Kat Grosshaupt

My beautiful friend, Carli, who is due any day now. Photo courtesy of Inked Fingers!

I’m taking a break from my ranting about floors and feet to talk about Pregnancy- my other favorite topic. Last night I had a discussion with a Pregnant Mom who just took my Hypnobirthing class. She is thinking about switching from her OB/hospital  to a Midwife and birthing center and wanted my opinion. 

As opinionated as I am about most things in Life, when it comes to decisions regarding pregnancy, birth, and parenthood, I would much rather be a sounding board or a Guide rather than overtake a conversation with my own opinions and preferences. I firmly believe that everyone comes from a different place, has different backgrounds, expectations, support structures, and it’s not my place to tell them they are wrong or try to convince them to do something that I believe in. I am only here to be a resource, a devil’s advocate sometimes, and help them make decisions that will best resonate with them so that they can have the best possible birthing experience.

What I have noticed is that people tend to fall into 3 categories:

1. Those who feel most comfortable in the Hospital setting
2. Those who feel most comfortable outside of the Hospital
3. Those who are on the fence

I want to, once again, reiterate the fact that Birth is 90% mental. Your birthing environment plays a big part in your mental and emotional comfort level. Let’s look at Jessica- my friend and old college roommate. Jessica is a Podiatrist and took my class 2 years ago. She made an excellent point during class one night that I’ll never forget as it gave me a different perspective on where people are coming from. She basically stated that, because of her background in medicine and her Life’s work as a doctor, she feels extremely comfortable in a hospital setting. She is familiar with the terminology, procedures, and just feels a certain sense of ease in the hospital. 

A hospital birth was the most logical and most comforting place for Jessica to have her baby. 

Let’s look at myself. I had a hospital birth in Japan. Back in Austin and pregnant for the second time, I had a not so great experience with an OB and decided I wanted a more personal experience than I was getting. When I met April, my midwife, I knew she was the one for me. I felt way more comfortable in the home-like setting of the birthing center under the care of my midwife. My birthing experience ended up being everything I wanted it to be and more.

The Midwifery Model and birthing center was the best place for me. However, I would never try to convince Jessica that she should have an out of hospital birth. Just because it was right for me doesn’t mean it was right for her. This is a very important concept that so many people don’t “get.” 

Going back to the Mom who called me last night. We talked about the pros and cons of both. She asked lots of important questions and I answered as best I could. My best advice to her and to anyone else who is either on the fence about where to have their baby or is even just a wee bit curious about birthing centers and/or the midwife model of  care is this:

Go visit a birthing center. Schedule an interview/consultation with a midwife. Just like I told the Mom last night- you’ll know. You’ll know, in your gut, if it feels right or not. You’ll know if you feel a sense of comfort or a sense of anxiety. You’ll know if you click or not with the midwife and her style. And also know this: the most important decision in your pregnancy is your care provider. So take the time to choose someone- OB or midwife- who you feel comfortable with and who is on the same page as you regarding your birthing preferences. (That’s another blog post altogether. )

Trust your gut. 

Listen to your instincts. 

Remember- this is YOUR experience. No one else’s. Some people will question your decisions, but you know what? Welcome to Parenthood. People will be questioning your decisions for the next 18+ years. May as well start to get a thick skin now.

And if you need a sounding board, call me :)

Never play hopscotch with a unicorn.

Oh, were you expecting something more profound? The picture above is of my high school’s mascot. Pretty freaking hard core, huh?

All kidding aside, I’m going to use Wednesdays to shed some light on a few things I’ve picked up along the way regarding Parenthood, Pregnancy, Childbirth- all that good stuff. I’m no expert nor do I have it all figured out, but I- like many of you- am forging along this path we call Life and sometimes I feel like I need a machete to cut down all the b.s. that’s out there to find what really resonates with me.

Today I want to talk about Preparing to Have a Baby.

Numero Uno: THIS IS NOT A TEST. In most other areas of Life, you study, you make a list, you check off what you’re supposed to do, you read some books or articles, and then you take the Test (metaphorically or not). You either Pass or Fail. It’s very black and white. 

Many people approach Childbirth prep in the same way: They “prepare” as best as they possibly can:

Childbirth class: check.

