Delivering Strength Podcast

In this episode, we sat down with local breastfeeding educator Madison Hendry. Madison is a mama of two with one on the way, a visual artist, and owner of Mama Bird through which she provides in-home certified breastfeeding education and services. 

Curious about what Birthfit has to say about exercising throughout your pregnancy? Listen into this interview with Birthfit Coach and Regional Director Laura Mattison. Between Laura and Candace so many great insights are shared!

In this episode, Candace and her partner, Eric, sit down and share their son Otto’s birth on the night of his first birthday! Otto’s birth was a planned homebirth with a hospital transfer and unplanned cesarean. 

Get caught up on what's going on in Candace and Anna's personal lives, professional lives and the lives of our little ones. Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

In this interview, we talk with Christine Cassella, a mother, community herbalist, birth doula, & biologist that loves helping to educate & inspire individuals who are ready to learn the ways of Earth-centered living, including those who are preparing for an empowering birth.

Through her business, Light Footsteps, she shares her passion for Earth, plants, women, and children with the immediate community and larger online community. She believes that this knowledge is essential for us to reestablish a meaningful connection with the natural world and ourselves. By doing this, we can begin to create healthier people and a healthier earth.

Let us together reweave ancient wisdom for modern times and create a new paradigm for living on this planet.

In this interview, we talk with Linnea French - a local mom who has given birth at home for all 5 of her kids! In this episode, she shares the story of her son's breech birth, as well as some great helpful info if you're considering giving birth at home.

In this episode, we sat down for a laid back conversation with Kate Spinner - a local mom and CrossFit box owner. She shares her journey to motherhood, baby Luke's birth story. And we had a lot of fun discussing fitness - prenatal, postpartum, and after a miscarriage, and chatting about that mompreneur life. We hope you enjoy this interview!

3:30 – Candace What’s Up

5:55 – Anna What’s Up

7:15 – Kate What’s Up

8:32 – Kate’s Introduction

11:20 – First Miscarriage – Early Term Miscarriage

12:35 – Keeping Baby Hope’s Memory Alive

16:50 – Second Miscarriage/Stillbirth

17:10 – Getting pregnant with Luke

• Mindset – fear of pregnancy after miscarriages

19:10 – How she felt during pregnancy

• Zofran, Progesterone shots

21:27 – Birth story

• C-section, NICU stay

25:25 – The journey back to fitness

• Working out while pregnant
• Each person is different
• Subchorionic hematoma

35:28 – Fitness in the postpartum period

• Diastasis Recti, Birthfit Functional Progressions

37:20 – Mompreneur Life

Kate’s desire to get back into competing

46:10 – I Am Stronger – nonprofit Kate runs – www.iamstronger.org

• Free girls class on Saturdays
• Girls Only Fall Camp

48:40 – Progesterone in 3rdpregnancy because of pre-term labor details

51:25 – Rainbow babies

52:55 – How do you feel you’re Delivering Strength?

55:10 – How can our listeners find you?

• cocacrossfit.com
• iamstronger.org
• katerawlings.com

Delivering Strength: Find Us Online

• Website – www.deliveringstrength.com
• Facebook – www.facebook.com/deliveringstrength
• Instagram – www.instagram.com/deliveringstrength
• Facebook Community – www.facebook.com/groups/DeliveringStrength/

If you have show topics or guests that you’d like to recommend to us, please feel free to send us a message through our website or send us an email at [email protected].

Find Dr. Candace Gesicki, DC at Cleveland Chiropractic & Integrative Health Center or Birthfit Cleveland. 

This week we sat down with Kimberly Hartzler, a Cleveland mama who had a twin VBAC at 40 weeks and 5 days. 

Show Notes 

Each of our episodes will have some show notes so that you can skip to specific topics that apply to you if that’s what you’d like to do. Those show notes for this episode are shown below. 

