Home Birth & Why The Hospital and Obstetricians came into the picture

What the biggest shock about birth is that no one seems to know about this seemingly well kept secret of home birth. The truth is, it’s really no secret. Our modern day society simply does not do a decent job of educating our country’s young men and women to honor, respect and take an interest in parenthood until they find themselves pregnant. The priority in schools is sexual education, but no emphasis or time is spent on educating about the amazing motherhood journey.

Home birth midwives here in south Florida carry a magic with them that needs to be shared with the world. They awake in the middle of the night, grab their luggage packed with midwifery tools, and go to a woman’s home to aid with the delivery of her baby. With a low risk pregnancy, any woman can birth at home under the care and guidance of a licensed midwife.

What is so magical about this to me is that this is how ALL babies use to be born. The shift to hospital births started in the 20th century. I scoured the internet to gather the history of birth for you, and landed whhy.org where an article written under the guidance of Rutgers University professor Margaret Marsh shares the history behind the transition from home to hospital in the 1760s.

“In the colonial period, all the way up to 1760 or so, there was no real challenge to midwives delivering babies,” explained Marsh. When a woman was ready to give birth, her female relatives, and friends would help her through the process, along with a midwife.

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Professor Marsh the went onto say that “it was a scary process, babies died, women died, having a baby was a frightening thing,”  (Source: whyy.org)

I wanted to touch on that statement, because it honestly stopped me in my tracks. The entire article featuring Professor Marsh was very fascinating, and while I think that is still a common misconception in the modern day world, and many home birth myths exist around this concept, I do think it is unfair to leave it at that statement. Midwives and obstetricians should find a healthy balance between high risk and low risk births, complications during labor / birth / post partum, and when an obstetrician should be required to step into the process.

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Professor Marsh continues onto say that: around 1760, upper class women started to want to have doctors at their births. They thought that because the doctors had more education they could deliver a safer birth. Doctors delivered babies in women’s homes, and doctor-assisted births became more popular over time. “In 1900, about half the babies were delivered by midwives. By 1935, only fifteen percent were delivered by midwives,” said Marsh.

“Over time, there developed a rivalry between doctors and midwives, ” she added. “Doctors would say ‘we know more about anatomy, we are better suited to do this.’ Midwives said ‘we are women, we have experience, we know how we do this.'”

For many decades, the tug of war over approaches broke down along the gender lines; all of the doctors were male, and all of the midwives were female.

The shift to hospital births started in the 20th century. “What happened in the beginning of the 20th century was anesthesia for delivering children, and they wanted to have pain-free childbirth.”

But Marsh says the outcomes for women weren’t that great. “Lots of complications, lots of infections, it didn’t have the effect that women desired. They wanted safer, less painful childbirth, but in the first third to half of the century, it was not always safer childbirth.”

Marsh explained that in the 1930s, most of the midwives were practicing in rural areas, and were often called “granny midwives,” people who learned their trade on their own. “It did seem for a while as if midwives were going to become obsolete. The 1940s, 50s and 60s, you get doctors, especially obstetricians delivering all the babies.” Marsh says the feminist movement of the 1970s revived women’s interest in midwives. “Women once again wanted to control their own childbirth experience.” (Source: whyy.org)

This past week I learned for the first time in my 33 years of life that my mom was born at home. My grandmother (my mom’s mother) went into labor in the early morning just as her husband was leaving for work, and she sent her cousin to get the local midwife (back then in eastern European slavic countries a midwife was called an Akuszerka). She was pregnant with twins, it was her second pregnancy. It was ten minutes in between the births of both twins, my mom was born second.

My whole life I grew up in south Florida learning about western medicine. For me, I didn’t even know what a midwife was or did, in all the 27 years of my life leading up to the birth of my first child, I had never been educated about birth, let alone home birth. And now, 6 years deep into motherhood, it is a shock and exciting revelation to me to find out that my own mom was born in her home.

Hannah’s Home Birth with her Fourth Baby

When I got to Hannah’s home, early afternoon, the air was still. The music was soothing.

I felt as though everything was right and still with the world. A peaceful, still afternoon.

Hannah was swaying through contractions. Her husband was at her side.

My Journey with Polyhydramnios, C-sections and Loose Post Partum Belly Skin

⚪️⚪️ SELF REVEAL ⚪️⚪️

I’m kind of an open book. Too many things were kept from me by society about motherhood, so I am a proponent of transparency. I think many women can relate to this statement, because how many women can honestly say that they knew much about pregnancy, labor, birth and post partum BEFORE they had their first child? Unless you’re a labor and delivery nurse, a labor doula or post partum doula, a midwife or an OBGYN, chances are, you, similarly to me, didn’t have much of an education about motherhood before you became a mom for the first time to your own child.

A few weeks ago I finally took a deep breath and I went to see a revered specialist (who I still highly admire btw) in the plastic surgery field because I wanted to be “fixed”

Going from being somebody who easily fit into any piece of clothing, never worrying about size labels, never second-guessing my health, to suddenly finding myself with pretty serious self-body image issues after polyhydramnios with two pregnancies... This picture is my body TODAY (btw I’m not underweight! ❌ I’m just inhaling and my ribs say hello!)

Here I have been taking pictures of women in the most compelling moment of their motherhood experiences, truly believing and telling them they are radiantly gorgeous — never did any of their bodies ever make me feel they weren’t stunning. I never looked at weight as a negative. I always saw radiant beauty.

But here I was with a self-body image problem.

I hated my body. Well, my stomach. What polyhydramnios did to it, it became unrecognizable to me. It didn’t matter how much weight I lost after my second pregnancy, the stomach was still there. So I went to a plastic surgeon asking them what they would need to do to “fix me” so I could go back to being beautiful 

what I didn’t expect was for that visit to be the moment I would fall in love with my postpartum body.

Someone telling me that they would take away the skin I’ve lived in for 33 years, the stupid dragon tattoo I got when I was 21 that over these years became a symbol of my badass motherhood that I didn’t even realize — until they were telling me that with a tummy tuck, it would have to go. 99% of my abdominal dragon tattoo would have to go.

