I AM ONE Podcast by Postpartum Support International

KAYLEIGH SUMMERS: The Birth Trauma Mama

• Episode 60

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On today’s episode, we’re sitting down with the incredible Kayleigh Summers, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker & friend of PSI. Kayleigh supports folks in the perinatal period especially as it relates to birth trauma - including consultation, therapy, support groups, workshops, a blog, sharing her lived experience at PSI trainings, and a little ‘ol podcast called The Birth Trauma Mama. (In case you didn’t pick up on the sarcasm, there isn’t anything little about Kayleigh’s podcast … at all!) Today, we'll be chatting about the lived experience of an Amniotic Fluid Embolism survivor, which includes vivid details that may feel difficult for some listeners to hear. Please tune in with that knowledge and pause at any point, if you need. We were honored to sit down and record this conversation. So, without further ado, please sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode with our friend, Kayleigh.

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Dani:

Welcome to the I Am One podcast. On today's episode, we're sitting down with the incredible Kayleigh Summers, a licensed clinical social worker and friend of PSI. Kayleigh supports folks in the perinatal period, especially as it relates to birth trauma, including consultation, therapy, support groups, workshops, a blog, sharing her lived experience at PSI trainings, and a little old podcast called The Birth Trauma Mama. And in case you didn't pick up on the sarcasm, there isn't anything little about Kayleigh's podcast... at all. Today we'll be chatting about the lived experience of an amniotic fluid embolism survivor, which includes vivid details that may feel difficult for some listeners to hear. So please tune in with that knowledge and pause at any point if you need. We were honored to sit down and record this conversation. So without any further ado, please sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode with our friend Kayleigh. Kayleigh, welcome to the podcast studio. We are amped to be here with you today for lots of reasons. Number one, I'm quite literally amped because I'm on, um, somehow cup of coffee number three. That was an accident and I am switching to water.

Emily:

Bad decision.

Dani:

Yeah, I know better. The biggest reason we are amped to be here with you today is because all three of us share the same passion for sharing stories. We all know the power of storytelling. We know that storytelling saves lives, and hearing lived experience that somebody shared on a podcast episode was the catalyst for so much change in my life, and that's why I'm here. And so it feels very personal to me too. And so we are here to talk about your story today. Um, one that you share very publicly, which, thank you, thank you, thank you. We need more of that. You share it on a little old website, and blog, and podcast, and and and, called The Birth Trauma Mama. Not sure if anybody's heard of it. Ha ha ha. Spoiler alert, it's not little at all. But before I give everything away, I will stop gushing and just want to say thank you so much for being here with us today.

Kayleigh:

Well, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so grateful. I feel similarly, right? Like the stories that we heard in our darkest hours were the things that got us through. And PSI is absolutely that for me. I feel like there's so little resources available. And as a clinician now and someone who just, like, supports a community, it is so lovely to be like, well, Postpartum Support International has free groups. Postpartum Support International has a directory. Postpartum– So have you heard of Postpartum Support International?

Dani:

Kayleigh, you say that very quickly. It's like it really, really naturally rolls off your tongue. Like you said it a couple times. Oh awesome.

Kayleigh:

Just a few, just a few. And so I'm so grateful, obviously, as someone who's also gone through some of the amazing trainings that they have and have my PMH-C, like it's just a really cool full circle moment to also be here on the podcast and getting to share my story. So thank you both for having me.

Dani:

Yeah.

Emily:

Thanks for carving out some time for us.

Kayleigh:

Always, always.

Dani:

All right. Kayleigh, can you give us a little bit of an introduction to who you are? I already started, but–

Kayleigh:

You did.

Dani:

if you could give a little introduction to who you are, that'd be great.

Kayleigh:

Absolutely. You gave a beautiful introduction. So I'm very appreciative. I feel like I don't have to do much. Um but basically, yeah, I so my name's Kayleigh Summers. I'm a licensed clinical social worker. Um, I'm specialized in perinatal trauma and I own a group practice in Downingtown, Pennsylvania– so right outside the Philadelphia area– that specializes in treating perinatal trauma and supporting families who have experienced perinatal trauma. I also, as you alluded to, run a community called The Birth Trauma Mama. It's for supporting, again, those who have experienced any kind of trauma or even just like challenge, right?

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

In pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. And that has been like a labor of love and one that I am just so, like, honored, honestly, to get to be a part of. I have learned just as much from that community as I feel like they have learned from me. And I always say the beauty of that community isn't necessarily the post that I post. It's the comment section.

Dani:

Oh.

Kayleigh:

Because I can only post, like I'm one singular view. Like, yes, we can post from like the clinical lens and, like, that skill set that I have, but it still is only from one world point of view. And where the, like, beauty and magic is in that space is in those comment sections, is where other people are connecting about their stories and their experiences that are similar.

Dani:

Oh my gosh, that gives me chills. It's like just knowing that you are sharing your one story and that ripple effect of so many other people kind of coming together in community, responding to it, like, in a positive way, it's pretty incredible, so.

Kayleigh:

It's really cool to get to be a part of.

Dani:

Yeah, totally.

Emily:

All right, are we ready? What role, if any, have perinatal mental health disorders played in your life personally, professionally, you know, whatever.

Kayleigh:

All of the above.

Dani:

Gestures vaguely.

Emily:

You're like, yes.

Kayleigh:

Mark it down as a yes to all of that. So it's really interesting. I was a therapist before I experienced birth trauma. I was not, unsurprisingly, um, specialized in perinatal mental health. I actually worked at a boarding school.

Dani:

Oh.

Kayleigh:

I worked and lived there with my husband.

Emily:

Oh my god, did you have on-campus housing?

Kayleigh:

We were dorm heads at a sophomore girls' dorm.

Dani:

Dang!

Emily:

That's so cool! Okay, sorry. Uh, back to your story.

Kayleigh:

Yes. If anyone, so the newest, the newest, um, this is so random, Ellen Hildebrand book. I think that's her name.

Dani:

Oh.

Kayleigh:

She's like the one who always writes about Nantucket.

Dani:

Oh.

Emily:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kayleigh:

Her, she wrote a book with her daughter recently, and her daughter went to the George School, which is a school, a boarding school in my area. My school where I worked, the Hill School, is actually mentioned in that. The reason I'm bringing it up is because reading that book was literally like my life, but of course, like, exaggerated with things that don't make sense and would never happen.

Dani:

Uh-huh. I mean, but it's good writing though.

Kayleigh:

Yes.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

It's such a– it's a very odd world if you've never been a part of it. I did not go to boarding school growing up. And so it was like, anyway, this whole crazy experience and to be a therapist at a boarding school was very interesting as well.

Emily:

Oh, yeah.

Kayleigh:

And so perinatal mental health disorders came into my life when I had my son, right? When I experienced a birth trauma, which we can, of course, talk about. And I was someone who, because I was a therapist, I was incredibly lucky because I knew that something wasn't right. Like I knew that this, I had not heard of birth trauma, even as a therapist. And I wasn't, like, a trauma therapist per se at the time. So I wasn't as familiar with like, I don't know, out-of-the-box trauma, if you will. And so I didn't peg it as that at first, but I knew I needed help. And so I was in a position, of course, with the support of my family as well, to be able to access very specialized support the week that I was discharged from the ICU. So I was in with someone who specialized in perinatal mental health from the get.

Emily:

Wow.

Kayleigh:

And I still struggled, right? So, like, I- and I think that is so important for people to know. I'm someone who is, like, trained in this. I am someone who knows what to look for. I prepared my husband for postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety. I got support at Postpartum Stress Center, which is one of the, like, renowned clinics in the world, And it's like 45 minutes away from where I live. And I had the support. There was no virtual therapy at that time. It was prior to COVID. So I had the support to drive 45 minutes each way to be able to attend that therapy, which is also a massive privilege.

Dani:

Yeah.

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

So there's a lot of pieces there that, like, I had so much support and I still struggled immensely with my experience.

Dani:

Let's go back in time a little bit. How was your pregnancy?

Kayleigh:

My pregnancy was super normal.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. So my husband and I got married. I'll kind of take you through a little bit of the story if that's helpful.

Dani:

Yes.

Emily:

Ooh, story time.

