Swiss Birth Stories
Our mission is to share diverse birth stories from across Switzerland in a way that empowers the storyteller. We aim to create a supportive space where each person is in control of their own narrative. By recording and sharing birth stories in Switzerland, we hope to inspire those planning their own birth, offer insights for birth workers, or allow listeners to reflect on their own birth experiences. Tune in to hear real, personal, raw birth stories. Available on all major podcast platforms. This podcast is in seasons; during an active season, episodes will be released weekly.
Swiss Birth Stories
S02E03 Marie: What Happens When You Listen- A Journey Through Movement and Motherhood
Marie's resources are available at the end of this description- including a discount for her online prenatal yoga series!
What happens when careful preparation meets the unpredictable reality of childbirth? Marie, an American yoga and fitness instructor living in Switzerland, takes us on her journey from visualization to adaptation as she welcomes her daughter at Spital Lachen in Canton Schwyz.
Marie's story begins with perfect timing. A five-week yoga teacher training in Bali while her Swiss husband was deployed, creating ideal conditions for her body to be "ready to receive" when they reunited. After experiencing a chemical pregnancy months earlier, Marie approached conception with intentionality, even manifesting a dream of a positive pregnancy test the very morning she discovered she was pregnant.
Drawing on her decade of yoga experience, Marie navigated pregnancy by deeply listening to her body's changing needs. "Movement was still prioritized," she explains, "it just started to look really different." From first-trimester naps between teaching classes to modified third-trimester practices when pelvic pain limited her mobility, Marie embodied the balance between activity and rest. This wisdom inspired her to create "Empowered Pregnancy," a series of accessible yoga videos for expectant mothers.
Though Marie had visualized a peaceful water birth, her actual delivery required quick adaptation when her baby's heart rate began dropping during contractions. The medical team discovered her umbilical cord was unusually short, necessitating a vacuum-assisted birth. "My biggest fears going into labor were having to have a C-section, getting cut, and the epidural needle," Marie shares candidly. "And I experienced two out of the three." Yet through breathing techniques learned in hypnobirthing and her husband's steady presence, she remained grounded even as plans changed.
The most profound insight from Marie's journey comes from the yogic concept of "sankalpa"—a heartfelt intention stated as if already true. For months before conceiving, she affirmed "I am a mom" during meditations. "I feel like I spoke that into existence," she reflects, tears welling up. "What we truly desire desires us too... It doesn't always look the way that we think it will, but it always turns out better than we would have imagined."
Marie's Resources:
Follow her on social media: @swipedbyaswiss
Empowered Pregnancy: A prenatal yoga series. This is the yoga series that I filmed during pregnancy and hope to help other pregnant women feel empowered in moving their bodies throughout pregnancy. 5chf off to your listeners using code SWISSBIRTH in the Twint message.
Physio mentioned in the episode: Sara Polo IG @saramphysio.ch
Marie's birth playlists (click for spotify link): 1 and
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Hi, welcome to Swiss Birth Stories. I'm Julia Neal, mother, perinatal educator, hypnobirthing coach and trainee doula.
Speaker 1:And I'm Christina Bliven. I'm a doula, baby-wearing consultant, childbirth educator and mother of three. Today we're talking to Marie, a yoga and fitness instructor, who gave birth to her daughter in Spital Lachen in Kanton Schwyz. She talks about how she prepared before and during pregnancy, through movement and rest, listening to what her body needed at each stage. She used visualizations and deep breathing, as well as the support of her partner, to get through labor, and was able to come back to these grounding techniques when she felt herself start to panic.
Speaker 2:Hi Marie Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 2:We are so, so, so happy to have you here. Could you, before we begin, talk about yourself and a little bit about your family?
Speaker 3:Sure, my name is Marie Brandelise, I am American and I've been in Switzerland. It'll be four years this July 2025, since I moved here to be with my Swiss husband and we've been married. It'll be five years in December and we just had our first baby girl in February. So she's four and a half months now and just the light of our lives.
Speaker 1:And then maybe we'll jump right into to pregnancy and maybe even kind of how did you know you guys were ready for kids? And then how did the pregnancy go?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So originally I think we thought we'd try to get pregnant after being married for I don't know two years or so. But my husband is actually in the Swiss army and he was offered an opportunity for a deployment, and the opportunity was for him to go as soon as possible or in five years. And we thought, well, in five years we hope there's little ones running around, so why not as soon as possible? So that was last year, 2024. It was just a six-month deployment and so we thought, okay, when he gets back in October, that's when we'll try.
Speaker 3:And when he left to go on his deployment, I actually went to Bali for five weeks for my 300 hour yoga teacher training. So I've been teaching yoga for over 10 years and now I'm a full-time yoga and fitness instructor in Zurich. And so I thought you know what my husband's leaving? I wouldn't do this otherwise, just go somewhere for a month. So I went and did that and I feel like it was just the universe colliding, because, uh, I didn't drink for a month, and not that I'm like someone who drinks every week. Uh, I'm definitely more of a social drinker, um, but I ate really well. I did yoga every day, which I do yoga most days anyways, but it was just a lot of yoga and I did a lot of like emotional releasing, spiritual releasing, physical, and I feel like when I came home my body was just like ready. And so when I came home he was actually home for two weeks and we got pregnant.
Speaker 3:And to kind of backtrack a little bit, we actually had first tried back in January or February and I ended up first try with a chemical pregnancy. So I had like four positive pregnancy tests, but I just had this, this feeling of uncertainty. And so when I wasn't pregnant, um, it luckily was only a few days after my miss period, so I wasn't in a place of like having so many thoughts and dreams and hopes about this baby and it took me months to really realize that I did have a lot of heartbreak and sadness from it. But then to have time to like let my body heal and go through what I needed to go through, my body was just ready to receive. And so I found out I was pregnant in June, just a few days after my missed period. I just had this feeling and I actually, the morning I found out I was pregnant, right before I woke up, I had a vision at the end of my dream of a positive pregnancy test. It was just so crazy I don't have visions on the regular, just to be clear and it was 6.30 in the morning.
