Ep 35: Healing from birthing trauma with Ayelet Schwell

Traumatic Transformations with Gunjani Patel

Traumatic Transformation with Gunjani Patel

Introduction

Welcome to my podcast Traumatic Transformations where we help you find hope peace and purpose after a big life change or dramatic event. I'm your host Gunjani Patel and I'm a licensed mental health therapist trauma specialist neuroscience nerd. Join me as I dive deep into resiliency post-traumatic growth and normalize mental health to reduce the stigma associated with it. In each episode, I plan to deliver science-backed actionable tips and strategies so you can take back control over your life and be inspired to be the best version of yourself with each day forward.

Tune in every Tuesday for a featured guest and every Thursday for a solo episode with me where we unpack mind-body brain and spirit connections related to each episode with the featured guest. Just a quick disclaimer before we begin today the purpose of this podcast is to inform you, educate you, and raise your awareness. It is not intended to replace any medical advice or professional help-seeking that you may need. Please use this information wisely and any opinion that I cast is not to replace any medical advice. Before we start today I just wanted to ask you a favor if you like what you hear today don't forget to subscribe so you never have to miss an episode thank you so much. And if you rate and review it would really help us with the algorithm and people can easily search the show if they would like to. I would really love to hear your feedback and what you have to say so I can bring you the content that's most fit for you thank you so much.

In this episode, we have with us Ayelet Schwell, a doula, speaker, and educator for mothers and work professionals. I especially love that she's joining us because she's a true New Yorker at heart. She was born in Brooklyn, New York but is now residing in Israel with her family. I'm really excited to have you here. Over the 16 years of working in perinatal care, she has used her experience knowledge, and intuition to guide mothers as they create their own positive powerful burst stories. Thank you and welcome to the show Ayelet so happy to have you here.

Speaker 1 (Gunjani Patel) - 3:24 mins

I just want to talk about some of that rough and the suffering and that adversity part of your life and then what you learned from it and what made you who you are today?

Speaker 2 (Ayelet Schwell ) - 4:07 mins

I had my first son born in a hospital in New Jersey which made me realize that what I needed in order to just do my birth thing was to be left alone. In my second birth, my husband and I came to the realization that for us having our baby at home would be the best thing. It was amazing it was exactly what I wanted. It was the beautiful birth of my daughter. Then we picked up and moved halfway across the world to Israel. And I was pregnant with my third at the time and I did my doula training after that home birth when I realize like women need to know what's out there and I want to be able to support people in that process. We didn't find our place right away after we moved to Israel. I was 30 weeks pregnant when we arrived where we were when I had my baby. All I needed then was a midwife. I got some recommendations and I give this woman a call. We didn’t hit it off per se but she sounded good. Throughout my prenatal care with her, I just kept having these weird red flags about our relationship. But I pushed into the side because I'm not going to give birth in the hospital.

7:48 mins: When I went into labor the first time, she drives out to me and the minute she walked in the door the contractions stopped. A few days later my contractions started again and she came out and my contractions stopped. I can tell you that I think that my brain was like no we're just gonna trust this person, and my body was like no I don't trust this person. It shows how much we care and how intelligent our bodies are. After a very long stop and start kind of laboring session she checked everything, and everything was fine, She said to me I think that the next time your contractions start up again you should just go to the hospital because all this start and stops labor isn't good for the baby. I asked her if the baby’s okay? She said the baby's heartbeat is fine but it's really not safe and I think you should go have the baby in the hospital and then she left. My husband and I talked it out and I said I guess our only option is to go to the hospital. The next day we decided we would go and check out the hospital. And then my contractions started again. And my mom had arrived to be with me for the birth. She said I don't think you're making it to the hospital because we were a good 45 minutes from the hospital. So she called the midwife without really talking to me. I just wanted to stay home but nobody was there I didn't have a doula. I had my husband who doesn't know any better and my mother but she didn't know any better. So they call the ambulance and my son was born in the ambulance. I did give birth to him in the ambulance kneeling which is my preferred position for birthing and I did catch him myself, which could have been a very emotionally positive experience. But for me, it just felt like nobody was there for me and I had to do this myself. The midwife had ridden with us in the ambulance and she just sat on her hands the whole time and was like calling things out to me.

