#282 | Escaping a Doctor Just Before His Arrest: Olivia's Story

"Hi I’m Olivia. I was a patient of Dr. Javaid Perwaiz, so, I don’t trust you." Each time Olivia met with a new medical provider, she prefaced her introduction with the above statement. Olivia was a patient of Dr. Perwaiz for many years before he was  sentenced to 59 years in prison after a jury convicted him on 52 counts of health care fraud arising from performing medically unnecessary procedures including irreversible hysterectomies. Eventually, Olivia found a team of providers who she trusted to have a baby under their care. Despite developing severe pre-eclampsia, resulting in a 35-hour induction and relinquishing her natural birth plans, Olivia had a safe and satisfying birth experience because she had learned to take the most important advice: Hear everyone and listen to yourself. This self-trust allowed her to control what she still could and surrender to the rest. This powerful story is the perfect example of finding the balance between bodily autonomy, informed consent, and medically necessary care.
 
To learn more about the case against Dr. Javaid Perwaiz read here

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Transcript

I will also be sharing about an experience I had with Dr Javaid Perwaiz, who is my OBGYN for five years and is now serving a 59 year sentence in prison for a decades long crime that he committed against women.

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.

My name is Olivia thayen. I've been married to my husband Harris for eight years. We have a nearly two year old daughter, and I work in learning and development at a bank by day, but birth is my passion. So at night, you can find me studying for my childbirth educator certification, hosting the birth with live podcast, and then, of course, listening to shows like yours. So I've had some unique experiences over the last few years that have really shaped who I am, how I view birth and women's bodies and the medical system and the disconnect between the two. So in addition to my first story today, I will also be sharing about an experience I had with Dr Javaid Perwaiz, who is my OBGYN for five years and is now serving a 59 year sentence in prison for a decades Long crime that he committed against women. Wow. Sure. So I moved to Virginia in 2014 the weekend of my birthday, and I didn't know anyone. So a few months after getting settled, I realized I need a OBGYN. I was put on birth control as a teenager because I was on Accutane. So it's like, that was the one doctor I went to. It's like, okay, I go for my annual exam and I get a birth control refill. So I guess it's time. So by January of 2015 I was like, Okay, I've been here a few months. I need to get settled. So I posted on Facebook like a 20 some year old would do. And I said, Hey, does anyone have any recommendations? And Dr per ways was mentioned a few times, and I remember my thought process in selecting him. Looking back, I see all the red flags now, but at the time, as a 23 year old who never went to the doctor, I thought he was great. He was about 70 at the time, very grandfatherly. He's from Pakistan. So things that I look at now and view as red flags, I brushed off as cultural and age differences, but the appointment was 15 minutes or less every single time I went, which, again, as a young person who was busy, I was like, This is great. I go in, does my Pap smear, writes me a prescription. He's nice enough, okay. I think about a boom. He's only five minutes from my house. What more can you want in? An option right? Which, now as a mother, oh, my God. If my prenatal care was only 15 minutes, that would have been unacceptable, but I had no complaints. And in fact, I really liked him, and I thought at the time he was warm and had good bedside manner, and he would make comments every time I saw him, even at that initial appointment, he was like, Oh, you're so beautiful. Like, it's so nice to see you. You made my day, which I was like, Oh, that's nice. He's like, a grandfather. Now, I see totally inappropriate for a healthcare provider or someone who's not in my inner circle, but he he even said he's like, Oh, you're new here, so you haven't really established anyone I'll be your primary care doctor. I think that's what he was doing. He wanted to be the only care provider that his patients saw so they couldn't get second opinions or or have any outside input.

Trisha, I'm just, I'm I'm just taking this all in how long have you been practicing in the United States?

Okay, so I'm an expert on this man now, so he moved. He got his medical degree in Pakistan. He did his four year residency in West Virginia. He started practicing in my area of Hampton Roads in 1980 opened a practice, his solo practice in 1982 and has been practicing in. The area until he was arrested in 2019 something shocking that I I couldn't believe when I heard his interview with the Department of Health and Human Services is he estimated he had about 100 patients a day, 400 a week. He took one week of vacation in 1982 had been working six days a week ever since.