Speaker 3:I woke up, I called my husband, knowing he'd be awake, and we FaceTimed. I took the test and I was pregnant. I just had this feeling. But then I was still shocked, of course. Um, cause when something you've dreamt of literally your whole life happens, it's emotional. So, um, that was really special. And because he was gone, my very best friend was staying with me for five weeks and I was like there's no way I can keep this from her. So she found out a couple hours later and then no one knew, for until 13 weeks is when we told our families, because he was home from deployment for two weeks. So we got to tell everybody. And then again we kept it pretty secret from work and all of that for a few more weeks and started really telling people around that 15, 17 week mark.
Speaker 2:Did you continue to have interesting or different kinds of dreams than you would normally have in your first trimester? It tends to be when this is, but it can be further on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I definitely did. The thing is I am already a dreamer, maybe not every night, but a lot of nights. Like right now, I can think of two dreams I had this week, but I don't know what dream I had last night. Of two dreams I had this week and it wasn't, but I don't know what dream I had last night and, um, but these were my dreams were probably like a little bit more wild and I will say I had three dreams about whether she was a boy or a girl. Two, she was a girl and the last one she was a boy.
Speaker 3:So it totally threw me off and, uh, we didn't find out the gender till 21 weeks, because that was when my husband was coming home from deployment and the doctor was looking, I think at 17 weeks, and couldn't see because of where she was moving. And I thought that was so much better, because it would have killed me to know that someone else knew for over a month before I knew. So, yeah, I'm like, okay, I'm pretty sure I'm having a girl and everyone's telling me I think it's a boy because we all have my husband and I, um, have biological, uh, brothers, and um, yeah, so everyone thought it was a boy and I just knew in my gut it was a girl. So now I think well, the second one was that a boy coming in and that'll be my second one. Oh, maybe that's what that was. Yeah, so I definitely did have those vivid dreams. I can't recall any in particular, but I just remember waking up feeling like I lived in like a Tom Cruise movie.
Speaker 2:You lived four lives while you were asleep. Yeah, they can be really vivid. And then how did the rest of your pregnancy go? And preparation for birth, yeah.
Speaker 3:I would say I had a fairly smooth pregnancy first trimester. So much nausea. So much nausea. I was eating pasta with like butter and cheese and salt and vinegar chips and then sour candy. And I was asking my doctor I'm like, is this okay? I'm not getting much protein right now? And she's like, as long as it's in moderation.
Speaker 3:And I will say that I did start to go more vegetarian at the beginning of the year. It was just something that, like me, just wasn't really sitting well with me. And then when I went to Bali and Indonesia and seeing all the animals there, yeah, I just I felt like I just didn't want to eat meat. So I have been essentially vegetarian, more pescatarian, for quite some time, for a year and a half I guess now. So prioritizing protein after I got out of that first trimester was definitely my challenge, because I wanted to make sure that I was getting all the nutrients that I needed.
Speaker 3:And I'm very active. So I teach classes and do one-on-one coaching for a living. But it's all active. So I'm standing, I'm walking around all the time and of course I take breaks to sit when I need. But I'd say my average day is minimum, minimum, 10,000 steps and can usually vary between 15 and 20,000 steps. And then I try to do my own yoga or take a class and reformer Pilates or other strength training workouts, whether it's 20 minutes at home. But then some days I just couldn't do anything and I really just had to honor my body in that time.
Speaker 3:And first trimester was really about surviving and I'm like, okay, I just need to keep moving.
Speaker 3:And the days that I felt good, I tried to maximize, and the days that I really felt called to rest, I rested. I will tell you, I became the nap queen and there's an app that I love and maybe you guys know it called Insight Timer and it's a meditation app essentially, and they have power naps on there and I was already using Insight Timer, but they have 20 and 30 minute power naps and let me tell you, I would take naps on this tiny little two seater couch in the back of the studio for 20 to 30 minutes because I was just so tired in the first trimester. And then, when second trimester came around, I would say it was more like closer to 14, 15 weeks when I really started to feel better, where I just felt like this fire was lit underneath me and I felt like a superwoman, where I could do anything, and so it was more than just workouts. It was like decluttering and organizing and nesting, I guess, and meeting up with all my friends.
Speaker 2:Julia here. It's my mission over at Happy Day to mentor and support you in creating a pregnancy, birth and postpartum experience that is empowering, holistic and uniquely tailored to your needs. Together, we'll uncover the tools and knowledge you need to thrive with confidence, mindfulness and self-compassion at the core of your journey. That's the reason why I offer my three hallmark courses to parents in person in the Zurich area and online. They are Hypnobirthing Plus Mindful Postpartum Preparation and Hypnobirthing for Planned Cesarean Birth. Check out my website, happydayhypnobirthingch or Instagram at happydaybumpsbabesbeyond for more details, useful content and support. Now on to this week's Swiss birth story.
Speaker 3:So I would say, like the first two weeks of third trimester, I had second trimester vibes going and then all of a sudden it was like going down and then it was all about doing the bare minimum, but movement was still prioritized. It just started to look really different. Probably around 30, 32 weeks I had really intense pelvic pain and lunges were not happening. I could not do a cycle class. I was definitely limited in my movements but I tried to continue to do what felt good and the biggest thing I did was listen to my body. I didn't over push myself, but then I also pushed myself when I needed to, because just laying on the couch and doing nothing, ultimately I felt like I would have felt worse. So I just felt like I needed to keep moving and sometimes moving was just teaching my classes or just going for a walk.
Speaker 3:And for someone who prioritizes movement which you know, that's outside of me, even teaching fitness for a living it's always been a really important part of my life. I just needed to do what I could and my body told me when to stop. And I think listening was the biggest thing. And I thought I'd have all these questions in pregnancy, even after doing like my prenatal training. Hey gal, I thought, oh, I need to ask my doctor if I could do this, if I could do that. But really my body told me everything and listening to my body was my superpower. So that really helped me to continue to move. And sometimes that looked like a nap instead of a planned workout, sometimes it was a workout instead of a nap and it all just kind of worked out.