Speaker 1 (15:11 mins):

I think it's time to trust your intuition. All the red flags from the very beginning about any question all that is going to be involved in your birthing process. You said earlier that you had red flags going but you pushed them away. Your intuition or your higher power or your gut feeling whatever you call it Mamas or men who are there for their partners absolutely follow your intuition because it is telling you and warning you from heads up from the get-go do not ignore it.

Speaker 2 (16:08 mins):

So I was left with these feelings of I had been abandoned, unheard but more than it was how could I let that happen? It was only a lot of shame. I should have known better. When they gave me my son and he was fussy and he wasn't nursing and they were like do you want us to take him to the nurse here? I was like no I'm fine, he doesn’t need anything. When we finally got a room to ourselves, he was totally fussy. It occurred to me that he also went through something and I don't know how I knew that at the moment it was a very strong mother intuition. I remember leaning back against the bed and I popped him up facing me on my knees and I just looked him in the eyes and we had a conversation. He was just speculating and talking.

Speaker 1 (17:39 mins):

I am very big on conscious parenting. I don't think denying anything heals anything. I think addressing, coming to terms with it, and communicating about it is a healthier way to go about then let's act as nothing happened.

Speaker 2 (18:01 mins):

One of the major aspects of what creates a trauma is not being able to talk about it, the isolation, and the shame of not being able to speak. So it was more visceral for him at that point I gave him an opportunity to talk it out and then he really calmed down we talked about it. Then he calmed down and I put him on the breast, he started nursing right away. And it was beautiful. But all in all, I felt really let down, unheard, powerless. It felt like that I had been put through something that I did not expect.

Speaker 1 (19:12 mins):

It just sounds like you went through a traumatic birth and a lot of women go through that and do not even recognize that's even happening. Sometimes we don't know because we go through so many hormonal changes, all these changes going on in our bodies and our brains. I'm really big on how intelligent our body is and how it tends to hold on to some of the things that we intuitively know, ignore and then store in our bodies it has a way of keeping score. I really think our body knows certain things that we don't and we shouldn't not pay attention to the signals and those red flags are those things that they're trying to tell. I think it's good to be prepared so we're not caught and get blindsided by it but I don't think living in that stress and reliving it over and over helps either.

Speaker 1 (20:14 mins):

What did the healing part of your journey look like? And What would you tell my audience if they were to go through something? What would you recommend from your expertise?

Speaker 2 (20:27 mins):

I made a decision after he was born and I was not going to go back to birth work because clearly I'm not meant to be a doula. Then I found out that I was pregnant again it was this mad rush to clear those emotions before I came to this birth. I would say if you're listening to this and you recognize some of the feelings, not the same experience. My story is different than your story. For you, it might have been not being able to get the epidural when you expected to have one and it might be having an unexpected or emergency C. Section, it might have been forced into being into having an induction. It could be whatever it was for you but those feelings coming away from that feeling unheard, bullied, abandoned ashamed.

Speaker 1 (21:26 mins):

Thank You for saying that because we don't as a society acknowledge emotions, we think that's weak, we think it'll go away, let's think ourselves out of it and all these different things that we feel. We're meant to be strong, women are super moms get over it that's the language we tend to normally have and I think that's one of the biggest reasons why I am on this journey of this podcast is because I absolutely want to normalize when we talk about certain things we empower people going through it. If we as a society are emotionally intelligent we focus so much on intelligence intellect, I think it's just as important to acknowledge that emotions exist just because you're a man or just because you're a super mom doesn't mean that you don't feel. They're just our alert system of letting us know there is something wrong or right, acknowledge it, go through it, process it, and let go or otherwise we tend to store it and it causes all this havoc in our bodies brains minds spared everything.

