#237 | On Life Support During Birth: Tess Frame Describes Waking Out of a Coma Postpartum

Tess Frame is a mother of two who experienced severe pneumonia in late pregnancy after contracting the flu. Her condition became septic, resulting in organ failure and premature labor. She gave birth by cesarean at thirty-five weeks while comatose, and was intubated in critical care for several weeks after.  While in a coma, she experienced and/or perceived traumas she could only begin to unwind after becoming conscious, trying to unravel what experiences were real and what were only imagined in her unconscious state. She was convinced she had been kidnapped and assaulted and struggled to reconcile her conscious and subconscious experiences while in the coma. It was a heart-wrenching twenty-five days before Tess could finally meet her baby, and it took an additional three to four months for Tess to fully feel he belonged to her. She shares her birth story and her ambitious healing journey guided, perhaps surprisingly, by the twelve-step addiction recovery program. Supported by her church and community, she focused on mending her mind, body, and family, ultimately being granted a second chance at life.

Tess on Instagram

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Transcript

Trisha Ludwig 
Did anyone show you a picture of your baby? Does anybody bring you the baby?

Tess Frame 
My sister, she brought me pictures so that I could see him. I couldn't see him until I had been downgraded out of and was no longer critical.

Trisha Ludwig 
At what point was that?

Tess Frame 
Maybe day like 2425. And the day after I met him for the first time, my, my blood oxygen improved so much that I was discharged that day.

Cynthia Overgard 
So you gave birth, with absolutely no awareness of giving birth. And the moments before they put you under anesthesia where they had explained, we need to give you an emergency C section. Those moments were probably just lost and swept into the anesthesia, right? I mean, did any of that come back to you like, oh, right, we came to the ER, and then they told me my oxygen level was low. That'll tell you

Tess Frame 
you're not writing long term memories, your body's surviving.

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Tess Frame 
Hi, I'm Tess frame. And I'm a mom of three little boys in San Diego, California. And I'm here to share my birth story with my youngest. It's it happened four years ago. So I'm, you know, there's some distance between me and the trauma now and I'm able to tell it with a sense of a broader vision. But when I was about seven and a half months pregnant with him, I got sick with the flu, just the the old influenza flu. And I was so pregnant and everything in here was so crowded, that I couldn't cough effectively. And so what would normally improve in four days just was not getting better. And around day eight, of just no improvement of just steadily getting worse. My lungs were so full of fluid and I had pneumonia at that point. And then I had extreme shortness of breath, I wasn't able to breathe laying down. So I was sleeping sitting up and the the the illness of my body was just escalating and the pneumonia became septic. And I started experiencing organ failure and premature labor. So God, that's terrifying your body. When your body starts shutting down in that way, and you're advanced in advanced pregnancy, your body's like, Okay, let's get baby out. Because Mom's not gonna make it right. So premature labor started and we went to the hospital. And I think I was very just kind of naive, I'd never been so sick that I had needed to be hospitalized before. And so we waited too long, and I went to the hospital thinking, um, you know, it's just the flu, and I'm just gonna get better like, but I'm in labor now. So we're going to the hospital for labor only. So we went to, we did go to the ER because we weren't sure if we should go to labor and delivery or ER. And when I got there, they were like, this woman did advanced lung failure, her blood oxygens in the low 70s. And a healthy woman should be closer to 100. So we they were they were very concerned about deprived oxygen to the baby at that point. And so they admitted me pretty quickly for an emergency C section. I was put under general anesthesia and intubated, and then weeks for you again. I was 35 weeks. So then after after baby was delivered, I was not able to breathe on my own or out of sedation for several weeks.

Cynthia Overgard 
You couldn't breathe on your own for several weeks. Were you intubated for weeks? Yes. And where was your husband during all this what was going on for him? He was in terror.