Speaker 3:So while I was doing that, my own workouts and my own yoga flows at home and in studio. I decided to start my own prenatal pregnancy yoga program so I call it Empowered Pregnancy because I truly felt empowered to continue to move and I wanted to create something that was really accessible, where people could press play for 15 minutes because they had low back pain and they wanted to feel better. And the truth is low back pain, pubic pain if you have it, it's not going to go away in pregnancy. Like physio helps, of course, I'm so grateful I did that. Yoga helps. I'm so grateful I kept moving, but there's still going to be an element of discomfort. But there are ways to make it manageable, I guess.
Speaker 3:So I recorded some classes about 10 while I was pregnant in hopes of sharing that practice with other women so they feel empowered on their journey and inspired to keep moving, Especially towards the end. It can be rather challenging. So I did some yin classes where you really don't have to move a lot, you just lay in a stretch and it still feels really good. And that's movement too, right? Self-care looks different for everybody, but ultimately I'm glad that I just kept moving in one way or another and that really helped me to reduce swelling.
Speaker 3:I barely I was able to wear my wedding ring my entire pregnancy. I did definitely collect water the last few weeks, but ultimately I'm really happy with my journey and glad I had the knowledge I had before and I continue to ask questions during my pregnancy, lean on other women, moms, group chats for support, and I just learned a lot by listening to my body and listening when it said to stop listening to, when it said to keep going. It's said to keep going and yeah, because I will also say that social media can be really empowering and uplifting, but it could also be. There's a dark side to it and especially, I think I struggled with a little bit of guilt for having, like, a very healthy pregnancy. Um, and I had to turn off social media at one point because I'm like this isn't serving me. And then there's, you know, all these things that could happen. Of course there's risks at all times, but, um, listening to to my body was my superpower at at the end.
Speaker 1:So Listening to my body was my superpower at the end. That's really, really insightful, and not only to your body. As far as you know, a lot of people feel really tired at the end of pregnancy, but to realize that there are different types of tired. There's the I need to rest and the I am tired, but if I do a little bit of movement I will feel better than if I spend the entire day on the couch 100%. And the mental aspect of this amount of information and the source of information is good, is positive. And now it's too much and I need it.
Speaker 3:Yeah and yeah. There's definitely such thing as over consuming. I mean not just in pregnancy, any aspect of life, but especially in pregnancy when hormones are raging and it's easy to compare.
Speaker 1:How did you know that things were starting when it was time to give birth?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I will say that I did acupuncture for birth preparation. So I started at 36 weeks and at my last appointment at 39 weeks, I said, okay, I'm ready. It was a Friday, so I taught my last class on Wednesday which was my due date was the following Thursday. So I thought, okay, I'm going to have one week of sick leave. I feel like it's my first baby. She's going to come late. Then I'm going to have two weeks and also, and I will say, I had a winter baby. So I was just really afraid of being on the couch for weeks if I went on sick leave way too early and I knew if I just like taught some classes, that would be enough movement. So I went in for acupuncture. I said, okay, I'm ready. I did like an hour and a half of curb walking that day. I did acupuncture and when every time I did acupuncture, I did a hypnobirthing meditation with the insight timer and my husband and I did do a hypnobirthing birth preparation course, which was amazing. So that was on Friday.
Speaker 3:The midwife said go eat something spicy. So we went to have pizza and I had the chili sauce on it, chili oil on it, and then, saturday, we went for a really long walk for like an hour, nothing. And then Saturday night, sunday morning, at 2 am, I woke up and I thought I had to go to the bathroom. I'm like, oh, my goodness, my stomach hurts, like I just have really bad indigestion and couldn't go to the bathroom. And then I was lying in bed awake for 45 minutes and I'm like, wait, I think something's happening, because I had my contraction app that I had just downloaded like three days before, and so I was timing these waves because it took me a while it took me almost an hour to realize that I was having any of these waves. And then they're about three minutes apart and then two minutes apart. So that was at 2 AM.
Speaker 3:When it started at 4 30, I called the hospital, um, just to kind of get some direction. My water hadn't broke or anything, but I was starting to get in pain and I had my yoga ball in the living room on my yoga mat. I was just stretching my low back because my low back hurt the worst, and the midwife said okay, why don't you just come in, we'll check you. Best case scenario you get to go home. And, mind you, I had been visualizing that the second, I get to the hospital, they're going to measure me. I'm like five centimeters dilated. So I get, I walk in and I'm like I felt like I'm walking like an ape, like I can't walk straight. I'm just like legs wide barely making it. I'm like we're taking the elevator, we're not taking these stairs up one floor. And she does the check. She measures me Okay, you're one centimeter dilated, I'm like. So she's like okay, well, you could go home or you could stay here where we have all these materials, medication, whatever you need. And I had been visualizing.
Speaker 3:I said I wanted a water birth. When we met with the midwife a few weeks prior, I just wanted this like really holistic, peaceful experience and I had no idea how painful birth was going to be. And I'm one centimeter dilated. I'm like I need something right now. So, and I decided to stay at the hospital. She gave me a suppository that came out very quickly and at that point I was like going to the bathroom, puking multiple times. And so they're like Okay, do you want to get in the bath? I said, nope, bath does not sound good, water does not sound good. So I just want a yoga ball and a yoga mat. So they put me in the birthing suite and which is where I had actually had my acupuncture, I think, at least two times. So I already had really good vibes there, which I highly recommend if you do uh, if anyone does acupuncture for birth preparation to do it at your hospital, because they usually put you in a room that is not being used but it's like a birthing room or pre birthing room.
Speaker 2:But to ask before you do that, because some hospitals have their acupuncture in a separate building. Some of them don't have it on the maternity ward. Ask that question and that's really really really good. Good, good, good tip. But some of them don't have that available.