Breastfeeding class: check.

4 dozen books read: check.

Birth plan written: check.

They feel prepared, educated, and ready to go.

95% of the time, birth goes off without a hitch. I’m NOT saying it’s easy, but 95% of all births are low risk with little to no intervention needed. 

BUT sometimes things don’t quite go “as planned”

#2) YOU CANNOT PLAN A BIRTH!

In my Hypnobirthing class, we call it “Birth Preferences”- I think just the wording in that phrase helps parents get their minds in a whole different place. You can definitely have things you “prefer”- intermittent monitoring, freedom to move around, a Doula present, delayed cord clamping, etc. but the truth is that there are a TON of factors that contribute to our Birth experience:

How hydrated are you?

How rested are you?

When was your last meal and what did you eat?

How fearful are you? Yes. That makes a huge difference!

Have you chosen a Care Provider who is on the same page as you with your preferences?

Have you been sedentary your whole pregnancy?

Are you moving around during Labor and not just laying in the bed?

How is your Baby tolerating Labor?

These are just a few factors that influence how your Birthing experience is going to flow. Some of it we can control, some of it we can’t. One of my favorite Affirmations from Hypnobirthing is this:

I AM PREPARED TO MEET WHATEVER TURN MY BIRTHING TAKES

I’ve seen Moms get incredibly frustrated when their Labor takes a turn that they weren’t “planning” for- it could be something small like needing a little Pitocin or could be something much larger like a C Section. Some Moms come away from their Birth depressed or angry because their birth plan “went out the window.”

My point to this post is this:

Educate yourself. Prepare yourself. Communicate your desires to your Provider and your Birth Partner. Then let Nature do her job.

All you can do is your best. Sometimes things go as planned and sometimes they don’t. It doesn’t mean you failed. It doesn’t mean you are a bad Mom/Woman/Partner. It doesn’t mean you are weak. Screw what other people think. If you planned on a Natural birth and got an epidural- that’s nobody’s business but your own.

Childbirth not only gives you a beautiful new baby, but also gives you your first coat of Armor. Seriously.

Have a question/issue you’d like me to address? Email me at FitLifeAustin@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

                                             My all-time favorite job

I never really know what to tell people when they ask what I do. I do a lot of different things- I am a Crossfit Coach, Birth Doula, Hypnobirthing Practitioner, Personal Trainer, and Mom. I support and educate women about Pregnancy, Labor, and Postpartum in relation to Health: Nutrition, exercise, and the sometimes very rocky transition into Parenthood.

This is my Life’s Work. My Passion. My Path. I can’t do anything else. It’s what I’m put here to do. 

And I love it.

One of the most prevalent and irritating things I see amongst Women who are in this stage in life is JUDGEMENT.

Judgement about what kind of birth a woman chooses to have.

Judgement about if she decides to vaccinate or not.

Judgement about if she is returning to work or not.

Judgement about how long and if she breastfeeds her baby.

Judgement about how soon she got back into her skinny jeans.

Judgement about her C Section/Epidural/Natural birth.

Judgement about how much or little her husband/Partner is helping/not helping.

and the harshest one of all:

Judgement of Themselves for what they did/didn’t/should/shouldn’t do.

THIS HAS GOT TO STOP.

Here’s the deal: Everyone comes from a different place regarding all of those things. We all come from different support systems or lack of, different backgrounds and pasts, different levels of research and information. We all have differing ideas about Western/Eastern medicine and have you been to a bookstore lately? There are 8 billion books about Pregnancy and Parenting. It can be very overwhelming. Let’s take breastfeeding for example. One of the hottest topics and one that gets the most judgement.

In my circle of friends and colleagues (I do teach a Natural childbirth class after all!) breastfeeding is the norm. I BF both of my babies for a year. That was my goal. It was freaking hard at times. I got 8 million different kinds of advice. I got questionable looks from a few family members. I had Mastitis twice, plugged ducts, a blister on my nipple, and low milk supply with Lily.

But for ME, breastfeeding was at the top of my list of importance. I had a very supportive husband who encouraged me to keep trying. I armed myself with a ton of resources. I was constantly searching and researching things about breastfeeding. I saw a Lactation Consultant. It actually saved my life when I had postpartum depression with my son. But that’s a whole other blog post…

Even though breastfeeding was challenging, I had it good. I had support.