Tess Frame 
Terror was where he was exactly. And taking care of the two little boys and trying to give them some sense of normalcy and just kind of living like a zombie, hoping mom would come home soon. And then he brought the baby home by himself like it was it was a significant time for everyone in the family. He was taking care of our first two children. So the baby was in the he went to the children's hospital and was in the NICU for I think eight days just to make sure that there hadn't been any brain damage or that he didn't have any of the infection you know from my blood and he ended up being totally okay and he went home with Conrad alone without me while I was still in the hospital recovering and the the measures that they take when a person is in lung failure are pretty incredible. And it's amazing that they are able to, with technology and medicine able to save somebody's life in that position. So I was in this crazy bed called a rota prone bed, and they considered putting me on ECMO, which is a very high risk procedure. It's when they they take your blood out and oxygenate it, and then put it back in and bypass your own. It's a it's a lung bypass. Yeah. And, but the risk of clotting with that is so high that it's, it's kind of a last resort, it's like, if she's for sure going to die, then we'll try this. And I didn't quite reach that point. So I'm grateful. I'm grateful, because I think that that is a scary place to be. So many wait several weeks, and they had tried a few times to bring me out of sedation, there's a limit on how long you can be intubated. So they reached that limit. And then they tried to excavate and see can she breathe on her own would bring her out of sedation, and then I would ultimately fail and be re intubated. So yes, several, I think two different times they tried taking the tube out and seeing if I could breathe on my own and my reach failure, meaning my lungs were still not, they were still too full of fluid, and they were still struggling to oxygenate my blood at a efficient rate. So there was during I think it was the second time that they tried this. I was essentially suffocating. And it was in the middle of the night. And so they decided to sedate me again, and and give me a tracheotomy. So they did. It's an intubation through the neck instead of through the mouth.

Cynthia Overgard 
You had an incision in your neck like this smokers. Yes. You had like a hole in your neck. Yeah, no, right now your neck looks perfectly normal. Yep, it's healed. There is a scar. Oh, my goodness. Wow, that's very scary. So they had to what can you explain one more time why they had to go into the neck.

Tess Frame 
Because what they had me doing when when they would take the tube out. The tube is in my mouth, going into my esophagus into my lungs, breathing for me pumping constant oxygen. What they're trying to do when they take that out is see Can Can she oxygenate herself, but so they give you a cannula in your nose that's giving you extra oxygen, and they're just letting your lungs practice moving open and close on their own. That high flow cannula was so agitating and uncomfortable and my lungs just were not doing it on their own enough. So they ended, it can cause damage to be intubated. For so long, it can cause permanent damage to your trachea. So they that's why there's that maximum amount of time.

Trisha Ludwig 
So they say okay, tracheotomy,

Tess Frame 
I do the trach so that it's safer, it's safer, and it's more effective, long term.

Cynthia Overgard 
And were you unconscious to all of this?

Tess Frame 
Not all of it. That's where the trauma comes in.

Trisha Ludwig 
Before we before we go on to the processing of the trauma and the delayed bonding and things of everything that happened after just I'm curious, did you ever have a history of pneumonia or asthma or any risk factors that?

Tess Frame 
You know, there wasn't any reason that it should have gotten as bad as it did? It? Really, I think the the condition that made it worse was pregnancy. Flu shots

Cynthia Overgard 
are notoriously ineffective, they have very low efficacy rates Did you happen to is that people are going to be wondering, like, did you have one that wasn't effective? Or did you just not get one?

Tess Frame 
I did not have one. And I had never felt strongly about the flu shot, I felt that way that they were ineffective. There's not a way to chase down the exact virus you're gonna get. And I had doctors for a while trying to get me to come speak at conferences to advocate for flu shots. And I never felt great about it. Because I was like, I don't know for sure that that would have helped me. Isn't

Cynthia Overgard 
that fascinating how they pounced on you to try to sell a product? Yeah, I mean, isn't that incredible? That it just, that's unbelievable. They were looking to basically exploit your situation, to try it now some would say to try to help and save other women but there's really nothing to be said for the women who avoid getting the shot and do other things just to keep their health and to fight viruses. You know, there's never the conversation there. So it would have a little more credibility if that conversation were also happening. Right. They will try to recruit you into that mission. That is very interesting. Deng, thanks for sharing that. And you didn't do it. So look at that, because you weren't ready to jump on that argument that this is necessarily that it would have played a role either way like you. That's yeah. You weren't willing to go along with a narrative on it? Because we don't know. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay. Thank you for explaining that to us. Yeah, yeah, where were we.

