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Brianna Battles  00:01

Welcome to the Practice Brave Podcast. I am the host Brianna Battles, founder of pregnancy and postpartum athleticism, and CEO of Everyday Battles. I’m a career strength and conditioning coach, entrepreneur, mom of two wild little boys and a lifelong athlete. I believe that athleticism does not end when motherhood begins, and this podcast is dedicated to coaching you by providing meaningful conversations, insights and interview topics related to fitness, mindset, parenting and of course, all the nuances of pregnancy and postpartum, from expert interviews to engaging conversations and reflections. This podcast is your trustworthy, relatable resource for learning how to practice brave through every season in your life. Hey everyone, welcome back to the practice brave podcast today I’m here with Kaylee summers, and we’re going to be talking about birth trauma, and I realize that this is not always a conversation that is easy to listen to if you are pregnant or if you experience birth trauma, but I can assure you, it’s an important conversation that is worth acknowledging, that is worth having. In particular, if you are a fitness or birth professional you work with women who are mothers, it is critical that you hear stories like Kaylee’s and you recognize that birth looks different for every woman. And I think so many of us that listen to this podcast have athletic backgrounds, fitness is a big part of your life and identity, and oftentimes when you enter the motherhood season, it’s easy to assume that you’re strong, you’re fit, you’re tough, and that somehow that guarantees a certain outcome. And what we’re going to discuss today is there’s just a variety of variables that influence birth and why it’s really important that we keep an open mind if you are entering that season of life, and more importantly, if you are a practitioner, supporting women, a coach, practitioner in any field, you have to understand the variety of experiences and really dial in how you speak and what you recommend to this population. So Kaylee, thank you for being here.

Kayleigh Summers  02:10

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to have this conversation today.

Brianna Battles  02:14

Me too, and I’ve been following you for a long time, and I’m sure you hear this all the time, but I wish I would have had an account like yours when I had first had my son, Cade, 12 years ago, because I don’t even think I had the word birth trauma to label what my birth experience had been like. And so I really am grateful for the work that you do.

Kayleigh Summers  02:35

Yeah, of course. Thank you. It’s been, you know, a long road, but one that, of course, I am grateful to be here and be able to provide support in this way, and it’s like healing for me too to get to be a part of that community.

Brianna Battles  02:49

Yeah, I absolutely understand that. So tell us a little bit of your background prior to becoming a mom,

Kayleigh Summers  02:56

yeah, so prior to becoming a mom, my gosh, it feels like a different lifetime. Yeah, so I’m originally from South Jersey, and if you know about jersey, like it’s very important, because South Jersey is an entirely different place than North Jersey and Central Jersey. Some people believe it exists. Some people believe it doesn’t. You know. So I’m from South Jersey, which is essentially right outside Philly. And I grew up playing soccer. And I eventually went and played Division One soccer at St Joe’s University in Philadelphia, and then I went on from there to grad school at University of Pennsylvania, again in Philly. Really a Philly girl at heart never left. And I went to grad school to get my master’s in social work. And then I worked at the University of Pennsylvania for a while, working in their alcohol and drug program, supporting students in that way. And then I ended up going to work at a boarding school as a therapist to support, like high achieving kiddos, lots of anxiety, lots of OCD, lots of pressure in those environments. And so it’s a really unique situation, because I lived there with my husband. He also worked there, and we were dorm parents, so we lived in a sophomore girl’s dorm, and that’s where we ended up getting married and having our son, so that’s really what you know led up to here. I’ve been incredibly active my entire life. Fitness has always been really important to me, and I had a few instances during college that were incredibly difficult and really tested me in a lot of ways. I tore my ACL my junior year, and had to red shirt and stay an extra year, and then I ended up having to actually stop playing soccer, my red shirt season, my my fifth year because of post concussion syndrome. And so a lot of kind of trials and tribulations through that experience, I. And I kind of feel like that was enough of like that, that those experiences that, you know, they taught me to be tough. I learned my lesson. I made my way through. Little did I know a lot more was to come.