Kayleigh:

Yes, story time. Yay.

Dani:

Spoiler alert. We're on a podcast telling stories. Okay. Yeah. Got an hour?

Kayleigh:

Yeah. So my husband and I were married in late 2017.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

And um, you know, a few months into being married at the boarding school, we decided that we wanted to grow our family. And we were lucky enough to be pregnant by late 2018.

Emily:

So you were like, let's get pregnant. And your body was like, I understand the assignment.

Kayleigh:

Yes. And what's so interesting looking back is there were, like, struggles that now pale in comparison, but are valid struggles. But for me in my timeline, like we did get pregnant the first month, and then I had a really early miscarriage. So what I would call a chemical pregnancy, I'm comfortable using that term for myself. Um, because I wouldn't have even really caught it, I don't think. It would have just seemed like a late period if I wasn't testing.

Emily:

Oh, yeah.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. So then the problem was though, I was like, oh, I mean, that was really sad and hard. And this is easy. Like, let's just go, like next month, I'll just be pregnant again.

Dani:

Uh-huh.

Kayleigh:

So it was six months, which is nothing in comparison to people who struggle with infertility. But I do remember at the time being like, I'm never gonna get pregnant again.

Emily:

Six months feels like a really long time.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

When you're in it, totally. Absolutely. And so we did, again, we had actually initiated fertility treatment because I wasn't ovulating, which was very clear. And then we got very, very lucky and just as we were initiating that, got pregnant on our own.

Dani:

Oh, wow.

Kayleigh:

Yes, by late 2018, we were pregnant. It was the first child on both sides of the family.

Dani:

Oh, are you both the oldest?

Kayleigh:

Um, no, I'm a baby. But my husband, my husband is the oldest, so he's four or five years older than me. So I'm actually closest in age to his youngest sibling. He loves, he loves hearing about that. Um...

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

So I have a brother who's two and a half years older than me.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

But yeah, so first child on both sides, lots of, like, excitement, anticipation. I had a really normal, healthy pregnancy. I really had no concerns except for the fact that I felt like I was growing a very large baby.

Dani:

Oh.

Kayleigh:

I was reassured over and over again by my team that like he was measuring right on track and that I had nothing to worry about, but...

Emily:

Are you, like, a tall person? Is your partner a tall person? We're virtually hanging out in the podcast studio. I can't tell if you're 6'5 or...

Kayleigh:

Average. I am 5'6.

Emily:

Follow-up question.

Kayleigh:

Love a follow-up question.

Emily:

When you put on a baseball hat, do you have to adjust it tighter or looser?

Kayleigh:

Great question. I have a very normal size head.

Emily:

Oh.

Dani:

Sorry, Emily. You're all alone there.

Emily:

I have to go like this in order to– anyway.

Kayleigh:

Yeah, no, mine's probably, like, smaller, if anything. And my husband is also from a very small family.

Dani:

Oh, okay.

Kayleigh:

So I'm not from a small family. Spoiler alert. My brother was 11 pounds when he was born.

Dani:

Oh, rude.

Kayleigh:

I was a month early and I was seven pounds.

Dani:

Oh.

Kayleigh:

So I just was like, I just...

Dani:

I wonder what's gonna happen.

Emily:

I have questions.

Kayleigh:

And so I felt very large.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

Again, I was apparently measuring right on track. So I went in for a prenatal appointment at 40 weeks and two days. I was done with being pregnant.

Emily:

Yeah, so uncomfortable.

Dani:

40 weeks plus two.

Kayleigh:

Yes, yes, yes. I was very upset that I wasn't, you know, delivering yet. But I was–

Emily:

Wrap this up.

Dani:

I was promised a baby outside of my body.

Kayleigh:

I didn't want to be induced. I didn't want to be late. I just, like, had all of these feelings. So I went to this appointment of 40 weeks and two days, high blood pressure reading at both the beginning and the end of that appointment, earning me a ticket to triage.

Dani:

Oh.

Emily:

And that was new, like, hadn't had high blood pressure before that?

Kayleigh:

No.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

So I went into triage, talked with the provider there for a while, and ended up making the decision to move forward with an induction of labor. One, due to the gestational hypertension, like, that was their concern. My concern was that I just had a big baby and he was only gonna get bigger.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

I also had, like, fears of a shoulder dystocia specifically. And I know that doesn't always have to do with baby size, but just for me, that was, like, in my brain as something I was worried about. And so I also felt like the benefits of moving forward with an induction outweighed the risks for me at that point. Um, and I felt pretty informed in that process. So I will not bore people with the long, slow induction process for a first time mom.

Emily:

Suffice it to say it took a minute.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

The very typical like Cervidil overnight, which is like a cervical ripener, the Cook's catheter, which is, like, the same as, like, a Foley balloon, helps you kind of manually dilate, and then Pitocin, quickly followed by an epidural. And then about two and a half days into this, which again, I do remind people of that's, like, kind of normal for an induction, especially, like, I was zero centimeters dilated, zero percent effaced. We were like-

Dani:

Zero?

Kayleigh:

Zero.

Dani:

At 40 weeks?

Kayleigh:

At 40 weeks.

Dani:

That is rude!

Kayleigh:

Yes. So the thing that my providers reassured me about a bunch was, listen, like the fastest way to a C-section is moving too quickly for your body.

Emily:

True.

Kayleigh:

And so I was like, okay, I can understand that. A caveat that everything that I'm sharing with you from that doctor's appointment, um, I have no memory of. So all of this has been pieced together through conversations with my family, my team, and scouring my like over 6,000 pages of medical records.

Dani:

Wow.

Kayleigh:

So I don't remember stepping foot into that prenatal appointment. I don't remember going to the hospital for an induction. I don't remember any of that. But again, meticulously pieced together.

Dani:

Wow. Foreshadowing.

Kayleigh:

Yes.

Dani:

Uh things are about to get...

Kayleigh:

Not so great. Yeah. Um, we are gonna talk about birth trauma. We are gonna talk about a near-death experience for those who are listening. If that's not your vibe, I totally understand. I just want to kind of give you a heads up on that. So finally, two and a half days in, I was 10 centimeters. It was around like noon on a Wednesday. I had entered into the hospital on a Monday. And so my OB at the time came in, checked me and was like, all right, you're 10 centimeters, finally, about to meet this baby. Like, let's get excited. And so it was my mom in the room, my husband, my nurse, and me and my husband had made the decision that my mom was going to be in on the actual delivery, which was not the original plan. Um, I'm super close with my mom. So it would not have been me that had a problem with it. And not a problem, but like a feeling of like, we just wanted it to be me and my husband to start out this family together. So saying that it was definitely my husband's decision that he was feeling like he needed more support. So my mom left the room to go tell my dad, who was in the waiting room, like, gonna be a while, gonna get to be in on the delivery.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

So it was my husband and my nurse standing on either side of my bed. And I turned to my nurse and I said, I'm not feeling well. And she said, okay, that is pretty typical for transition. Let me get you a bag to be sick in. I said, nope, something is wrong. Um, and as she went to go turn and look at my vitals, I started screaming that something was wrong with my heart. And then seconds later, I went into cardiopulmonary arrest, so...

Dani:

 What does that mean?

Kayleigh:

 My heart stopped.

Dani:

  You're doing great.

Kayleigh:

You're good, you're good. Um, so some people will refer to it as cardiac arrest, but, like, my heart stopped and I stopped breathing. Yeah. So a code blue was called for my room. Um, my nurse had hit the code blue button, and as you can imagine-

Emily:

And you had not started pushing at this point, right? Okay.

Kayleigh:

Nope. I was just preparing to push. And uh, as you can imagine, tons of providers, nurses came running in to the code call. Um, there just so happened to be a critical care conference on the L and D floor.

Dani:

Oh wow.

Kayleigh:

Um, a case conference. So there were a lot of the right people in the right place at the right time to get to my room really quickly.

Dani:

Wow.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. And so they made the decision to take me from that room, my L and D room, into the L and D OR, which was right across the hall. And CPR had started on me at this point.

Emily:

What do you mean they made the decision? Like, was there another option or...