I walked out of the office a changed woman.

I never in a million years thought I would want to keep this skin, find my pp body beautiful & attractive. 

Fast forward a few weeks, I’m laying on my living room floor this morning, taking a photograph specifically to share with women out there who might have body image issues after their pregnancy.

POSTPARTUM IS THE DIVINE FEMININE. 

It took me 6 years, and I finally believ

Interview with Dr. Scott Roseff of IVFMD in Boca Raton, FL

The Birth Talk Show

Hosted weekly on FB Live by Paulina Splechta Birth Photographer & Filmmaker and Martha Lerner labor doula, birth photographer and post partum support of Zenmamalove.com. Every week we invite experts in the motherhood world, ranging from fertility/conception and pregnancy through labor, birth and into the post partum, 4th trimester and first twelve months mommy, to discuss their specialties with moms, women and families of south Florida so that women can be supported and have resources at their fingertips to getting through the new transition of motherhood. The Birth Talk Show was born out of our realization of the need of a lot of families in south Florida who don’t have the resources that we’ve gotten the opportunity to learn about over the last three or four years. We really wanted to bring the awareness of these resources to the families of south Florida and that’s why we are on our 8th episode. Today on episode 8 of the show we will be talking about fertility with Dr. Scott Roseff, Board Certified in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at IVFMD in Boca Raton, FL.

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• We asked Dr. Roseff why his approach to fertility is so vastly different from other fertility specialists

• What drew his passion into fertility work at the start of his career

• We found out that the age we thought egg quality starts to go down — we were completely wrong! (Spoiler, its way earlier than you thought!)

• What his recommended waiting time is before seeing a fertility specialist if you’re trying to conceiving and think you might be having problems

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Paulina Splechta (Birth Photographer): Dr. Roseff, I’d really love for you to talk to our viewers about your philosophy of fertility and how you approach it. I feel very swept away with your approach because I feel its very holistic.

Dr. Scott Roseff: I do take a different approach to fertility, I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years and people come to me with a problem. The problem is either getting pregnant or holding a pregnancy or both. I saw a patient this morning who has been trying for four and a half years. She has both difficulty getting pregnant and any time she did become pregnant, she’s lost those pregnancies, she’s had five losses. I’m an expert in getting to the bottom of what the problem is or the problems are.

When people go to a fertility doctor they typically start treatments “okay you’re having difficulty getting pregnant, let’s do this and see if it works” but what I do is I always take a half a step back and say let’s get to the bottom of what’s going on, so I can know what your problems are so we can address them head on. My primary objective with every patient I see is to find out the problems and see if I can fix them or overcome them so that I can have perhaps the man take this pill and the female do this and then go home and get pregnant. I like to restore natural fertility and in doing that its a very complex picture. It’s not just sperm and egg making a pregnancy. It’s psychological issues, its sociological issues, lifestyle habits; its so complex.

The person is a compilation of everything going on in his or her life, it’s not just sperm and egg. So I need to look at stress, food, exercise. Too little exercise can have an impact. Too much exercise can have an impact on their success. I look at body fat. Most fertility experts are not measuring body fat. Too little body fat actually has a very negative effect on health and reproductive outcome. Too much body fat, which is usually more commonly the problem, can have a negative impact on outcome as well as health. The saying is “if we don’t have our health, we have nothing” Many people come to me with health problems that haven’t been addressed, even when they go to their family doctors, the family doctors are not addressing these issues with telling the patients that you have a problem that needs to be addressed before you get pregnant.

I do a lot of what’s called preconception counseling where I go through factors that can cause a baby to be sick, or a baby to be born with health problems, or increased risk of autism for example, and these are things that I look at before people get pregnant so that when they get pregnant, they’re going to have the highest chance of getting pregnant, staying pregnant, having a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby, and that really takes a very broad approach which is holistic, rather than just “okay we’re going to do this treatment hopefully you’ll be pregnant and out the door and good bye and good luck” I want healthy mom, healthy dad, healthy pregnancy, healthy baby and there’s a lot that goes into mental health, physical health, reproductive health.

It’s a very big picture. People come with problems and its a jigsaw puzzle and my job is to put the little pieces of the puzzle together and it takes a lot of work and it takes some time. I understand the desire for people to be pregnant yesterday, “I’ve been trying for X amount of time and I want to be pregnant now” but you always have to take a half a step back and address the issues. One patient came to me from Russia having failed in vitro fertilization 7 times and when she came to her consult she said “I heard that you’re the best and I want to do IVF with you and I want to do it now.” And I said “that makes no sense, you failed 7 times, there are problems here and I need to level that playing field before you do this again.” So I did, it took 4 months to level her playing field and then when we did IVF she conceived twins and delivered twins first time and the philosophy is to do this once, to do it right and to make it work.

Paulina Splechta (Birth Photographer): But I love what you said “the philosophy is to do this once, to do this right and just make it work.”

Dr. Scott Roseff: And often it does.

Paulina Splechta (Birth Photographer): Before I met you I had never had any experience with doctors who work in this field, and I only have stories from friends and family members of trials and trials of IVF that have failed for years and years and they were just getting to the point where they felt that they were never going to have a baby unless they get an egg donor or a surrogate..

Dr. Scott Roseff: So many people come to me from other fertility practices having been told they need an egg donor. I saw a patient this morning who was told over the last three years she was at her previous fertility practice that she needs a surrogate, she needs someone else to carry the pregnancy — she doesn’t. People who say that they were told they need an egg donor, I’ll test them, and find out that they really don’t need to do that. You really need to know what’s really truly going on, rather than saying “okay, this failed, that failed, so let’s get a sperm donor or an egg donor and maybe that’ll work, let’s get another uterus and put an embryo in there and see if that’ll work.” You really need to find out what the problems are and address them. Sure, some people need an egg donor, yes, there are occasions when someone needs a surrogate to carry the pregnancy, but so many people have been told the wrong thing and when I see them and tell them what they really need to do, first of all, they’re blown away by it and second of all, when they’re successful, I hear every minute of everyday “I wish I came here first rather than having spent X amount of time, X amount of years, X amount of money, X amount of emotional toil elsewhere.