Speaker 3:That is really cool that yours did. Yeah, I gave birth in a smaller local hospital, so I'm sure that might be why. But yeah, just from a mental perspective, I feel like that really helped me.
Speaker 2:Totally. I always like part of visualizing your birth space and being comfortable in the space is about seeing it beforehand. And, since COVID, most hospitals don't actually let you go and see the birth ward. This is really, really, really important. So even just having photos or asking questions, and maybe you go for your checkup at whatever week and you say, hey, could I go and see? And sometimes they'll be like, yeah, totally, a room is available. Just ask if you can go and see, because it's no longer standard in a lot of birth spaces in a lot of hospitals. I'd say, and that's really a shame, because then you get there and everything feels foreign and that's not the, that's not the state of mind you need to be in when you're giving birth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had the. We would have had the opportunity to see the birthing suite at the hospital information night, but they only have two. Uh, or sorry. They have three or four rooms but only two bathtubs, and they were in use during the information night. So they said, if you want to come back, you can make an appointment and come back.
Speaker 3:So, um, in the end I'm really glad that I had positive affirmations in that space. Um, so I was on my yoga ball and two or three weeks before I gave birth, my physio invited my husband to come in and she showed us some positions for him to help me. So, for example, like him holding a towel underneath my belly and lift it and I'm on all fours, and him lifting me up to help release some of that weight basically from my low back and pelvis. Excuse me, that was really amazing and I'll have to write in the show notes. My physio, her name is Sarah. She's at Spital Horgan, so not where I gave birth, but also not far and very close to the city as well. Highly recommend her she has a great Instagram.
Speaker 2:If you don't live in the region, she has a really good Instagram, so that would be really really great. Put that. We'll put that down there.
Speaker 3:Yes, so, and she specializes in women's health, pelvic floor. She only works with um, like prenatal and postpartum women and pelvic floor. So, uh, highly recommend, and my husband was very happy to help me in my birthing positions. The other big thing that I brought with me into the birthing suite was a speaker. The hospital had, I think, a speaker with some music, but it wasn't for me, so I just had my playlist ready to go and I'm happy to share one with you guys because I really, yeah, I really loved it, and now, every time I hear it, I just have good memories, painful ones, but they're overpowered by the good, for sure. So I got to the hospital.
Speaker 3:Contraction started at two. I got to the hospital at five and then I was one centimeter, and then, I want to say, about every hour and a half, I was dilating another centimeter, and my midwife was amazing. She spoke English. I understand way more German than I can speak, but let me tell you, and I'm sure you can relate, that when you're in these intense moments, the last thing you can do, want to do, is like think about, about translating in your head. So and my husband is Swiss, so that made any sort of issue not an issue, um, if we couldn't communicate.
Speaker 3:But my midwife was, um, it was just so amazing, and every time she was in the room and I had a contraction, she was supporting me, along with my husband, um, and so all of a sudden, I don't remember what time it was, but I was three centimeters last she checked, and then, all of a sudden, I don't remember what time it was, but I was three centimeters last she checked, and then, all of a sudden, I was eight centimeters and she's up there. Then my water broke, and I can't tell you if she broke my water, if it just kind of like broke on its own. There was a little bit of fruit water in there. So, um, that was a little bit like at top of mind for a slight concern, um, but overall, meconium, you mean like a little bit of baby poop, or yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the water was like a little green, um. So there were a couple of times when our heart rate was dropping and then they had to, um, like adjust medication for, to like what is it with oxytocin? To like make the contraction slow down? Um or speed up, I can't remember, but um. So my doctor, who I saw my entire pregnancy, delivered my baby, but she was like on call, so she wasn't coming till the very end. So the doctor that was on call at the hospital and the midwife were in charge of keeping my doctor updated and at whatever time I can't remember, they told me they said okay, your doctor is going to be here, we just have to. She's here today, she's not out of town, so we're just keeping her updated because she lives close by. So that immediately made me feel more at ease as well, cause I I also feel, at least in Zurich that's not very common for doctors to deliver babies like the doctor you see all the time. So that was something that was important to me and I'm really lucky that I found that and she, the practice. The practice is a four minute walk from where I live, so it all worked out very well.
Speaker 3:And so, all of a sudden I was eight centimeters and before I was eight centimeters I had laughing gas, which was amazing. Mentally, physically it didn't do much. My husband was on call for every contraction to like press into my low back. I could not lay on my back. My back was just like the most painful part of the whole birthing experience and I remember so clearly having thoughts of like I understand why people schedule C-sections. I do. I have no judgment because you know exactly what to expect. I'm like of course there's recovery, but you don't go through this whole like labor process and I think that one of my biggest fears going into labor was that I would get to 10 centimeters dilated and have to have a c-section or, you know, go through all of this work, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that has that fear.
Speaker 3:I also had a fear of scissors, of getting cut, and then I had the fear of an epidural needle. Those are my three biggest fears going into birth. And so at eight centimeters I said I want the epidural and water birth went out the window. And it was meant to be that way for a reason, and I'll get there in a second. But the anesthesiologist came in, put in the epidural. I had seen pictures of this needle on social media and I was just terrified of it. But the truth is, a knife to my back would have felt better than the pain I was experiencing. So I was like I don't care. I didn't even look at it. She put it in, she said, okay, it'll be about 30 minutes, 30 minutes, nothing happens. The midwife calls her, she gives me a bigger dose, nothing happens. An hour later. And the whole thing is I wanted to sleep because I had been up since 2 AM and I was just so exhausted and it was, I mean, 11 am at this point, so not terrible and I ended up giving birth at 1.42. So my total labor, from when I woke up at 2 am to giving birth at 1.42 was just under 12 hours. But so in the end the anesthesiologist had to come back. She had to reinsert the needle because, also, since I couldn't lay on my back, the medicine was going kind of side to side. So it hit.