Kayleigh:

So best practice, and I'm by no means ragging on my amazing team. That is the reason I'm sitting here having this conversation. Um, but best practice for maternal cardiac arrest is if you have a patient who goes down, who goes into cardiac arrest, who is still pregnant and the baby is, you know, viable at that term, is to perform a bedside perimortem C-section. So not move the patient if you don't get ROSC within four minutes. So if you can't resuscitate and get circulation within four minutes, you should do the bedside C-section and not waste time moving the patient.

Dani:

Okay.

Emily:

Is that because sometimes the OR is far away? They're sort of taking into account these other factors.

Kayleigh:

Yeah, you just don't want to waste time.

Dani:

Taking 90 seconds to unlock the bed and move it around the corner and down the hallway or whatever. That's like every second probably means like- Kayleigh, Was your mom still- had she made it back to the room?

Kayleigh:

She was in the waiting room with my dad.

Dani:

Okay. All right. I'm gonna save my questions for the end now.

Kayleigh:

You're fine. No, you're fine. I'm happy to be interrupted.

Dani:

I'm like follow-up question.

Kayleigh:

I love follow-up questions.

Dani:

Set the scene. I need to know a couple more details. Okay. Okay, so you're across the hall.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. And so now to follow up that piece on best practice, I mean, from the time the code blue was hit till the time my son was delivered via a perimortem C-section, or also called a resuscitative hysterotomy, was six minutes.

Emily:

That is so fast.

Kayleigh:

That's insanity. So my team did an incredible job. My son did require resuscitation. Obviously, CPR had continued toward the end of that C-section. And so he came out unresponsive and did need to be resuscitated. But he did really, really well and was resuscitated quickly. And everyone talks about, this is like a moment that I have really tried to hold on to in my trauma work, which is that when he was born, it took a few minutes for him to be resuscitated. And I'm obviously very sad, like I wasn't alive when he was born. But the first time he cried, the whole OR cheered.

Dani:

I'm totally crying now.

Kayleigh:

His entrance into the world was like hard and terrible in a lot of ways. And also he had, like, all these people cheering him on.

Dani:

Wow.

Emily:

Yeah.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. So he got taken off to the NICU to get his support and cuddles from the NICU staff.

Dani:

Yay, NICU staff.

Kayleigh:

Yes, the best. Incredible. And so my OB at this point, um, CPR had continued toward the end of that C section. And I just have to, like, tell you how badass my OB is for a lot of reasons, but, like I don't think people understand. So CPR is incredibly aggressive. Like it's not really how you see it in movies and TV. It's just like it's very, very aggressive. We are trying to keep someone's heart beating. And so my OB was trying to sew up my C-section during CPR. And so she would have to ask them to pause and, like, throw a stitch and, like, keep going and pause and throw a stitch and keep going. She's insane.

Dani:

Wow.

Kayleigh:

And so she at this point recognized that I was likely having something called an amniotic fluid embolism, which is an incredibly rare obstetric complication. It is still unpreventable, unpredictable, and often fatal.

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

If you want to learn more about it, I highly recommend going to AFEsupport.org. Our AFE foundation has incredible information and education for you to better understand it. But essentially what happens is amniotic fluid gets into maternal circulation, which actually happens in most labors and deliveries. But for some reason, in a very small subset of the population, we have an anaphylactic, like, inflammatory response to that amniotic fluid and fetal material.

Dani:

Dang.

Kayleigh:

And so it causes essentially two phases, which my OB was, like, kind of reviewing in her brain at the time when she was trying to figure out what to do next. The first is that, kind of like cardiopulmonary collapse. And the other is something called DIC, disseminated intravascular coagulopathy, which is essentially like a very simplified version of it, is that your body kind of goes a little haywire with its clotting system. It throws a bunch of micro clots, consumes all of your clotting factors, and you bleed out rapidly.

Dani:

Wow.

Emily:

Which is why it is so difficult to survive this, because the only way to get a baby out at that point is to do a C-section, which means you now have a wound that needs to clot.

Kayleigh:

Yes. And with DIC, you're gonna bleed out of everywhere. It doesn't matter whether you have a wound or not. Obviously, that's gonna be like a big source of it. Um, but you will bleed out of everywhere.

Emily:

Like, any mucous membrane, like, any of that.

Kayleigh:

Yep.

Emily:

Yeah. So that's like the inside of your nose or, like, your eyelids and stuff. Like, wow.

Kayleigh:

Yes.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

Yes. Or any IV, any line sites. Like at that point, I had a bunch of central lines. I had, right? Like, anything. And I should point out, I should have said this earlier, I apologize. But I want to make this very clear. The point of a perimortem C-section, a resuscitative hysterotomy, is not for the baby. It's for the mom. So people get this, like, kind of incorrect a lot. They think like, oh, you're focusing so much on the baby. Actually, what we are doing, the reason why it's now been renamed a resuscitative hysterotomy, first of all, because it's, like, a little less morbid than a perimortem C-section, but second, because the idea is to resuscitate mom. So if we have a big old baby, a full-term baby laying on those internal arteries that are giving return, cardiac return, it's going to be a lot more difficult for ACLS to be successful, effective. And so that's why no ROSC in four minutes.

Emily:

There's probably also, like, medications and treatments that, like, they can't use if they have to factor in a baby growing or just- just hanging out. I mean, 40 weeks and two days, just hanging out, like, still here, just hanging out. So yeah, it's when you remove that baby. The baby's okay. If they're gonna be okay, they're as likely outside as in.

Kayleigh:

Yeah.

Emily:

And then they can really do literally all the things for you.

Kayleigh:

Yes. Which most doctors would do anyway, just as a caveat. Like we're kind of taking the baby out of the equation at that point. Yes. But again, it all benefits both parties, but the goal of getting the baby out is for the resuscitation of mom.

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

So yeah, go ahead. Ask questions. Go.

Dani:

Um, what was his weight? Was he a big baby? Like, pause for just a quick, uh, stat update.

Kayleigh:

Yeah, stat update. 10 pounds, 14 ounces.

Dani:

Oh, you were right.

Kayleigh:

I was right.

Dani:

10 -14? Not cool.

Kayleigh:

I know. So I didn't share that my dad and brother are both six five.

Dani:

Oh, well.

Emily:

There you go.

Kayleigh:

I just wanted to surprise everyone because then everyone would be like, oh, that baby's gonna be big. I'm like, no, listen, get surprised by how-

Emily:

Also, like height is not the same as, like babies are only gonna be so long, right? Like, no one's giving birth to like a three-foot-tall baby. No.

Dani:

Not that we know of.

Kayleigh:

I mean, I don't think height plays as much of a role as, I will show, I mean, the listeners can't see this, but I will happily show you that it was definitely not length that was the, uh, the driving factor here, if you can see.

Dani:

Oh, look at that little chunky monkey.

Kayleigh:

Yeah, he was...

Dani:

Oh my goodness. Chunky chunky.

Kayleigh:

But yes. So thank you for the stat update. I forgot to add that in.

Dani:

Thanks for pausing for the stat update.

Kayleigh:

Yes, important things, of course.

Dani:

I just was curious. I was like, I wonder if she was on to something.

Kayleigh:

Yes.

Emily:

Oh, yes.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

So amniotic fluid embolism. Again, at this point, my OB, when she tells the story, she talks about how when she was sewing up and closing my C-section, she made sure I was, as she says, bone dry. Like I was not bleeding at all. There was no bleeding happening. So I was not in DIC at this point. But because she's awesome and brilliant, she was like, it's about to come. So I'm calling for a massive transfusion protocol and I'm putting a Bakri balloon in her uterus, even though she's not bleeding yet.

Dani:

Oh.

Emily:

Right.

Kayleigh:

So she did all of those things prophylactically. And thank goodness.

Emily:

Did you also need platelets? Like, because your body is about to, like, use all of its platelets all in the wrong ways, right?

Kayleigh:

Yes. So massive transfusion includes like all of the blood products. Um, so when you call for that, I don't know what exactly it is. I think it's like four units of packed red blood cells, like two of something else, two of something. I don't know what comes in the cooler. And so I did go into DIC very quickly after that. And I had a profound case of DIC. So I would require over 140 units of blood product by the end of this event. And so the human body holds about eight to 10. The pregnant body holds like a little bit closer to like 10, a little bit more, because we have more blood volume. So I did need my entire blood volume replaced more than 10 times. I was very lucky to be at a hospital that had blood product and then was able to go out to the Red Cross to get more during my event because I did clear out the blood product in that blood bank.