Brianna Battles  05:11

Yeah, life, life be like that sometimes, huh? Just really does delivering us. I would say, like, Why do I have to learn everything the hard way? Why does every like, good thing have to come out of something so hard and so challenging and so heartbreaking. And I know that’s a theme that I’ve experienced over and over, and I hear that echoed similarly. But tell me a little bit about your pregnancy. So obviously, fitness has been a big part of your life, your whole life, and then you became pregnant. Tell me what your pregnancy

Kayleigh Summers  05:39

was like. Yeah, so my pregnancy overall was pretty uncomplicated. I was healthy throughout I, you know, my only concern, and people always laugh at this, was that I had a very large baby. Typically, this is like the opposite, like people will be told by their doctor they have a big baby. And like, you hear those stories about getting pressured into inductions and things because of big babies on ultrasounds, mine was the opposite. I was like, measuring right on track, Nope, doesn’t seem like that big of a baby. Seems just like a normal size. And I was like, I feel like he’s huge, but anyway, I gained a lot of weight with my pregnancy, which I was okay with, because I was active. I was still, like, super mobile, even though I was like, massive. Like, spoiler alert, my baby was born at 10 pounds, 14 ounces, so almost an 11 pound baby, and I was, you know, we moved in two weeks before I delivered, and I was, like, up and down the stairs with boxes and just to just kind of trying to say I felt good enough to still be super mobile at the end of my pregnancy, and I really didn’t have again, many complications, just a little bit of anxiety about how the birth would go.

Brianna Battles  07:00

Yeah, and that’s all fair, all common. I was also team big baby and very huge, despite having, like, a really, you know, fit pregnancy and background. And I think that again, there’s, like, a lot of opinions that circulate about that, and almost like, are you? Are you just eating like shit all the time? And what are you doing? Why are you so big? But there’s just, again, variables that we cannot always control Absolutely.

Kayleigh Summers  07:30

Yeah, I got, I got asked a lot if I had gestational diabetes, which, again, is not something that’s caused by, like, poor eating, or it’s just like something that happens related to the placenta. But it was still kind of like, oh, you had such a big baby. Did you have gestational diabetes? Did you I definitely got some feedback at the doctors, because I did. I gained about 80 pounds, and I had some feedback about gaining too much weight. And I was like, I’m not eating. Like, like, this is just what my body’s doing. So I’m going to do what my body’s doing. I’m still walking, I’m still doing everything I can, so I’m just really gonna keep going absolutely.

Brianna Battles  08:05

So talk to me about your labor and ultimately your delivery experience.

