9. The Birth Story!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, welcome to the Daddy O podcast. I'm your host, Rob Burnett, and I'm here with Brad Bickerton. And welcome to the show. On today's episode, we're going over the birth story. I am officially a dad. We have the birth of Arthur Heath Burnett happened Friday, January 26 at 04:40 p.m. It's now February 1. We're one week into our 6th day, days into my fatherhood journey. And Brad, I think we're going to talk about it a little bit before we get to Brad. How's, how are things going with you? [00:00:33] Speaker B: Things are going great. I'll tell you, the shortest, cutest Theodore update is there's a local playhouse that has a zero to eight month old infant sing along class. And I had a client cancel on me yesterday, so I was able to go to this class. It is literally as adorable as you think it is. So that was tons of fun. So things are good around here. When we record a little bit more, I'll tell you about theo is now mobile. I wouldn't call it crawling, but it's definitely not staying in place. So bunch to talk about there. In another honestly, we've been from the day we had the idea to do this podcast through now, you've always been thinking about what is it going to be like to be a dad? What are you going to do? How's it going to feel? How's the birth story going to go? And now today, you know, so go ahead, start us off. When did you guys know what happened? Tell the story. [00:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So let's see. So it was last Thursday. We were due on the Monday and it was Thursday and we had an induction scheduled for the next Monday. So we knew induction was coming. And Laura really didn't want to go through an induction. That was really scary, the idea of it. We felt like it could be long and arduous. And so Laura started to get really anxious about wanting to get the baby out, and I was quietly confident that he was going to come along in his due time and we'd get there. The funny thing was we kept trying to do everything we could, all the little things to keep him moving in the right direction. And Laura got so anxious, one thing we did was she went for a swim and she swam almost a mile in the pool the day before. Yeah. And then her mom came down and they were hanging out in the afternoon while I was working. And they ended up walking into town and she walked almost 5 miles with her mom. And the joke was they stopped for an ice cream, actually. And then they were walking back and Laura's mom said that her gait visibly changed and it was a little bit more of a waddle. And so, obviously, you don't know in the time, in hindsight, it's 2020. But Laura was determined to get the baby out, and I think that that very clearly kind of got him going. So the day of which was Friday morning, I became aware of things at 05:00 a.m. So Laura says that she woke up at 03:00 a.m. Kind of feeling a little bit wondering if something was going on. But at 05:00 a.m. She kind of woke me up, kind of nudged me, and said, I think I'm feeling contractions. Like, I'm feeling my stomach tighten every few minutes. I was like, well, that sounds like contractions. And she was really kind of in, not denial, but real doubt that she was actually in labor. She kind of didn't want to get her hopes up. So we kind of laid in bed for a couple of hours, and eventually I started timing it. I had a little app that says, you just basically, just one button. It's like, start of contraction, stop of contraction. And it times both the contraction itself and the interval in between. And we started timing them, and they were pretty regular, and they were small and light, but they were happening. So we're like, we're pretty sure we're in labor. So around 08:30 a.m. We got out of bed and started kind of getting ready. So I packed the car with all of the bags that were kind of already ready to go. And Laura got in a bath with the idea that, and we had eaten breakfast, but with the idea that that would help with the pain, and we would just kind of ride it out. And we called what's called the maternity Assessment unit, which basically called the hospital and said, here's where we're at. We think we're in labor. Here's what's happening. And they're like, yeah, sounds like you are, but you should come in when you have three contractions in ten minutes, and you shouldn't really be able to speak through the contractions. And we were at about three contractions in ten minutes, but the contractions were like, 30 seconds long, not a minute. And Laura could. She felt pretty good during them when she was in the bath, she was able to kind of breathe through them, wasn't in too much distress, staying real calm, and that was really nice. And I was feeling calm, so I know I keep needing to put my own perspective in this. Right. So, from my perspective, what's interesting is. [00:05:05] Speaker B: When we recorded the halfway podcast last week, you were getting less calm. So when it came to the event, you knew you were in labor. And sometimes I refer to this as like, you can be nervous about getting on a roller coaster, but there's a moment where the thing clicks in and you're just on the ride. And so it's funny to me that your nervousness went away when you knew that labor was coming and you got back to who you are as a person, Rob, which is, you had a plan, you had organization, and you were holding it all together totally. [00:05:37] Speaker A: If I may, I think that I'm a pretty good game time player. Little things like when I take standardized tests, I usually get my best scores in the actual one, better than the practices. When I was a bike racer, I could put out better numbers in a race than I ever could in training, things like that. So I'm good at showing up on game day. So, yeah, I actually felt very calm during those first couple of hours because things were moving finally, right. It wasn't worried about, is he okay? Is he not okay? Things are moving. They're natural, they're happening. So around 10:00 in the morning, I'm keeping my timeline straight. This is where things started to go sideways. So Laura was out of the bath, starting to get ready. We still thought we had probably a couple more hours at home foreshadowing, and Laura was actually going to bake some brownies to kind of stay calm. But it was time to kind of get dressed, be ready to leave at any. We didn't. Again, we thought we probably had two to 3 hours. I had the car fully packed, except for her bag, because she needed to get dressed. And she had kind of unpacked some of her stuff, but everything else was ready to go. So then around 10:00 a.m. Her water broke. In the UK, they call it the water. Her waters