right and so if you allow your body to be ready to progress as it is needed You can avoid c -sections So that’s always been my goal with our third We I carried him to 42 weeks and thankfully with him. I went into labor on that day of 42 weeks
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So that was about an eight -hour birth so pretty good pretty normal fourth child also carried to 42 weeks Yeah, I was induced on the 42 day mark 42 week mark with him Yeah, he and I didn’t want to be I did not want to be induced But I remember just giving it to God I woke up that morning and I felt God speak to me and say I have a plan and it’s better than yours And I just felt a peace come over me. Yeah, and I remember that day We got this giant beautiful hospital room that you don’t normally get and it just had a great birth experience And I was like, thank you Lord.
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You always know what you’re doing Yeah, and it was nice to have that ability to be induced at that point in time when you were ready Right. So I think it’s you know, if you do your research and understand You know kind of how the process works and then you can make more educated decisions for yourself
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In the moments, you know, that’s right I would highly encourage women to read books when you’re pregnant read books about birth so, you know what to expect Yeah, you know the stages of labor and read books on breastfeeding. I know with our first I did not I just thought it would just happen normally and our first child it was breastfeeding was hard for me I ended up pumping exclusively for six months which Hands out to pumping moms because pumping is a lot of work a lot of work It looks like a lot of work. It’s a lot of cleaning parts and and you have to you know, just pump a lot so I would highly encourage you breastfeed if you at all possibly can because
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it is honestly a lot easier and you don’t have a bunch of pumps parts to haul around and yeah clean all the time with our second I read books I was so ready I was prayed up like I was gonna breastfeed and boy did I yeah and I haven’t stopped no yeah so with him I remember I I also pumped a lot with him just because I wanted to maintain a really high supply so I fed him for like 19 months and I also saved enough milk that I had frozen it and I donated it to the Oklahoma milk bank and I donated like 1800 ounces yeah oh yeah I forgot about that but you did I did and then I did that with our third also and donated milk along with breastfeeding and then I kind of got lazy on pumping and I was like I don’t want to pump this much I just want to feed the baby so now I really don’t pump much at all I just keep the baby with me for the first six months
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Pretty much all the time. Yeah blessed to be able to do that with my job And feed on demand and it’s wonderful But don’t just think breastfeeding is going to come naturally like you do need to understand it Find a great lactation consultant that can come over to your house and help you when you get home um Read books and be prepared and pray because there’s nothing better than a good breastfeeding journey. Yeah, it’s the sweetest best thing So with our fifth baby I think I was a few days over and I ended up getting induced with him because my blood pressure got really high at the end Which is abnormal for me.
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It just it seemed you just have to pray for wisdom and discretion Yeah, pray for that because none of them There’s not like where they’re all the same at least for us.
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I mean, they’re not every birth’s been different Yeah So I was induced with him. But once again like wonderful labor and delivery very standard
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That was during COVID year that we had Barlow, 2020. This was like June of 2020, so hospitals were crazy, but gosh, we had a great experience. It was actually kind of nice because you were the only Oklahoma Grassfed Beef that could be there. And so it was just me and you, team, and had the baby. So that was a sweet time. And then with our sixth, he was a few days late as well. And I was trying to remember if I got induced with him. I think I did.
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I don’t remember.
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It’s hard to remember that. That was in 2022. I feel like the birth on that one was a little bit longer, like 12 hours, but had a great one. And then with our seventh, I remember very well because we just had him like a little less than a year ago.
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Right.
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With him, oh my goodness. I was dilated to a four for about a week before I had him.
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Yeah.
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Dilated to a four. Okay.
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For most women that is That is like you’re pretty far along you have to be dilated to a 10 to push a baby out, right? I was already dilated to a 4. Oh my goodness. It was so uncomfortable I can still feel like the pain of how Uncomfortable I was because I was already had been pregnant all summer. It was hot Another symptom I’ve gotten is varicose veins. And so my veins are get enlarged every pregnancy. Yeah, it’s very sad very uncomfortable It was Halloween. So it was trick -or -treat time and I was not about to miss trick -or -treating with our kids So I walked around and trick -or -treated at over 40 weeks pregnant
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Dilated to a four.