Tess Frame 
Um, so anyway, the. So waking up in the hospital, all of the sedation, and everything that's happening is it's, it's invasive, and it's traumatic. Now, it's innately traumatic, because you have retrograde amnesia, you wake up, and you don't know what happened to you, even though I was awake at the hospital, and I consented to going in for a general anesthesia, C section. But I have no memory of that. So I woke up. Several weeks later, after all these things are happening, I've been in a bed that's restricting my whole body, I obviously just given birth. So I'm being wiped and cleaned and squeezed and everything's happening to my body. And I'm not going I'm not conscious. So I'm not able to put together what's happening and why my body is just receiving input. And on the inside, the story is forming of what has happened to me and why it feels so violating. And this is really common with women, especially what's called ICU delirium. And it's where you make up a story and what you believe is reality is very real to you inside your mind. But that's not the reality that's happened in the physical world. So people really come have to have to, like reconcile what they believe to happen to them with what really happened to them. And so and it's a quick process like you, you realize, oh, okay, my body told me all that stuff happened. So, but that's not really what happened. So understanding, okay, I woke up and thought I was still pregnant. And I'm not read, where's my baby? What's I cannot what's been up, I think, to me, like, it's just this really, really strange ride that your brain takes you on. And obviously, within a couple of days, you realize, okay, I'm in the hospital, because I was very ill, I had a C section, my baby's fine. My husband will bring him to me as soon as I'm out of the ICU. Um, but that short amount of time that you believe something super, super, like immeasurably horrific has happened. It causes real trauma, even though it didn't happen. And so that has been kind of a hard thing to talk about and make people understand. Because there are people who have had those horrific things happen. And it's, you know, it's kind of hard to talk about that without being insensitive, or, you know, while also being sensitive to the fact that I believe that happened, and I had trauma because of it. But it didn't really happen to me. And there are women who have had that happen. And I want to be sensitive to that. You know, so that has been an interesting thing to figure out how to talk about,

Trisha Ludwig 
you did experience quite a lot of trauma, though. I mean, it's, for sure. This is not small trauma that you know, went through. Yeah, it must have been really scary. And at what point did you even realize that you had had a baby and that your baby wasn't with you? And at what point did you see your baby for the first time?

Tess Frame 
So I woke up, I woke up in intensive care unit. And when you're, you know, post birth, you still have a bump and everything's still, you know, familiar to a pregnant woman. So I looked down and like, okay, good. I'm still pregnant, at least. And I had a nurse come in and just really nonchalantly be like, oh, yeah, you had a baby. And I just was like, Excuse me, what? Where is he? Like, he's not in here. You mean, and that kind of turned me upside down for a couple days. And I was not a great patient. I was, you know, knocking things off my tray because I couldn't I couldn't really communicate with a tube in my mouth or with a trach in my neck. So I was so like, angry and confused and afraid. And the only way I could really express that was just kind of throwing things.

Cynthia Overgard 
I can't believe that they walked in and just started talking to you like a normal situation had happened. I can't believe they didn't have a whole plan as to how to gently update you on what happened. I'm just I can't even imagine this experience. And

Trisha Ludwig 
did anyone show you a picture of your baby does it Yeah, bring you the baby.

Tess Frame 
My sister brought me pictures so that I could see him. Children are not allowed in the intensive care unit because of the cross risk of germs, so I couldn't see him until I had been downgraded out of and was no longer critical.

Trisha Ludwig 
At what point was that?

Tess Frame 
Maybe day like 2425. And then I spent two, two days in the progressive care unit, which is Don't you know, a downgraded level and med surg. And then he was able to visit me there. And the day after I met him for the first time, my, my blood oxygen improved so much that I was discharged that day.

Cynthia Overgard 
So you gave birth, with absolutely no awareness of giving birth. And the moments before they put you under anesthesia where they had explained, we need to give you an emergency C section. Those moments were probably just lost and swept into the anesthesia, right? I mean, did any of that come back to like, oh, right, we came to the ER, and then they told me my oxygen level was low. did that all come back to you? Or was it just No? Right? That can all get erased

Tess Frame 
when it's gone. It's terrible. I even have gaps probably like three days before I went to the hospital. And I think that that probably is a combination of all the sedation, but also the low blood oxygen. I think my body was critical at that point. And so you're not writing long term memories, your body's surviving.