Emily:

Okay. In thinking about, like, that part of this, right? Because obviously, like I'm assuming that your husband was not in the delivery room.

Dani:

I mean, they had to take you across the hallway. They were like, probably like, you're- you're gonna stay here.

Kayleigh:

So he saw me go into cardiac arrest, but then had to stay in the L and D room.

Emily:

And then was like, great, now what? Right? This is terrifying.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. So, like, what's happening behind the scenes right now is that my husband was in my L and D room. So everyone heard the code blue for my room number. So my mom and dad in the waiting room knew that was my room. And so my mom, the way the waiting room is set up is that it's right at the end of L and D. So all of those people who were rushing through to get to the code blue call were running past the waiting room, which is all windows. And so my mom tried to get out, and the person who's, like, in charge, like the person at the desk, the desk attendant, was like, you can't go back there right now. And she was like, no, you don't understand it's my daughter. And she was like, No, I know, but I'm sorry, I can't let you back right now. And so then eventually, once I was in the OR, they let my mom back to the L and D room where my husband was just, like, pacing the room with his hands on his head saying, Please just save my wife. And so my mom was like, What the heck happened? And he was like, I don't know. I don't know. It's just something was wrong. And then they just, like, left. And so they were in there. My dad was in the waiting room, and my dad waited because, this was really poor timing, because I was 10 centimeters. It was the first baby in the family. So we had told everyone to come to the hospital. So my brother and his now wife were on their way up from Virginia. And so my dad was like, okay, I have to wait in the waiting room. Well, when he was in the waiting room, my best friend arrived. And she describes walking into the waiting room and seeing my dad crying in the corner next to a person that she didn't know, which was the hospital chaplain.

Dani:

Oh.

Kayleigh:

And was like, what is- what is happening? And my dad was like, he just, like, hugged her and he's like, we don't know, the baby and Kayleigh, like, we don't know. So then he left the waiting room to go be with my mom and my husband. And then my best friend had to tell my brother the same thing.

Emily:

This is like the worst game of telephone ever.

Kayleigh:

The worst game.

Dani:

So everybody's like, wait, what? And then they're just like, like, somebody else told me, I just don't know.

Kayleigh:

Right. Like someone's coming to the hospital to, like, meet my baby for the first time and, like, yay, joy. Like, you know the joy of an L and D waiting room.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

And this is like the opposite experience. So then the first time that they were given information, my husband was taken by a social worker and the hospital chaplain down to like this tiny closet-like room. And he was sure that they were gonna come in and tell him that I had not survived.

Emily:

I would think so too.

Dani:

So he was prepping them or...?

Kayleigh:

So he thought because he was, like, walked down by these two specific individuals that the news was not going to be good. I mean, the news wasn't good, but I was still alive. And so they brought him down there so that my OB could just, like, pop out of the OR really quick and pop back in. But of course, she was, like, covered in my blood. It was like a whole, like, traumatic experience for him. But also, like, we needed to know information. It's no one's fault. It's just, like, a bad situation. So back in the OR, they were, like, putting blood in as fast as it was coming out, doing their best to keep me alive. And unfortunately, I went into cardiac arrest again. They had to reinitiate CPR. And at this point, so my family was informed very early on that I had an amniotic fluid embolism and that they were trying to stabilize me. And that was like essentially it, and that they were gonna stabilize me and keep me in the ICU. And so it seemed bad, but like they kind of had a handle on it.

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

And then at this point, when I went into cardiac arrest again, the other OBs in the OR– which there was like at least 50 people in the OR at this point– started to prepare my OB for the fact that I wasn't going to survive this event, that they weren't gonna get me back from a second cardiac arrest. And so she actually left the OR at that point to go tell my family that they were doing everything that they could to stop the bleeding, but um, that she needed them to pray. And then she left and went back to the OR. Yeah. And so when she went back, I was resuscitated again. They were able to get circulation back again, but they knew they were gonna need to do something, like, pretty drastic. And so they called over to Lakenau Medical Center. So I was at Paoli Hospital in Paoli, Pennsylvania, and they had to call over to Lakenau Medical Center to ask that ECMO and an ECMO team be transferred in because I wouldn't survive a transfer out to be put on ECMO.

Dani:

What is ECMO?

Kayleigh:

So ECMO is the highest form of life support.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

I was on- there's VV and there's VA ECMO. VV is for lung support only, and VA is for both lung and heart support. So I required VA ECMO, and essentially what it does is it takes all of the blood out of your body, oxygenates it, and puts it back in.

Emily:

It's bypassing the heart functionally?

Kayleigh:

Yep. And same with the lungs. Yep, for VA. Yeah. So for me, it went in through my femoral artery, took all the blood out. It's really crazy to see, like, if you look at the two tubes next to each other, the blood coming out is like very dark. And the blood going back in is like a bright red, beautiful, oxygenated blood. So there's a machine outside of you that does that for your heart and lungs. And so I was cannulated and put on VA ECMO. That was keeping me, again, oxygenated, profused, alive, but I was continuing to bleed from the DIC. And so they ended up taking me to interventional radiology to try to embolize some of my uterine arteries.

Emily:

Right.

Kayleigh:

And that was only partially successful. And so they took me back to the main OR, opened me up for an ex lap, and found another five liters of blood and clot in my abdomen.

Emily:

Just like in your body cavity?

Kayleigh:

Yes.

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

And so they were forced to do a hysterectomy and a right salpingo-oophorectomy. So taking my right ovary and my uterus. Um, so I have one, my one ovary that could is still left, working hard. Um...

Emily:

She's like, Don't worry, I've got this.

Kayleigh:

Yeah, she's like, I got the cycle. We're still going.

Dani:

Don't you worry. Every month!

Kayleigh:

Chugging along. Um, and then they packed my abdomen and left me open with a wound VAC in place because I knew they were gonna have to kind of go back in a few different times.

Dani:

Oh.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. So then I was transferred. So this is like eight hours, nine hours after the initial cardiac arrest that I was stabilized enough on ECMO to be transferred to Lakenau so that they could maintain my ECMO circuit. And then unfortunately, when I arrived there, I had the unique, uh, unique is an interesting word, but the unique situation that my heart was not recovering in the way that they had hoped. So again, ECMO keeping me alive, but my heart wasn't pumping in the way that it should have been. Um, so without ECMO, I would not survive. And you can't stay on ECMO forever. You need your heart to actually recover. And so for me, they had tried kind of every medication possible to try to get my heart to pump effectively and nothing was working. Like, was the rhythm off or was it like...? So it's something called cardiogenic shock, and I was in cardiogenic shock. And yes, so the ejection fraction, the way that your heart pumps, mine was not pumping strongly enough because I was in cardiogenic shock.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

And sometimes you can help that with medications like dobutamine, Epi, things like that. But all that stuff was making me tachycardic, but it wasn't changing the, like, pulsatility of my heart. And so my interventional cardiologist told my family, listen, like, we've tried all these medications, nothing's working. We have one last thing that we can try called an Impella, which is like the world's smallest heart pump. It essentially goes up in through, for me, it was an Impella CP. So it went up in through my ephemeral artery into my heart to offload the left ventricle to give your heart the time that it needs to rest and hopefully recover. And so this was the only option that we had, which was made very clear to my family. If this didn't work, we were out of options. And so that was placed early Thursday morning.

Emily:

Does it go in the ventricle?

Kayleigh:

Yep.

Emily:

Okay. So, but functionally it's letting the muscles of the ventricle, like, have to work less hard to keep everything going?

Kayleigh:

So it's a little windmill-like device. There's like this tiny windmill in it that helps offload and get basically does part of the work of the heart so that your heart can rest and, again, hopefully start to recover.

Dani:

Okay.

Emily:

I'm picturing, like, an equivalent, and it's like when you're trying to lift something really heavy and you need someone to come stand next to you and help you to, like, lift it the whole way.

Dani:

Do you have a show and tell?

Kayleigh:

This is an Impella. So this was placed into my heart like that. And the little windmill is, like, in this little piece right here.