broke, so her waters broke. And that's kind of when all hell broke loose. So, for any guy who doesn't know, and I had become aware of this, but wasn't really aware, so when your water goes, the pain skyrockets, and someone smarter than me and more medical than me understands why, but it's something to understand. So in the movies, when the water goes, and they go, oh, we're going to have the baby now, and everyone goes off to the hospital and is happy, that's kind of not what happened, right. What happens is you go into labor, think contractions start to happen. Things are actually pretty manageable. But then if and when your water spray, the pain really, and we know this from friends as well, the pain really ratchets up. So mistake one of the day was the last thing to do were things that I couldn't do to get in the car. Laura had to pack her bag. She had to get dressed. She still had wet hair, things like that. And so I tried to help, but this is where I had to get into, like, well, I'll tell that bit in a second. Were you about to ask a question, Brad? [00:08:22] Speaker B: No, I was just thinking through my story as didn't. I don't know that I'd heard what you just said, which is when the water breaks the pain. Ratchet stuff, though, what happened with us is they broke her water, but they asked. She said yes, and it was pretty violent. What happened to her body once that happened, she was shaking uncontrollably. And the kind of stuff where we didn't actually feed her ice chips. But you got it. It was a complete change in who she was and kind of in a horrifying way, I guess I'd say, because it's the way I've described it, but it's specifically around the water breaking time. It's like watching your loved one fall off their bike or get hit by a car. It's really hard, even though it's natural and there's a lot of beauty in it. It was hard for me to watch that specific five minutes from when they broke her water through, when she kind of came out of. [00:09:14] Speaker A: So that's. And I know they'll often break, like, during an induction or in labor, if they want to move things along. And just be aware that it's a real step change. Because Laura went from being able to breathe. We had some mindfulness techniques we had practiced in pregnancy and things like that, and some deep breathing, and she was nailing it before that. After that, it was not quite full on panic, but it was bad. So what happened was kind of got her upstairs getting dressed. I kind of finished off all the things, and I recalled the maternity assessment unit and said, hey, we're coming in now. They asked us to call back when we were actually going to come because we're about 20 minutes from the hospital and from upstairs, and Laura will tell the same thing. She was basically yelled down, like, tell them I want the epidural. No, forget the bath. I want the epidural. Start the clock now, because it takes them about an hour to get you the epidural at the hospital, they'd been very clear on that. And I was like, okay, so she wants the epidural. They're like, okay, just come on in. We'll take care of you. We're good. [00:10:18] Speaker B: I love the self advocacy, too, because as we know this podcast, Laura is both a physician and very used to what hospitals are like and the pre order nature of that. [00:10:31] Speaker A: Yeah, she's like, have them ready, which is obviously not how it works. But she's like, I'm stating my preference now. I want it on the record. So she yells down, but she's still kind of getting ready. And it was funny. She was kind of like drying her hair and doing a little makeup and getting ready. But each time a contraction came, it was kind of overpoweringly bad. I mean, she was kind of not falling, but like kind of coming down on having to hold herself up. I was having to hold her. It was getting panicky. So at a certain point, I'm like, stop it. Into the car. Get in the car. And it took a second, but she kept wanting to kind of do little things, and I was like, no more. You are in the car. You're not allowed to do anything else. And so I kind of put her in the car, and then I did two or three other things and then ran out in a minute or two and got in the car. But that worked well, it was a little bit of, all right, you're not in charge anymore. I'm in charge. We're going. Right. And then it went back to her after that. But I just needed to kind of break her of the panic of her normal routine, getting out of the house, and it's like, no more. We're just out the door. [00:11:38] Speaker B: That was one of the things I was able to do a little bit as well, is when it was time for me to take over, I could. Whether Sarah Beth didn't have agency anymore because she's going through contraction, it's painful, whether it's nursing staff change, and we need to kind of tell them our. And this one's going to be mostly the birth story. But in my leadership coaching, the first thing I always teach is observation skills. Learn how to sit in the back of the room and watch what's going on, but then also learn when you can get involved and help versus when you're just being somebody doing something right. And so that's what you did here is Laura was fine, doing everything her way for her whole life, until all of a sudden, water broke five minutes went by, switched. She needed you. She needed you to do that. And you did turn it up. [00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah. She needed someone to tell her, stop drying your hair. This is not what we're doing right now. We're off, and it's like, okay, yeah, I get it. I get it. I got to go. [00:12:35] Speaker B: This day, not like a normal one, and things you normally do. Okay, so now you're getting a wet haired wife in the car. [00:12:44] Speaker A: We're on our way. So the car ride was quite tough. She was in a lot of pain, and she actually ended up vomiting twice from the pain in a 17 minutes car journey. We brought a bucket. I had never really heard of anyone vomiting in labor, so that was a new one. Wasn't expecting that, but I get champ. Total champ. Handled it great. What? We got to the hospital, parked in the little, like, right in front in the little 20 minutes parking spot. Had her out and in. [00:13:18] Speaker B: Did you practice parking, driving that and parking in the weeks leading up? [00:13:24] Speaker A: We did, but only because that's where a lot of our appointments were. We're at the hospital, so I'm not sure we would have had the forethought to go do that if we hadn't gone there probably five or six times for appointments. But we knew the area, we knew the drive. Highly recommend, if you don't already know, where the emergency. There was four kind of maternity