He said he saw 100 patients a day.

That can't be possible. I mean, it seems impossible, but knowing that my appointment was 15 minutes for five years and the waiting room was always packed.

That doesn't add up. That's like 3035, a day. That doesn't add up. It's not credible. I wonder why you said that. Okay, so what happened? Like, what happened going, sure.

So, I mean, that was kind of it for a few years. So that was 2015, I saw him once a year for 15 minutes. Everything was great. He'd say something about, Oh, you're so pretty. Oh, do you have a boyfriend? Oh, now you have a husband. When are you going to have babies? You need to hurry up and have babies so I can deliver them before you're retired, before I'm retired. And I mean, I just did my one year appointment, and didn't think much of it. Things started to change for me in 2018 I came off hormonal birth control because I realized I never had a reason to be on it. Anyway. They put me on it as a teenager for Accutane, which was probably my first experience of providers not trusting what you say in your body, because I wasn't sexually active, so there was really no reason. So I was like, I'm going to come off this. I want to get it off my system before I have children. Laura Bryden, Tony Wechsler, big influences on that decision. So I started to get more in tune with my body. And I was charting my cycle at that point. So I saw him for my annual exam in 2019 everything was fine, but towards mid summer of 2019 I started having pelvic pain, low back pain, pain with sex, and frequency and urgency with urination. And so I had been doing my own research, and was like, oh, I want to go see a pelvic floor physical therapist. But in the time at my area, at least what I looked into, you had to have a referral. So I called him, and I said, I want to make a special appointment so you can refer me to a pelvic floor physical therapist. So I go in to see him, and I'm pretty hopeful, like I had liked him, he seemed interested and open to me in the past. So I come with a year and a half worth of data from tracking my cycle, pages of notes, timelines of symptoms, and he says to me, before I even get to show him anything, oh, well, you have endometriosis. And I think I surprised him, because I said, No, I don't. And I was a pretty meek person at this time, especially to people that I perceived in authority. So the fact that we were able to have this dialog, I'm very thankful for. I said, I don't have any of the symptoms of endometriosis. He says, What do you mean? I said, I ovulate every single month. My cycles are a normal length. I don't have PMS or pain with my cycle. I have a year and a half worth of data to show you. I don't believe I have endometriosis. I want to just see a pelvic floor physical therapist. I said, Oh, well, we need to do an ultrasound before we do that. So that was my first time where I left him feeling like he didn't listen to me. So that was late summer. We did an ultrasound a few weeks later, and when I went in, the tech was a little rude, but I'm glad she spoke up. She said, What am I looking for? You're clearly not pregnant. What? What are we doing the scan for? And I said he thinks it's endometriosis. And she's like, well, pretty sure it's not. You don't have any scar tissue or cysts that I can see. I'll give him the findings. And I was like, Yeah, I know it's kind of what I suspected. So I go into his office right after that, and he's just writing. He's not looking up at me, he's writing and flipping through his calendar. And so I sit down. I'm like, Okay, so now what? And he looks up at me, and that was the first time his demeanor had never been warm. He had always had a very gentle spirit. And he looks up at me, and he says, Well, you can't rule out endometriosis without surgery. He's like, so I'm flipping through trying to find my next availability, and I was like, I'm not having surgery. So it just felt like an about face. Why? Because there was like an edge. You felt like he was getting pushy. What was it?

Yeah, I just felt like there was no indication to go to surgery when all I wanted was a pelvic. Floor referral, and it seemed like he had one diagnosis in mind and wasn't considering any other options, and he just wanted to do the next procedure correct.