Cynthia Overgard 
That's it, it's not going into long term memory. Right? That's it because that assimilates when we sleep in fact, and you went through that experience right into anesthesia. Yeah. Want me to spend much more time explaining you grazed this and I feel like it's just huge and there's just like an iceberg of exploration for us here. You had said that in the aftermath you were being wiped and cleanse so I presume you mean like you're going to the bathroom unable to get up. Use you squeezed like you would gesticulating around. You're like gesturing around your breasts so like was that for colostrum? So when you were not completely consciously aware of what's happening? You just felt hands on you. And we probably presume, pretty gruffly just hands on you. Just ranging adult, young handled and you were you in that deep, dark, ominous place where we all have survival kicking in, and the feeling of isolation and just like not knowing where your children even your older children, you didn't see them. I mean, so I know what what was happening on a deep unconscious level for you. What did it feel like such sexual assault? Did it feel like you were removed? What was happening on that emotional level, and you don't have to rationalize, and you don't have to apologize? Because other women have and do suffer. Far worse things that we can all do that with every, that's always the case. So without apologies, just please go right there. What did that feel like for you on an emotional level?

Tess Frame 
Okay, so yes, I, I believed that I had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted. Like, over and over and over and over the, my breasts were being like massage, not to extract milk, but just to prevent mastitis, because further infections could worsen the situation. And then after a C section, there's massaging there, and that's painful. And

Trisha Ludwig 
I'm sure they were checking, checking your uterus and feeling all around your abdomen. And were you

Cynthia Overgard 
unconscious? Did you know you were in a hospital when this was happening?

Tess Frame 
No, I don't think I did I the dreams, the dream recollections that I have, or like, I'm in a house in the desert somewhere, and I'm waiting for someone to come rescue me. And like I keep saying there were some nurses that I was like, that's the assaulter. And there were some that I was like, that's the police officer. So my brain had this elaborate story of what was happening. That was really, like, it's hard to tell it without, without justifying it and without laughing really, because it's so extreme. And it's so far from reality. Although it may not be that far from reality, in some cases, your your subconscious was picking up on certain nurses that were treating you more with more dignity and respect to than others. I'm sure you just knew that. That probably is part of it. And part of the recovery that I chose to do emotionally was to return to the ICU after work, and see if I could reconcile like some faces and just put things together and like maybe let some of these puzzle pieces fill in these dark holes of questions, you know. And so when I was able to recognize some of the nurses, I recognized a lot of the women as friendly and then there was one male nurse who was so kind and so sweet. And he totally remembered me He was so gentle. But as soon as I saw his face and started talking to him, I had this like, reaction where I realized I was so afraid of you in the ICU. And I don't think that he was. I don't think that he behaved incorrectly at all. But I think that my brain was like, that's a man touching me in a way that I have not like consented to in this situation,

Cynthia Overgard 
I eduation, I think we need to understand that we women have hardwired into them. The need to protect themselves from men, even though most of us only no gentle, safe men in our lives. It's hardwired into us, when we're walking down the street by ourselves, we are the gender we are the sex that's turning and looking over our shoulders to make sure that we're alone. This is not something mothers teach their daughters this is, this is encoded within us to make sure we're safe. And if we see another stranger walking down the street, and if it's a woman, we feel safer. And if it's a man, we feel the need to protect ourselves, this is encoded within us. So it makes sense. And yes, it doesn't feel fair to him because he was one of these gentle, safe men in the world. But that was a natural, appropriate response happening to your body. So scary.

Trisha Ludwig 
Particularly when you have no defense, when you're as vulnerable as you were, that's going to just make that that protective instinct come out even more. Yes. How? How did this manifest for you? Later when you were home and reintegrating into your family, and I'm sure you've been processing this experience in trauma for a very long time. But how specifically, how specifically did this, this subconscious sort of trauma manifest in your conscious life later as you started to heal?