spots. Like, just around the corner, there's like, 1 hour emergency maternity only. But then basically, the little half moon driveway under the little. In front of the doors, there's two little 20 minutes parking spots for emergencies only. I'm like, boom, that's me. I'm in. Ended up staying there for 2 hours, by the way. [00:14:07] Speaker B: Don't worry about that. We were talking about this before. I think you said they have 600 births a month at your place. [00:14:15] Speaker A: Yeah. 650. [00:14:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And so anything that you're doing isn't new to them. Right. Parking in the wrong spot or using the wrong words or being nervous. And that was something that just. I learned through that system of being in and around our birth center was I can kind of do whatever I want because these people have seen everything, and they'll guide me to the right place. [00:14:37] Speaker A: They're good with that. [00:14:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:40] Speaker A: Sorry. So we're parked. We're in. They get her in, and they were very nice. And a huge shout out to the whole staff at the John Radcliffe hospital. Everyone was awesome. Total rock stars. We got into the maternity assessment unit, which is kind of the triage for all the mothers, and then for us, there were two places we could end up. One is called the spires, which is where we intended to head. Spires is just not a brand name, just a term that they use for 7th floor, top of the hospital, and it's a midwife led unit. So there's no doctors, you're in the hospital, but it's midwife led pools, very nice rooms, very calm environment. And so the pros are, it's very calm. It's a great way to give birth if you can do it. The cons are, the only pain relief available is gas. They call it gas and air here. Basically, I think it's like laughing gas, like you just breathe into a nitroxide. Yeah, nitrous oxide. Or you can do some of the opioids there, depending. And that's where we had wanted to go. And the other time is the. I actually don't even know what it's called, just the normal maternity ward. We went into a waiting room. Not a waiting room, a kind of holding room, an initial room. They did an initial assessment of Laura. Everything was looking fine, but she was only 2 cm dilated, which was annoying and a little scary, because for anyone who doesn't know, you need to get to 10, have the baby. And what they told us is it can take four to 8 hours to go from basically 10 to four, and 4 cm is actually active labor. And then from four to ten, it's like half a centimeter to a centimeter every hour. So to get from four to ten, you're talking like six to 12 hours. And at this moment, Laura's in immense pain. Like really can't speak, really can't do much. So they get her right on the nitrous oxide, which you breathe in while you're going through a contraction. And they have to kind of check everything. And we were like, okay, spires is out, we want an epidural. We were not doing the midnight. The pool was a great idea in theory, not happening, so definitely not happening. So we're like, no, we want to be on the ward, take us in there. And so they did, and this is where things started to go, really. We went, we went literally around a corner into the first room. We had a room to ourselves, had great windows, beautiful space, really nice. And in the UK, you get assigned a midwife. And I should point this out, in the UK, Midwife is almost like an RN or a physician's assistant. Like it's a medical thing. I think in the US it gets a lot of connotation, like, doulas and midwives get kind of mixed up. It feels a little kind of witch doctory not to cast aspersions on doulas or anything else. They're actually really helpful. We didn't have one, but good for them. They're really useful. But they're kind of seen as outside of medicine, I think, in the US, whereas in the UK, they're very much part of medicine. They're very medical. So in the UK system, you get assigned a midwife, and she's with you basically through the birth. Or if you have to switch over, you might. So we got assigned a lovely midwife, Elle, who shout out to Elle, she was amazing. She brought us in, and we're basically like, okay, we want the epidural right now. You have to do 20 minutes of observation on the baby, and then the anesthesis can come in. We started, was going, it took about an hour for the anesthesis to come. Laura sent me out. Oh, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. But the one other moment in this where I felt kind of out of, not only out of control, but kind of. What's the word I'm looking for over. [00:18:44] Speaker B: Your skis or head underwater, just kind. [00:18:48] Speaker A: Of insufficient was when Laura was in pain. She's like, go out there and tell them, I want the epidural right now. Of course I do it. I'm like, oh, I got to go do it. It's one of those things where you don't want to go and yell at the doctors, like, give my wife the treatment, but you also got to do it. So I went out, and I ended up by accident kind of walking down a hall. I wasn't supposed to go down. Like, patients weren't supposed to be there. I was like, can someone help me? We really need this. And they're like, they see this every day. [00:19:19] Speaker B: They're like, every day, he's coming. [00:19:21] Speaker A: When he can come. The anesthesis is on his way. He'll be there soon. Good news was he did come relatively quickly. For Laura, it felt like an eternity, but it was about an hour. And amazing man did a great job, very professional, got it right in, cited it, got it going. And Laura's whole world changed when that epidural went in. She literally woke up and was like, oh, sorry. Hello, everybody, I'm Laura. Good to meet you. Like, sorry about the last hour. That was horrible. This is amazing. And so that really changed the whole game for us because Laura went from being basically completely incapacitated, in pain at 2 cm, dilated looking, staring down the barrel of 12 hours of basically unbearable pain to sitting up looking great, feeling totally good, really happy. And this was about 1030 in the morning? Something like that. I might be messing up my timeline. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Slightly, but you will. A lot happened fast. Have somebody behind you logging your actions. Right. That's a little bit of what this recording is for, is to remember it the best you can. Okay, so you're post epidural. You're in the medical facility. Now. How many people are coming in and out of the room? That was something I remember. [00:20:54] Speaker A: This is the. So a couple of things happened. One doctor came in to check Laura before she had the epidural and helped basically place an iv, but it wasn't actually hooked up. Just place it so that if you need to go to get a c section you just placed. There was our midwife, l. And then one other midwife came in as kind of a tag team, but was secondary. And that was kind of it. I think that was basically anyone, maybe a couple of people came in and out a little bit to drop something off or to check in and say hi. But basically we had one great continuity of care, one midwife, and that was it. And one secondary who took over when I've had, like, a lunch break and things like that. [00:21:39] Speaker B: So that wasn't really the experience that we had. So we were induced on a Thursday night. Sorry, on a Wednesday night. And there's just this constant rotation of people. Now, most of the time they're leaving us alone because there's not much to do but wait. But just the sheer volume of people who came in and helped provide for us in that 48 hours period, I can't even tell you how many. 1518, something like that. A huge amount of nurses and baby. This is the baby's nurse, and this is Sarah Beth's doctor. And, oh, they shifted here. And that was something that just blew me away, was how much staff and how many touch points, and that, I was trying to hold that in my head. Who is this person? What is their job? Are they here when I need to advocate? Do I advocate to this person, that person? And I still don't understand how that system works. They know how it works. They got the gnomes and wizards behind the doors. But, yeah, I was okay. And I'll tell you about how we got out of the hospital later on in the episode and how I helped with that. Okay, so Laura's back alive. She's awake. She's coming into it. But we've got a long journey ahead because we got quite a few hours and quite a few centimeters to go. [00:22:51] Speaker A: Yes. So this is where we kind of settle in for the long haul. I went and moved the car. No good. I went and got us. She wasn't allowed to eat anymore. One thing we did not know was that once you got cited for an epidural, at least in our system, you can't eat anymore because there's a risk that you could end up in surgery, and so they don't want you eating. So we snuck her a cheeky hot chocolate to get some sugar in her system, but I went and got lunch for myself. Sorry. At her insistence, and we kind of settled in. The other thing I got was basically Gatorade. They don't have Gatorade here, but I got the equivalent. And that was really useful because Laura needed to keep her sugar up. So we kind of got that into her system early and often with the thinking that we got a long way to go and doing it on. No, food is not going to be any good. So, yeah, we settled in for about 4 hours because they tried to wait about 4 hours, and then they want to check again, see how dilated the cervix is, and then figure out from there where to go. Right. Four hour checks and kind of speeding up. Right. So through that time, everyone was kind of fine, settled in, hadn't even cracked a book. We're just kind of still settling into the. We were still kind of settling into the hospital. So at 230, I know this. So at 230, it was time to do the first cervix check, and we were hoping for four c centimeters dilated, something like that, to kind of keep the ball moving, because the worry to take a step back, the worry about an epidural for us was that you're mostly immobile, so, you know, one thing that helps the baby come is, like walking down the hall or bouncing on a ball, things like that. And when you're kind of stuck in bed with the epidural because you can't feel your legs, it can really slow things down and increase the risk of instrument delivery and things like that is. [00:24:49] Speaker B: One of the few in the area that does something called a walking epidural. And my best understanding of this is that it's basically half strength, so they can still feel their feet and so that they can walk. But they've also got the epidural, which is on that rack. Right. It's called Christmas tree. And so Sarah Beth went for a walk, and we had a doula, and doulas on one side of Sarah Beth, I'm on the other, I'm pushing this thing forward. And for who Sarah Beth is as a person, movement was so helpful for her. If she had been stuck in that bed for the entire time, from epidural through, just not good for her. Sony, that's just a side note for our listeners. [00:25:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And I had heard about walking epidural, and they kind of didn't present us with the option. But one thing is Laura kept the dose as low as possible, and she had the opportunity to kind of like, self press more, and she didn't touch it for a very long time. And one thing that got us this is kind of, again, foreshadowing for the future. We were really lucky, and I don't know if it was because the anesthesis was great, or because we got the dosing right, or because Laura, being quite fit, is very in touch with her body, but either way, the pain went entirely away for Laura, but the pressure didn't. So she could feel every contraction, but wasn't in pain from them. And what our midwife was telling us was, with a lot of women, when they get an epidural, whether because they maybe not as muscular or it's too strong, is they can't feel their own contractions. And that comes into play later when they have to push, because basically the midwives have to feel for the contraction and say, okay, you're contracting now. Now you have to push. Whereas Laura could feel, and she could move her legs, she probably could have gotten up and walked, but she could feel herself the whole time, which was really vital. So at 230, we do the first check again, hoping for maybe three or 4 cm dilated, hoping just to have made progress. The midwife basically looks up and goes, you're fully dilated, the baby's ready to come. And this is where I had a moment, because I was fully going into this expecting to, by the time it came to push, I was expecting to have been in the hospital for hours. I was expecting for everyone to be exhausted. I was expecting kind of like a long, slow journey towards birth. And instead, like six to 12 hours before, I was expecting to. The midwife's like, okay, baby's on its way. The other way to say it is. Our midwife got off at her shift, ended at 07:00 p.m. And when we first got there, she's like, I get off at seven. There's no way I'm going to meet your baby. I'm really sorry, but let me know how it goes like, I'll be with you to seven, then I'll hand off. But there's no way I'm meeting your baby. She went from that to checking and saying, oh, there's no way I'm not going to meet your baby. Like, I'm absolutely