Thanks for tuning in to this episode of MomTalks with Christa. Today we have one of my favorite reoccurring guests Liesel Teen who's also known as Mommy Labor Nurse on Instagram and all of her platforms. Liesel is not only the first guest I've ever had on this show but she's been back on the show probably about four or five times since then. She's got tons of expertise in the field of labor and delivery and then in her own personal experience and you have to check out her Instagram, she's got the most amazing posts, just full of information and education.

In her interview today, she's gonna go over many important topics and actually at the time of the interview she had just had our second baby two months prior so we're going to go over some fresh material. She’s going to share what she put in her hospital bag this time? How she prepared differently for this birth as opposed to the first birth?

Christa: I'm so glad that you were able to come back on the show today I know like we're saying it's been while, so today we kind of want to talk about obviously as a labor and delivery nurse cover labor and delivery and also birth education. Just to start I mean we've grown a lot since I think the last time we've interviewed so anyone that hasn't seen a previous interview with you or doesn't know who you are, can you just say a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Liesel: My name is Liesel and I'm a Labor and Delivery Nurse in Raleigh, North Carolina and I'm also the creator of Mommy Labor Nurse which is an online, I guess it's a started off as a blog but it's just a lot more now just a brand in general and we, our goal is to educate new moms, to any anytime mom, educate moms about pregnancy, birth, postpartum, breastfeeding, so we do a lot of fun little images on Instagram. That's probably where most people know us from is Instagram and then have a Podcast and have a Blog and everything. We like to just spread education around and educate in the best most creative way that we can.

Christa: So I was curious like as I was putting kind of questions together and prepping for this so I'm curious how this birth, your second birth change this time around being kind of more involved in the mommy labor nurse brand. Like you really talk about birth education, was there anything different you did this time around that you didn't do last time and kind of what impact did you see that was kind of different?

Liesel: One of the main things that I did this time that I certainly did not do the last time at all was educate my husband. Talked to my husband because he was just… I educated myself the first time, I read a bunch of stuff and took a course and did all the necessary stuff that I preached to my audience about but I didn't do anything for my husband. He was just kind of, I'm like he'll be fine I know what I'm doing but he'll be fine. He kind of went into that one not knowing really a thing and came out of it a little bit traumatized as a result which is understandable because I was screaming my head off for a little while there at the end and he was traumatized. I just did not expect that to happen so I definitely had him watch some of my own videos and my own content and read my own content because I wanted to ideally try and do the same thing with my second that I did with my first and not get an epidural if I could do it again. Even doing it the second time, it was extremely hard and took prep as well, so I wanted to make sure that he was prepped and he kind of knew what he was getting himself into and ideally I wanted him to learn some techniques and learn what he could really do to help me. Because I know that I needed him in my ear and giving me positive affirmations like doing so great, it's going to be over soon, telling me all the things and I know that's what he does best and I need my nurses doing the physical support of the counter pressure and helping me with positions and everything. And once we kind of were all on the same page with that, it went really well as it could go. It was very painful but it went as well and I felt very supported from everyone in the room. But that was definitely something I did different was make sure that he was fully mentally prepared and he was already somewhat mentally prepared without reading anything just from having the first experience and going into the second one and knowing what to expect but I just was like let's do a little icing on the cake and just make sure we're on the same page here. So I would say the biggest thing difference is definitely I prepped him a whole lot more.

Christa: I see people ask this question all the time and I feel like who better to go to than the labor delivery nurse herself. What are the essentials that you packed in your overnight bag or your hospital bag that you would recommend moms to look out for and pack in their own bag?