Dani:

Wow. Isn't science awesome?

Kayleigh:

Right?

Emily:

Yes.

Kayleigh:

It's absolutely wild. Yeah. So clearly I'm here. So it worked, thankfully. It worked really well. The initial kind of road to recovery looked like a few weeks in the ICU, a few weeks in like mother-baby, a few weeks in rehab, and then home.

Dani:

Wow.

Kayleigh:

That was kind of like the path, the goal. They're like, there's gonna be a lot of, like, one step forward, two steps back in a recovery like this. And we don't know what her cognitive function is because we don't know how much time she was down for, if she has any kind of, like, hypoxic injury to her brain. So they put that in Thursday morning. I had another ex lap and washout, which is basically just like in your abdomen, like, cleaning out any possible infection, bleeders, anything like that.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

Um, left me open again. And then by Friday night, so 36 hours after the Impella was placed, I was doing so well that they took me back to the OR to try to downgrade me from VA to VV ECMO, from heart and lung to just lung support. Because I did have like some collapsed lung issues and just, like, some more of that kind of lung stuff, if you will. But when they took me back and they clamped off the lines, I actually was doing so well that they completely removed me from both ECMO and Impella support.

Dani:

So they thought you needed to go on VA, but or VV, sorry. And they're like, actually...

Kayleigh:

Rip it all out.

Dani:

She's ready to roll.

Kayleigh:

Yeah, I had a very aggressive team that wanted me, like, that really wanted to push me off of things. Like they left all the lines in. Like they were even very cautious that that this, like, we might have to go back.

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

So they left all the lines in, you know, all of that stuff.

Dani:

Just in case. Yeah.

Kayleigh:

They took it all out. And then...

Emily:

And at this point, the wound is not closed? You still have, like, a vacuum.

Kayleigh:

So ex lap washout Thursday morning, ex lap washout Friday morning, Friday night everything removed except for I was still intubated. Saturday morning, final ex lap washout, closed. I was finally closed on Saturday. Saturday night I was extubated. And then Sunday I met my son for the first time while conscious. I don't have any memory of it, but we have very beautiful pictures and videos.

Emily:

Okay, so this is Sunday. He was born on Wednesday. So that's what, five days?

Kayleigh:

And he was compassionately transferred.

Emily:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Because you had to go.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. So I went to Lakenau, but he's a bit of an anomaly. So most babies who are-

Dani:

10-14?

Kayleigh:

Yeah. Who are still in utero during an amniotic fluid embolism require cooling, require the 72 hours hypothermic treatment in the NICU, because of the oxygen deprivation.

Dani:

Oh.

Kayleigh:

That is the protocol for any baby that has any kind of oxygen deprivation. So typically we see an HIE diagnosis for that, if you guys have heard of HIE.

Emily:

No.

Dani:

Tell our listeners what HIE is. We're asking you, we're like, definition, please. Definition, please.

Kayleigh:

I am an expert on AFE. I am not an expert on HIE, but Hope for HIE is a fantastic non-profit organization. If you want to learn more about HIE, which is what happens, my understanding, very simplified, I'm not an expert, is that when there is oxygen deprivation for babies, right? We hear about that when there's a dystocia, we hear about that possibility when, like, so many different possibilities.

Emily:

All kinds of reasons. Yeah, yeah.

Kayleigh:

Yes, babies can end up with HIE, which is a really broad spectrum. And the best thing that we can do is, again, to my knowledge, is cool those babies as quickly as possible.

Emily:

Like on a cooling blanket type of thing?

Kayleigh:

Yes. You're basically creating a hypothermic environment. Um, it cools down their brain. I'm sure it has something to do with swelling. Now I'm just, like, so far out of my depth, but...

Dani:

It's okay. We are gonna drop a link to hope for HIE.

Emily:

Well, it also, cooling slows our body's systems generally, right? So...

Kayleigh:

So he did not need cooling. And so he recovered really well. He needed one night in the NICU at Paoli, and then he could have actually been discharged, but instead they compassionately transferred him to Lakenau to be with me. And he stayed in their nursery and they would just bring him down and do skin to skin while I was still on ECMO.

Dani:

Oh.

Kayleigh:

Yeah.

Emily:

That's so cool.

Kayleigh:

I'm big science gal, big like, ECMO and Impella and my team saved my life. But I do think my very quick turnaround in that two and a half days had to do with how often they were doing skin to skin.

Emily:

Yeah.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

Which again, very lucky that he wasn't in NICU and couldn't be brought. Like that happens a lot, right? We can't bring babies when they're sick.

Emily:

Yes.

Dani:

Right. That's true. Okay. That's really great that you could be in the same location.

Kayleigh:

And we were discharged together, which, like, that's like one of the biggest losses is when your baby's in the NICU, or if you have to stay longer, is you don't get that, like, being discharged together. And so, you know, obviously lots more goes into this, but essentially I went from the cardiothoracic ICU down to the step-down ICU after a week. And then exactly 14 days after he was born and my AFE, I was discharged straight from that ICU to home. So it was a much shorter stay than anticipated, which is wonderful in a lot of ways.

Emily:

Yeah. Those doctors knew what they were doing.

Dani:

You had the dream team.

Kayleigh:

I did. Being young also helps. And I also do want to caveat like I think this is really important coming from the AFE world, is that I had an incredible team, I had incredible resources, and I got really, really lucky. Because even when we have the best of the best, sometimes people still don't survive, and that is so unfair.

Dani:

Yeah.

Emily:

Yes.

Kayleigh:

And there is just a component of luck that is involved in some of this that we will never fully understand.

Dani:

Right. You're here, your son's here.

Kayleigh:

Yeah.

Dani:

Kayleigh, holy smokes. What was it like when you finally got home and you were like, whoa, so that just happened.

Emily:

Yeah. Before you left, were you like, I'm gonna need a therapist?

Dani:

Just how were you feeling emotionally?

Kayleigh:

Yes. So it's hard to describe what it's like to wake up and learn all this information, which shout out to my OB again and my anesthesiologist from my code who came to Lakenau. So they don't work at Lakenau. Came there, sat with me, explained exactly what had happened. That's actually my first memory.

Dani:

Oh, wow.

Kayleigh:

And it says a lot about the role that compassionate debriefs play because there's a lot of ways this could have been approached by my team, especially the hysterectomy. And I will never, never, ever, ever forget that debrief. And I will never forget the way it was approached because my OB said, Kayleigh, I am so sorry. We tried everything we could, but we couldn't save your uterus. She said it with such- like she knew how devastating it would be for me. Instead of being like, dude, you're lucky to be alive. A uterus?

Dani:

Like, you're welcome. Like, that would not have been the right...

Kayleigh:

Yeah. So I expected to kind of like sail off into the sunset of this, like, happily ever after. You have like a rotation of providers who come into your room and are like, oh my God, you're alive? Like, oh my gosh, this is the best thing ever. I'm so grateful. And...

Dani:

Like everything's fine now.

Kayleigh:

And so I got home kind of expecting to just like, oh my God, this is- I get to be a mom. I get to, like, watch my son grow up, which is all true. And...

Dani:

And. Yes, exactly.

Kayleigh:

I was devastated. Like, this is not anywhere close to what I had expected. I was still so sick. Like I was still healing.

Emily:

I was gonna say, you were probably not– when you were pregnant and picturing home with the baby...

Kayleigh:

No, I could not take care of my son.

Emily:

Right.

Kayleigh:

So my parents moved in with us for like six weeks.

Dani:

Oh wow.

Kayleigh:

Which was lovely and so supportive, and also, like, not what anyone wants or expects when they first have a kid. Right. Like, I don't think my husband was like, yes.

Emily:

"Um, that's not how you do it."

Kayleigh:

Yeah. And again, I have incredible parents. Like–

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

thank goodness. And everyone in that house is traumatized. My mom was traumatized, my dad was traumatized, my husband's traumatized, I'm traumatized. And we're just, like, trying to figure out how to take care of a newborn together.

Emily:

We're gonna layer on some trauma. It's gonna be different for everybody.

Kayleigh:

Yes.

Emily:

Now you're sleep deprived. Good luck!

Kayleigh:

Good luck, everyone.