Tess Frame 
So I'm, I'm a bit of a Spitfire, I'm a really ambitious woman, I'm very driven. And so when I realized in the hospital, what was happening, I was very like, Tommy, the milestones you want to see. And I will meet them, like, tell me what my blood oxygen will be. And like, I don't care if that's not a choice of mine, you will see it. And when I got home, I had this same drive where I was like, You're telling me I'm going to be in physical therapy for six weeks, I'll show you to, like, I just was so driven. And I think being back with my children and feeling this sense of survivor's euphoria, really fed my drive to heal physically. But about six months, after all of this, I just was so so grateful to be home and so driven to just be normal again, and like, not be the trauma girl, you know, not be the one that like, no whole community was praying or, you know, you just don't want to be, I didn't want to be a victim. But about six months later, my mind really was like, okay, body is healed. Family is, you know, we're feeling stable, it's time to start collapsing. And I think, I don't think I think once I really came to terms with what happened versus what my mind was telling me, that wasn't. That specifically wasn't a thing that I really needed to reconcile. I didn't have issues with Matt or issues with being touched or anything. It was more just like, my brain was not healthy after this. I don't know that I could really articulate what exactly was wrong other than trauma creates neural pathways that are not healthy. And you have to sort of like, sort of like treating an addiction, you have to train your brain to respond to a trigger in a healthier way. Because I keep reaching for this unhealthy method over and over and over. It's the same thing as addiction.

Trisha Ludwig 
Was it like a constant fear for your life? Like a like an anxiety that you were feeling every day? Or? How did you meet those moments where you knew you're going down the wrong path?

Tess Frame 
For me, it's uglier than fear or anxiety, I would say from I really struggled with rage and fixation on abandonment. I wanted to run away from my kids. I was so overstimulated my mind could not process or tell the difference between stepping on a Lego and being chased by a tiger. And so I was just flying off the handle throwing brooms like smashing brooms in half like, and I reached a point where I realized this is I'm scaring my family. I'm, I feel like I have not reached this point yet where I'm at risk to my children. But I can see myself getting to a point where I am so triggered, and so not in control of myself that this would be dangerous. And I kind of hit this point where I was like, Okay, we're gonna start treating this like an addiction. And I had I had some friends I got there because I had had some friends who were recovered or recovered addicts or, you know, sober and said, you're responding the way an addict responds, you're reaching for something unhealthy. Every time you reach a every time you're greeted with a stimulus that you don't know how to process.

Trisha Ludwig 
And that and that was rage and outbursts. Yes.

Tess Frame 
Yeah. Yeah. And so they they invited me to come to a recovery meeting with them.

Cynthia Overgard 
Really? Like it wasn't like an AAA meeting. Yeah. And what was it? What is it? Was it a traditional AAA meeting or one of the variations of A, they have so many?

Tess Frame 
It was a variation. It was one health through my church called addiction recovery air AARP addiction recovery program. And it's a 12 step program. Yep. It's the it's the 12 steps, the bill w 12 steps with the framework of like, an atonement. So I really was able to find a lot of peace and help there. And also, in and community in seeing that I'm not the only one who's really struggling like that brain right now. You know, and a lot of these people this this is their trauma method is that they've turned to drugs or alcohol or pornography and are trying to heal that part of themselves. And for me, it was just anger.

Cynthia Overgard 
What do you think you were most angry about?

Tess Frame 
Um, I think I was very angry that I knew this was gonna be my last baby. And I felt like the experience was totally ripped out of my book. And pages were put in that I did not agree to, you know, right. Just like that was not how that was supposed to go. I did not get to nurse him. I wasn't I obviously wasn't there for the birth. You know, cognitively, I wasn't there. And I feel even now sad that like, even for the first year of his life, I really wasn't there. My brain was so focused on we need to get better that I, you know, I just wasn't present. I wasn't present for that last birth. And I think that that made me really frustrated.