Kayleigh Summers  08:10

Yeah, so I was about 40 weeks and two days, so I was a little bit past my due date. No big deal there, but I went in for a typical OB appointment, and up until this point, everything had been fine, but I did have high blood pressure readings at both the beginning and the end of that appointment, which earned me a ticket to triage because I was already past my due date, and now I’m having gestational hypertension. So when I got to the hospital, I had a lot of conversations with the OBS, and we made the informed decision to move forward with an induction of labor, mainly due to their concerns about gestational hypertension. But my concerns about how big my baby was is like, he’s only going to grow bigger. And they’re like, we actually don’t care about that, but we do care about the blood pressure. That seems to be, you know, a problem at this point. So I move forward, I felt very confident. I still feel confident in that decision. The benefits, in my opinion, outweigh the risks. And so I won’t bore you with like the long, slow induction process for a first time mom. But two and a half days later, I was finally 10 centimeters. And so my OB came in, checked me, let me know I was 10, and she left to go get gowned up. And then I was in my room with my nurse on one side of my bed and my husband on the other. And I turned to my nurse and I said, I’m not feeling well. And she said, Okay, that’s like pretty typical for transition. I’ll get you a bag to be second. And I said, Nope, something is really wrong. And when she turned to look at the monitors, I started screaming that something was wrong with my heart, and seconds later I went into cardiopulmonary arrest, so my heart stopped and I stopped breathing. A Code Blue was called for my room as you. Can imagine lots of medical personnel came kind of rushing in. They started CPR, and I was taken from that room into the or across the hall, and they were able to deliver my son while CPR was happening on me, and they were able to get him delivered within six minutes of that code blue call, which is absolutely incredible. He did require resuscitation. He was born unresponsive, and so the NICU team was there and were able to resuscitate him very quickly. And then the attention really turned back toward me. And so CPR had continued on me until the end of that C section where they were able to resuscitate me and my OB, thankfully, at this point, recognized I was likely having something called an amniotic fluid embolism, which is an incredibly rare obstacle complication. It is unfortunately still unpreventable, unpredictable and often fatal. And so she was able to recognize that there’s like a two phase response in aFe. And one of those phases is what I had already experienced, kind of that, like cardiopulmonary collapse. And then the other phase is called something called DIC, which is disseminated intravascular coayopathy. It’s like a mouthful, but essentially, your body throws a bunch of micro clots, consumes all of your clotting factors, and you bleed out rapidly. And so she prophylactically placed like a bacteria balloon into my uterus, which helps to tamponade and stem the bleeding from the uterus. And she called for a massive transfusion protocol, which was just great foresight from her, because I did develop DIC, and I had a profound case of DIC. So I would go on to require 143 units of blood product. So that’s the body’s full blood volume being replaced about 14 times. And I would eventually require ECMO support, which is the highest form of life support, as well as a hysterectomy and the removal of my right ovary in order to stop some of the bleeding. So about eight or nine hours after all of those surgeries, I was eventually transferred from that hospital to the medical team at the hospital that they had transferred ECMO. So they had transferred ECMO in with my medical team to put me on va ECMO. So then they transferred me back out so that that hospital could maintain my ECMO circuit. They told my family that I would probably be on ECMO for about two weeks, and that then I would be in the ICU for a few more weeks, down to mother baby for a few weeks, and then to rehab. And they weren’t sure what my cognitive functioning would be given how long I was down for, I did suffer a brief second cardiac arrest due to blood loss, and so when I was transferred, I was being kept alive by ECMO, but my heart wasn’t pumping effectively anymore, and they had to put in another device called an impeller into my heart to try to help it kind of offload and rest and recover in order for me to hopefully survive this event. And so with that timeline in mind, they did let my family know it would probably be like one step forward, two steps back, but the impella worked really well, and so just two and a half days after my son was born, I was removed completely from ECMO and impeller support. I was extubated the day after that, and then I was able to meet my son for the first time while conscious on the fifth day after he was born. I don’t remember it, but we have lots of beautiful videos and pictures of it. I learned what happened to me the next day from my team who came to that hospital. And then exactly 14 days after my son was born, and my amniotic fluid embolism, I was actually discharged straight from that ICU to home to like, become a mom, which is a wild way to become a mom, for sure.

Brianna Battles  14:15

Kaylee, that is, it is so much that you’ve experienced, and you are a true miracle. For those that like have not heard about this before, yeah, fact that you are here and speaking and speaking as you are and doing the work that you do is it is a true miracle, and true testament to your team and how hard they were incredible, and just the resiliency of your body. And then I think ultimately luck, because there’s so much luck, like so much luck, you know. And like you said, this is it’s a fatal thing for most women, and I really want to convey that, like that You’re truly a miracle, and I’m. I’m just grateful that you’re able to share the story and this insight and create a lot more awareness around things that otherwise aren’t we’re not told about this stuff, right? Like, we’re not as, yeah, everyone talks about, like, an informed birth. And, you know, we like go to classes, we take we learn how to breathe, we learn how to exercise, we do all of these things. And I think there’s there’s just, and it can be overwhelming to try to take in all this information, but I think at the same time, just having a general understanding of all the different variables that can influence birth is just part of that informed process, even if it feels like a buzz kill.

Kayleigh Summers  15:41

Yeah, it is. I appreciate you saying that. We were just talking in my community the other day about catastrophic birth planning and about how, like, if we’re going to plan for birth, we should also consider certain things like, you know, if so I was pumped while unconscious in the ICU. And I have, like, mixed feelings about that choice. I think everyone made the best choice with the information they had at the time, but that’s because that’s the information they had at the time, right? Because I didn’t think that I would be in the ICU on ECMO right after I had my son. So like, had I thought about like, hey, if I’m unconscious, do I and I actually, what’s so interesting about this conversation is that I probably would have said yes, but then it would have felt like a choice that I made, right, as opposed to people making a choice for me. Same with a hysterectomy. Of course, I wouldn’t be here without it, like, thank you. Like, would choose it over and over again. But the point is, I didn’t get to make that choice. Yeah.