Some women don’t have it so good. I’ll make up a fictitious scenario based on a few women I’ve worked with.

Sally had a 36 hour difficult labor that ended in a C Section. She was completely exhausted after her surgery but really wanted to start breastfeeding and bonding with her baby. He didn’t latch on right away, the nurse wan’t very helpful, Sally was already sad and emotional about the C Section. Now she is terrified her baby won’t be able to nurse and she feels like a failure.

The next day she tries again to nurse. It’s going ok but she keeps getting different advice from nurses, her mom, her best friend (who claims that BFeeding is the easiest thing in the world and makes Sally feel like a failure), and her husband is getting annoyed because he just wants her to feed the baby a bottle so he can do some bonding with the baby, too.

A few days later Sally’s milk comes in and she is at home trying to recover from her Section and get the hang of not only nursing but taking care of a newborn and hosting her mother and all the loads of people that want to come see the new baby. Her breasts are sore and swollen and she has no idea if it’s normal or not.

Her husband is feeling left out because he can’t feed the baby and is just not very supportive of breastfeeding. His mother comes to “help” and is very vocal about how “barbaric” and disgusting breastfeeding is and how Sally is actually being selfish because she is so focused on breastfeeding and not letting anyone else comfort the baby- i.e. with a bottle.

Sally takes the baby to the first pediatrician visit and the baby has lost some weight. Nothing major, but he advises her to give formula to help the baby put on some weight.

Sally is still recovering from major surgery, exhaustion is starting to set in from lack of sleep, and she doesn’t know what to do. She wants her baby to be healthy. She is wondering if she is producing enough milk and feeling like a failure for not only a low milk supply but for the C Section as well. She is tired of arguing with her husband and mother-in-law and self-doubt is beginning to set in.

So she decides to give the baby some formula. She just happens to be at a park giving the baby a bottle and the 2 moms with small toddlers give her a look like she is giving her baby a bottle of Pepsi. 

Sally loses it and starts to cry.

Ok, now that I’ve painted that picture, just know that this is NOT an uncommon scenario. I see it all the time.

My point in writing this long post is this: 

WE ARE HERE TO SUPPORT EACH OTHER.

Being a new mom is hard. Period. 

Whatever other women decide to do we must support each other and get our own Egos out of the way. You never know where someone is coming from. What their background is. How much or little support they have at home. In my next post I will give you lots of resources for Breastfeeding, both locally and online. Until then…

Judge not lest you be judged, yall.

Ok, people. This is BY FAR the best Birth Story I have ever received. Period! This lovely couple drove in from Corpus Christi to take an intensive weekend Hypnobirthing Class from me and I received this email from them today:

Hi Katherine!

This is a little late, but we wanted to share how amazingly well the hypnobirthing class you did with us back in April worked. We came up from Corpus Christi to do a weekend session with you. I’m not sure if you recall, but at 33 weeks our baby was still breech. 

Despite our many, many efforts, he remained breech. When I was 37.5 weeks, the OB my midwife has sent us to tried to turn him, also unsuccessfully. But he did say I could try having the baby vaginally still. The catch was that I would have to do it 100% naturally, which was fine with us since we’d planned a home birth anyway. 

My water broke at 4 am the very next day, May 17. I labored at home for 2 hours using the rainbow relaxation track. By the time I checked into the hospital I was 4cm, and by 10 am I was fully dilated. I used the rainbow relaxation track over and over again, riding my surges out pain-free. Our nurse actually refused to call my OB because she did not believe that I could be fully dilated yet, as I was not making much noise. My midwife acted as my doula, and said that she’d never seen someone labor and transition so peacefully and quietly before! 

I switched to the J breathing in an attempt to breath the baby down for about 3 hours, but given our extraordinary situation I needed to push very, very hard to get the baby out. I pushed for an hour and a half. I broke blood vessels in my face and both eyes. It required an incredible amount of energy, which I do not think I would have had if I hadn’t been so quiet and peaceful during my early labor. At 4:28 pm, he finally popped out, left butt cheek first! 