I just like to see if I can help people conceive first objective is natural conception, if that’s not in the cards, if its something thats not likely going to work, then there are tools that I have to assist people in becoming pregnant, but I want to look for the simplest, least invasive, least expensive thing that we can do to achieve a high degree of success. IVF is the bottom of the list, it’s the last resort, its the last thing that I ever want anyone to have to go through. Yeah, a lot of people need IVF, do IVF here, and are successful, but it’s the last thing that I want anyone to have to go through.

Martha Lerner (Zenmamalove.com): Before we go onto the next question, I wanted to ask you, if you wouldn’t mind sharing with us, what got you into this field, what made you decide to get into fertility.

Dr. Scott Roseff: When I was in my training, I had to rotate through different disciplines in the medical field, so we had to do some time in pediatrics, in general surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology and psychiatry, and all the different disciplines, and when I did OBGYN and the first time that I was in a delivery room with someone, and it was just me — they threw me in and said go deliver the baby, and one minute it was the patient in the room with me and the next minute there were three of us in the room, the baby was there, and no one came through the door, I said “this is the most miraculous thing I can ever fathom, bringing another life into the world” and I said “I want to be an OBGYN, I want to deliver babies and take care of pregnant women for the rest of my life.” So then I started my training in just obstetrics and gynecology, and in doing so, one of the rotations that we have to do is we have to go through the infertility rotation, and then when I saw the heart break of people who were having difficulty getting to the point of that miracle, I said “this is what I really need to do, I need to help people to achieve that miracle,” rather than just bring the miracle and deliver the baby, let’s help people who can’t get there to get there. And so I went into the fertility field.

Martha Lerner (Zenmamalove.com): So if a woman comes to you and is having difficulty conceiving, what’s generally something you would recommend for her to do in the beginning?

Dr. Scott Roseff: If she has a partner, that she and her partner need to look at their lives, they need to look at a broader picture of why they may not be getting pregnant or may be losing pregnancies. Look at your lifestyle, look at your nutrition, look at your general overall health. Pregnancy is growing another life inside of your body for three quarters of a year. When I do the first pregnancy ultrasound, and I measure the baby and the baby is 5mm on that first ultrasound, which is the size of your pinky nail and there is a little flicker of a heartbeat and you have this 5mm fetus inside of you and you have to nourish it and you have to grow it and you have to sustain it, if you’re not in good mental health and good physical health, how do you expect your body to nourish and grow successfully another life for three quarters of a year. So people really need to look at the bigger picture, "are we stressed out” because there is a connection between the mind and the body.

You have to look at lifestyle factors, are you overweight, are you obese, are you underweight, because those can have affect as well. Men, can be exposed to high levels of heat, are you going to a sauna, are you going to a jacuzzi or a hot tub several times a week, it has a really bad effect on sperm. So you have to look at certain things that can have effect on fertility. And then, if you’re having difficulty and think there could be a problem, don’t wait too long. Men make new sperm in their bodies every ten weeks until they’re dead, but women don’t make new eggs.

When a woman is 25 years old, her eggs have been in her body for 25 years, but if she’s 30 or 35 or 40, her eggs have been sitting on a shelf for 40 years and since she doesn’t make new ones, her egg quantity goes down, but more importantly, her egg quality goes down. If the egg quality is low, then the egg may not fertilize or if the egg does fertilize and it’s a bad egg, those pregnancies are more likely to miscarry. If its a bad egg or an older egg and the pregnancy doesn’t miscarry, its a greater chance of a genetically abnormal baby, like a down syndrome pregnancy.

One of the important things for women to remember is that they should not wait too long. I ask my patients when they think their egg quality really starts to go down and 90% of the time they say age 35 and that’s not correct. The egg quality starts to go down around age 24, and it’s a slow drop from 24 to 30 and then its a pretty quick drop from 30 to 35, and then it’s a very sharp drop there after. So don’t wait too long. I see people who are 40 years old who go to their family doctor or their health care provider and say “we want to have a baby” and the doctor says “well, you need to try for a year, and if you’re not pregnant then we can do some tests,” and if you’re 40 you don’t wait a year. If you’re 35 you don’t wait a year. So don’t wait too long.

Paulina Splechta (Birth Photographer): So I guess it really depends on the state of a person’s health and their age, when they should start taking it to the next step, but if we could generalize, if a woman has been having issues conceiving for maybe 3, 4, 5 months, what should her next step be at that point, is that too much time to wait?

Dr. Scott Roseff: Well, no, unless there is something in her history or her partner’s history that suggests that we’re going to have a problem right from the onset. For example, there are women who don’t get regular periods. You’re 25 years old, you want to be pregnant, you get a period 8 weeks apart, 12 weeks apart, 6 months apart — don’t wait, there’s a problem. Go to your doctor and start to get tested and find out what the problem is. There’s an infection called chlamydia, its an infectious disease that can cause damage to a fallopian tube. If you’ve had chlamydia when you were 17 years old, and now you’re 22 years old and you want to have a baby, get tested and make sure you don’t have fallopian tube damage, because it’s in your history and therefore you don’t wait and wait and wait because there’s a predisposing factor that maybe something right off the bat that can be addressed or should be addressed or looked at.

In general, if you’re under 35 years old and there’s really nothing in your history that you think suggests you’ll have a fertility problem, you could try for up to a year. If psychologically that’s going to hurt you then don’t wait the year, see a fertility expert sooner. If you’ve reached or passed your 35th birthday, the general rule is 6 months. If there’s really nothing in your history, you can try for 6 months, and if you’re not pregnant after 6 months, see a fertility doctor.

Paulina Splechta (Birth Photographer): What types of fertility treatments do you offer here?