meeting your baby today. This is happening. So I had my own little quiet in my own brain freak out because I was like, holy shit, he's coming right now. So the good news is we had an hour. Basically, they said, okay, she's fully dilated. We're not going to touch anything for an hour. We're not going to push, we're not going to do anything. We're just going to let things continue to progress because they don't want mom to get exhausted by doing too much pushing. And so it's basically like, you got an hour. So I went to the bathroom, and before I'm like, sweaty palms, I had to go take some deep breaths, because, again, this whole process that I thought I was going to get to go through kind of slowly ended up right in my face. So we kind of take an hour off, and then again, timeline is a little fuzzy, but basically Laura gets to the point where she's like, I feel like I kind of have to push. I don't think there's an option. Which was great because it's really good sign. And then I know this for sure. At 408, we started pushing. So again, 230 to 408, maybe we took an hour and a half to wait, I'm not sure, but at 408, we started pushing. And this is where. Full shout out to Laura, absolute rock star. For anyone who doesn't know, what you do is when a contraction goes, you hold your breath for 10 seconds and push 10 seconds on. You take a couple of deep breaths and then try to do that three times over the course of a contraction. And Laura was able to feel the contractions and push really hard. And again, I hate to preach, but her being really fit was super helpful because she wasn't getting to the end of each contraction, like laboring for breath. She's an athlete, so she was like, yeah, okay, this is like three really hard crunches. She got through the first two or three of them. She's like, yeah, I'm good, I'm feeling good. [00:29:55] Speaker B: She understood how to push, I guess, is a question, because Sarah Beth didn't have that down so well, but we also had this super obnoxious beeping monitor thing for baby, and so it's distracting us. And then we're having different people in. And I just remember it was right near the end when Sarah Beth, basically not too kindly, but not like a jerk, told everyone to shut up. But one person, she didn't care who that was, right? And then this woman, this nurse named Grace, took over. But as soon as Sarah Beth was able to take charge of the room and then stop listening to people and the beeping noise and everything and really focus in on what it is to push. Baby was out minutes after that, but up until then, it was confusing and difficult for her and for me. So that's why I'm asking if Laura intuitively knew how to push. [00:30:48] Speaker A: I don't know if it was intuitive, but two things happened. One is we put her in what was called the left lateral position, which is the evidence suggests that it's got the least risk of tear. It's the easiest way to go. And the midwife knew it. Laura was deciding between that and being kind of on all fours. And the midwife was like, no, you should do left lateral, it's got the lowest risk. And Laura quickly pulled out her phone and googled it just to check, and she's like, yep, our midwife is right. That is the lowest risk. So we're going to go with that. And, yeah, again, this is where it helped, where it was only one person in the room with us. It was our one midwife. So what they do is they wait till basically babies at the doorstep and then they bring in one more person to kind of watch over the Laura. And I don't know if she definitely told us, like, here's how you push. You chin to chest, hold your breath and bear down hard. Basically, that you're trying to take a huge poop for 10 seconds. And so that was the instruction we got. We had kind of known that a little bit from talking to other people, so it wasn't like the first time we'd ever heard. That's how you push, especially the holding your breath part. That is apparently very important to get the kind of push you need. But, yeah, Laura took to it really well. And basically, every time she pushed, the baby moved and kept coming, which is good. It meant that she was working at NRL. Our midwife had to say, no, push harder. Crank it up. So, like a fitness class, like, no, you can go harder than that. Go harder than that. And Laura would bear down harder. And she's like, yeah, there you go, it's moving. And that was a moment that was really beautiful for Laura and I. So basically what I did was I kind of got in her face. I kind of forehead to forehead because she was kind of on her side. And I counted out the 10 seconds, and I alternated between kind of counting down the 10 seconds and basically just kind of being like a fitness coach, like, come on, push harder. Give me more. Let's go, let's go, let's go. You got this. And what was beautiful about it is because Laura wasn't in excruciating pain, and because she was so fit and ready to go, she wasn't exhausted. She wasn't kind of saying, stop, I need to stop. I need to take a breath. It was all very common. We were able to kind of lock in with each other. There was no panic. It was just go. Some other moments in that pushing time that were pretty crazy was as the baby's head started to crown, one is they invited me to look, and I did not think I was going to look at all, and I ended up looking. [00:33:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:33] Speaker A: And it was okay. I didn't faint. I didn't end up on the floor. I didn't do full on baby coming. But as baby gets closer, you can kind of, like, see he's got a full head of hair. I could see some of the hair coming out, and you can kind of see it. And the other thing they let Laura do is basically, she asked Laura, do you want to feel his head? And so Laura was able to kind of put her hand down between her legs and kind of feel the baby's head. And I guess there's a vein there. So she was able to feel the baby's pulse, basically, in her vagina as it was going. And that really energized Laura. She's like, this is so cool. He's there. He's coming. This is great. And he's doing good. And it was the kind of evidence to her that things were going well. And then things all happened very quickly. So it took 32 minutes of pushing for the baby to come. And kind of before we knew it, it was just one push. She was like, okay, stop pushing. And now blow out candles. And that was just get the head out. And the head came. And then basically he came, and he was crying right up on her chest. And before we knew it, he was just there. And it was there. Yeah. Oh, God. So the whole day, from, like, 1030 arriving to 04:40 p.m. He was born. That was just a whirlwind. It happened so much faster