And knowing what I know about him, now, that was absolutely the case at the time, none of this had come to light. And I'm so thankful that I trusted my body and my intuition and and had this data, because I think if I didn't so many people blindly trust their doctor because they perceive them as an authority figure, and it's like Newsflash, no one's more of an authority figure in your body than you. So I want to, I want to say something about this. Yes, that's true. But what actually happened in that room is you were taking responsibility for your healthcare. It's not just a matter of, I don't want anyone listening to think we are just Rah rahing them into this is your body. You make the decisions. Because most women are like, Well, I'm not the expert. I don't know the first thing about endometriosis, and that's where most of us get stuck. But what you did is you said, Well, I'm smart. I'll figure this out. All I have to do is read. All I have to do is keep reading and asking questions, and then when you're in that room, because, yes, by law, you're the authority over your body. But most women end it there, and they have to fold. They have to give up because they're not taking responsibility for their health. You went in there with the knowledge and the assurance of what you needed, and I don't know the outcome of this situation. I mean, I'm just saying we know this far you had that confidence beyond knowing your rights, because you were owning your own healthcare. It's a huge treat your doctor as a consultant, not the boss of you, and not the person to tell you how it is, you also had a very strong inclination that this was not the right diagnosis for you. So there's that's in part because of your research, but also because of your connection and trust in your body, from listening and being responsive to your body for all those years. And that's actually how we build trust with our body. Women are often wondering, well, how do I know if I should trust my body or trust my intuition? And that women struggle with that because we disassociate and disconnect from our body all the time, because we hear things that are contrary to what we feel, and then we believe them because they come from supposedly an authority figure, and then we start to break down our trust in ourselves, in our decisions and our body over time, instead of strengthening that. And you're perfect example of somebody who had been building that trust over all this time because of how you were paying attention to your body in addition to doing your own research.

Well. Thank you. And the work that you all do is so important. This all happened before your show was even in existence. But, I mean, I've listened to every episode, so what nearly 300 at this point, and your tagline of here, everyone listen to yourself has become a mantra of sorts, and I think that's so important for women who maybe wouldn't have had any of this information prior, but now they hear someone give them the permission, essentially, to pause and listen to their body and trust themselves and to just ask questions. And that's my biggest takeaway from this, is you're having a hard time listening to yourself or you're confused with what your intuition is trying to say, you have the permission to pause and to ask questions. And I think so often in our society, we hear things but we're not listening, and then we're not listening with our whole self. So don't just hear the words that a provider is telling to you, but look at their facial expressions and their body language. I mean, your intuition is picking up on all that anyway, but your logical mind, I think, so often, wants to just listen to the words that are being said, but when you can really focus in on how this person is making me feel, does my body feel safe right now, is there a disconnect between the words and their body language? I think that all really helps you tap in and be able to actually listen to your intuition. And most importantly, is there, most importantly, is there a disconnect between what your body is feeling and what your brain is saying? Your brain, you know, are you responding in accordance with the feeling that you're getting within your body, or are you nodding your head and saying yes? Well, everything inside you was saying no, yeah, all right, so let's, let's see the rest of your story.