Dr. Scott Roseff: The first thing I want to do with any patient is to try to see if I can address issues or problems to the point of allowing them to go home and have sexual relations and conceive on their own and that’s my primary objective with every patient I see. Sometimes if a patient comes here and had her tubes tied, had two babies and now wants baby number three and she had a tubal sterilization, she’s not going to conceive on her own. Depending on what the tests show, the fertility treatments are dictated by the test results. For example, if the sperm is a little bit poor and all other things are okay, then there is a relatively simple procedure called Intrauterine insemination (IUI for short) that maybe appropriate. But if she’s 39 years old the odds for success with that will be quite low. So we really need to look at the whole picture and say if you’re 29 years old and you have a little bit of a sperm issue and you don’t ovulate regularly then I can give a fertility pill and we can do Intrauterine insemination with the sperm to have a pretty good chance of success. If you’re past your 35th birthday and especially past your 37th birthday, then IUI is really not a great option, fertility pills are really not very effective, if you’re older; So if IUI is not an option or a good option, then the next step above that is injectable fertility drugs that are given with the purpose of stimulating multiple eggs to grow and develop but it would be dangerous to allow 6 eggs to ovulate and inseminate someone, because if we throw a handful of sperm at 6 eggs, she could possibly be pregnant with 6 babies and that’s not a good outcome. If we’re using injectable fertility drugs then the treatment would be to extract the multiple eggs, fertilize them and grow embryos and that’s in vitro fertilization. If we’re doing in vitro fertilization we need to look at the age of the female, because if she’s past her 35th birthday a fairly large percentage of the embryos would be typically chromosomally genetically not normal, so rather than grow the embryos and put one into the uterus we would genetically test the embryos for genetic mistakes like down syndrome before we put an embryo into a uterus and then when we have a genetically normal good quality embryo that would be the one we that would be chosen to put into the uterus. So it has to be individualized and personalized for ever patient, every couple.

One of the other things I see from the records I get from people who have been to other facilities, is that those facilities tend often to do cookbook medicine as I call it. “It’s a recipe, its a cookbook, and you get it and you get it and you get it and you get it”

But she’s different than she is and she is and she is and you can’t turn to page 6 in the cookbook and do the same thing for everybody it has to be individualized and that takes thought it takes thinking outside the box, it takes effort and it takes very individualized, personalized care and I think if I was going through it, that’s what I would want to have done and that’s what needs to be done and should be done.

There are adjunctive treatments that I recommend for all of my fertility challenged patients. I do recommend fertility acupuncture. There are acupuncturist all over south Florida, many of them have special expertise in the fertility field. I tell every fertility patient that they should consider fertility acupuncture. there are many potential benefits of acupuncture.

I look at this as a team effort. I cannot do this without the assistance of other people like acupuncture doctors, I have fertility psychologists that I refer my patients to for stress reduction and mind body balancing along with the acupuncture. Some of them have a speciality of reproductive medicine psychology. We collaborate together and it really helps the stress reduction and these other techniques for achieving greater success.

Martha Lerner (Zenmamalove.com): That’s wonderful, that was my next question, what other alternative or complementary modalities would you recommend?

Dr. Scott Roseff: We have a tremendous demand for nutrition counseling and lifestyle changes in our patients. Many of our patients are overweight. Many of our patients are obese. And some of my patients are severly underweight. They teach us nutrition about one day in medical school so we can’t be the nutrition experts but there are nutrition experts out there and in my practice we have someone who has advanced degrees in nutrition and exercise physiology, she’s a professor of nutrition at one of the universities in Miami and I have my patients see her and work with her to optimize their health and optimize their bodies so that they will have a significantly improved chance of success. The patient who came to me from Russia, with 7 failed IVF cycles, had some physical body issues that needed to be addressed, lifestyle changes, nutrition and exercise, and eating right and eating better, and losing body fat. She worked with our expert, her name is Marta, over those 4 months. And then Marta said, “time to go back to Dr. Roseff and start moving forward,” we did with incredible success.

Like I said, I can’t do this alone, I have great expertise in what I do and knowledge but its a broader picture, its a bigger picture.

Paulina Splechta (Birth Photographer): I’m so excited by the fact that you’re here, you’re in the heart of south Florida, in Boca Raton at IVFMD, so all the families from Port Saint Lucie and Jupiter can have access to you and all the families as south as Miami. Thank you so much for making the time for sitting with us and share with our viewers. We hope we can reach at least one family that could benefit from this gentle approach to fertility. If anyone has any questions for Dr. Scott Roseff, please message us privately or leave a comment below and we will be happy to connect you.

A Mama's June Birth Story (Hospital Birth) Boca Raton, FL | Paulina Splechta Photography

Story by guest writer, Sarah A.

With my first pregnancy, I didn’t hire a doula or have any other support team aside from my husband. I was pregnant with twins, a first time mom and I was inexperienced in the ways of a hospital birth. So much of the process was out of my control, preeclampsia meant I needed to be induced, I had to have an epidural early on in case of an emergency c-section and I had to deliver in an OR. Birth isn’t something you can predict or control, but with my first birth, I felt so disconnected and left out of the process itself. I also felt my birth preferences were largely ignored and that left me with feelings of sadness and regret about my twins’ birth.

When I became pregnant for the second time with a singleton in 2017, I wanted to take full advantage of the experience and make sure I was as connected and present as possible throughout my pregnancy and baby’s birth. This led me to the decision to hire a doula. I researched several doulas in my area and ended up hiring Lisa Raynor. In addition to attending my birth, Lisa was a strong support to me throughout my pregnancy. She helped me craft a detailed list of birth preferences and was instrumental in communicating them to my medical team and making sure they were followed the day of the birth.

During my pregnancy, she was always available if I needed to talk and helped me tremendously through some scary weeks after a few worrisome ultrasounds.

She reminded me that I had a say-so over my birth and helped me think through my options during stressful moments.

On the day of my son’s birth, Lisa was with me as much or as little as I needed, stepping in during the moments when things got tough and supporting my husband and I through a birth process we had never navigated before.

This time around, I was lucky to have a calm and beautiful birth experience but I also credit my doula with making this possible through her knowledge, experience and caring support. I felt like an active participant in my birth this time around and it truly made all the difference. Having a doula helped me achieve the pregnancy and birth experience I envisioned and heal some of the old wounds of regret from my last birth. Lisa provided such seamless and loving support, she felt like a member of our family and I will forever be grateful to her. I would absolutely recommend hiring a doula for pregnancy and birth to any mama-to-be, first time or otherwise.