Cynthia Overgard 
We have to stop just discharging women. I mean, we've had women who experienced stillbirth on this podcast, and it's like, we have to just stop this notion of discharging them like you're good to go. Off you go. And women and the people like the friends the family who love them, are under the impression that she needs a whole lot of support for about a week or two. And even in the case of our stillbirth episode, which isn't an episode I cherish maybe more than any episode. For some reason. It's episode 14, three women who experienced stillbirth. And in the second half of that hour with them, they talked about, we really focused on like, where did people go, right? Where did people miss the mark? What comments did they make that they felt were helpful that were not helpful. And one thing that we learned a lot, you know, we learned a lot by sitting with those women. But one thing we learned was that one of those women who ended up president of a stillbirth organization in New York, so she was quite educated beyond her trauma. She said that the the grief peaks, not at one two weeks postpartum, but at around four or five months postpartum. And you know, all of a sudden, you know, her husband would come home and she would be like, a puddle on the floor sobbing and by then the support has long dried up. And in your case, it was interesting, because you had this high afterwards. So you were really deceived. And your family and loved ones were really disliked. Let's celebrate, you made it you persevered and then crash and support. And so I'm really curious to know what was going on for your husband because he experienced and I mean, an almost equal trauma. It wasn't within his body. But this had to be terrifying for him. He had to go home to your boys every night and explained that that mommy is and decide whether to say she might not ever come home and what what was his experience like?

Tess Frame 
He really was living in this zombie brain where it was just, he lost like 25 pounds. He really was just doing what needed to be done. He was able to still play with the kids, he was able to laugh with them. But I think on the inside there was such a deep fear of like, am I am I going to have to do this alone for the rest of my life? Am I on the precipice of becoming a single father? Forever? Am I like is my wife gone? You know,

Cynthia Overgard 
how was he two months four months postpartum as you were going through this roller coaster? What was going on for him? Because he didn't just get over it either. Presumably No. So what was happening to him when you were having your rage? His battles

Tess Frame 
have been a lot more inside and I think that he just he struggled with like emotional shutdown in detail. It weighs. So it was more just something turned off during the hospital that sometimes even now it's like he struggles to turn it back on and be present and be or not have this maybe a little bit of like a doom outlook where it's like, she's gonna die anyway. So don't get too attached kind of thing.

Trisha Ludwig 
And it has his guard is up all the time probably the right way to

Tess Frame 
put it. Yeah, but I don't think he's worried that I'm gonna die now. But

Cynthia Overgard 
I think he's trying to protect himself emotionally that whole life yeah, and

Trisha Ludwig 
deep and deep down inside, he may still have that fear, you know, those fears run deep. Like he doesn't think that consciously he's, you know, he's in his more rational brain now, but emotionally deeply. That sticks,

Cynthia Overgard 
the shame of having that mindset, which I think we all adopt, in one way or another throughout throughout life. But in the case of your husband, adopting this mindset of like, anything can happen. Unfortunately, we believe it can shield us in the event of sudden misfortune. But we don't experience sudden, you know, we can't say Oh, well, at least I was a little prepared for this the trauma. When we can get past the trauma, we must. We owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to be as joyful as we can. And that guard of Well, you never know what can happen. We've got to let that go. Because it doesn't end up protecting us or easing the blow anyway. And it's so tragic to live with that fear, but it's coming from his own trauma. Did he ever process it? I mean, what did when you were going through your rage? Was he angry at you? I

Tess Frame 
think so. I think it was so jarring because like I said, I came home and was like, we're happy family. We're healthy. Now. We're here, like, let's get back to life. Let's get back to normal. We've got this precious new baby. Nothing's wrong with him what a blessing. Let's just be so grateful. And then all of a sudden, it's just whiplashed into like, Nope, we're not done processing that like and, and she's gonna become really ugly for a while, you know, and I think it was just really jarring. And he was like, I thought we were fine. Like, whoa.

Cynthia Overgard 
We had a woman who was on the podcast. She herself has quite a big following from her own trauma of amniotic fluid embolism. And she her story was this and she's a psychotherapist, her story was, it's mirroring yours. She came home almost emotionless died during birth. There's like a 50% fatality rate with women in her condition. I believe if I'm recalling correctly, she survived. And she came home and she was on a high. Yeah. And then a few months later, there was a crash, like their marriage was on the rocks. It was just this tumult. In the aftermath. I think it's predictable. And this is why I feel but hospitals need to transition women into some area of support. They can't just say you're good to go, go enjoy your baby survived.