Speaker 3:Just at push time my doctor came in. She said she measured me. She's like okay, you're 10 centimeters dilated. I'm pretty sure she was there for less than 10 minutes before I started pushing and so I was pushing you might be able to hear little baby in the background right now but um, yes, exactly. And um, I started pushing and her heart rate was declining in the birth canal and, as you know, when you push so you have a contraction, you push and then the contraction stops so you relax and automatically the baby's going to go a little bit back into the birth canal and she was going back in a little bit more than we would have liked. And again, her heart rate was dropping and so German is being spoken. I'm not even paying attention, but I did hear like or my C-section was mentioned and they're like okay, we need to get this baby out because her heart rate's dropping, we're going to use a vacuum.
Speaker 3:And the first thought out of my head was is my baby going to have a comb head and I don't even think they knew what I meant. My husband was like it's going to be fine, she gets out the vacuum. Then, at the same time, the doctor on call my doctor is using the vacuum. The midwife and anesthesiologist are in the room as well. Then the doctor on call is pushing on my belly during my contraction, which is not something that they like to do.
Speaker 3:They came in and talked to me the next day after the birth just saying like we really needed to get her out. So she came out in like 22 minutes and I want to say the average push time is 30 something minutes. The vacuum was a big help to that. So what we found out in the end was her umbilical cord was actually shorter and that's something that you can't see in ultrasounds. So because her umbilical cord was shorter, during the rest of the contraction she was. Her umbilical cord was basically pulling her back into the birth. Yeah, so that's not something, like I said, that you can see beforehand. So she came out and oh, and right before she came out I saw scissors and my heart rate like shot up and my husband was just like come back and look at me.
Speaker 3:And I will say that during the whole birthing experience I can absolutely see how women can get so feral, like animal, like in this experience because it is so intense and having a partner that brought me back to focus on my breath, that brought me back to what I wanted, made it so much better and so much more calm, because I'm a relatively calm person. I do struggle with a little bit of anxiousness. I'm a relatively calm person. I do struggle with like a little bit of anxiousness, but I'm relatively very calm and I had a lot of uncalm moments. So having a partner that was calm was incredibly important. And there were probably three times he asked me if I wanted him to read me my hypnobirthing meditation and I was like I cannot listen to that right now. Read me my hypnobirthing meditation, and I was like I cannot listen to that right now. So the techniques were great.
Speaker 2:I use the breathing techniques, but we didn't get to the meditative, the meditations, the whole reading, the whole meditation during active labor. For most people is not actually what they want. It's all about the preparation and the little anchors that we get through those meditations and his training and understanding the breath obviously was a game changer for you and that's all. That's all. Hypnobirthing preparation.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I I will say I'm really grateful for that training and I would recommend it to anybody. That was just something that I hoped and thought would happen, but again, it didn't, and that's okay. It totally worked out. So she came out super healthy. He got to cut the umbilical cord.
Speaker 3:Um, she, I think it took her a few moments to cry, but, um, she had a little like scab wound on her head from the vacuum. So it wasn't like a deep cut, but you know, if you like are riding your bike and you fall on the asphalt and you have, like you know, just raw skin, so she had that. And then she ended up having a little scab and if I look really closely right now I can still see it on the back of her head. But I mean, ultimately she's not going to have anything when she, when she grows up.
Speaker 3:So, um, yeah, the doctor stitched me up and then they laid her on my chest and, um, I did ask for a local anesthesia when she was stitching me up because even with the epidural, like, I could still feel it a little bit. And, um, about an hour later, the midwife came in and helped me to go to the bathroom. So I had a walking epidural, which was really nice, where I took a shower, and I did have to have a catheter for the first, like day and night, because the epidural can paralyze, like those muscles, but in the end I'm just glad I didn't have to get out of bed.
Speaker 2:It's actually very convenient. Some women would say yeah.
Speaker 3:I really didn't hate it and I thought I would, but, um, it was great and um, then the next morning they came in and, uh, the midwife came in and then the doctor on call came in just to kind of talk about our birth experience and if we had any questions and just say like we're basically seconds away from a potential C-section, like if she wasn't going to come down. So it really turned into a team effort and it was a few moments of panic in a way. I didn't feel like there was panic in the room, because medical providers go through this all the time, but obviously there are emergencies. So it was something that was a very real discussion and ultimately getting my baby here safe was the number one priority and if it had resulted in a C-section then I would have been able to live with that. I would have had disappointment, I'm sure, but just getting her here safely is the overall goal.
Speaker 3:So it all worked out the way it was supposed to and I even asked my doctor if I had been in the water with having her not like getting kind of stuck in the birth canal what would have happened. She's like you would have come out of the water. So just looping back to that. It all worked out the way it was supposed to and it was important that I stayed flexible, because thinking that you want something and imagining something like I, had a lot of visualizations which really helped. They didn't all come true, but I think that the feeling of like using the breath and the music and essential oils all really helped make the experience better.
Speaker 1:Especially, yeah, having something you can come back to when things aren't going the way you had visualized or the way you had hoped or planned, that you can still keep yourself calm and make decisions going forward.
Speaker 3:And I don't know if it's like this in the U S. I really don't think it is from my friends I've talked to, but I really liked that. A couple of weeks prior we had a meeting with the Habame at the hospital and went over our birth plans and I just again, there's so much that happens in labor where it's not that you don't think clearly, you just can't think too deeply because you're just trying to get through the moment, Each moment. It's like okay, one more minute, one more minute, one more minute, over and over again, and to have to like think about big decisions, it just it shouldn't be the case and so basically, kind of having the plan and then the backup plan and then having everybody know that gave me a sense of security and safety and like feeling empowered where everyone was on the same page.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that is really important. I think for some people that appointment catches them off guard because they I think the communication occasionally isn't very clear with what this appointment is for. It's usually 36 weeks, maybe 35 or 37, but, um, this appointment happens. You meet your midwives um, usually up on the birthing floor, but sometimes still not, depending on where you go. And that is where you you do present to them your wishes, and it's okay to have wishes, it's good to have wishes, yeah, and to have this discussion with them.