Only 5% of babies are born on their Estimated Due Date (Birth Center Birth) Hollywood, FL | Paulina Splechta Photography

Only 5% of babies are born on their EDD ( Estimated Due Date )

We knew that very well going into Madison’s pregnancy with baby. Her due date was 8 days into September, but her entire pregnancy, she felt that her baby boy would make an appearance earlier than expected. Sunday night I was up late printing birth preferences for Madison and Drew (just in case they needed to be transferred from their birthing facility - the Hollywood Birth Center, to the hospital, (Joe DiMaggio Hospital) for any reason, so that the medical staff would know that we are grateful that she can deliver at their facility and willing to work with them as a team). I knew it in my heart that Madison was going to labor and birth smoothly, my intuition was telling me that we wouldn’t need to pull the birth preferences list out, but I always like to be prepared just in case.

Madison and Drew became a very special couple for me through their pregnancy. They carried an energy with them as first time parents. They are the sweetest couple that lived next door to each other for 18 years, blissfully unaware of the radiant future that awaited them. But they are completely and utterly the ‘girl next door’ fairytale that we all day dream about.

From the first time I met her, I loved how she said to me how important pictures are to her.

I know that because I’m a photographer that its expected for me to say pictures are important to me too. But even before I ever became a professional photographer, pictures have always been such a vital part of my life. I have albums from before I was born from eastern Europe of my families on both sides. Albums from my childhood, from my first school dance, from Christmases for decades, of my own children. I look through photos constantly and love to think back on those memories. For me, my albums and my pictures are priceless.

So these powerful words from Madison “pictures are really important to me,” completely resonated with me.

And just like that, as part of this mama’s intuition, two full weeks before her estimated due date, labor went into strong contractions 5 to 6 minutes apart 2:30am.

(((As I sit here, thinking back on the night of August 27th, just two days after my second daughter turned 3 years old, and write this blog post, I find it completely makes sense that my notifications for my Instagram app pop up on my phone, that in this exact moment, Madison shared a photo from her birth story on Instagram and tagged me. Sharing a wave length! This mama is SO special to me!)))

I drove to meet them at the birth center and walked in at about just before 7:45am, about 15 minutes after they arrived. I see Madison experiencing the full, raw, pangs of labor, surrounded by waves of support coming from Drew and his sister Daye. Midwife DellaReece filling up the birthing tub with warm water. The sun aching to rise from the horizon.

Despite the intensity of the waves of labor, Madison breathed and swayed fluidly through each, almost as if she was a third time mama.

She was surrounded by the flawless support of her birth team.

Fully trusting in them and in her laboring body.

She knew she would be meeting her baby boy soon.

Only minutes later she asked if we could turn off the lights.

Nothing made me happier.

I cannot tell you how much I love working with the natural, available light in a birth. Photography is the art of working with light, and when I am looking for light sources to tell a story, it is when I am at my best and most magical.

What made this room so special is that Madison chose the room in the Hollywood Birth Center that faced the East, the ocean. I know how special that is to her, because she is a child of the ocean.

For me, it was the room that faced the birthing sun of August 27th, 2018.

Drew Krush

Born, August 27, 2018

9:45am

Togetherness - The Birth Journey Done Together with your Partner (Home Birth) Miami Beach, FL | Paulina Splechta Photography

As first time moms, even sometimes second time moms, we often don’t know what we should expect from the last few weeks of our pregnancies, let alone our labors and births. So it is completely normal when the partner (or spouse) is clueless as to how to support their significant other who is in labor.

Even if you’ve spent the entire pregnancy supporting her through hyponbirthing, childbirth education classes, maybe even the Bradley method (which involves both parents, prepares the mother to deliver her baby without pain medications and educates the partner in birth coaching techniques), it is still quite common and normal for partners to freeze during labor.

Birth is complex and often unpredictable. No two labors are alike, not even among a woman’s own three children.

I am a big believer in go with the flow, and fill the role that you feel called to.

You may not know what to say, you may not know what to do, but just being there can often be enough.

When a Birth Photographer Puts Down their Camera

When the camera gets put down: moments rarely documented in a birth story

I cannot accurately describe to the fullest, the positive energy and empowerment in this room in one moment. You know how when you have a child sometimes you think to yourself: wow I had no idea how much I needed this child to become the best version of myself?

I cannot tell you what an overpowering realization it is to me that these two women here make me feel this way. 

When I met Lisa (Lisa Raynor Coral Springs and Boca Raton Childbirth Doula) my mentality and philosophy of my work was almost 180º from what it is today. My confidence level, my energy level; everything in my entire life as a momtrepreneur was so different. It’s not that this level of different was a bad thing, but I was stuck in that post partum 4th trimester for far too long, and Lisa saw it immediately, but more importantly, it’s what she saw that I didn’t see that made the tremendous impact on my life: she saw what I could be. 

And isn’t that a sign of the greatest life coach? Precisely. That is what Lisa has been to me since May 2017. The most unexpected blessing that fell upon my life and I am utterly grateful that this woman, wise beyond her years, so intuitive and remarkable, saw in me what I had lost sight of. 

In comes Kat. (Dr. Kathleen Vigo, Painless Pregnancy) I had no idea what this woman would do for me when I first met her. Even after learning extensively about the amazing work she does in physical therapy with her pregnant and post partum patients, and after recommending her to a dozen of my clients in a year, I still remained so blissfully unaware and unknowing of how powerful her work is.

Who could have possibly predicted that this soulful, stunning individual would come to my home for a 9 month follow up (following our previous physical therapy sessions), literally 10 days before giving birth to her daughter, and heal me of six years of trauma?! I didn’t even know until the night before my daughter's 3rd birthday, barely one month after Kat's visit, when I revisited the slideshow I had made of cell phone pictures from my second child's birth and realized - I was no longer feeling the Pandora's box of the negative range of emotions I have been feeling for the past 6 years of motherhood. Instead, I was feeling gratitude, relief, joy, self-awareness; I felt as though I was for the first time in six long years that had been riddled with emotional trauma from two very off-course labor and birth experiences, instead I was suddenly feeling ONLY full of joy for the first time ever. I shocked myself.