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. So I did not bond with my son. I felt like a monster. I felt so angry and so sad. And I felt like I had no right to have those feelings. Basically, like, how dare I when people are still dying of this complication as I sit here on my couch getting to watch my son grow up? And so, even as a therapist at the time, who knows better, quote unquote, right? That like, all feelings are valid, all feelings get to exist. Like when you're in it, it's so much harder. And I didn't allow myself to feel, like, the anger and the sadness because I just didn't think I had a right to. And that really delayed a lot of my healing for sure.

Dani:

Did you keep it inside and not say the things you were feeling out loud?

Kayleigh:

Oh my gosh, 100%. And people would be like, people being my family would be like, Do you want to feed the baby? And inside I would be like, I could not want to do anything less. I'm going to have a literal meltdown. And then on the outside, I'd be like, sure, I'd love to. And then I would, like, just be so angry. But I knew, I knew that if I- like everyone was so worried about me being okay that, like, if I had been like, no, I just don't actually feel like feeding the baby, they'd be like, what's wrong with her? Oh my gosh.

Emily:

Yes.

Kayleigh:

Is she, like- what's happened? Like it would just be so suffocating. It was very suffocating.

Emily:

It's really tricky to be in that space because part of you wants to be able to be like, I'm just gonna say what I need. No, I am not interested in feeding the baby. Help yourself, great. Or fake it till you make it? Like there's something there too, right? So it's like sometimes you get to say what you need, sometimes you fake it till you make it. I don't know. Is that the happy middle?

Kayleigh:

Who knows? Who knows how to navigate these, like, right? These times. I mean, there were times I'm sure I wish I would have spoken up more. And I just didn't feel able to. Everyone was so worried about, like, no one had informed my family that it would probably take me some time to bond with my son. If someone would have just told my family that was normal, I think it, especially like my mom, which again, it's not her fault. She's never been through this.

Dani:

Yeah. First time!

Kayleigh:

And so there was so much, like, anxiety and fear. Like I would come down after sleeping 16 hours, and my son would be on, like, the changing table downstairs. Someone would be changing, and I would just, like, walk right by. Like, no, like, oh my gosh, how's my baby like I had no feelings, connection. I was so numbed out and disconnected because of the trauma.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

And anyone's listening to this, like, I want us to do a better job normalizing that in the context of trauma, in the context of PPD. Like, yes, we need to get the help. I was in therapy at the time, but I would have had so much relief because what was worse than not bonding with my son was feeling like a monster because I wasn't bonding with my son.

Dani:

Yes. It's like this vicious cycle.

Kayleigh:

Totally.

Dani:

Were you able to tell your therapist how you were feeling, Kayleigh? Did you share with your therapist, but just not with your family?

Kayleigh:

Exactly. Yes.

Emily:

My birth experience is not similar to yours, but it was traumatic. And that description of like someone else is changing the baby, and you– like I had other things.

Kayleigh:

Yeah.

Emily:

Uninterested.

Kayleigh:

Absolutely.

Emily:

So resonates for me.

Kayleigh:

It is crazy that we expect traumatized parents to not act that way. Like that is the way you act when you're traumatized. It just the expectations I always find are that we have for ourselves are wild.

Emily:

Yeah. And then you're like, well, I'm not measuring up against some ideal that's been set forth by, like, a society that doesn't really value my role in the world, let alone the fact that I've been through some stuff.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. Also, the expectations around bonding without trauma are ridiculous too. Like sometimes we don't just feel like, ah, this is the best thing that ever happened to me as soon as the baby is born. Like, that's okay. Bonding is actually an act that happens over time. It's like literally the whole point.

Dani:

I didn't even feel that until my third was born. I was like, oh, okay.

Kayleigh:

Now I get it.

Dani:

Huh.

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

Yes. Yes.

Dani:

So what did it take for all of those things that were swirling around, so many things, like the anxiety, the fear, feeling angry, feeling sad, feeling suffocated, feeling numb, like, feeling like you couldn't say things out loud. What did it take to help you sort of not be feeling those things anymore for lack of a better term? I mean, there was a lot going on. You had a therapist. Was it a combination of different types of support, meds?

Kayleigh:

All of the above.

Dani:

Yes. Yes.

Kayleigh:

So I would not have made it through without medication. Absolutely not.

Dani:

Yay, medication. Yay, science.

Kayleigh:

We love the role that medication can play. I was getting depressed. And I'm actually, like, not a depress- I don't usually lean depress-y. I'm more of an anxious girly.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

And so that was a fun new game. Um, and so the trauma and the health anxiety, which was like, okay, I just like randomly died when I was super healthy. So when's the next time that's gonna happen? That was, like, intolerable. And so it was making me then, like, super low mood, depressed, numbed out. My son was born in July, discharged the beginning of August. By October, I was like, Yeah, I'm not okay. I need medication, ASAP. And I had already been, I had already been on Zoloft in- previously in my life. So I was like, yeah, give me the good stuff. That stuff works. Let's do it. Let's do it. Um, so that was a bit easier of a transition for me because I'm not someone who hasn't taken meds before.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

And I knew kind of the merit, essentially, the effectiveness for me was worth it. And that with therapy, and along with, like, just giving myself a gosh darn break.

Dani:

Like time?

Kayleigh:

Yeah, absolutely. Giving myself a break and self-compassion is a huge part of it too.

Dani:

Right.

Kayleigh:

Like I had been through so much. And the community piece I find so important, but I really struggled to find, which is why I created- I ended up creating The Birth Trauma Mama, because I didn't feel like there was a ton of community around the experience of birth trauma.

Emily:

Yes.

Dani:

Were you like, anyone? Anyone? Can anyone hear me? Like, am I the only one that has experienced this and is feeling this wild swirl of so many different emotions?

Kayleigh:

Yeah, it's exactly, yeah. That's exactly how it was like so- it was so shocking. And then, like when I was online, all I would see like beautiful, wonderful water births. Which we, like, love for the people who get to have them.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

Yes, yes, yes. Love that for you.

Dani:

Uh-huh.

Emily:

And then we have to grieve what we didn't get, also.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. And no one was talking about when the day that you expect to be one of the best days of your life turns into one of the worst. Yes. That is not something I saw anywhere. And shout out to the people who were talking about it and I just didn't find you or see you. You're amazing, clearly.

Dani:

The internet's a big place. It's hard to find all of the things, so, anyway.

Kayleigh:

Exactly.

Emily:

It's also very hard to speak very candidly.

Kayleigh:

Agreed. Yeah. There's, I mean, there's a lot of pushback that you get. And I think maybe that's a part, I really don't, I don't mind. It really doesn't bother me. So I don't really talk about it a lot. But there is, there's a risk in putting your- like people will have things to say that are not always nice. And it's about your very personal traumatic experience. And so you have to be prepared for that if you share, which you shouldn't have to be, but that's unfortunately the world that we live in.

Emily:

Mm-hmm.

Dani:

Yeah. We're just gonna be nice. Okay. All right.

Kayleigh:

Everyone just be nice.

Emily:

Okay. So how, in all of this does PSI, like, slide into your DMs? Were you like, I'm making Birth Trauma Mama, and then PSI was like, I like what she- I like what you're doing over there.

Kayleigh:

Oh, so like how did we actually, like, connect, connect.

Dani:

Not actually slide into your DMs.

Kayleigh:

No, no, no, no. I just wasn't sure if you meant like when I found PSI or like how we actually connected. Okay. So I think I knew about PSI because I did a training a really long time, like maybe 2020. I did, like, one of the mental health, perinatal mental health trainings because what I had decided is I was at the boarding school at the time. I was like, Kayleigh, you can't just, like, hop into this world. Like you've got to heal yourself, take your time. So over the course of three years, I did, like, my intensive therapy work and I started doing some trainings. And then I didn't open my practice until I was three years postpartum.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

But within that, I was introduced to PSI through training, probably in 2020, which was only a year after my son.