Brianna Battles  16:39

And I think that is like, yeah. The frustrating part of, like so many women who experience birth is feeling like we had no say. Something was done to us, even if ultimately was the right move. It’s like that loss of control. And I think when you come from more of that, like athlete brain, I like to have control. I want to be prepared. I’m going to do everything, quote, right? And then to feel like now things are being done to you. It, it takes away part of your power. And I think we’ve been told, you know, that you step into your power when you become a mom, that it’s this magical experience, that you’ve never been more feminine and like powerful and strong. And then when you enter motherhood, where you just get the shit kicked out of you, like, it’s, it’s the most disempowering experience, and you go into motherhood at a disadvantage because you’re like, What just happened the best day of my life has actually turned into one of the worst. And that’s a shitty way to enter motherhood.

Kayleigh Summers  17:38

It is. And people will say, yeah, like you’ve never felt more empowered, you never felt more magic, like I have never felt more broken, yes, than after. And that says nothing about my love for my child. And I want people to hear that for themselves, like that set your experience of their birth and how devastating it was and how traumatic it was has nothing to do with how much you love your baby. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. And I think that’s important to remember too.

Brianna Battles  18:03

Yeah, it’s a it’s a critical point, and I expressed the same things. It was never like about me not loving Cade. It just made the act of learning how to become a mom that much harder. You’re starting at such a physical, mental and emotional deficit when your expectation was the literally the opposite. And so now you’re having to manage that expectation versus reality, even though you’re grateful, you’re also, like you said, broken

Kayleigh Summers  18:27

Absolutely, and that’s hard to hold at the same time, right? Absolutely.

Brianna Battles  18:32

I feel like there’s so many, so many questions and like sentiments from from that piece. So you get home from the hospital, it’s about two weeks after that catastrophic, crazy event, and I assume that your family has is just, they’re spinning right like, what was that experience like for your family? And then how did what was your support like coming home? What did that process look like for you?