So that was october 2019, and I left his office. I said, Well, I'm not having surgery. I said, Are you going to refer me to a physical therapist? And he said, No, I don't think it's necessary. I think, I think we need to move forward with the exploratory surgery. I said, Well, I'm not having that. So I guess, I guess we're done. And I was very confused and angry, and I was like, well, now I'm going to have to. Find a new provider, but at least I'm not ready to have kids yet, I can have time to find someone I align with. And then three weeks later, I am scrolling in bed just super fast, and I see a picture of his office on Facebook. And so I pause, and I'm like, Oh, what is what is that picture? And it's a news article, and see, I saved the headline, but it just caught me completely in my tracks, and it was that he had been arrested for performing unnecessary surgeries. Hysterectomies, without women's consent. The this is a big topic, but I'll give just the tip so it was discovered. So this was 2019 in 2018 a hospital nurse put in an anonymous tip. He was at the hospital, Chesapeake Regional Medical Center, every Saturday, doing surgeries, booked out for months. Surgeries were back to back, sometimes less than 10 minutes apart. He would go up and deliver a baby in between, and the nurses called them, perweisa thons, and so he was every Saturday doing surgery, and one nurse felt like, this is this isn't adding up. We're there's so many surgeries here. The women were often Medicaid, not their first surgery. So they felt like there was a pattern there. And so that was an anonymous tip in 2018 and so he was arrested by the FBI in 2019 so it took them a year to build their case. They only focused on the last 10 years, but based on what I know of this man and the stories that women have come out and shared, he has been doing this since. He's been practicing since 1982 he would, he would alter due dates to make them appear earlier than they actually were so he could induce and that's just, are you saying in a situation like yours, where he would have gone in and done exploratory surgery for endometriosis, which you know you would have maybe otherwise agreed to that he would then just perform a hysterectomy. Could have been Yes, there were several reports where he did that without their knowing. They went in for one surgery and a completely different surgery was done. Often. What would happen is he would mislead them. He would do a hysteroscopy, a colposcopy, share that there was precancerous or cancerous cells. He would throw out the cancer term as a scare tactic, and say that women needed to have this to either prevent cancer or remove cancer, when there was, in fact, none the root cause of all of this, or his motive, was to scam Medicaid and other insurance companies. He in at least the 10 years that they went back scam them out of $20 million so here's another there's another component to a sociopath like this, there really is the thrill of controlling and abusing women. Absolutely, there's insurance fraud left and right there is. There's an enormous percentage of doctors who are willing to commit insurance fraud. But this is a special kind of sickness, the power, the control what he's robbing this woman of, what he's robbing this couple of so when they woke up, he sometimes wouldn't tell them that he removed organs from their body, reproductive organs. Other times he said, Oh, like, you should have seen the tumor I found in there, or I observed precancer cells. But then he would convince them this had to be done. You know, we really had no other choice. Or while I was in there, I figured I should get this done. What did the women say in this case? How did they discover the medical abuse that was perpetrated against them in this trial, so many women came forward. The FBI stated that they opened a hotline, and the phone never stopped ringing. They had at least 170 women that came forward in the short period of time. Many of them felt in their gut that something was wrong, or it was supposed to be a laparoscopic surgery, and then they came out with a huge incision, and they're like, Wait, what happened? Others said they didn't find out. It's very disturbing. One woman didn't find out until she was having repeat miscarriages years later at a new provider, and when they did an ultrasound, they found out he removed one of her ovaries, when that was not the case at all. She was told it was again, just explored. Tory surgery to rule out endometriosis. I'm sorry it wasn't her ovation, half of her cervix, which I didn't even realize was a thing, half half of her cervix. Yeah, wait a minute, he just cut the tissue of the cervix, right?

Put it. He's had so many lawsuits against him before this, it's shocking that he was even able to practice for as long as he had.

I yeah, my mind is going to like, how were all the other people involved in all of these surgeries? Never saying anything, how the anesthesiologist, the nurses, the because Trisha most likely of settlements. When anyone agrees to a settlement, you are giving away your right to further speak about something, and no and then the first party, the the defendant, is getting them. This was before admission of harm. I mean, I'm saying before he was accused of anything he did years and years and years of surgery with assistance next to him in the operating room, nurses, anesthesiologists, all these people. We did it just this morning. I was reflecting on one of my my favorite recent episodes, the nurses roundtable from earlier this year. And the part I was thinking about when I was at the gym this morning was when I asked them, Who do you work for? And one woman said, the patient. And then another woman said, truthfully, I don't know. I don't know. Is it the hospital? Is it the doctor? Theoretically, it's supposed to be the patient, but there's so much ego, and there's such a culture in hospitals where I think it would take a very extraordinary, special person, nurse, to report a doctor. There's such a psychology perpetrated against them, they find it with pilots and CO pilots. I mean, so It's so disappointing, but we're always hearing things like this. We're always hearing even though, even all the women who are sexually abused, it's like, Why didn't you say something? Why didn't you stop him? And every woman thinks she's going to punch any guy in the nose. The nose for disrespecting her or for coming too close, and most women freeze. It doesn't surprise me. It's very disappointing, but I'm not surprised. They also mentioned that he was a joy to work for. He was kind. He thanked every single person in the operating room. He would bring them gifts. So beautiful. Yeah, so it's they, they looked the other way. But I mean, his medical license was revoked in 1983 that was two years after practicing the hospital he was at wrote Chesapeake Regional Medical Center where he practiced for nearly 40 years, saying, don't hire this man. We believe he's doing too many surgeries and yet, how could he continue to practice all these years without a medical license? Well, it was reinstated. They reinstated it within six months. Well, he was, I mean, I don't have time to share you with you guys, all the horrors, if people want to be completely horrified, Google, Dr Javed per ways, but I mean, he had been sued multiple times in 1989 the FBI and the IRS was involved because he purchased a Ferrari and wrote it off as an ultrasound machine. So there were red flags for decades, and so it's so disappointing.