and so much easier than we ever could have imagined it. So for everyone out there who's listening. I think we had literally the best possible birth experience you have. Minus like 1 hour of pain. Laura was like happy and healthy in minimal pain and moving through it the whole time. I do not think our results are typical. And I am not going to claim to have any magic. I'm not going to be holier than anybody, but oh, my God. It was basically the most perfect, amazing, beautiful, easy birth experience we could have mean, it wasn't even on our radar that it could be that, like, to the point where Laura was like, that wasn't that bad. I would do that again, which is wild. [00:35:42] Speaker B: What's funny is until this story listening, because this is yours and my first time. [00:35:46] Speaker A: Yeah, you haven't heard this before. [00:35:48] Speaker B: I would also have said ours was the easiest birth story that I'd ever heard until I just heard yours. Yours was easier. Maybe I were an a minus and you're an a plus. But I remember not feeling super conscious about it. But you don't want to brag about how because it still was tough. It's just a lot of friends and people I know in a previous history that I have with premature babies. I know a lot of horror stories. I didn't know that there could be normal stories. And it was difficult, but it wasn't catastrophic. It was just difficult. And yours is even a ratchet nicer than that. And having to come to that. It's okay to have easy things, and it's okay to be thankful for easy things and not to be ashamed and not to hide. And this is one of the reasons I love doing this podcast with you, is let some other fathers know it could happen easy. And that's okay. [00:36:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And I just want to be explicitly clear with everybody because I think there's people like, you see them on Instagram. The kind of charlatans were like, I gave birth and it was super easy. And here's the ten steps. Or like, if you just breathe right, you can have a natural birth and everything will be fine. And the medical establishment, none of that. We got so lucky, and we did a lot. We worked really hard to get that luck. We worked really hard to get that luck. But we were to. Yeah, exactly what you said, brad. I want to tell dads that it can be a manageable experience, but I also want to be super clear that our midwife was like, that's the most beautiful birth I've ever seen. That was wild. And maybe she was. Tell everybody that. But I think she was literally. No, no, you don't understand. This is not how it goes. And so we're counting our lucky stars. And I do not want to be the person who's like, oh, it's easy, it's not a big deal. It's a big deal. We are part of a group of people in our NCT class. I spoke about an earlier pod, and it's a group chat of people who all gave birth around this time. And everyone else has basically some horror story, and we basically don't. And we actually feel quite awkward about contributing. And not because they're not totally lovely people who wouldn't be so happy for us, but we don't have anything to complain about. So I'll finish the story. But it went so well. So the one twist in all of it was that for any dad who doesn't know what maconium is, we had maconium. So basically the baby pooped before he was born. And so he came out covered in blood and vernix and all the other things and poop. So that was part of our experience for the next couple of hours because we didn't want him to get cleaned off. And apparently that included the maconium, which is basically amniotic fluid that he ingested. And it comes out as poop, and it's sticky and tarry and quite gross, but doesn't smell too bad, but basically. So he ended up on Laura, and so she got kind of covered in Vernix and then he needed to come to me and I got covered in maconium. As you know, part of my birth experience is just kind of being covered, my whole kind of chest and stomach kind of being covered in poop. But you know what? You don't really care. [00:39:10] Speaker B: No, you super don't. And it is a messy process. I thought that was something that was pretty interesting. Is, okay, we'd cut the cord and now that one doctor leaves and another nurse leaves, and then there's one woman left. She's just cleaning up a lot of messy stuff. And that's why the father's bed is a terrible couch that can easily be cleaned off of any human anything because it probably needs to four times a week. But yeah, it was surprising to me how messy the process, so. [00:39:44] Speaker A: And the good news is, though, it was quite lovely post birth. So we held the baby, got him know it was basically the same two midwives cleaning up. So Laura needed a couple of small stitches, but was otherwise quite well, she bird. I looked at the placenta as well, so I got way more visual, kind of. I was way more in it than I thought. I was going to be, but I was okay. I cut the cord, which I wasn't sure I was going to do. Also, I'm not going to lie for me, a bit anticlimactic. It was fine. It was just a little. [00:40:17] Speaker B: Cutting out the cord, you mean? [00:40:18] Speaker A: Yeah, cutting out the cord didn't stir deep emotions in me. It was fun to do, it was kind of cool, but that's how I. [00:40:26] Speaker B: Felt about it, too. I'm glad I did it, and if we ever have another kid, I'll do it again. And there's a ceremony to it or a celebration of doing it, but the actual. So that's the other question I'd have for you. You and I got this. And again, a lot of the reasons we started this podcast was because that book, the expectant father, did your whole incredible world change, because Sarah Beth's did, but I got to say, mine didn't. And I love the death out of Theo, and it's great, but I did not have this overwhelming flood of emotions and hormones and angels dancing on the head of a pin. It was just kind of like you said, anticlimactic and neat, but not earth shatteringly change, which it was for Sarah Beth. So how was it for you? [00:41:14] Speaker A: Yeah, that's definitely something I wanted to kind of talk about and unpack on this recording. So probably somewhere in the middle for me, there was definitely like the first moments where it was like I was very emotional. I cried, cried with Laura, we had kind of done it. It was amazing. It was great to see him. But then I crashed hard off of the adrenaline high of the birth. And I don't know if that was heightened because it all happened so fast, but it was definitely tough for me because I really came off of that high of like adrenaline sweating, working hard, getting everything done to now the baby's here and things are quieting down. And I