Kayleigh Summers  18:57

Yeah, so everyone in my family test. Unfortunately, the timing with which it happened was, I mean, it’s never a great timing for an amniotic fluid embolism. But because I was at 10 centimeters, everyone was coming to the hospital to meet my baby. This was the first like baby on both sides of the family. And so everyone was coming. My parents are already there. We had just invited my mom in to the actual birth itself, which was not a part of the original plan. So she actually was in the waiting room with my dad telling him, hey, I’m going to be a while because I’m going to be back with Healy and Steve in the actual delivery. And so she was in the waiting room with my dad when the Code Blue was called for my room. And so she saw the way that, like, waiting room is, is it’s like, right on the hallway that connects L and D to everything else. And so she saw all the people running from outside L and D, like the critical care professionals into L and D. And she at one point, tried to, like, get out of the. Waiting Room, and the receptionist pushed her back in and was like, you can’t, you can’t come out right now. And she was like, You don’t understand. It’s my daughter. And she’s like, I’m sorry. You can’t come out. And so then eventually, once they took me to the or they let my mom go back, but my dad stayed in the waiting room because people were coming. So people were about to show up, thinking they were going to going to meet my son. And so my mom went back, and she found Steve, my husband, just like, pacing the room with his hands on his head, saying, please just save my wife, like over and over again, which always breaks my heart a little bit. And so she my mom was like, What the hell happened? And Steve was like, I don’t know, because, I mean, he has no idea what he just witnessed. And so then one by one, like my best friend showed up to the waiting room, and she describes it as, like, I like walk in and I like, saw your dad crying in the corner of a waiting room, sitting next to a woman that I didn’t know, who was the hospital chaplain. And so then my dad gets up and hugs her crying, and it’s just basically like, Kaylee and the baby. Like, we don’t know. We have no idea. We don’t know who’s like, sit like, we don’t know what happened. We don’t know who it is, if it’s Kaylee, if it’s the baby. And so then my dad went back to the room. And so then Jesse, my best friend, was in charge of telling my brother, who just came with his wife again, like, with all their like, coffee and Starbucks for everyone, like, excited to see the new baby, the nephew and like, then Jesse had to tell them that, like, there was a code blue called, they don’t know what’s going on. And so then they got several more updates, which were just not good updates, the one that, the one during my second cardiac arrest, my OB went to my family and said, We’re doing everything that we can, but we can’t stop the bleeding, and we need you to pray. And then, like, left and went back to the or. And so that was the point that my family was like, pretty sure that I was not going to make it out of this alive. And then they all got moved to a conference room so they could be together, like more people got there, like my husband’s mom, my husband’s sister. And so they moved them all to a conference room so they could update them, like together outside of the room and closer to the or and around four o’clock when I was having my hysterectomy surgery, they made not me, but it was unfortunate, my husband had to sign for the hysterectomy, which is just like a terrible position to be in, and no one has seen the baby. So the baby was born. My son, Callahan, was born at 1252, and it was 4pm and no one had seen the baby, except for nurses, which I fully understand. My husband’s argument was that he didn’t want to leave the place in the hospital where he could be the closest to me and my mom, and his mom, kind of like gently encouraged that, like, I would want someone to see the baby. And essentially, if he wasn’t going to, they probably were going to, because someone had to go see the baby. And so they he eventually went up and saw the baby. And there’s really sad pictures and videos of that, but I’m really grateful that they took them, because I couldn’t be there. And then what ended up happening was that when we all got home, everyone was traumatized. I was still very sick, so I had four abdominal surgeries in five days, and I had been left open that whole time in between so that they could keep going back in so I couldn’t really, like, I couldn’t lift my son, I couldn’t do anything, and my parents had to live with us for six weeks, which was, like, they’re the most amazing humans. I get so much support from them. But my husband’s idea of, like, our brand new family of three was not with my parents living with us. No matter how great your in laws are, you don’t want them living with you. So that created a lot of tension, especially because, again, all three of them were traumatized and dealing with it in their own ways. And I very quickly became, I’m a youngest child, and I’m the only girl, so I became very like daughter, like I slid right into the daughter role, because I was sick and felt helpless and did not want to be a mom at that point. And so I think that was hard for my husband to see as well. We were both traumatized and dealing with it very differently. And so that was that’s one of the hardest things coming home from a trauma like this, is that everyone kind of expects, and we expected to kind of sail off into the sunset because we survived something that we shouldn’t have, but we were so angry and sad, and I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be angry and sad, because people don’t get to survive this. And how dare I essentially have any other feelings, except for gratitude and, like, for people listening. I was a therapist at the time, like, I knew better, like, cognitively, I knew that I was allowed to have all of my feelings, and I still couldn’t handle that, and couldn’t, like, kind of see through. Through the trauma to recognize that at first, thankfully, support wise, I knew that I was messed up, that this was horrific, and so I got into therapy the week I was discharged from the hospital with someone who specializes in perinatal trauma, and that was life changing for me, for sure,

Brianna Battles  25:21

yeah, that’s a, I mean, that’s an incredible move to, like, have that kind of insight. Obviously, your professional background helps. But just knowing that, you know, we recommend postpartum like therapy in general, but especially with somebody who understands trauma, who really understand, like, trauma and motherhood and those two going together because we like to separate them, because putting them together feels messy and it feels wrong. So having that professional guidance, who can have those hard conversations and provide specific support is so key. So I’m glad that you mentioned that so people know that’s even a thing.

Kayleigh Summers  25:59

Yes, yeah, it is. It’s so important, and having both the expertise in trauma and also perinatal mental health is so important, which is why that’s what I do now. I’m a perinatal trauma therapist. I have both of those backgrounds because you’re right. We do a lot of perinatal mental health, a lot of like pm ads, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, but trauma is like a bit of a different beast, and you need someone who is trained in that.