Speaker 2 (22:27 mins): We definitely hold on to it and it stays and it comes out when we don't want it to in the form of all kinds of things like triggers in flashbacks and bad dreams and decisions made from fears. If you hold on to those emotions, you hold on to that trauma, it will come out. Don't wait to make space for your healing, at some point I'd love to talk a little bit about the birthing our stories workshop which is my offerings but there are other modalities of birth trauma processing and just find the one that works that seems right to you and do it I'm speaking to the mothers and the fathers. The partners you are in a really unique situation as the partner during the birth experience. You're playing 3 roles:

• You're the partner of this woman who you love

• You are the father of this child being born

• You’re an outside observer

In these 3 roles, you are having this experience that is vastly different from the experience that the woman who’s giving birth is having and that experience has its own validity and you also should make space to process it. But don't deny. They can bring you closer to your partner, they can bring you closer to your children, and really give you back that sense of power for yourself. The same things that a woman, a birth giver can gain from the healing of birth trauma, a partner can gain as well.

Speaker 1 (25:38 mins):

I think we had talked about that in our brief conversation that men are just as important and actually there is research that one in 10 men go through postpartum depression and we don't talk about them but it is a thing. Their depression comes out in different ways because just as it is an identity change for a woman, we become a woman to a mom that's a big change in itself. From one kid to the next time it's still a big change because now you're a mother of 2 and that in itself is up balancing and juggling 2 kids, 3 kids, 4 kids that’s a big change. Just like that, it's a big change for the father too and I don’t think that should be dismissed just because he's there it's not just he’s a sperm donor. His emotions and his partnership in that experience are just as valid. Men feel emotions it's just that they don't express it as easily or they don't talk about it but there are all these things that they go through as well and it's important that there's a piece of awareness around it.

Speaker 1 (26:55 mins):

Tell me a little bit about the or workshop, The Birthing workshop you did mention. I want to talk about it because I know that you have so much to say about it so I want to give it some time.

Speaker 2 (27:29 mins):

I had this amazing healing experience and I felt so much better and I had to break it down and I started to be willing to tell people that I was a doula again people would immediately launch into their stories in the worst possible environments. On the playground, grocery store, walking down the street, in the weirdest most random places where people would tell me their story. It just felt like women heard that I'm somebody who will listen, who knows what birth looks like, and please listen to me because I have the story that nobody else will listen to.

Speaker 1 (28:38 mins):

That in itself is very healing, that's what happens in therapies. I think it's so important to have a good relationship with your doula just like you need a good relationship with your therapist. Even with your midwife or any professional that you find it's really important to have a good relationship with your professional that you decide to go with because if they're not the right fit they could really traumatize you and cause you more hurt and harm.

Speaker 2 (29:31 mins):

After this happened a whole bunch of times, I went home and my husband and I sat down and I said Yorum I have to talk about this because people need a place to tell their stories and I need a place where I can help them through their story. I really need to be able to sit with them and I said what how can I do this. So I talk some things out and came to this idea of this workshop and my fourth is 9 years old so almost 8 years ago when we had this conversation and I've been running these workshops ever since. It's the opportunity to tell your story without being said, to be heard by myself who's been there and knows birth inside and out in so many different variations to be heard by 3 other women who have gone through birth that they came also to process. Then to have the opportunity to walk back through that story and answer questions that you've been holding on to, find the moments of power in your story, validate the feelings that you have been feeling since it happened but everybody kind of told you don't worry at least you and your baby are alive and therefore you should just be grateful. I give you that space to feel those feelings and to know that they're real. And ultimately to release the trauma that you've been holding. The reason I call birthing our stories is it's the opportunity to give birth to the story. This is a part of your life story but when you're in this trauma feeling it's like that chapter is still open. If you're the hero of your story there's no closure.

Speaker 1 (32:35 mins):

If it still gets you emotionally charged when you are narrating the story it's still traumatic. You are really healed when you feel heard when you feel validated when you feel empowered when you feel strength, when you feel the power again after being through something so difficult that nobody else thought was difficult because trauma is neither the hope nor the beholder. This experience is entirely a very healing and soothing process that gets you to the other side.

Speaker 1 (33:17 mins):

Tell us a little bit about where people can find you and give me 3 advice that you would give to women or partners as a part of the birthing experience if they are expecting what it would be just from your experience.?

Speaker 2 (33:44 mins):

• Number one is that the outcome and the experience are 2 different things. You can be grateful and joyful that you are alive that you and your baby are here to tell the tale, you can be joyful in every moment of your child's life and still feel grief about your birth experience.