Let me quickly ask you, look what he stole from these women. Is absolutely priceless, and it's it's so horrible. Was there compensation for all these families?

I actually am not sure. Wow.

So there was a sentence, and he went to Yes, so he was sentenced in 2021, to 59 years in prison, so he will die there, of course. Two days later, he appealed it. The appeal is still pending, but he he has not admitted any responsibility. He does not believe he is at fault. So he is a monster in a white coat the true so he's a true sociopath. He's justified every single one of his in his mind, he's justified every single one of his insane interventions he has in the last so right before he was arrested, they looked at his last 100 deliveries, and he induced 89 of them. So he was altering their due dates. He was scheduling these surgeries. And I really believe he would have done that to me. I think that's the minute I mentioned pelvic pain, and pain was sex. He's like, Oh, cool. I have a I have a reason to go in here now. And I mean, three weeks later, he was arrested, and I was devastated. I also felt guilty for feeling so traumatized when nothing happened to me. And I thought of all these women for decades, one of them was someone I went to high school with. She said, Oh, my God, he was my provider from the time I was 17. 22 and I had a surgery for endometriosis with him. I wonder if I'm okay. And so I thought about all these women, and I was just disgusted, and that, I mean, that changed me. I no longer had that innocence of a 20 some year old, the trust there. And so fast forward a few years to when I became pregnant myself. It's like I had done so much interviewing and trying to find a care team that I aligned with. I immediately said I was never having a male OB again. I started interviewing midwives. There was a birth center near me, so I started going to the different midwives there. And I would have to, like, pre position, the appointments, I would be like, Hi, I'm Olivia. I was Dr Perez's patient, so I don't trust you, and have to, just like, come in with all of these questions. And so I finally found a team I liked, and then six months before getting pregnant, that first center closed. So those midwives joined with a local OB clinic, which I was like, Okay, well, they're they're still the same people, but that meant they were now rotating throughout the office. So sometimes you'd see the OBS, sometimes you see the midwives. They're practicing at a hospital. So they're really more midwives at that point. But I liked them. My pregnancy was normal. This was in 2022 So several years later, I had a chance to process all of that trauma and distrust. I was actually born at 28 weeks, 30 some years ago, because my mother had preeclampsia. So that was the one thing I was hesitant about. And so when we talk about women, just like sticking up for themselves, that can be as simple as every time I go to an appointment, they'd want to use the little like automated wrist blood pressure cuff. And I'm like, I need you to take my blood pressure manually. I want you to take it manually every time I want the most accurate reading. And I mean, that doesn't seem like a big deal, but to me, it was a way that I could be an active participant in my care, make sure that my numbers were being read appropriately, and remind them that, hey, I'm the one in charge here. This is my body. My numbers were great every time, though, so I stopped checking at home because I was very anxious about that in my first trimester. So I mean, things progressed normally. I was due January 11 of 2023, Thanksgiving, so end of November of 2022, my mom was over for Thanksgiving, and in true Debbie fashion, she's like, Your face has gotten really big. She's like, I know that's normal for pregnancy. She's like, but that was my only symptom with preeclampsia. Have you taken your blood pressure lately? And I'm like, no, because they told me I didn't need to worry about it. Like, I'm allowed to get big during pregnancy. And she's just, like, just keep an eye on that. So that Monday, I did take my blood pressure before work. It was about 150 over 90. But I'm an instructor, so I had a week long class to teach. People were here from out of town, so I brushed it off, but on the way to work, I called my mom because it was her birthday. I said, Happy Birthday, and she said, Have you taken your blood pressure today? Again, being a total Mom, I'm like, Yes, it was a little high, but I'm sure it's fine. I have an appointment next week, and she said, If you really love me and you want to give me a birthday present, you'll call your midwife, like, okay, fine,