Speaker 2:But some people go to this appointment unprepared for it. They don't really know that that's what it's for and it kind of catches them off guard. And then they make their birth plan sort of after, after, yeah, and then this can not cause necessarily issues, but maybe a little bit of feeling of, yeah, disconnection or wondering if people have read or understood what you want, because it's not the time to be rationally thinking, it's not the time to be engaging that part of your brain, to have these deep conversations about all the risks, all the benefits, all the alternatives. Sometimes you can get a little bit in there, but you can't really have that and the partner, of course, can take on quite a lot of that discussion, but it's great to be entering into your birth space knowing that at least something is out there in the ether of the space, that they know you and what you want and what your wishes are.
Speaker 1:Hi, I'm Christina, a doula, baby wearing consultant, childbirth educator and mother of three. I'm the owner of Lilybee, a family hub in Zurich where you can find resources, community and support in English as you begin your journey into parenthood. It takes a village. Find yours here.
Speaker 3:Oh, I will also say, during birth we kept saying we wanted to have lunch with Addison, lunch with the baby, lunch with the baby, and then we're like late lunch with the baby, late lunch with Addison. So yeah, when she came at 142, we had lunch around like three and I was so hungry because I literally had gotten rid of everything and, as I'm sure you remember, the end of pregnancy heartburn and indigestion is also a very challenging part. And so, um, yeah, when I was going into labor, basically like my whole meal from dinner was like there. So which?
Speaker 2:is why the spicy food recommendation is risky. Yeah, but yeah, this is a, this is a an experience that many, if not most, women have. And then, usually directly after you've given birth, your, your stomach has at least a little bit more space to hold content. So that first meal just not only are you starving and thirsty, right, sometimes you really only keeping just minimal fluids, um, it just feels so good that first meal yes and uh, I just ate like.
Speaker 3:I think it was like mashed potatoes and bread.
Speaker 2:Oh, so good bet it was the best mashed potatoes and bread you ever had yeah, um.
Speaker 3:And so about an hour after I had hers, before I took a shower, um, they came in to draw her blood, to measure her feet and then to latch her to me for the first time for breastfeeding, and I was really, really fortunate that I collected quite a bit of colostrum before pregnancy or before I gave birth, so that's something that I would also recommend. It was challenging and it hurt, especially the first couple of times. I watched YouTube a few times. It is not glamorous like sitting on the couch without a shirt on, squeezing your boobs into a tiny little like test tube type thing. Literally, I was squeezing my husband's gathering.
Speaker 2:The technique is also not the same as like hand expressing mature milk colostrum. There is a, there is a like, a technique to it, and it is. It can be really really, really tricky and there's something when you're, when you're collecting mature milk, there's a release that you feel, like you usually you're engorged when you do it, and so it feels really productive and and it usually happens quite quickly. You're engorged when you do it, and so it feels really productive and and it usually happens quite quickly.
Speaker 2:Colostrum you're talking like one milliliter per depending on some women it takes them half an hour for one milliliter. Some it takes multiple days for one milliliter and it's a very different technique. Um, it can feel very demoralizing.
Speaker 3:Really. Yeah, I honestly, after doing it the first time I was like I don't think I can continue to do this. But then the second time I did it I think I did it the first time after a shower but then the second time I like had also like warm compresses, because after you shower you dry off. It's like you know there's some time, some time in between, and then it became easier, still not comfortable, but in the end knowing that I was like doing something that could be really good for my baby was important. So I'm really grateful I did that because that really helped start my milk production. But what I feel like no one talks about and I think it is a different experience for everyone, but when she latched it causes contractions of the uterus and she latched very quickly. She had a strong vacuum very quickly, which we're very fortunate of, but it hurt so bad, not even from a nipple perspective for the first latch. It was like I felt like I was in labor again.
Speaker 2:You often need to employ the same breathing techniques from labor postpartum and it is nature's design because it shrinks your uterus down so that this wound from the placenta no longer stays the same size and it really but it is. It can be really fast. Some women experience them like you, like really really intense. Um, others don't have it quite so intense, but you often.
Speaker 3:Yeah, do you need to use those tools from labor and that I can be really mean, if no one's told you that before. Yeah, I mean, I was doing a lot of like inhale, big exhale, but that ultimately ended up being our introduction to using a pump and because then I could control. That was the next day, but I could control everything because the first night I just had some colostrum anyways, but really the second day my milk came in and it came in very quickly and, um, yeah, but I had enough colostrum where we actually left the hospital with our frozen syringes from that we had brought in.
Speaker 2:And then how? How was the rest of the postpartum experience at the hospital? How did you feel treated?
Speaker 3:And then leading into, yeah, the rest of your journey at home, sure, so I don't think I mentioned this, but I gave birth at Shpital Lachen, so it's on the silver coast of Lake Zurich, like Obersay area. So Canton Shvits and it's a smaller hospital, so Canton Spieth and it's a smaller hospital. But we knew we wanted to try to get a family room. But, as I think it is in every hospital, family rooms are first come, first serve. So you can't reserve one because maybe, unless you're having a scheduled C-section, I don't know. So we were able to get one. They only had one actual family room, but they were able to take a normal room and bring in the two beds and make it a family room and charge us for it and from an insurance perspective it was also the best thing that we did because it was less expensive than doing the half private.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's often cheaper to have a family room than to upgrade your insurance, because there's other perks that kind of come in when you upgrade your insurance. But for you that might not necessarily be important, because really all you want, if all you want is to be with your partner in the postpartum, then upgrading to half private is very, very, very expensive. But this does depend a lot on your hospital. Some hospitals like a thousand francs a night.
Speaker 3:For others it's 180 francs a night. It really depends. Yeah, I think for us it was 250 a night plus meals, or 200 a night, something like that. But anyways, from the insurance we had, we got money when I gave birth and I think that money was meant to cover additional costs basically. So we weren't at a loss and even if we didn't get money from insurance, we would have paid it in a second.