• The second thing I would say is human beings are infinitely resilient. We have the ability to overcome anything and here's the best part babies are also human. They can overcome anything.

Speaker 1 (36:12 mins):

They overcome if we are conscious parents as a result of that. They go through their hardships too but a lot of times one of my big things in maternal parenting is that it's okay if your baby sees that you’re rack. We role model so much of our behaviors babies learn not by what we say but by what we do and act. It's so important that if you have our big feelings and show them that it's okay to have big feelings but then talk about it and manage those big feelings and apologize and amend those feelings that make for a very healthy emotionally intelligent positive kid. We need to be able to discuss these things and emotionally adapt to those things and heal and it addresses it as opposed to just deny it and act like it didn't happen. The whole resiliency thing is so important. They do get over it but just being involved with them in this process is just as important.

Speaker 2 (39:09 mins):

My third is to do it for your children, process and heal and come to a positive understanding of giving birth for the sake of your children for the sake of your daughters. Making birth better is about women being heard, about the medical system, trusting women's intuition having an understanding of birth is a physiological process and not as pathology and healing from your birth experience, finding your power is what is going to change birth for all human beings.

Speaker 1 (40:24 mins):

I feel that we as a society could break the cycles that our parents didn't inadvertently know but do and we're going to do the same but if we are informed through it we can raise a community of people and we can leave a nation of people for our kids and their friends and their cousins and the nation that they are living and residing in to be much kinder healed and peaceful. In order to break those cycles so that, we pass on some of our dramas and depression. Whether we like it or not depression anxiety and PTSD is genetically predisposed to it from our parents. So if they weren't treated or even diagnosed for it we got it and then somehow some of the things in our lives that happened triggers it and then we live in it, we experience in it and if we don't heal from it we don't learn better-coping skills and adapting to it, we don't feel healed so ourselves and body still carry those messages and then we act out in ways that we wish we didn't. Whether it's anger or whether it's shaming others whether it's being judgmental or any kind of addiction or any other abandonment that we pass on to our future generation. It’s really important that we work for our children to be better people.

Speaker 1 (42:28 mins):

Tell us a little bit about where can people find you? I'm going to have all that information in the show notes but just so I know.

Speaker 2 (42:38 mins):

There are 2 different free resources that I'd love to offer. One is if you're currently pregnant or thinking about trying to conceive and you're thinking about all this and saying what can I do to have a positive birth, I have an ebook of The 4 elements of a positive birth experience and powerful women guide to a positive birth and I'll give you the link to that and if you're somebody who wherever you are on this journey if you're feeling triggered by your birth experience I have a really cool trigger release formula that I will happily share so you can that. That one is at birthingourstore.com. You can search powerful woman's guide to a better birth you'll find the powerful women’s guide. On Facebook you can find me at healing her, that's my page you can find me on Instagram at Ayelet Schwell. You can always email me. Ayelethealing.net or birthingourstore.com. I am always happy to hear from people and answer questions and help if I can.

Conclusion

Speaker 1 (44:24 mins):

Thank you so much, I appreciate your wealth of knowledge and everything that you have offered to me and I am really truly so blessed to be connected to you through this experience. So thank you for being a part of this journey with me. If you like what you hear please don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode with us and please if you would be so kind to rate and review our show it really helps people finding us and the algorithms and Google and all that good stuff. So thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me and see you next time speak with you soon.

Ayelet Schwell is a doula, speaker, and educator for mothers. She offers guidance for birth-givers and holds tremendous knowledge in the field of perinatal care allowing her to offer help to mothers who go through birth trauma and other birthing challenges. If you want to connect to her, you can find her @ayeletschwell on IG and @healingher on FB, or can simply visit her workshop at https://birthingourstories.com/

I am Gunjani Patel, a licensed mental health therapist, and trauma specialist. I can assist you in your journey to overcome any kind of life-changing trauma you are experiencing or have been through in the past. You can reach out to me on Instagram @gpatelcounseling or can join my private FB community – Traumatic Transformation: Emotional Intelligence & Conscious Living.

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