Tess Frame 
I totally agree. I would love to see a day I would love a world where postnatal care includes counseling for every birthing mother, because even even births were like nothing. You know, there wasn't a near death experience. But I think that there can still be trauma just because it didn't go how you expect it. And it is a life changing event. And it is so physical and demanding and exhausting and intense. And I just would love to live in a world where that kind of counseling is available to all mothers who need it.

Trisha Ludwig 
Yeah, at least 30% of women report birth trauma, and the number is got to be higher than that. Because not everybody reports it. Right. You're absolutely right, we need we need that follow up outside of the 12 step program that you did, were there any other modalities that you relied on to work through your trauma

Tess Frame 
community was really big for me. So one thing that you had touched on was that help kind of dries up after the first couple of weeks. And I would say that the church community around us really stick stuck around for like, a couple months, like longer than most longer than most births longer than my previous births where there was not, you know, a big problem. But, um, like I also said in the beginning, I'm a Spitfire and I'm ambitious. And I feel like I'm not super proud. So if, if something's wrong, and and I need something, I'm not really ashamed to ask for it. And I think that that is different than a lot of women. I think a lot of women have a hard time asking for what they need. But I had a friend one time who was like, oh, I want to make you this, you know, like one of those vinyl, live laugh love signs for your birthday. And I was like, you know, I would really rather you just organized like two weeks and meals for me. I'm just struggling right now. And she was like, done, I'll do that. And I think just asking for that kind of help has not been hard for me. So when this trauma stuff and the and the mental aspect of the recovery began. I was able to just be really open like, I'm not doing okay, I need help with my kids. I needed to hire a housekeeper. We need to get the kids in It's cool, like, I need space for my mind.

Trisha Ludwig 
I hope everyone is rewinding and listening to you say that again and again and again. Because that is so true and so important. And so many of us cannot do that. And this is actually a really interesting combination, because you are a fighter, like big time fighter, yet you're also willing to be vulnerable and ask for help. And oftentimes, it's, you know, it's those really strong, persevering women who are not gonna let those walls come down and not ask for help. So,

Tess Frame 
you know what, it's the business women in me I'm a good delegator.

Cynthia Overgard 
You know, I'm not even convinced I met and ever thought about this before. But I'm not even convinced that we're vulnerable. In the moment, we're asking for help. I feel like very empowered women ask for help. And I don't know why that it's funny. It seems like it'd be a vulnerable thing, right? You're beckoning to another person. But I think we're so conditioned to not ask for any help that you're actually asked for it is to have a fair degree of a healthy degree of

Trisha Ludwig 
deserve respect.

Cynthia Overgard 
Yeah, like deserving to receive. And the ironic thing about it is your friend was probably overjoyed. She probably felt Oh, yeah, right. Like, okay, you got it. Who doesn't want to help someone?

Trisha Ludwig 
It's so much easier to help people.

Tess Frame 
Yeah, I don't want to give you a gift that you aren't gonna love. Like, tell me what you will love. And I will do it.

Trisha Ludwig 
Exactly. It's so much easier to help when somebody tells you exactly what to do. Like, yeah, on it. I don't have to think about it. Just I just do it. That's yeah, good advice.

Tess Frame 
I think that that has been hard for me in for, for previous births, like just the, I don't want to say like the normal amount of postpartum depression, because what does that even mean? But like, I feel like a typical, a typical mother will experience a couple months of struggle, at least. And the first time I went through that, I just was like, what is happening to my brain right now. And that is a little bit of a conditioning. It conditions you to like, either you're going to struggle through this, or you're going to figure out how to get help with this. And I think that that helped a lot. So anyway,

Trisha Ludwig 
tell us a little bit about what it was like to bond with your baby after not meeting him for 25 days.

Tess Frame 
It was really scary. I wasn't nursing. So my body was not experiencing the same chemical releases and the same, like physical response to like, the oxytocin rush yet. And even just holding my baby was different because I didn't get to smell the top of his head right away, you know, like, all these, these things that are so primal. And such a, like, such a primitive part of birth and bonding, I didn't get to participate in and so I meet him and he smells like soy. Or he smells like

Cynthia Overgard 
foreign. He smells foreign.