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Yeah We’re trying to hurry and get him out.
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Yeah, you would think the walking would help. Yeah, but it did not Well, who knows it might it might maybe so yeah, he ended up having shoulder dyskosia and He was a hard birth because I was induced with him We thought his cord could have been wrapped because he was not descending for my water to break and my doctor was like I can’t even do a membrane sweep because he’s not low enough so we did induce at that point once again wisdom discretion and Come to find out his shoulders were just lodged in my pelvis. Yeah, so that was a hard one to get him out.
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Yeah those
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We were thankful to have a great doctor at that point to You know help you and not have to have a c -section because a lot of places here to pry I don’t have c -section to get him.
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Yeah, and I was able to have a good Oklahoma Grassfed Beef delivery with him but it was hard a lot of pushing on that one and But gosh what’s amazing is when the baby gets here you’ve been in so much pain I think our pastor says he watched his wife and he thought how can someone be in that much pain without dying But then the baby comes out and it’s like all is forgotten. Yeah, I feel amazing That was amazing and I’m sure for a husband. They’re like, what is the world?
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Oh, yeah Oh, I praise God. It’s not me doing that cuz man, I wouldn’t want to go through that Yeah, and you have watched every birth.
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Yeah Yes, you have you’ve cut the cord yes on every birth. Yeah. Yeah, so
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I’m proud of you for that because you don’t really like bodily fluids and blood.
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No, not at all But remember there was a period of time with Baker.
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That’s all I was gonna say. Did you cut the cord on him?
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Yeah, but I you know there for a moment. I had to go hide behind the curtain We do have a picture of that.
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Yeah, you can see my feet under the curtain He took a picture of you hiding.
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I take a breather cuz I he was about to lose me You know on that one, so don’t know why but and that was the third.
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Yeah, then you’ve been fine since then So I think that woman’s body is just amazing what God made it to do. That’s true It’s an amazing birth is an amazing thing. God made our bodies to to do it and I’m so thankful for
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that. So part of having a large family is birth, pregnancy, breastfeeding. But I think for me as a woman, like it’s grown my mindset so much, I’m so much stronger in my mindset. And the fact that I can do hard things, and God made me to do hard things. And then it’s just, I don’t know, it just it makes you feel very feminine. Also, in addition to strong, you feel feminine because you feel like, Hey, this is a privilege to be a woman. And to be able to do this. Yeah, it’s great work.
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Yeah, for sure.
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So we love birth, we love pregnancy, I love pregnancy, breastfeeding, all the things. And I’m just thankful to be able to do it. So this goes back to our lessons of
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just because something’s hard doesn’t mean it’s bad. It just means that it’s hard and hard things can be good things. So obviously with your partner, get on the same page. You need a support system. You gotta be in it together.
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Yeah, we talk about it a lot and communicate a lot and you read a lot of books on it. I don’t, but you tell me what they say, you know? So you’ve educated yourself a lot, you know? And also you ask a lot of questions to, you know, your doctor and stuff like that too. So I just think it’s important to educate yourself and be aware of how things work, what your options are, and you know, how things work in different phases and stuff like that.
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That’s right, you do. You have to be Oklahoma Grassfed Beef educated and you have to do the best you can.
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You can’t just leave it up to chance or the chances of that are things are just not gonna go well They’re just gonna be crazy. Yeah, so I think that you need to be intentional with this Just like every area of your life be intentional with your birth with your experience Know what to expect put your best foot forward trust God with the rest Because he will do it so allow God to use your family in a way that glorifies him and He will take care of you. He’ll sustain you even in hard things That’s some of our birth stories. We hope you enjoyed it. We hope you learned a few things We hope you were encouraged as you’ve heard a little bit about the way we have done things And we’ll talk to you next week about a different topic till then