felt a real, definitely nothing even close to like, this is a mistake or what have I done? Or like, oh, no. But there was a real lowness of like, okay, everything kind of came correct, which makes total sense, right? Whenever you have this massive adrenaline rush, you're going to come down off of it and just be ready for that. And I didn't go through the physical thing, but I was with it. So there was definitely like a real kind of comedown of like, oh Kay, my whole life has changed, but I also kind of feel the same and I feel a little bit low. It was still mostly happy, but there was this undercurrent of like, oh, I probably need some sleep, and I need to let this grow over time. And then the two other things that I think were surprising to me is. And they might have been linked, and I need to unpack this more for myself. But one is so, obviously, we called some people from, as Laura was getting cleaned up and things like that. And it felt very weird to me. Maybe it was like, harkening back to the pandemic where I was separated from family, but it felt very weird to me and very. I didn't like it. Like, introducing my family members to Arthur, Arthur Heath Burnett, which I don't think I've mentioned on this podcast. That's my son's name via FaceTime, especially with, like, slightly bad connection FaceTime. It felt very unsatisfying. And so I found that we were lucky enough that both sets of grandparents, my parents and Laura's parents, got to meet the baby the next day. And I found that I didn't really kind of feel fully calm until after that, that I think some of it was around anxiety around naming him, because I wasn't hit with a lightning bolt of inspiration around the name. It was hard work to get there, and I wanted to look him in the eye and say, is this Arthur? Is this kind of. I didn't get a clear yes or no. I thought it was. So I think there was some anxiety there. And I think also I wanted someone else to see the baby and tell me, good job or something. And seeing Laura's parents, honestly, and my parents meet the baby, that probably was the biggest emotional change for me. That made me feel like seeing them well up and cry, because both sets of parents did, and meet him. And that's when I felt like, okay, I've done something, and it's good. And I don't know why I needed that external validation, but for me, that was my journey of, like, felt amazing on the day. I don't want to downplay it. [00:44:51] Speaker B: It can be both, right? [00:44:53] Speaker A: It can be both. [00:44:53] Speaker B: It's just your story. [00:44:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just my story. And I want to be honest and share it. And so that was that weird kind of first night and all these things. But then that's when I really feel like my journey took off, is like when I got to introduce him to someone else who I knew and loved. And then from there, it's been an amazing week. So we're now six days into his life, and there's so many more stories to tell, but that's basically spent. I'll finish the story. Right. So Laurie gets cleaned up. We get put up in a room for the night because the baby had pooped during the birth. We had to stay overnight for observation, but that ended up being great. We got almost no sleep, partly because it was, like, midnight before we got to the room, partly because we were so excited, partly because he actually was pretty quiet. But Laura was just staring at him, and I was like, laura, you've been up for, like, 23 hours. You got to get some sleep. She's like, I can't. I just want to look at him. So it was all fun. We got home the next day and basically have had a dream week since. It's been amazing. But that's the story of Arthur's birth. [00:46:00] Speaker B: That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing. And I remember the last parts of the hospital for us. We had got this text chain going, some app or something, so that I could write one text and it would auto populate it to a bunch of people. And the struggle was actually getting to my iPad to write down birth story because it's too long to type it out on a phone accurately. And I kept getting hijacked. Like, that was my real job. Right? The morning after, because Theo was born at ten, 06:00 p.m. On a Thursday. And a lot of people wanted to know, and they're nervous and they're happy and they're excited. And it was my job to get this information out, and I just physically couldn't get to it. Whereas in my normal life, writing a quickie text or an email or anything like that, so I can do it every day. In this one, I just couldn't quite get to it. And I also wanted to author it, write a little thing. Everyone's healthy, everyone's happy. And I just remember I had this sense of frustration of not being able to get to that. But then the last part I'll tell on our story, because this one's really about yours. The unlock moment that you had introducing to the grandparents. I am fortunate that mine was carrying him into the house, and I'm fortunate because my mother took a photo of me doing that, and we have that photo printed out somewhere. And so that moment where it became different enough for me or something, I actually have recorded in photo. So that was my moment. [00:47:39] Speaker A: It's a great moment. It was fun. It's been a wild ride. It's been a wild ride. And, yeah, like I said, we feel so lucky that we've had such a great experience. And we'll have to do another podcast about kind of the first week maybe we'll do some back to back episode or something to get that in. Because the first week has been amazing. We've had a great little boy and it's been really good. But, yeah, that birth experience was, there's a lot of hype leading up to it, and we're really lucky that it really went so well. [00:48:09] Speaker B: Well, that's incredibly special. And what we know is you'll never be the same because this was your first child's first day. First week. And. Yeah. Welcome to dad Rob. [00:48:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it feels good to be finally living up to the name of the brad. Should we? Let's stick with tradition. Do you have any wins or fails for this week? I know I've got plenty. [00:48:34] Speaker B: The win is actually I'll tie them together. So Sarah Beth teaches class on Wednesday nights, and our nanny leaves about 2 hours before Sarah Beth gets home. So the win is I get to spend time with theo one on one. And what I've started to do is I call family and friends that I haven't touched base with in a while. That's what I spend the time because he's kind of winding down. He really wants to be held or be in the lily. And so last night I got to touch base with some people, that of my, one