Tess Frame 
My husband, yeah, he doesn't know like me. He doesn't smell like mine. And I remember one experience I had where like, I was so excited to be with him again. And I I wept when we met and I was so excited to hold him and he felt like mine. But I did have a couple different experiences where he'd be like, he'd be doing a baby meltdown, just crying kind of inconsolably in public. And I was reaching that point where that was becoming a lot for me and hard to handle. And I looked at my chiropractor one day, and I just was like, I feel like I'm taking care of somebody else's baby is hard. And you have been separated for a long time. And it's okay to feel like you don't know him because you don't know him yet. You're just getting to know him.

Trisha Ludwig 
So how long did it take for you?

Tess Frame 
Maybe maybe three or four months. Before I really felt it.

Trisha Ludwig 
How did you know that it was happening? That I was starting to feel different?

Tess Frame 
Because I couldn't like keep him out of my mouth. And just like I want to put all the parts in my mouth. Just put his little hands put his little cheeks kind of kind of animalistic. Really. Bonding really is very animal.

Trisha Ludwig 
Yeah, totally appropriate and normal. Yeah.

Tess Frame 
And just I think that's that's an element of nursing too, is that you take all their little microbes on their skin, and by kissing them constantly, and your body produces breast milk according to what your baby's microbiome needs. Like you can read your body based on what you are, you know, the small amounts that you're putting in your mouth. And I think when that instinct started to kick in, even though I wasn't breastfeeding him, I was like, Oh, I can't keep this precious little marshmallow out of my mouth. I needed something to eat him. And I feel like that was kind of when my body was like, He's yours. He's yours now.

Cynthia Overgard 
How would you say this experience to Ain't you? What perspective has it given you? What do you wish for other women? I don't know what what has it done for you now that you've been through this and assuming in some way it did serve you, then how did it serve you and making who you who you are today, would you say,

Tess Frame 
I think this, I remember the day I left the hospital, I felt like, I am changed, I'm changed now. I remember when I got married, I was like, I'm gonna wake up tomorrow, the first day as a married woman, and I'm gonna feel different, and I didn't. And then I thought, I'm gonna feel so different. When I'm the mother the day I'm gonna have my baby, I'm gonna feel so different. And I didn't, I just was the same meat only now I'm married. And now I have a baby. And you think that these things in your life will make you feel different. And I think that this was interesting, because this was the time where I was like, I am new, I am a new person. I have this light is brighter, sunlight is more beautiful, my children are more precious to me, I have this new north of what's important in my life and where I want to spend my time and how I want to how I want to speak into them and feed my my soul with my family and with my, my God, my God was really important to me during this and I think that it all just it gave me a lot of meaning and a lot of center. I was very I became very centered after this. You had asked what is my What do I hope for women based on this experience? I would love to see women get the emotional care that they need after birth and get the communal care that they need after birth and learn how to ask for it. You're suffering and people love you and want to help you and I want them to know that when you get that help. It's so beautiful and it's so healing

Thank you for joining us at the Down To Birth Show. You can reach us @downtobirthshow on Instagram or email us at Contact@DownToBirthShow.com. All of Cynthia’s classes and Trisha’s breastfeeding services are offered live online, serving women and couples everywhere. Please remember this information is made available to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is in no way a substitute for medical advice. For our full disclaimer visit downtobirthshow.com/disclaimer. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, hear everyone and listen to yourself.

Tess Frame  
Your questions were so thoughtful, I just really appreciate, you know, this kind of conversation where it's so so open and so gentle with that experience. It has I had never openly talked about feeling like I had, you know, been sexually assaulted. I have hinted at that. And the one time I hinted about it publicly on my Instagram, I got thrashed by other women who had experienced that. So I was like, Nope, this is painful for other people. And I'm not going to take from their experience. So I am a little nervous to have that in the conversation.

Cynthia Overgard  
Well, I mean, I know but we have to, we have to start feeling entitled to have whatever conversations we want. And a lot of times that you get that backlash. It's not from the woman who had sexual assault, she might be the one who's the most compassionate toward you for losing your body for a temporary period of time in the hands of others. Yeah, it might it might be someone who's virtue signaling and wants to be the suppose a defender of others but we're, we're defending others when we see them and when we accept their life experience