But instantly I was in doubt. The 60mph thoughts racing through my head distracted me from realizing this was all Kat's work from a couple weeks back. I started to doubt and ask myself would I still be as passionate about my work now that my trauma had vanished? I had always thought the foundation for why I was passionate about my career was because I was holding onto two traumatic births.

Then I wondered, would all these positive feelings go away after this celebration of the third year of life for my baby girl passed?

I waited and waited, but saw that none of this came to fruition.

My life had changed.

My perspective had changed.

My heart and soul had healed.

So when Kat went into labor with her second child, there was no doubt in my mind that I would have to give it my all to be present in this moment for her. In a room with two women who had completely changed my life, who had empowered me to become the best version of myself. With one of my favorite OBGYNs in south Florida, Dr. Feldman (of Omega Women's Care). 

The pictures above show a story of what happens when a birth photographer puts their camera down. In the first moment, Kat reached out for me to hold her hand during a contraction while her most amazing doula, Lisa Raynor supported her with affirmations and physical support. And in the second moment I was waiting to receive her placenta to help package it for transport. These pictures show why my relationships with my clients mean everything to me in my work. It is a realization and transformation of the artist unraveling, that it may have been my experiences with my daughters in the form of emotional trauma that inspired me to change what purpose I did my work for, but it is my relationships with my clients that is why I continue to work in this most fulfilling field of supporting women through their pregnancies and births as their birth story artist. 

Evolution Yoga & How it has begun to create a mama tribe

I just joined Evolution Yoga (in Coconut Creek off of 441 just south of Hillsboro Blvd). There are a few studios in Coral Springs and I spent a few days testing out classes in each but ultimately this is the one I felt most connected to. 

Jennifer Radnay, labor doula and yoga instructor

One day after class I ran into Jennifer Radnay (who is an incredible labor doula as well as prenatal yoga instructor). I also ran into Dr. Kathleen Vigo -- my dearest friend, she is an obstetric physical therapist -- which means she only works with expecting and post partum mommies! (I am also capturing her baby girl's birth in the next couple of weeks!) It was a very surprising and beautiful day! 

I learned that every Tuesday at 1030am Jennifer teaches a prenatal yoga class at Evolution Yoga off of 441 in Coconut Creek. I had just finished a hot yoga session there with yogi Maxine Schwartz and I decided to stay for the prenatal yoga class to create my own opinion of the class before recommending it to other mamas, so that I could say that I really tried it and it is amazing. I really love that the class started off with Jennifer giving out positive affirmations printed on papers, each mama chose the ones that spoke most to her, I even found two that spoke to me as a mommy who gave birth nearly 3 years ago, and we went around in a circle and shared the positive affirmations out loud which really made the mood in the room peaceful and positive before the yoga practice. 

My favorite part of the class was when Jennifer came around to each mommy and helped correct her position for the ultimate stretch and comfort sinking into it. I wasn't really expecting this in a prenatal class, or I guess I don't know what I was expecting! I didn't realize it would be so personalized and connected, it really made me feel like I was doing the best thing for my body, not just attending a class where I was just another attendee.

The different yoga positions allowed for using foam blocks/blankets when pregnant, or doing them without the extra items for more of a challenge. When I left the class I really felt like it challenged me, and the pregnant mommies all said they felt really relaxed. It was a beautiful class filled with so much positive emotion and positive energy that I ended up tearing up as we were all saying goodbye until next Tuesday. 

This experience was so amazing I wanted to share it with you all, even if you pop in for one class to try it out, I think you'd leave feeling the same way as we all did. I do not get any sort of referral credit for bringing in mommies, I simply wanted to share the love with you all! And the exciting part is that the studio is doing 30 days for $30 right now, which is the reason I signed up, and plan on going every day. I missed one day because I had a birth client in the hospital, but today I was back at 12pm with a class with Tresa Anderson which was the exact level of intensity I needed to heal my body from all the energy and tension that tends to build up when you're a birth worker. (Thank you Tresa!!)

If anyone would like to go on Tuesday next week, July 24th, at 1030am (thats July 24th) just pop me and email and I'd be happy to accompany you so you don't have to go alone :) 

This is also a really wonderful opportunity for mommies to build their mommy tribe for their pregnancy and their post partum. Meet other mommies who are going through exactly what you are and can relate to you and support you in your journey.

MOMMY & BABY YOGA

with Jennifer Radnay

This is a new class coming July 27th at 11am, also taught by Jennifer (who has a great deal of experience working with post partum, healing mommies (both emotionally and physically healing) and she is bringing this class starting that Friday morning. I would be happy to join you all too! I am curious to see for myself :) All babies between the ages of 6 weeks - 12 months are welcome! 

Sending all my love to each and everyone of you! 

Beautiful Mom of Twin Girls Expecting a Baby Boy

I remember how Dayna and I met. It's not the way I use to meet mommy clients four years ago, and that's why I love it. It made me reflect on how we evolve as women and as mothers and I wanted to share the entire story behind it with you.

I have been a birth photographer for four years, and I could not even imagine 4 years ago how my career would unravel as my daughters grew and as I delve deeper into the birth world as a birth worker.

Dayna and I met through our local community, our girls (her twins and my almost 6 year old) spent the past year going to VPK together in the best preschool at Kids Academy in Coral Springs, FL. One of her girls and my daughter Kate were in ballet the entire year, and her other day and my niece were in the same VPK classroom together. Through the year we got to know each other as mamas in the same community and build a relationship that I had never imagined I could have with moms! As my girls grew and I changed everything about the way I ran my business, the way I approached our lives as a family of four, I began to develop relationships just like with Dayna, with other birth clients. Dayna was one of my last birth clients before I made the huge leaps and changes that have grown my community and my work to the beautiful, organic, living vessel that it is today.