that's your fair just for the record. So she was onto something.

Love me, so I called. I'll

be the judge of whether I love you.

I do love her very much. So I called and I said, hey, it was a little high. What do you want me to do? They're like, come in on your lunch break. Like, okay, I go into the midwife office. They take my blood pressure. It's about 150 over 90. Again. They say, just go to the hospital, do a non stress test. You'll be back in an hour. Okay, so I do that, and then everything has changed at that point. So within an hour, by the time I get to the hospital, my blood pressure is 194 over 127 Oh, and they're like, Oh, you're not leaving. And I'm like, What do you mean? And they're like, You're not leaving without a baby. And they're like, and we this hospital where my midwives have privileges, can't do anything for you. We have to transfer you to the high risk hospital that has a NICU. My husband wasn't there at this point. He works night shift and was waiting to pick up his family at the train station for their trip back home from Thanksgiving. So I'm like, Oh, my God, what do you mean? So they put me on magnesium to try to lower my blood pressure. It's not working. It's still 170 over 100 at that point, they start giving me blood pressure medication. Like, it's still staying high. So they're like, you're you're going to have to be induced at this point, we're going to have to transfer you. And so at that point, that's when everything started to click. I think I was disassociating at that point, because before, I'm like, still my phone, and I'm like, Wait, so am I not going to work tomorrow? Do I need to, like, get someone to cover my class? And they kind of had to break through. And they got, like, right on my level, and they looked at me and they said, Olivia, you're having a baby. You have preeclampsia. You're not going to go home again until you have a baby. Do you have someone we can call? And that's when I started to panic. But I knew that if, if I just went with the flow, I was going to have the birth that the hospital wanted for me. And even though everything that I was scared was going to happen was starting to happen, it's like I I am still the active participant here, and I can still write my story. So I mean, it was a week long process. I got to the new hospital at midnight on Tuesday, November 29 they wanted to wait and start my induction on Wednesday, when I was supposedly 34 weeks at that point, but that also was going to give them time to get some steroid injections in and like I was scared, but I was trying to talk to every provider I saw, because at that point, I'm in the hospital for about a week, so it's a just a rotating door, but I'm letting them know when I'm talking to them, like, you're going to answer my questions, I'm going to make the decisions. And it was as simple as, on Tuesday, they were going to start my induction on Wednesday, and I said, I'm going to eat and I'm going to take a shower, because part of being on magnesium, they don't want you to eat and they want you to be bed bound. And I said, you cannot expect me to go into birth without having eaten since Monday, and I'm taking a shower. So how are we going to do this? And they unhooked my magnesium for a little bit. I had to wait an hour, but they got me to the shower, they got me some food. And it's like, I don't think people realize that they they're the decision maker. It's like, I respected their their medical profession, because I'm not the expert in preeclampsia. I appreciate what they're doing for me, but there's no way that they could have expected me to go through that.