I’m not sure I got the “peaceful” birth I had visualized, but I did get to have my baby naturally instead of a c-section which is pretty remarkable for a breech. (Did I mention half the hospital came in to watch the birth since they’d never seen a natural breech delivery??) 

Despite the circumstances, I still do not remember any of it being “painful.” My labor and transition were calm, and the hard pushing I did required a lot of energy, much like running a marathon, but it was not painful.

I can’t imagine that we would’ve been able to have this birth without hypnobirthing training. I relied so heavily on the techniques and the relaxation tracks throughout every part of my labor. 

Thank you Katherine! 

When Laura emailed me a few months ago, I was instantly intrigued. She is a 47- year old mother of 3 who is a Physician here in Austin. She also attends Crossfit classes at Westlake Crossfit and has been eating Paleo for the past 2 years (as has her husband and kids!)

Laura took my Hypnobirthing childbirth prep class and then hired me to be her Doula. I was really excited- for a number of reasons. 

• As my worlds merge more and more (Crossfit, Paleo nutrition, and Birth work), I am getting to see, first hand, the effects of what a healthy Crossfit/Paleo lifestyle can do to get women’s bodies in prime condition to carry and deliver healthy babies with shorter labors and optimal recovery times.
• Laura was super excited about not only Hypnobirthing, but Crossfit, Paleo, AND she is in the medical profession. The more we can get medical personnel to see, first hand, how a Paleo lifestyle can contribute to healthier Moms and Babies, the more widespread the message will become- hopefully!

When a woman is over the age of 36, she is considered “advanced maternal age”- Hey wait! I’m 36! I’m not OLD!!! Anyway, Laura at 47 years, was considered high risk and went to a high risk specialist in addition to her regular OB/GYN. 

Each time Laura went to an appointment with her high risk doc, he was blown away by how healthy she was and how well her pregnancy was going. No issues, no aches and pains. She was probably healthier than women in their 20s!

One of the biggest concerns with older moms is stillbirth and placenta degradation. So Laura was induced a day or so after her estimated due date as a form of precaution.

They started Laura on a low dose of Pitocin at 7am. When I walked into her room, she was smiling and excited. We chatted for a bit, I did some relaxation hypnosis with her, and I left for a few hours to get some work done.

When I arrived back at the hospital, Laura was still doing great. Her pitocin was upped every 20 minutes or so and the OB broke her bag of waters around Noon. Things began to pick up around 1pm, so I supported Laura with some massage, reminding her to breathe deeply and relax during each contraction. She had a nice rhythm going where she would sit in the rocking chair between contractions, then stand and sway with each contraction.

At 3:15pm her OB came in to check her cervix. Laura was disappointed to hear she was only 5cm and I wondered if she was going to ask for and epidural. (I would have supported her in whatever decision she made. My job is to support. Not to judge or impose my own thoughts or beliefs on my clients) 

At 3:35, not 20 minutes later, Laura told the nurse and I that there was a LOT of pressure “down there” and she seemed a lot more uncomfortable. All of the sudden, Laura screamed “He’s coming! He’s coming!” The nurse and I looked at each other and told Laura to get on the bed.

We pulled her underwear down only to see the emergence of a little head! He was, in fact, coming! The nurse pulled an emergency cord and 8 people came rushing in. I thought for sure I was about to deliver my first baby solo!

The wonderful L&D nurses sprung into action and baby Adam was crying all pink and cute in about 2 minutes flat! Laura barely had to push him out!

Laura’s placenta came out a few minutes later (this is always the part of birth that fascinates me. The placenta is the baby’s respiratory system, filtration system, and nourishment. The healthier a Mom is, the more healthy- looking her placenta is. Laura’s was a beautiful bright red. Thanks Paleo!)

Baby Adam was the epitome of health. His APGARs were all 9s. He was the pinkest baby I’ve ever seen. Had a healthy cry and latched right on to Laura’s breast and went to town! 

I will NEVER forget this birth. I’ve never experienced anything like it! But most importantly, I am thrilled to see a woman of “advanced age” beat the odds and take control of her pregnancy with the proper approach to nutrition and fitness.

I have another Crossfitting Paleo eatin’ Mama due any day now and I’ll be sure to let you know how that one goes as well!