Speaker 3:Um, I will say, the day after I gave birth, all of a sudden the rooms were full and, um, yeah, I'm just glad I didn't have to share and having my partner there where we could help. Um, everyone was incredibly nice, I will say. In the maternity ward there were a few less English speakers, but it was more in like the technicians than in the midwives. Um, I felt like we were treated really well. The food was really good. I guess my complaint would be that it was February and there was no sun, but it was also like a special bubble to be in when it's just like really cozy and cold, Because I always get the fear of missing out when the sun is out and I have to be inside all day. So I told my husband I want to have a winter baby again. But yeah, the food was really good. I felt really nourished At one point. They're like you're not getting any more tea because the tea is supposed to help with producing milk. They're like no more tea for you. Your boobs are rocks.
Speaker 2:Oh, so good. I was speaking with a lactation consultant about this and I was like, yeah, on the maternity wards you just get these pictures of lactation supporting tea with galactagogues in it. And she was like, oh no, that could go really wrong because you could be inducing an oversupply. So it's really good that they noticed in you. Oh, you don't need this, it's time to switch to water.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so lots of hydration, and also I took every single pain medication they gave me. I'm like you know what, every time I was in pain when I was pregnant I didn't have anything. So I will take everything you'll give me, which is nothing crazy, um, and so I did have to have a few stitches, um, because of the cutting and with the vacuum and everything to give birth. So that was something that, after the epidural wore off, I definitely started to feel that and had a lot of discomfort. We said no gas the first day. So she arrived at 2 pm essentially, and my mother-in-law actually works in the hospital that I gave birth in. She wasn't working on a Sunday, but it worked out for her to come Monday after work at five o'clock and meet us.
Speaker 3:I think for the next one we'll do that again, where we have no visitors, because there's just the way a woman's body feels, like my body felt just so many things going on, so much blood, so much pain, so much everything, um, and also my family's not here. I think that if my mom was here, then maybe that would have been a little bit different. Um, I would have felt comfortable with that and while I do like love my in-laws and of course I wanted them to be the first to meet our baby. It just it felt better to be just us those first few hours, and there's so much learning and there's no sort of schedule and babies it takes months for them to know, day from night. So the first night the midwife actually took her for like three or four hours so we could get some sleep, which was amazing. But then every morning at like clockworks, we're there for three nights. At seven or seven thirty, someone would come in saying that they needed to like do some tests or check something or whatever. And since not everyone was speaking English, I'm like, oh, my God, this is like great German lesson and I'm my German's not terrible either. Um, it's just the way your brain functions.
Speaker 3:Postpartum is different than pre-pregnancy, than even pregnancy and are. You're just kind of in this big fog. So it definitely had me alert very early in the morning after not sleeping a lot, and we were just constantly on YouTube or my husband was to find exercises for indigestion and to get her to like digest her milk better, because it seemed that she definitely had. She wasn't colicky, but just needed to pass things. You're doing great. So, um, yeah, it was overall just like a really positive experience. We would do it the exact same way again. Um, we probably could have done with one night less, but the way it worked with the vaccine, but for um, oh my god, what is?
Speaker 3:the genetic yes, no, it's like not whooping cough but something virus rsv yes, rsv.
Speaker 3:So she needed the antibody shot and babies have to be over 24 hours old to get it, and so the doctor, the pediatrician, is only there Monday, wednesday, friday at the hospital I was at. So on Monday she wasn't 24 hours old, so then that's why we had to stay through Wednesday, so we did three nights. Two nights would have been fine if it worked out better that way, but yeah, just a really positive, lovely experience. I felt really taken care of as well.
Speaker 1:It's wonderful. And then, when you got back home, uh, did you have family at that point, or was it just you guys?
Speaker 3:So my mother-in-law lives about 10 minutes away, but my family was not here and, with my mom being in California, she couldn't take off enough time for it to really be a good stay at that time, just because of the way things worked out. So she came actually just a couple weeks ago. So so end of May, beginning of June, for two weeks and I ended up actually booking a spontaneous trip and taking a 10 week old baby to California back in April. So yeah, to sum it up, we didn't have like someone coming over all the time, but I did have some things in the freezer that I pre-made two days before I gave birth, thinking I had all this extra time. So that was incredibly helpful and I feel like having two people for the first three weeks, my husband had three weeks off. That really helped as well.
Speaker 3:So I never felt like I couldn't take a shower or I couldn't be fed. Of course, things would get delayed or things would take longer and I would sit in my filth for longer, but I wasn't. I never felt too overwhelmed, if that makes sense. So, and we just made really easy meals too, and even though I was kind of waddling around and things were really sore. We're also in a small apartment so there were no stairs to walk up and down. Like I wasn't moving a lot the first few days and then I think it was the fourth day I was home. We went for our first walk, but it was very short and I think we went to the grocery store and because of the stitches I just had to be really careful. Like, when we go on a walk we usually go by the train station so we have to go like on a ramp or down a ramp. It's not so steep, but you feel it when you have stitches or when your pelvic floor isn't fully what it was. So my husband would push the stroller and that was really helpful, um, as well.
Speaker 3:So the biggest things that helped me postpartum when I came home were having like I'd breakfast burritos ready, uh, in the freezer, um, so that was like two minutes in the microwave, one minute, and air fryer done, ready to go, um, I didn't have time to prepare like three big meals so each day.
Speaker 3:So I would say I had more kind of like snack, healthy snacks available, um, and then I had some stuff in the freezer for dinner and then like maybe people brought us stuff. I had a friend come and make us dinner, which was really nice, but doing a tag team was really helpful as well. And for the feedings my husband would feed, do the last feed around between 10 and midnight and I'd go to bed at like 10 because I was doing a mix of pumping and breastfeeding and then in the middle of the night I would breastfeed her and then he would take her in the morning, or sometimes I'd breastfeed her and pump her because I was so engorged, so then there'd be enough milk in the morning where my husband could feed her and I could sleep longer. So I essentially was still getting about eight hours. It was just broken up into two four hour chunks and so having a plan, that plan made a lot of things go a little bit easier. Where we weren't both super tired, we were both able to get sleep.
