In this episode, we meet amazing Lizzie.  Mother of two boys who lives in Carolina, USA. 

Lizzie shares her first pregnancy & birth story which happened during 2020 when Covid hit. 

She had many missed appointments due to the pandemic and the ones she had were short and impersonal.  

She ended up being diagnosed with hypertension and was told she would be induced. 

Throughout the induction process, Lizzie found it a long and drawn-out experience and after the waters were broken at 6cms she ended up going in for a C-Section. 

She had complete mistrust in the medical community after that experience. 

10 months later she found herself accidentally pregnant again and knew she wanted to have a VBAC. 

She hired a homebirth midwife but felt red flags throughout the pregnancy, but felt like they were her only option for a home birth. 

While they were better than the OBGYN before, she felt they would transfer her again so hired a doula at the last minute for extra support. 

Lizzie knew she needed to go into labour by 42 weeks or she would lose the support of the midwives, so she did as many "natural" things to induce her baby around 41 weeks, including a stretch and sweep and went into labour just before 42 weeks. 

She was in labour and found comfort in standing upright and continued to labour like this for 12 hours.  A second midwife showed up around this time and she feels there was an energy shift.  The baby's heart rate wasn't reading well so she was told to lie down on my back on the bed so they could get a better read.  

She found this quite uncomfortable and the midwives called an ambulance to transfer her to hospital. 

She was strapped in the back of the ambulance in the final stages of labour.  Her main midwife told her doula to stay and help empty the birth pool that Lizzie never used and they both never made it to the hospital in time. 

She ended up birthing her baby vaginally within an hour or so of arriving at the hospital. 

There is so much more to this story than I can share here I hope you enjoy this episode! 

Ashley 

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