of my friends, eddie said, brad, I saw the thing about Theo. I'm so happy for you as a friend from college. And he said, but brad, I just have this one quick question. What's a Sarah Beth? In other words, I hadn't talked to Eddie since before Sarah Beth and I started dating. And so that was a beautiful moment that I got to share last night and that Theo gets to see me on facetime talking to other people and that we get to hold that space together. The loss is I was so tired by the end of the night that Sarabath comes home, feeds Theo, and we put him to bed in his nursery. And sarabath was like, doing something with some laundry. And I was watching a show, and I just hit pause and walked myself upstairs and brushed my teeth and got into bed. I didn't say anything to Sarah Bath. I didn't acknowledge it. I was just zombified. And so she just thought I ghosted her or I was mad or something. And I was like, no, it was a long day and all the things. And I forgot to mention to you that it's 915. I'm tired. I'm going to bed. I just ghosted. So that's my husband, dad, fail and my win were both last night. You, Edo dad wins and fails now that you are a dad. So, yeah, give us your report card. [00:50:15] Speaker A: More than I can count. I've got enough this week for a lifetime on both ends. I'll leave it with two wins. Because the birth was its own thing. I think the birth was a total win. But two small wins for this week. One is we got Arthur out of the house, which is a big step in the first week. We're very proud of ourselves. And I got to carry him in a sling. And so we just had him there for about an hour on a walk outside. And that was awesome because he basically just. [00:50:45] Speaker B: I got a photo of you took him to a bakery. [00:50:48] Speaker A: Yeah, we went to a coffee shop. [00:50:49] Speaker B: That's wonderful. [00:50:50] Speaker A: Yeah, we didn't sit, but we got in and out. And we've had some adventures, actually, this week, which is great. And then the smallest one, which happened just before we started recording, is new dads will know this. These babies, one, he poops like crazy. So many diaper changes. Really? And, yeah, tons. It's wild. And I have multiple times now started to undo him. And then he'll we in the middle. [00:51:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that'll happen. [00:51:20] Speaker A: And this happens. This is classic. And everyone warns you about it. And I've messed up, like, three times, and then I've been trying to kind of figure it out. And then just before this, I kind of played my cards right and he weed while I had it open, but I was able to kind of, like, put the old diaper on top and got it all caught. And that was just like a real win. So it's amazing where life takes you that this is the win for this week, but it was awesome. Little things. [00:51:49] Speaker B: It is the little things. And we don't use it anymore, but we got a wipe warmer, so, like a little warming drawer for the wipes. And the reason we got it, and my very good friend Adrian said, it's the least you could do. But one of the reasons boys pee while you're changing them is because you're putting something cold and damp on their penis, and that causes them to have a natural reaction and pee. So we're actually not encouraging him, but we're doing things that cause him to pee while changing. And so the warmer was supposed to help with that. It's going to happen, and it's just one of those it's not a big deal things in life. And I think this also comes from you and I being athletes, but also having been around injuries before, human body is not a mystery. And it's not that disgusting. Just deal with it. [00:52:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Both the birth, the baby, and also breastfeeding, which I kind of want to talk about. I think this is a massive lesson for guys in get over it, get comfortable with the body and get comfortable with your partner's body. Be able to talk about things. Some couples are super open with each other, some couples aren't. The fact that Laura and I could have really open conversations about all this stuff is super helpful. But on the warmer, that's something we didn't get. Someone's like, you should get that. I'm not getting a wipe warmer for my son. He'll be fine. Mistake. I wish I had it. Because we change him in the middle of the night, and it's my job, which is fine. I love it. Totally in. Laura feeds him. I change his diapers in the middle of the night. It's the one thing he really hates, is we put him on the changing table and it's cold, and it's cold at night, and we have to strip off all his clothes, at least the bottom half, to get him changed. And everything's cold, and he just doesn't like it. And I was like, oh, if he had something warmer, it would be a much more pleasant experience. He'd probably cry less. It would just be a less traumatic experience for him in the middle of the night. So that's one of my regrets. Yeah. [00:53:50] Speaker B: I thought of it as just being, because they're throwing so much silly stuff at you, including the one that I still think is silly and we did not get is a bottle sterilizer. And I'm glad we didn't. And you can look it up that you pretty much don't need it. But there's just weird things that people think that make your life better, and they don't. And I usually resist consumerism just for consumerism's sake. But the wipe warmer, no, that turns out that was a good one. And we got it used at a thing as $22. And I'm like, yeah, that is worth that for sure. [00:54:28] Speaker A: We'll have to someday make a list of, like, maybe we'll create a website where it's, like, our buys and don't buys or something, like things we liked, things we don't like. But anyway, we've been going on. Why don't we wrap it up there? [00:54:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm very happy to wrap it up there. And I'm happy to have you back and healthy and happy and all the good. Rob. Well, well done you. Laura Arthur championship Burnett's good job. [00:54:52] Speaker A: I played a very little part in it, but I'm proud of the part I played. So onto the adventure now. Now we get into it. Now we get into are. Yeah. Thanks, everyone, for listening. We're onto a new chapter in the podcast. We're now both dads. Less about pregnancy, more about being dads and more about business. We'll get back into it. So if you have questions, if you've got comments, if you have dad wins or fails, email us at [email protected] and please, like, subscribe. Follow us. Help us out. We're trying to make something here. Brad, good to see you. We'll talk soon. [00:55:31] Speaker B: Bye bye. [00:55:31] Speaker A: Thanks, everybody. Bye.