• 3:29 – Kimberly is here to talk to us about her VBAC with twins journey
  • Delivering Strength shared a VBA3C with Jamie Stepp Schrock on Episode 19!
• 5:20 – About Kimberly
  • Selah Farm
  • Hartzler Farm
• 11:47 – The Hertzler’s journey to starting a family
• 18:38 – Kimberly’s preparation for the birth of her first born son, Josiah
• 29:34 – The fear of getting pregnant a second time
  • It is recommended for a VBAC to have 18 months between births
• 31:20 – Exploration of options for VBAC
• 33:30 – Kimberly finds out she is pregnant with identical twins at the 20 week anatomy scan
  • Kimberly’s needs to fight for a provider to support her VBAC
• 36:44 – Why would your care provider only want you to carry until 38 weeks with twins?
• 42:00 – 40 weeks came and went
• 44:00 – Kimberly is a “collision of a perfect storm”. There were a lot of things that helped her achieve her VBAC
  • No bed rest
  • Chiropractic care
  • Baby A head down
  • Stayed active with a 2 year old at home
• 45:00 – 40 weeks and 5 days- Kimberly’s contractions begin
• 54:05 – What is a bulging amniotic sac?
• 57:12 – Dr. Gingo checks in
• 59:45 – Emmitt is born
• 60:35 – Judah is out and gets delayed cord clamping
• 67:02 – Overcoming fear of another pregnancy
• 69:29 – Questions for Kimberly
  • Referrals mentioned:
    • Doulas
      • “Doula Rae”- Rae Schmidt
      • Sunday Tortelli
      • Patsy Leo
    • Homebirth Midwife:
      • Pam Kolanz
    • OB/Gyn:
      • Gingo
    • Other resources:
      • ICAN
      • Birthing from Within(**Note: we mistakenly called this book Birth Without Feat on the podcast)
    • How to find a doctor that will support your VBAC?
  • Find Kimberly Online:
    • http://www.selafarmsohio.com
    • Reach out to Kimberly on Facebook!

• Delivering Strength: Find Us Online
  • Website – com
  • Facebook – com/deliveringstrength
  • Instagram – com/deliveringstrength
  • Facebook Community – com/groups/DeliveringStrength/

If you have show topics or guests that you’d like to recommend to us, please feel free to send us a message through our websiteor send us an email at [email protected].

Aubrey Phelps is a Cleveland, Ohio mom who is no stranger to unmet expectations. She did everything right during her pregnancies – all the right nutrition, fitness and birth preparations. And she had high hopes for her babies’ births and motherhood journey. But her children’s births and first years were nothing like she had imagined. A good reminder that while we can prepare all we want, our babies are going to be born the way they’re meant to be born. Listen to her story here – and stick around to the end for an encouraging message about babies choosing their parents wisely!

Trigger Warning:

In today’s episode, we talk about birth trauma, emergency cesarean section, premature birth, postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. If this is something you do not feel comfortable with listening to today, we suggest passing on this episode and circling back to it when you’re ready.

If you’re struggling with birth trauma, perinatal mood disorder, or healing from unmet expectations of motherhood, you may want to consider consulting with your care provider, therapist or one of the support groups listed on our website.

 SHOW NOTES: 

1:45 - Intro to episode

3:00 – Candace what’s up

• Otto is 6 months
• Otto’s Baptism
• Ticks in the house!

7:20 - Anna’s what’s up

• Dean has been sick, calling the pediatrician at 2:00 a.m.

13:15 - Aubrey what’s up

• Celebrating her daughter’s second birthday, 7 tier rainbow cake!

17:20 – Introduction to Aubrey

19:15 – Aubrey starts her story

• The birth story of her first son
• Emergency C section
• He was a tough baby - crying all the time
• Identifying her postpartum anxiety
• Her son was a difficult nurser, she had a heavy letdown
• Embracing her C section scar
• Weaning and getting period back to prepare for 2ndchild, seed cycling

34:00 – Planning for baby #2

• Getting pregnant with second child
• Implantation bleeding
• John’s West Shore Midwives
• Bleeding during pregnancy
• High blood pressure
• Preeclampsia
• Issues during spinal
• Meeting her daughter for the first time
• Difficulties breastfeeding and long term pumping, G tube
• Postpartum issues - seeing therapist, not having time to realize she needed help again

47:33 – Mindset shift after second baby. “I hadn’t failed. She was going to be born early and have feeding issues. She picked us. She knew we could handle it.”

51:00 – Having a child in the NICU and another at home

• Feeling cheated of time and experiences
• Leaving a child at the hospital and having to go home
• Being on house arrest with no visitors because of germs

53:30 Recommended that you see a therapist

• She is diagnosed PPD, PTSD, PPA
• You need a village to get through these things
• Social media is a highlight reel showing only the good news
• Going out of the house and seeing other happy, healthy children was difficult

55:50 – How long until you felt comfortable going out of the house?