Well, I think that this is an important point that and I have to talk about this a lot of my hypnobirthing class. When birth goes off course from what you're envisioning, we can roll with the punches. That's an important part of preparation. And when that happens, we don't throw it all away and go, well, there goes the whole plan. It's like, no, no, no, no, I'm relinquishing to something that I and I can feel gratitude for the medical intervention I know I need, or else I wouldn't be consenting to it, and I can still control all these other things. But I think too often, women think either goes exactly the way they envisioned, or it all gets thrown away. And that's when they lost control of everything, and that's when everything went downhill. You have to keep your wits about you. What can I still control? I, in fact, I'm controlling the medical intervention. I'm consenting to it, and what can I still control and keep on track for my plan? So that's what you did, and it made you feel really good, obviously, didn't it? It's obvious it did. I mean, I definitely want to talk about, I can think back and say I had a beautiful, positive birth, even though it was at 34 weeks. Everything I was scared of happening happened, but it was still good. And I mean, listening to your podcast for years by that point certainly helped. My Doula had to kind of remind me, because I started to spiral like you were mentioning, and say, Well, I'm just going to have a C section, I guess, at this point. And she's like, there is no indication for that. I'm thankful my hospital was very pro vaginal birth, because that could have very easily not been the case. My induction started on Wednesday, at 5am they did a round of cytotech. We did another round at 10am because I had just started to soften and thin, but no dilation. So it was a multiple day process. We did a Foley bulb later Wednesday evening, and I hadn't ever planned on an epidural, but by that point, it's like things were starting to ramp up. We decided okay. When the Foley bulb came out, I was three centimeters. It had been about 24 hours. At that point, they wanted to break my water. I said, I don't want to do that yet. So we waited about half a day at that point, and I did go ahead and decide to get my first, first epidural, and I didn't really feel much, really. If at that point, but it was the mental of like, okay, I have epidural, so I'm supposed to relax now. So I declined my amniotomy the first time, when they came back, about half a day later, I was still at that three centimeter so I'd been there for many hours at that point. So we, we did consent to that the second time, multiple hours again go by. They want to start Pitocin. And I'm like, okay, we can do that. And then after we start that, I'm like, I don't think my epidural is working. Like, why can I, why can I still feel everything? And they're like, What do you mean? You can still feel everything? And so they're like, poking and pinching me on my thighs. And they're like, You mean you can feel this? Can you feel this ice cube, and I'm like, I can feel it, and especially now that you broke my water and you've ramped me up on Pitocin, so they did a second epidural, nothing happened with that either. So I mean, now we're about a day and a half into my induction, and it's getting very hard to cope with the contractions, because they've got me maxed out on the Pitocin. It's like I'm I'm one right after the other. All the breath work and tools my doula and I had worked with prior weren't really working. And I know part of that was mental, because I, in my mind, had said, Okay, I've got the epidural. My natural birth is out the window. This is hard, so I know my mental game wasn't helping, but by that evening, so at this point, it's closing in on 35 ish hours of induction, and I'm guttural moaning. They're like, You do not look like a woman who's had two epidurals. We don't understand. And I said, at what point are you just going to cut her out of me? And so I'm glad that they were not you said that yes, because I was like, I don't know that I can keep doing this. And if I had been at any other hospital, and if I had been with Dr Perez, you'd be like, Alright, let's go to the go to the operating room. I'm glad they brushed me off. And they're like, Honey, no, you're you're okay. There's, there's no reason for that. Plus, the epidural is not working. We're not gonna be able to catch you open. Otherwise we'd have to do general anesthesia. So they're like, it's okay. We do want our most experienced anesthesiologist to come in and take a look, though he's not here yet. Can you hang on two or three more hours? And it's like, at this point, it's just a mental game. I'm sick from the magnesium. It's making me throw up. I'm feeling defeated, but got my playlist on.

Let's also remember that when the natural course of physiologic birth is interrupted with all the various things that were going on with you, it is a lot harder to get that cascade of endorphins going and working for you. Yeah.

I mean, I'm being interrupted at least every hour for blood pressure checks. It's still high, despite magnesium and two different blood pressure medicines and an epidural. So luckily, my daughter was fine the entire time. It was just me that was struggling, but by about 9:30pm on Thursday, so this had been, had been in the hospital since about 12am on Tuesday. At this point, there supposed best anesthesiologist comes in, and he brings an ultrasound machine, and he ultrasound and scans my back, and he's like, Oh, you have slight scoliosis. Did you know this? No, he's like, we're off. We're like, a quarter centimeter off. We're not in the right spot. But then defends it by saying, well, ultrasounds are all by sight. Anyway, you sign the waiver that says that, like, Okay, well, can you, can you get one in? Now that's actually going to do something. And luckily, it did. By that point, I could tell immediately this is now working, and they agreed to leave me alone for about two or three hours at that point so I could try to sleep, because I had had no more than 45 minutes of rest since I had been in the hospital.

