“Once I knew what it was, that helped. It’s a physiological thing. There’s nothing actually wrong with me. My experience with it was pretty extreme. Our bodies are so amazing and they serve us so well, but there are differences for everybody.”Brenda’s six births include a medicated hospital birth, a crash Cesarean, an unmedicated VBAC, an HBAC, an emergency C-section, and a gentle, planned Cesarean. Her stories are wildly different but all inspiring in their own ways!Brenda also gets raw and vulnerable with us as she shares her intense postpartum experiences with Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex (D-MER). Her choice to fight for healing in a positive way has helped her come out of the fog every time.Have you experienced D-MER?Additional linksThe VBAC Link Blog: How to Plan for a Natural Family-Centered CesareanThe VBAC Link Facebook CommunityHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull transcriptNote: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words. Meagan: Hello, hello everybody. Welcome to The VBAC Link podcast. This is Meagan, your host, which is so weird to say that it’s just me by myself. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get used to that, but here I am and I’m still so excited to be with you. We have an awesome episode today. We have our friend, Brenda, and she has a lot of stories to tell you. I am so excited to learn more about all of her birth journeys. She is a mom of six and has had a mixture of vaginal, unmedicated, medicated, home birth, VBAC, and planned Cesarean. All of the things, so we are so excited to dive into her stories today. Review of the WeekMeagan: As usual, we always have a Review of the Week and I am going to be reading that for you today. This is from a mama in Australia. I don’t even know how to actually how to say her username. It’s awesomebarbie. Sorry if I’m botching that, love. Her topic says, “Two angels sent from above.” It says, “Hey, ladies. I’m from Sydney, Australia and I’ve been a silent fan for months now. Ever since having my C-section on November 19th, I have been obsessed with achieving a vaginal birth. Luckily for me, I fell pregnant on July 20th and I’m currently 33 weeks.”“Listening to your podcast has encouraged me to be strong-minded and educated me so much. It has taught me how to self-advocate and stand up for my body. Thank you, guys. I am going for my VBAC in late March. You guys won’t need to stalk me because I will write you guys either way.”I love that because we do. We stalk you guys. “I hope to be on your show soon. Love, Wendy. Sydney, Australia.” It’s so funny because when we read reviews from the past, we do. We love to go back into The VBAC Link Community on our Facebook group and see if they have posted and what the outcome was. So thank you so much, Wendy. We love you back and we are so glad that you have been with us. Brenda’s StoryMeagan: Okay. We are going to turn the time over to Brenda. Before we do, I want to just give you a little sneak peek of what we’ve got for the little bit in the end. There’s my son in the background. So like I said in the beginning, she’s had six kiddos and something that we want to talk about at the end is gentle Cesareans. This is something that I personally had as well with my second C-section and it made all the world of a difference in my experience. And then we also wanted to talk about D-Mer. Hang in and listen to this amazing story and at the end, hang in there because we want to talk about D-Mer a little more. Okay, cute Brenda, are you ready for this? Brenda: I’m ready. Meagan: All right. Well, I will turn the time over to you. Brenda: Okay. So yeah. I’m super excited to talk. I mean, who doesn’t love talking about their children’s births? And so I guess I’m just going to run through. Like you said, I have six kids and each birth has been totally different. My first was over the estimated due date. I kind of went into labor, but I was not progressing very quickly. I basically wa