• Going out with the G tube and pumping
• Supply and night pumping for extended period of time
• Supplementing with donor breastmilk – Human Milk for Human Babies

59:00 – How her daughter is now

• SOS Approach to Feeding
• Anxiety with this new change
• Division of responsibility
• Weaned in two months
• Baby led weaning

1:09:00 – Advice for anyone struggling with unmet expectations (birth trauma, breastfeeding, parenting, etc.)

• Both, And * A great reminder and life lesson!

1:11:00 – Owning your story without caveats or excuses

1:12:15 – Dealing with postpartum issues after - exercise, taking care of yourself, therapist

• Finding the right therapist
• Medication, breastfeeding while on medication

1:16:05 – How do you feel you’re Delivering Strength?

Find Aubrey Online:

• Website: Backtoscratch.Net
• Instagram: instagram.com/aub_the_rd

• Delivering Strength: Find Us Online
• • Website – www.deliveringstrength.com
  • Facebook – www.facebook.com/deliveringstrength
  • Instagram – www.instagram.com/deliveringstrength
  • Facebook Community – www.facebook.com/groups/DeliveringStrength/

If you have show topics or guests that you’d like to recommend to us, please feel free to send us a message through our website or send us an email at [email protected].

Find Dr. Candace Gesicki, DC at Cleveland Chiropractic & Integrative Health Center or Birthfit Cleveland.

We’d love to hear from you! Do you have comments on today’s episode? Ideas for future episodes? Questions for us? Send them to us at [email protected]. 

In this episode, we talk with local mom Heather Law about the birth of her daughter Holly, born at 24 weeks. This story has a happy ending because Holly is now 2 years old and thriving! Hear all about their pregnancy, birth and NICU stay in this episode.

TRIGGER WARNING: In this interview, Heather shares her daughter Holly’s birth, which includes topics such as premature cesarean birth, postpartum depression, and postpartum ptsd.

After going back and listening to the interview, i wanted to make sure that we touched on the tone of our conversation. Heather is two years into her journey and has leaned on the support of family, friends and counselors to help with postpartum depression and PTSD. Our conversation was very comfortable and the entire interview carries a lighter tone on the topic although we understand not everyone is in that same place. We just want to remind our listeners that everyone handles their situation differently. If you are struggling with a perinatal mood disorder or are struggling with emotions surrounding a traumatic birth we encourage you to seek out a professional,  reach out to us for referrals or look into one of the support groups we have mentioned.

2:45 – Intro to episode topic

3:37 – Ice breaker

6:45 – Heather Intro

16:43 – Heather shares her journey to motherhood

• Fertility struggles with PCOS
• Incompetent cervix
• Bedrest
• Emergency c-section
• Pumping

34:31 – Heather sees Holly for the first time

36:00 – Recovering from a cesarean birth with a baby in the NICU  

• Holly’s first days

38:10 – NICU doctors are a different breed

43:00 – Holly is making progress  

47:30 – Heather’s routine with her baby in the NICU

49:52 – Heather’s advice for parents with a baby in the NICU

53:15 – Dealing with birth trauma, PTSD, and PPD

59:30 – Micro preemie vs. preemie

62:45 –

• Full Circle Support Group meets on the East Side on the 3rd Tuesday of the Month at Mayfield Public Library.  This support group is open to any NICU parent.

• 4th Monday of every Month the West Side group meets at Circle of Life Birth Services
• Contact: [email protected]

65:12 – Project Preemie

67:47 – Holly is two!  Heather updates us on how Holly is doing!

1:10:40– How do you feel like you are delivering strength through that you are doing?

Delivering Strength: Find Us Online

• Website – www.deliveringstrength.com
• Facebook – www.facebook.com/deliveringstrength
• Instagram – www.instagram.com/deliveringstrength
• Facebook Community – www.facebook.com/groups/DeliveringStrength/

If you have show topics or guests that you’d like to recommend to us, please feel free to send us a message through our website or send us an email at [email protected].

Find Dr. Candace Gesicki, DC at Cleveland Chiropractic & Integrative Health Center or Birthfit Cleveland. 

We’d love to hear from you! Do you have comments on today’s episode? Ideas for future episodes? Questions for us? Send them to us at [email protected].