Brianna Battles  26:25

And I think in general, motherhood and like postpartum, it it changes your brain chemistry in general. And then when you add the layer of trauma on top of that, it’s, I mean, I’ve told my husband multiple times and in therapy, like I was never the same who I was my brain, and it like I became more myself again through years, but like that fundamentally changed me. And absolutely, a lot of women love to say, like, it changed me for the better. And yes, like, you really zoom out, you can say, like, I love this version of me now, but there’s so much grief attached to what we like missed out on in what should have been really precious moments and honestly precious years of our motherhood that we just lost to depression, anxiety, grief, trauma, All of these things despite our efforts to try, right? It’s not like we weren’t trying to be present and trying to be loving and trying to be motherly, but it can be really hard when, like, the grief cloud is just kind of there,

Kayleigh Summers  27:32

absolutely, yeah, I always, I didn’t need the trauma people like, oh, look what you’ve made out of it. Like, look like, look where you are. And I’m like, in spite of it, not because of it, in spite of it. And I will always I’m not a like, this happened for a reason, like, there’s, you know, I feel like I survived in the way that I did for a reason, I guess. But I just, I don’t jive with the like, your trauma made you stronger, right? Oh, it made everything so much

Brianna Battles  28:00

harder, yeah, yeah, like you said, in spite of, like you are here, in spite of the cards you were dealt, and you have built a life with those cards. And I think that’s, yep, that’s the honor, like the really honorable

Kayleigh Summers  28:16

part, yeah, that’s all we can do, right? Yeah.

Brianna Battles  28:20

So coming home, you’re in therapy. Your brain is having to process so much, your body is having to recover from significant surgeries. Nevertheless, the normal postpartum recovery of like just everything our bodies go through having a baby, what did your physical process of recovery look like,

Kayleigh Summers  28:43

yeah, so I wish this would have gone differently. So I think, because I was so, I do so the one place that you know, we talk about just because you’re the most fit you’ve ever been, just it doesn’t mean your breath is going to go the way you want it to, unfortunately, right, like, that’s what happened for me. The one thing I will credit my, you know, ability to stay fit, to be fit, to have had kind of this lifetime of being at a very competitive level playing soccer. I do think it played a role in my recovery? Yeah, the only issue with that. So, like, again, everyone expecting me to go to rehab, and then by like, day nine, I was like, walking stairs in the ICU. And I think what I also want people to recognize is that’s not because I was like, Oh, I’m just gonna, like, fight through and push through and, like, suck it up. Like, that’s less about what it is, and more about just like, my body. At that point, my pain tolerance felt high enough that it wasn’t super painful, whereas before I couldn’t even, like move and so it’s not a product of, like, pulling myself up and like sucking it up. I don’t really love that mentality in this state of things, but I think that. To do with just like the level of fit that my body was at, and that is exactly what my anesthesiologist said when I ended up walking out of the ICU 14 days after he was like youth does a whole lot for the body when you’re looking at a critical event like this. And so the reason I don’t like how things went is because I essentially, like, didn’t meet the needs of physical therapy and patient rehab. I had no PT at all, so I just, like, went home and was able to be a lot more mobile than people expected. Like they were like, okay, so you’re only gonna walk up the stairs, like, once a day to go to bed and walk down the stairs in the morning. Once a day, I was like, walking up and down the stairs. Fine. So like that. What I mean, sure, it was, like, a little painful, but there was no issue with that. So because there was no issue with my daily activities, like I was able to shower myself by the time I got home, we just all like, pretended like it didn’t exist. I never got PT, and the physical recovery was hard because a nurse had to come every day to pack parts of my incision that did not close, which is disgusting and not fun. So I had Home Health come every day.