Speaker 2:And have you been making enough milk that after you give a feed you pump a little bit excess and then you put it in the freezer? Is that how sort of the schedule is working for you guys?
Speaker 3:That's how it was working. Yeah, we're four and a half months now and she started refusing the boob about three weeks ago and we're kind of going through like she preferred the bottle for a few weeks before that, but then I like went away for one night and also she was preferring the boob in the morning and three days a week I work really early, so I have I would have to pump and then I went away for one night and after that she just would not take the boob. So I'm exclusively pumping which is sucking my soul a little bit more than I would like to admit pumping four to five times a day and I'm pumping about 800 milliliters and she drinks now about 900. So we just started introducing one formula bottle a day and not to get political here, but I was told that if I went to the pharmacy they would give me formula samples, because I've been told that babies can prefer different formulas over others. So I went to the pharmacy, thought, oh, I'll get some formula samples. And the pharmacist said I'm so sorry, but we can't give you samples until your baby is six months old, because we want to promote breastfeeding.
Speaker 3:And I was like, well, that's funny, because my child started refusing the boob when I went back to work at 14 weeks, which is the mandated maternity leave. So that part felt a little bit backwards, like I think if I had stayed home a little bit longer and wasn't back at work then maybe she'd still be taking my boob a little bit more. But in the end I work three days a week, I'm home two days a week and that balance feels really good to me. So yeah, that's totally fine. I'm just going to bring her into the chat a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll bring her in for the last question, if that's okay. Yes, of course um, oh, she pooped, that's why aha, listeners, you can't see her, but gosh, she's cute.
Speaker 3:Um oh hi sweetie I think you can't smell it either yeah, well, um, yeah, I have memories of that smell.
Speaker 2:uh, so then we'll, we'll just ask you one more question and then you can attend to her diaper. The last question is in this whole process of becoming a mother, what has been your most brilliant moment? That you would say and it's a, it's a question that is intentionally up for your interpretation what would you say is your most brilliant moment interpretation? What would you say?
Speaker 3:is your most brilliant moment, um, I don't know if I can pinpoint like one exact moment, um, actually. So this could come off as really kind of cliche, but um, in a way I do feel like I manifested her um, for probably like a few months before I started getting pregnant, I was taking prenatals because I knew we wanted to start trying and gosh, I'm probably going to cry. But so in yoga, when we set an intention, there's something called our sankalpa. So sankalpa is like a heartfelt intention and it's supposed it's deeper than just like setting a goal, it's something and you write it as an I am statement. So you say I am, as if what you want already exists.
Speaker 3:And so for months, every night before I went to bed, I listened to my Yoga Nidra meditation on my Insight Timer app and it would say okay, set your sinkhole butt. And I would say I am a mom and I did that in my yoga classes as well. Like that I would take and I just feel like then, going on my five week yoga adventure, like my body was just so ready to receive and I know that I can't repeat that to get pregnant again, and so I don't expect I don't have any expectations for getting pregnant again, meaning like I don't think it's just going to be, wave a magic wand and have this happen. And not that I not that. That's how it happened this way. I didn't wave a magic wand. I just felt like I had so much peace, so much clarity, so much joy, so much release, like going into the process of trying that. My body was just like so ready. And then I feel like I spoke that into existence.
Speaker 3:And even now, like when I set my Sankalpa, like I still am a mom, obviously, and I'm still speaking that into existence because I want to be the best version of myself I can for her. But pouring into myself also pours into her. And taking time for myself, and that's something that my husband and I have been really good at. Like he loves tennis and he's part of like an inner club team here, and so I really there's like no question on me taking care of her while he does that. And then if there's a class I really want to go to, it's never an argument, there's never a no. If there's something that I really want to do, excuse me. And now we really have to prioritize and I can't say yes to everything. I have to pick.
Speaker 3:So my, my brilliance continues to be like listening to my intuition and trusting the process, but also like speaking what I want into existence, because I feel like that starts to manifest over time and the universe kind of hears my cry and we're always met where we're at, and I think that what we truly desire desires us too, and that can manifest in different ways. It doesn't always look the way that we think it will, but it always turns out better than we would have imagined. So I saw something on Instagram recently. It was the. What is it? It was like a message from the universe. The detour I sent you was actually an upgrade. And when I think about how we planned to have a family two years ago and then things had to change, or I had a chemical pregnancy, which is technically, I guess, like an early miscarriage, everything just worked out better than I could have imagined, and now I have this little one who's so perfect I could have imagined, and now I have this little one who's so perfect, wow.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, marie.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you for having me, christine and Julia, and I hope that people feel inspired and I really felt supported here in the Swiss healthcare system and I felt like I got everything I needed and a lot of most things were like covered by insurance. Where I know, in the US and particularly, it's like kind of scary because you go to an appointment and then maybe things aren't covered the way that you thought that they were, and so I felt like, yeah, just taken care of and supportive, and if a test was needed then I could do that. I'm really lucky that everything came out like looking normal and actually when my doctor said, ok, see you in four weeks, like I only went once a month, I'm like wait, I thought I was supposed to go like every two weeks, but yeah, everything was just looking good, so that's nice.
Speaker 1:That's what happened, and here we are.
Speaker 3:And here we are.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Swiss Birth Stories. If you enjoyed today's episode, we'd love for you to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an inspiring birth story or expert insight. Your support means the world to us and helps this community grow, so please also take a moment to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback helps us reach even more parents-to-be. Don't forget to share this episode with a friend or loved one who could benefit from it, and be sure to follow us on social media at Swiss Birth Stories for even more tips, resources and updates on upcoming podcast guests, courses and events. We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and birth stories too, so feel free to DM us, fill out the form on our website, swissbirthstoriescom, or tag us in your posts. Until next time, keep sharing, keep learning and keep connecting with each other. Music.
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