Dani:

Because you decided, yeah, this is what I'm specializing in.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. And then somehow I got connected. I think they, like, saw my Instagram at some point. Then I went to a training. I was just a panelist of a patient experience in a PSI training in Reading, which is out by me at a hospital. A midwife asked me to come. And then I was sitting next to lovely Dvora, who does a lot of trainings in PSI. She was running the panel and she's- she'll let me share this part. She writes down on a piece of paper and is like, as I'm speaking, and is like, wait, you're The Birth Trauma Mama? Like, I- she's like, I know you. I follow you on Instagram. Then she's like, podcast question mark? Like, can we talk about your podcast? Like-

Dani:

Mid-presentation, she's like, podcast question mark?

Emily:

Like she's passing notes in class.

Dani:

Oh my gosh, Emily, write that down. If we need a guest, what you're supposed to do is say podcast question mark and slide them a note.

Kayleigh:

Yes.

Dani:

Cool! Thanks, Dvora. Shout out.

Kayleigh:

Dvora and I connected there, and Dvora was like, you should do the perinatal loss training. We're doing it in Philly. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, like, sure. And then I looked it up and I was like, okay. First of all, it's, like, affordable. And so many trainings nowadays are not. It's in person, which this was probably like 2021, 2022. I don't know. We were getting out of COVID.

Dani:

We were all like, can we see people? IRL? Yeah.

Kayleigh:

Yes. And so I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do it. And then it was a phenomenal training. I, of all the trainings that I've done with PSI, it is my favorite training. And if you're a therapist who's listening, the reason why I love it so much, and I will tell anyone this who will listen, is because it's not just about, like, sitting with grief and loss, which I feel like a lot of us do, you know, have the skills to do from our generalist training or even just like perinatal mental health training, but it talks a ton about, like, TFMR. It talks a ton about different kinds of loss and, like, the medical aspects of those losses, which I find very, very helpful. And it was just a fantastically run training.

Emily:

Because termination for medical reasons is a loss.

Kayleigh:

100%.

Emily:

Just like spontaneous abortion or like a miscarriage or whatever is also a loss.

Dani:

We'll put a link to that in our show notes.

Kayleigh:

It's a great training. Unfortunately, they only do it every so often. I'm like, do it more.

Emily:

Well, now I'm gonna have to find the next one and see if I can go.

Dani:

It's okay. There might be a lot of requests, you know, after this, so.

Kayleigh:

I've been to a lot of trainings. It's a very good training. So then I think what happened is Birdie was at that training. And then Dvora and Birdie, like we all kind of like pow-wowed and were chatting.

Dani:

Dvora passed a note to Birdie and said, Kayleigh, question mark?

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

So something happened. And then Birdie was like, yes, you should do our, like, experience panel. Like, come do that. And so it's really great because I get to just like zoom in for 20 minutes and connect with like a bunch of amazing either therapists or people who want to just be certified in perinatal mental health.

Emily:

Yeah, I did the training in September and you were one of the panelists. And I literally passed a note to Dani and was like, should we have her on the pod? But-

Dani:

And I basically said, what are you talking about? I just emailed her and she just emailed me back.

Kayleigh:

You're like, you're late to the game. You're late.

Emily:

Sorry.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

So that's how I, yeah, that's how I connected with PSI, but I also just adore everything that PSI does. And I did go to the conference for the first time this past year, and I presented there. It was fun. It was awesome.

Dani:

We were both there too.

Kayleigh:

How did I not see you?

Dani:

We didn't know you. We were-

Emily:

We usually have a neon sign.

Kayleigh:

Did you have a table?

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

Oh, okay, fair. I didn't really peruse the tables as much as I should have.

Dani:

Our podcast editor was there too. But Emily and I both are working in The Climb program, so.

Kayleigh:

Oh yeah.

Emily:

That's our day job.

Dani:

Usually, yeah. We are moonlighting in the podcast studio. But yeah, if you're ever looking for us at the conference, we're always there. And we're usually wearing some wildly, you know, vibrant leggings, loud leggings that we've designed or something, so.

Emily:

Yes.

Dani:

Come find us or don't find us or...

Kayleigh:

I will definitely find you.

Dani:

Okay, cool. We'll be at the next conference.

Emily:

LA, what's up? Are we ready for a lightning round?

Kayleigh:

Yeah.

Emily:

Let's do this.

Dani:

Okay.

Emily:

What's your second favorite podcast? Because yours and ours is tied for number one.

Dani:

Well, the question is besides this podcast, duh, what's your second favorite podcast? And it can be your own, or it can be- we're already gonna put your- a link to your podcast in the show notes for sure.

Emily:

Let's assume our podcasts are tied for first in her heart, okay?

Kayleigh:

I love that. I love that.

Dani:

I'll be happy if I'm number two, but okay. And Kayleigh, it doesn't have to be perinatal mental health related. It could be.

Emily:

Yeah, tell us your dirty podcast secrets.

Dani:

Half of our guests are like, listen, this is the best murder podcast out there. And I'm like, la la la la la. That scares me. Okay? I'm scared easily, but whatever you feel like, we're here to share.

Kayleigh:

Oh my gosh, there's so many.

Dani:

It's hard to choose.

Kayleigh:

I mean, all of them are, like, perinatal mental health because what else do... what else do I do with my life?

Dani:

I mean...

Kayleigh:

Um, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. I do love, there's two NICU podcasts that I really like.

Dani:

Cool. Let's hear it.

Kayleigh:

One is the Miracle Moon NICU podcast with Dr. Frankie Harrison and Dear NICU Mama,

Dani:

Oh.

Kayleigh:

Also a great one. There are so many.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

I'm just gonna leave it, at my two favorite NICU podcasts, because it is, I don't know when this is airing, but it is currently November, so it's Prematurity Awareness Month. So perfect.

Dani:

There we go.

Emily:

Yes.

Dani:

Great suggestions.

Emily:

Well played. Okay. Are you currently binge watching, reading, listening to anything really, really good? Like what do we put in our queue?

Kayleigh:

Okay. So I am from southeastern Pennsylvania. So Task. Have we watched Task on HBO?

Emily:

Oh, okay.

Kayleigh:

Best DelCo accents ever. I'm-

Dani:

DelCo.

Kayleigh:

Not from Delco. But Delaware County, for those who are not familiar, it's a very specific accent.

Dani:

Can you? Well, whatever. Look it up.

Kayleigh:

Okay. So I have it a little bit. It's like, home, phone.

Dani:

Home. Oh, right.

Kayleigh:

Like the O, the O is the only one that I do. Um, my son, weirdly, I feel like has a really strong DelCo accent for like no reason.

Emily:

You're like, who are you hanging out with? Like...

Kayleigh:

Yeah, it's amazing.

Dani:

You don't even live in that county. What's happening here?

Kayleigh:

It's fantastic. So that show though is just like a very good show. Mark Ruffalo, who doesn't love Mark Ruffalo? Oh God, yeah. I don't know if that's whatever, um, everyone's controversial these days, so who knows?

Emily:

That should not be controversial.

Kayleigh:

Who's to say?

Emily:

I mean, if he's canceled, he's canceled. I'll jump on board, but...

Kayleigh:

Task is a fantastic show. It's like, did you guys ever watch um Mare of Easttown?

Emily:

No.

Dani:

No.

Kayleigh:

Bummer. Um...

Dani:

Okay, well, well, that's the end of the interview. Okay, never mind then.

Kayleigh:

Well, I watch a lot of TV, so...

Dani:

It's okay. You're not the only one.

Kayleigh:

Yeah, no, I will admit that I can binge watch like the best of them. Um, nobody, Nobody Wants This?

Dani:

Oh, I loved that.

Emily:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

Also, just, like, binge watch that second season.

Dani:

Oh, wait, the second?

Kayleigh:

See, you don't watch TV as much as I do. Yes, the second season's out. It's out.

Dani:

Did it just drop?

Kayleigh:

I mean, like two weeks ago.

Dani:

Oh yeah! See, I well... yeah.

Kayleigh:

It's okay.

Dani:

Okay. Nobody Wants This.

Kayleigh:

I'm a big, like, I hate doing any task without, like, chores.

Dani:

Like, you have a mountain of laundry and–

Kayleigh:

Gotta be TV.

Dani:

Perfect. Pair it with a great show.

Kayleigh:

Like, but I will do anything. Gotta curl my hair, TV.

Dani:

Boom.

Kayleigh:

On my laptop. So, like, I just, like, throughout my day and, like, bingeing through.