Liesel: I'm not gonna go over all of them because there was quite a few but I'll go over some of the tidbits. First of all, what I did was I have always, so I shared this on my Instagram, Stories of like how I packed my bag and what I kind of did. And since I've known my husband packed his bag for every kind of trip that we've gone on, that's just what I do and that's just it's almost like I don't even think twice about it, like I just pack his bag. So I got a lot of messages of like because I went through, I packed my bag, I packed my husband's bag, I have packed a little bag for like the baby and that's kind of how I thought of it in my head of categorizing it out, and that's how I posted it. I had a lot of people be like you packed your husband's bag like you can't pack his own bag I was like well I mean he can but I just I've always done that. I did pack my husband's bag so that's what I want to first start off by saying is that that's how I kind of organize it in my brain. You can put it all in one bag, it doesn't matter but for me I at least like to have like separate a little separate bag for myself, a little separate bag for my husband, and like a little mini bag for any kind of baby stuff and then I think I put the baby stuff inside my bag just so I knew but that's how kind of like organized it. So in terms of let's go over my a few things that were like in my bag, so working at the hospital and seeing how the showers sometimes get cleaned, not gonna say this is how it is everywhere but I did put just an old pair of flip-flops in my bag. Just if you've gone to college and showered in college dorms, like that's some college days like that I always wore shoes when I showered in college so I like brought my college days back, put flip-flops in my bag to not have my feet go on the tile, so that was in my bag. For labor, one thing that I definitely packed in there, I brought some clothes for me, I brought like a little gown for me that I wore during labor and just some comfy kind of sports bras. In terms of afterwards, I did bring a bunch of like open shirts so I brought like a few pj tops that were you just like button them for because I planned on breastfeeding, so I brought those, and I always say that's better than using just like a t-shirt especially when you're first starting out breastfeeding and breastfeeding a newborn it can be really hard to breastfeed like that like it's so much easier to have and have a shirt that actually buttons open or zips open, so I definitely brought those. let me see what else is on my list, for labor I am a puker so I brought a bunch of stuff that was like I brought some of those preggy pops I don't know if you know what those are but they're like help with nausea. I brought like a little essential oil roller that I used for nausea, just a few things and I brought like I make sure I had some Zofran, I knew that I was gonna be puking during labor so I made sure I brought some extra stuff for nausea and vomiting. Going back to afterwards my stuff, definitely brought a nursing pillow too, so the pillows at the hospital are fine. I mean you can use them for breastfeeding a newborn but I love to tell moms about those nursing pillows I just think they provide a lot of support especially when you're first starting out you're breastfeeding a newborn, so definitely brought that back brought that to the hospital. I just washed it when I came home and then for me as well I brought my own pillow and I just came home and washed that as well because I knew that I sleep a heck of a lot better on my own pillow than like a hospital pillow. Those are some of the things in my bag. My husband's bag I have to talk about it like it's just normal husband stuff. For baby, one thing that I definitely always recommend to bring for that first meconium poop that they have it's very, very sticky and it can stick to their little tush so I brought a little tube of Aquaphor, it's like just Vaseline and what you do is before they even go that first time, sometimes they kind of come out and it's on them but your kind of have to can't do anything about that. But if they haven't had their first poop yet, you just kind of smear on a little bit of that Aquaphor or Vaseline right in their bottom and all over their bottom in the diaper and stuff it'll get on the diaper and that will help with the stickiness when you wipe for that first meconium and just make it a whole lot easier to clean. So I love to tell people about that little trick and I certainly did this, I did that the first time with Walter, I did it the second time with Ryland, so that was definitely one that I packed in his bag. Another two were little nail clippers he did have a couple of little straggler kind of nail, hang nails coming out. Some babies you might need to clip a little nail you just have to be careful, some babies don't but I just have that in my bag as well. And then little hand mittens, so those are nice because they do have a tendency to really scratch their face and it can just, it just makes me sad when I see them like scratching their face. So those are just a few.

Christa: Another question we get a lot is about people that are about to have their second birth and so what for you was the difference between the first birth and the second birth.

Liesel: I will say with this second birth, it was still hard but it was a world of difference just going into it, having the experience of going through a first birth the first time so this second time certainly still hurt just like anything. I had some really bad contractions and was still screaming my head off at the end. But I think this second time, I remember saying this before I even went into labor and I really utilized it during labor is I really tried to focus on relaxing during my contractions as best as I could because I know from the first time I really struggled with that because I just have the tendency to really tense up so I really focused on relaxing my body and using my breathing and breathing deep with this birth and with contractions during this birth. So that certainly helped to an extent and then I kind of got at the end and I ended up stalling at the end for a while and that was rough but eventually I got to 10 centimeters and I pushed him out. And difference wise, it was certainly quicker, the stalling was not quick, that didn't happen the first time so that was something that was unexpected but overall it was about a third short. My first one I think was 20 some hours and this one was only like 8 hours something like that 7 or 8 hours so it was definitely shorter and once I really got into full blown labor, it was shorter overall and then pushing was a lot shorter. I think I pushed for 10 or 15 minutes with this one versus Walter. It was 25, 30 minutes which isn't even that long so pushing everything was just a little bit shorter.

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