Did you mean to say epidurals are all by sight? You said ultrasounds?

Oh, I'm sorry, yes, epidurals. He said, their epidurals are all placed by sight. You signed the waiver for that. Thank you. So it's three centimeters at that point, they let me rest. I could tell while I was resting that things were progressing. I was feeling the deep pressure, very low in the pelvis. So I wake up about 12:30am on Friday, December 2, and within a few hours, I was already at nine centimeters. So was happy that now that I had a chance to actually rest my body, was able to open so everything started happening at that point. We call my Doula, my husband's waking up, sure medical providers are in and out. That was never part of the plan, but they were very respectful. We had the lights down low. We had my birth playlist on. It was that beautiful experience that I had wanted. Really did not have to push very long. So within that 1230 to about 130 time frame. I was then fully effaced and 10 centimeters. We did a couple rounds of pushes. The doctor that I met when I first came to the hospital was the one who was there, so she was my provider, which I did connect with her. So I was very happy about that, because that was the main scare when I came to this hospital, is I don't know these people. I've not built any rapport with them. I'm here for a week. I'm just going to get anyone so she was a great person to have on the care team. But my daughter was born at 210 on December 2, 2022, so two is definitely her number. She was 34 weeks. So she was small. She was four pounds, 10 ounces. We did get a little bit of skin to skin. That was something that they originally said I was not going to have. And I lost my mind at that. And I said, I know she's going to need to go to the NICU, but you you have to give me her for a few minutes.

Quick comment on that. It's it's just absolutely insane to me that this is not that there is even a question that a premature baby should not immediately be put skin to skin with a mom. There is so much evidence that says that babies who are immediately and continuously skin to skin with their mothers stabilize so much better than babies that are taken and put in an incubator, which is what the alternative would have been. The thought from the NICU team is, typically, we need to get these babies stabilized as soon as they're born in the safest and best way. And it is so clear in the evidence is that that baby goes on the mom, so you were so good to advocate for that. And so many mothers unfortunately have their babies taken from them and stabilized in a way that is not nearly as helpful. And I mean,

it definitely wasn't ideal. It wasn't the golden hour hour I wanted. They still had her in like the hat on her head and the towel wrapped around her, but it's like, you're you're not taking her. I think the most traumatic part of the birth was that I couldn't see her for 27 hours. They because I'm on magnesium. I can't walk. I had to be on that for 24 hours post birth, they were not willing to wheel me to the NICU, so my husband was there. I hardly saw him the day of delivery because he was in the NICU with her the majority of the time. So that's the one part of my birth I look back on and I'm disappointed in. I don't know if I should have done anything different to try to to make that happen, but at least we did have a few minutes together. She was there until the following Friday, so she's in the NICU for a week. I was able to come home on Sunday. I still had some high blood pressure for a few days afterwards, but went home on some blood pressure medication. Was since able to come off of that. So it was nothing like I had planned. Everything that I was initially fearful of did happen, but the visualization and the prep work during pregnancy, listening to shows like yours and really understanding what my options are were huge contributing factors to why I could look back and say it was a good experience.

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I think I mean, I'm so passionate about learning your body, and I know many women are on hormonal birth control, and that's not what this episode's about, but I think you can't really know your body if it's being medically managed by a pill, but even if you are past your reproductive years, and you're in, let's say, a grandmotherly role. It's important to learn this. How do you understand your body and know the phases of the cycle? It's like teach that to your daughters, your granddaughters, the children, or like women in your life, because this is how we change culture, by getting women in tune with their body so then they can listen and and take their control back.