Dani:

You know what though? That's not anything to be embarrassed about, Kayleigh. I mean, there's tons of people who are like, I'm reading three books right now, and I-

Kayleigh:

Also who wants to be alone with their thoughts in this current state of the world? Not me. Not me.

Dani:

I am with you. I love a good distraction.

Kayleigh:

Love a good distraction.

Emily:

Yes.

Kayleigh:

Uh okay, books. Um, I am reading a book right now. I can't even remember what it is, but I did just read the new Elin Hilderbrand book, The Academy.

Dani:

Oh.

Kayleigh:

Disappointing because she usually wraps them up in a nice little bow at the end. That's what I like about her when I'm feeling, like, uncertainty in my life. And she left it unwrapped. Because apparently they're gonna write another one, but that's not her shtick, so.

Dani:

So are you or are you not recommending it?

Kayleigh:

It's a good book.

Dani:

Okay.

Emily:

She's conflicted, it's fine.

Kayleigh:

Maybe wait until it's closer to the other one coming out. Cause I hate- now it's like, how many years do I have to wait?

Dani:

It would be like watching season one of a show, but if they're about to drop season two, just wait.

Kayleigh:

Yeah, it's the best when it's right there.

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

Right. Yeah. So, um, and then I'm also thinking about diving in– in this current weather season– into um, okay, A Court of Thorns and Roses is, I already read that. So ACOTAR, read that series, loved it. I have been convinced that I should start Throne of Glass, but I don't know. I'm more of like a romantasy than I am like straight fantasy. And apparently Throne of Glass is a little more, but I'm gonna give it a shot. I'm gonna give it a shot. So that's up next in my queue.

Dani:

Okay.

Emily:

Okay.

Dani:

Thanks for those wrecks.

Kayleigh:

You're so welcome.

Dani:

Okay, Kayleigh. What is your best parenting hack at the moment? We also know that, like, you know, that probably changes from moment to moment, but what's working for you?

Kayleigh:

Okay, my favorite parenting hack is when I take my child to a store that has toys, he is allowed to look at any of the toys and we will take pictures of the toys that he wants. And for some reason, it satisfies the like, because I quickly realized that my child, at least, wasn't as worried about, like, getting the thing, but it was that I was somehow going to forget that he wanted said thing.

Dani:

Oh yeah, don't worry. We are documenting this. Mom's got you.

Kayleigh:

So now when we go into a place, he's like, can you take some pictures? Can you take a picture of that? Did you get that?

Dani:

Don't you even worry. I have like a couple gigabytes free on my phone. Let's hit the toy section real quick. Boom, boom, boom.

Kayleigh:

Have never had a tantrum or crying fit. Now again.

Dani:

Knock on wood. Kayleigh's gonna text us later.

Kayleigh:

Yeah, it depends on the kid. Depend- it's not foolproof, but for us, it has worked some magic, I will say.

Emily:

I like, very similar to that, but then I ask, what do you like about it? And like they just want to be able to tell me that's so lovely what they like about it. And I'm like, that's cool... put it back on the shelf! Let's go.

Kayleigh:

I'm like, move it along, next aisle!

Dani:

Move it along.

Kayleigh:

That's so nice.

Emily:

Okay, how are you going to show yourself some radical love today?

Kayleigh:

Well, I voted this morning, which I felt like is showing myself radical love.

Dani:

Yes.

Emily:

Yes.

Kayleigh:

Right?

Dani:

We love a good vote.

Kayleigh:

PA is an important vote too, so... not that this is gonna come out in time, but just in spirit, hoping everyone is voting.

Dani:

Yeah.

Emily:

Yes.

Dani:

Very important. Okay. Kayleigh, what is one thing that today you, if you were to jump in a time machine and go back to before all the things went down during childbirth, or actually after your son was born and you were having a really hard time, what is one thing that today you wishes you could tell pre-recovery you? That was kind of a big long question.

Kayleigh:

Oh, you're fine. I've thought about this a lot. I've done a lot of exercises around this. I'm gonna tweak it a little.

Dani:

Do it.

Kayleigh:

So something that I have come, like that's been really, I guess, important for me is I've often looked back and said things like, like, this is so hard, like, I'm so sorry, all valid and beautiful and helpful things in my healing and my recovery. But I've also had this picture of this like, like I feel pity and like sadness and like I feel bad for that version of me. And then I also remember that, like, she's the version that got me here. Like she did that. And so I also almost want to go back and remind her of like, this is gonna be the hardest thing you've ever had to do, and you're gonna do it. And like, I'm so grateful for you that–

Dani:

Yeah.

Kayleigh:

You did do it, right? Because we often just look at that part of ourselves as like, again, validly so, but like feeble and weak and struggling, but, like, they are the version that got us here.

Dani:

Oh, yeah.

Kayleigh:

And I forget that. I should just speak for myself. I forget that so often.

Emily:

Same. Like I did what I had to do.

Kayleigh:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dani:

Oh, awesome. Emily.

Emily:

Okay. How do you take your water? Because we all need to hydrate. So, like bubbles, no bubbles, flavor, no flavor, ice, no ice.

Dani:

We're checking in on you. We're just a couple of moms making sure people are drinking water.

Emily:

Do you have an emotional support water bottle?

Kayleigh:

I do have an emotional support water bottle. Okay.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

So I do like a good bubble sometimes, but not as my, like, hydration. That's like a treat.

Emily:

'Kay.

Kayleigh:

Like, ooh, I need a little, like, sweetness in my life. Like, let's spice it up a little bit. But I don't feel like that hydrates me very well. So I always have a water bottle. I don't want it cold.

Dani:

That's okay. Your face changed, you know what? And I just want to say that it's actually easier for your body to process, like, room temperature water.

Kayleigh:

I can't chug ice water. And like when I'm- I'm not someone who's like, you know how they say, like, have a sip throughout the day.

Dani:

Do you just- you're a chugger?

Kayleigh:

Because I forget to drink it. And then when I need to drink it, I need to drink the whole bottle.

Emily:

And then you're like, crap, glug, glug, glug.

Dani:

And you're like, cool, it's like I'll be, like, hypothermic after this.

Kayleigh:

Yeah.

Dani:

So cold. Like-

Kayleigh:

It's is not accessible.

Dani:

Yeah.

Emily:

Brain freeze.

Dani:

Okay.

Kayleigh:

Yeah, I don't like ice. I don't like ice. I only like ice in non-water drinks. Wow, I just realized that about myself.

Dani:

Oh my gosh. You heard it here first, everybody.

Kayleigh:

Yeah.

Dani:

Exclusive. I Am One podcast exclusive!

Kayleigh:

Amazing.

Dani:

We're going to break the internet over this. Anyway. Kayleigh, we're just here asking you all the hard-hitting questions.

Kayleigh:

Clearly.

Dani:

But I think that basically wraps it up. We're going to put a link to your wonderful website in the show notes. If folks want to get a hold of you, is that the best way?

Kayleigh:

Yes.

Dani:

Perfect. And with that, Emily, could you take us out?

Emily:

Okay. Kayleigh, this has been lovely. As someone who understands that trauma gets in the way of all kinds of things. What you are doing, being so honest, and the work of piecing it together, because it's not your memories, at least those 14 days, is so helpful to so many people because the fear, the anger, the feeling disconnected is something that I think a lot of us can relate to. And what you are doing on the internet and with PSI and in your private practice is so important. And we appreciate you.

Dani:

Thank you so much.

Kayleigh:

You're so sweet. Thank you both so much. The work that you all are doing is equally as incredible and important. And not only getting people's stories out there, but also giving people a platform to share their stories is really, really important and impactful. And I hope you know that.

Emily:

It feels important to do.

Kayleigh:

We're in it together.

Dani:

Yeah! Thanks for tuning in to the I Am One podcast. Check out today's show notes where we'll drop links to all the important things that we mentioned in this episode. Please consider sharing about I Am One on social media and following and rating our show wherever it is that you listen to podcasts. It only takes a minute of your time, and well, that'll help our collective mission of bringing resources and local support to folks worldwide. From everyone here at PSI, thanks again for listening.

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Dani Giddens (she/her)

Host
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Emily Jankowski (she/her)

Co-host