Three and four years ago, to find birth clients, I'd post my photos on facebook as much as possible, with a 2 year old toddler at home. I rarely had the chance to blog. I rarely had the chance for anything because I had a toddler at home and was a work from home mommy! 

I didn't know my community very well. I had made some mommy friends going to the playgrounds, parks and south Florida beaches with my daughter Kate, but I was so new to the field of birth that I didn't know many doulas or midwives, obgyns or labor and delivery nurses at all. I was just starting to dip my feet into the birth world.

Fast forward four years, so much has changed and I have evolved.

About a year and a half ago, I realized that birth was really my passion.

I also realized I was very overwhelmed.

Trying to balance (keyword trying!!) motherhood to two kids under 5 years old as a stay at home mom, run a household, AND run a full time photography business was leaving me really overwhelmed. 

About one year ago I realized what I had to do. I met Lisa Raynor, my dearest friend and doula here in Coral Springs and in Boca Raton, and she helped me with the final push to bring my career goals to fruition. She told me to try out full time preschool.

I was so nervous about this. I was juggling being a full time stay at home mom to two young kids, a full time job, all my maternity, breastfeeding, newborn and family photography clients in addition to my birth clients, my marriage, my home, and I was so nervous how we would pull off putting two young kids in full time preschool. How could we afford it?

That's when all the big changes fell directly into place.

Let me tell you, it was terrifying.

Change #1: 

I put both of the girls in full time preschool.

It didn't happen over night. I started with only VPK hours for Kate from 9-12pm and Emma was going two days a week from 9am-12pm. Slowly I started adding hours, and then days. By the end of three months, both of my girls were attending preschool from 830am-5pm five days a week.

I cannot tell you how much guilt this brought me. Having been a stay at home mom for almost 5 years while juggling a work from home business, I felt SO guilty that I was putting my kids in full time school. So many mommies can do it both, I told myself. I am so embarrassed and ashamed that I am saying I can't do it, I don't want to do it. 

Over the next 6 - 12 months I would start a healing journey to learn to not compare myself to other mothers, what they do, what their approach towards life and parenting is, and what their life looks like. I would learn that it's not my business to worry about what other mothers and women are capable of, it is only of importance for me to focus on what I want out of my life journey.

Change #2:

I gave up all photo sessions besides birth photography.

This was an absolutely terrifying leap of faith.

Family photo sessions, Maternity and Newborn Photography, and Breastfeeding photoshoots consisted of 50% of my years earnings. 

You might be thinking "and she gave it all up?"

Trust me, I WAS THINKING IT.

Let me tell you why I did this change in my life. I decided that if I was going to be paying for two children to go to full time preschool every week, all of those hours at home while they were at school would be dedicated to focusing 110% on my birth clients and my birth photography and birth films. This is after all, my passion, I realized. And the investment I make on the BEST preschool in Coral Springs needs to pay off on me investing all of my time and energy into growing my relationships with my birth clients everyday, every week, every month.

Trust me, I still love all the other sessions I use to do. And it broke my heart when I had so many families reaching out to me after I had slowly started my transition, asking for family sessions, breastfeeding sessions, and I had to turn them away and recommend one of my colleagues.

But as the weeks and months passed, I started realizing that I had made the best decision I ever could have. I went from juggling 120 families every 12 months to working intimately with 24 families. I got to really know every single birth family I was working with, I would remember hubby's name as I walked into labor and delivery. I'd remember that older brother was about to turn 3 years old next month. I'd remember that they just got a new puppy. These details (and many more intimate details ranging from fertility issues, loss, difficult pregnancies) became so vital to me to learn and remember. I realized in the past year that my true passion is not necessarily in birth photography. Rather my true passion is supporting, educating and empowering the women I work with, and building my relationship with them.

The change I had implemented thrust my business into a whole different world that I had never known before. I started having more time to dedicate to things I had never had a chance to even do. I started blogging. I LOVE writing. I've been a writer since I was in elementary school, I wrote my first book when I was 8. Being able to pour my soul into something I am so passionate about made my career so much more dynamic and fulfilling.

I finally had the time to network.

I have met so many absolutely phenomenal astonishing individuals in my community in the past twelve months, I did not even know these incredible human beings and specialists in the birth world existed, and now I have such an esteemed honor of calling them my friends. In the past 12 months I have deepened my relationship with Lisa Raynor, my doula soul sister, I met Martha Lerner, owner of Zenmamalove.com who my maternity/newborn/family photo clients from the past had boasted about for years, I got to meet the most amazing expert in the fertility world, Dr. Scott Roseff of IVFMD, who has a heart of gold by the way and works so closely with women and their partners/spouses to build healthy new families.

I had the privilege of building a close relationship with my favorite birth providers in the birth world ranging from Nurse midwives to OBGYNS to licensed midwives. I learned about baby nurses and how crucial they are to the family in the 4th trimester through meeting and growing close friendship with Mercedes Cabrisas, owner of South Florida Baby Nurse and Jennifer Shapiro, owner of Blissful Baby Nurse and Newborn Services.

I met Jackie Polsky, of South Florida Psychologist Associates, specializing in the post partum mama, Natasha Chamely, owner of Baby Love Spa  in Margate, FL, it was such a pleasure to meet and become friends with the amazing Susan Winograd, who owns Pelvic Rehab.com and works closely with post partum mommies and the entire family, as well as Dr. Moshe Winograd, who is a phenomenal post partum and loss psychologist at Coastal Behavioral Health, and became friends with Carly Tokar (Tokar Family Chiropractic) and Gena Bofshever (Dr. Gena Chiropractor). I got to experience first hand chiropractic care through Dr. Elaina Gill, post partum physical therapy from the amazing Dr. Kathleen Vigo of Painless Pregnancy, and Laura Knecht of Good Little Sleeperzzz helped my toddler and now almost 6 year old finally get on the right routine for a proper bedtime (south Florida's BEST pediatric sleep consultant!)

I've also had the immense opportunity to work with the amazing doulas at the Orchid's Nest, the phenomenal labor and delivery staff at Boca Raton Regional Hospital. I had the pleasure of meeting and growing a wonderful partnership with the OBGYN team at Omega Women's Care. 

It's just been an unreal year.

I cannot believe that my closest friends are all in the same birth world that once was a lonely place, now is filled with the same amazing faces I see but in and outside of work. 

Questions to ask an OBGYN or Midwife in Boca Raton for your pregnancy, birth and postpartum

It is VITAL to make sure the OBGYN or Midwife you are hiring in Boca Raton to care for you and your unborn baby during your pregnancy as well as be the most supportive and experienced medical care provider for you during your birth is the right OBGYN or Midwife for you, it is VITAL to ask questions that are important to you during your first consultation or if you already hired the provider, questions to ask during your first, second and third trimester of pregnancy.

Below you'll find a list of questions to ask an OBGYN or Midwife in Boca Raton during your prenatal visits (if you have already hired them) or at your very first visit or consultation appointment if you are still researching who the best OBGYNS are in Boca Raton and interviewing them.

You'll also find a list of questions to ask your OBGYN in Boca Raton when you're in your third trimester. 

You can print this list by going to File > Print

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR BOCA RATON OBGYN OR MIDWIFE

INITIAL CONSULTATIONS / INTERVIEWS

1. To Yourself: Do you feel supported and respected by this OBGYN during your initial visit / interview? Does this OBGYN listen and answer your questions patiently or are is this OBGYN or Midwife suggesting holding off on your questions until you’re officially under their care or until you are closer to giving birth?

2. Is this OBGYN open to birth plans? What if instead of calling it a “Birth Plan” you have a birth preferences list?

3. What hospitals does this OBGYN have privileges to deliver at? And What is their opinion of the various labor and delivery units if the doctor has privileges are more than one hospital?

4. How many vaginal checks does the OBGYN do during pregnancy and during labor? Should I get routine vaginal checks starting at 37 weeks of my pregnancy, how necessary are vaginal checks or can I opt out? What are the benefits/downsides and when do I need to have them done?

5. Under what circumstances during pregnancy would the OBGYN recommend an induction? How can an induction affect the outcome of my birth (vaginal / cesarean) What type of inductions do you do? (foley balloon, pitocin, cytotech, cervidil) you want to know which induction method the OBGYN uses most often and what they recommend and what the doctor sees as potential downsides of certain induction methods. What percentage of your patients does this doctor induce on or before their due date?

6. What is the OBGYNs' opinion of Birth Doulas? What percentage of the doctor’s patients use a doula? What doulas does the OBGYN recommend?

7. Under what circumstances during labor would you recommend to administer medications such as cervidil or pitocin?

8. How do you handle past due dates? (Over 40 weeks, over 41 weeks)

9. What is your percentage of your patients get an epidural, What percentage have vaginal births? / percentage of c-sections? Under what circumstances during pregnancy would you recommend a scheduled cesarean?

10. Who is your backup Midwife or OBGYN? Who is the OBGYN covering doctor? How is he/she during labor? When can I meet them? What is your opinion of the Hospitalists at the hospital you have privileges at (if the hospital you are choosing for your birth uses Hospitalists) and under what circumstances would I be delivered by one of the Hospitalists instead of you?

11. How do you handle delayed cord clamping? How long do you delay for? Under 1 minute or over 1 minute? Do you do cord blood banking AND delayed cord clamping?

12. Are you planning any vacations, trips, major surgeries, or other events 3-4 weeks before my due date, or up to 2 weeks after my due date that would interfere with your attendance at the birth? If after we are working together you end up scheduling a vacation or trip around my due date, can I request to be notified?

13. What positions do you feel comfortable delivering in? (on back, squatting (using a squat bar), on all fours (knees and elbows)?

14. Is your practice VBAC friendly? (Vaginal Birth after a C-section) If not, please give your medically backed reasons why.

15. What is your policy on breech pregnancies (babies who are not head down in the third trimester)? Do you support doing a version at the hospital and then continuing the pregnancy in hopes of a vaginal delivery? If not, please give your medically backed reasons why.

Questions to ask when you are approaching the third trimester of pregnancy

1. What are your feelings on the dad catching the baby, or me catching my own baby? Will you deliver the baby? Or will you assist me in birthing him/her/them?

2. How do you feel about hypnobirthing? Are you experienced with delivering babies for moms who are using hypnobirthing?

3. How does it work if I am GBS positive - how often do you administer antibiotics during labor and do you do specific procedures with the baby after birth

3b. Are there other options to drinking the orange drink for the gestational diabetes test? Such as eating jelly beans or drinking orange juice?

4. Do you do IV/Heplock? Are you ok with laboring tubs, (or hydrotherapy by standing in the hospital shower), eating small snacks during labor? What if the hospital I am delivering at does not have a good record of supporting laboring tubs or other birth preferences of mine, will you be supportive of me changing to another birthing facility?

5. What are the pros and cons of vitamin K shot and eye ointment

6. Do you offer or suggest taking specific childbirth preparation courses? What classes do you recommend?

7. During labor, how close together should my contractions be before I head to the hospital?

8. If my water breaks before labor (contractions) even begins, how long can I labor at home for before I am required to go to the hospital?

9. What happens in the event of pre-term labor before 38 weeks?

10. Under what circumstances, if any, do you perform episiotomies? How many episiotomies have you performed in the last 2 years? Do you recommend doing perineum massages throughout pregnancy leading up to birth?

11. How early do you arrive to the hospital (when I am 9 or 10cm or earlier if I request?) How long will you and/or your support team stay with mom and baby after the birth?

12. Is breastfeeding support offered by your practice or do I need to rely solely on the nurses / lactation consultant at the hospital?

13. Do you deliver breech if my baby rotates into breech position during the end stages of active labor during transition? [Most babies will move into delivery position a few weeks prior to birth, with the head moving closer to the birth canal. When this fails to happen, the baby's buttocks and/or feet will be positioned to be delivered first. This is referred to as “breech presentation.”] Do you recommend trying to turn the baby if the baby is in breech position during labor or in the last few weeks of pregnancy or do you recommend a cesarean birth?