Brianna Battles  31:24

It was on top of the trauma you’d already experienced,

Kayleigh Summers  31:29

yes, and then six months postpartum, unsurprisingly to anyone, because again, I was so when they opened me for the initial x lap, after exploratory laparotomy, after I had my C section, it’s like a T, so it’s like all the way vertically across my abdomen. They left that open for four days with a wound back in place. And so, as we see with postpartum patients, like, just like diastatus recti in general bring a nightmare, especially with an 11 pound BB. So I developed a massive incisional hernia to the point where, like, I was I wanted nothing to do with getting another surgery. Like I was like, Absolutely not. And my trauma surgeon was like, yeah, so I can see your intestines digesting your food. You This is not a choice. You have to get this taken care of. So that was the biggest hurdle, physically, is that I had to get another major abdominal surgery Exactly a year. It was the same week my son was born that I had to get surgery in the same hospital to repair that hernia, which was another open surgery. So, and then I was in the hospital. It was covid, so no one could come with me, so I just in the hospital for two days by myself. That’s so unfair. It was we, we survived. It was way less, way less terrible than I thought it was going to be. So it was a good moment, but that, yeah, so the physical recovery was just mostly that, and a lot, a lot, a lot of health anxiety, like every little thing that came up, I was like, Okay, well, clearly I’m dying again, so I need to go to the hospital.

Brianna Battles  33:14

Yeah, yeah. I mean that’s I feel like there. It would be so hard to not assume that when you feel like, what did I do? Like, why me? And even like, feelings of like, shame or like, I don’t know, just, I just the my rate of like, Why me? Why did this happen?

Kayleigh Summers  33:33

Yeah, like, why? Like, essentially, and I have a pretty healthy relationship with this. Now, to be honest, I’m a little bit maybe more crass than people would be, because I think it’s like, it’s not funny at all, but it’s, like, a little bit ironic. I would say that we get these feelings. A lot of you know, my body failed me, my body, like, failed me, my baby. And people in certain communities will talk about, like, how your body was made to give birth, which I have feelings about, but I hate that that would always, Yeah, same for people listening. We hate that your body was also made to see and people need glasses. Your body was also made to like, you know, produce insulin, and some people have diabetes anyway. So my like, aFe is essentially your immune system, your body attacking itself because it comes into contact with amniotic fluid, fetal material, right? It’s like this huge immune system response to that. We don’t know why it happens to certain people and not others. But essentially, like my body attacked itself because I was pregnant, like you can’t get much closer to your body not being made. Did you give birth than that? And so I so I, like, struggled with that for like, like, Why did my body fail so miserably? And I think I’ve gotten to the point where I’m like, like, I hear that. Like, have that. Yeah, hold that, grieve that, and also like your body, like, kept your baby alive for six minutes when your heart wasn’t beating anymore. Like your body survived all of these insane things. Like, I think we could, like, give your body a gold star for this one, yeah,

Brianna Battles  35:19

like, there’s got to be layers of gratitude in there too, because you are both and so was your baby.

Kayleigh Summers  35:26

Absolutely, he’s he’s a little chunker. I swear his extra, his extra meat, maybe helped him survive that scenario.

Brianna Battles  35:35

So you had the you had the hernia surgery, and you when did you start sharing about this online? Like, when did that? I know that you said it was part of your healing process, too, and same. That’s why we have so much in common here. I feel like it was starting this accidental business that helped me really process what had happened, and like, gain wisdom, through writing, through talking, through coaching people and like, kind of refining my actual feelings versus just the ones in my head. And when did, what did that process look like for you in terms of, like, the creation process?

Kayleigh Summers  36:16

Yeah, so I actually started sharing, and it was really just an outlet to like, hey, like, no one talks about these kind of stories. All I see are, like, beautiful, wonderful, like, water, breasts at home, and no one’s talking about, like, when everything kind of goes wrong. And so I was like, Well, I’m gonna do that. Just gonna share my story. That’s it. And I actually started that six months postpartum, and I just, like, kind of did that for maybe, like, a year without, like, it was just, like a thing. I didn’t feel strongly about it. I wasn’t like, influencer in any way. I was just like, here’s here’s my story. Like, oh, people kind of connect to it a little bit. And then I realized after a year that people were really hungry for like, a little bit more of the support piece. So I have this, like, clinical skill set as a therapist, and then I have this, like, lived experience, and I ended up deciding to integrate them, and that’s when things really started to click for, like, other people feeling like seen and heard through some of the things that I started to post.

Brianna Battles  37:20

Yeah, so, I mean, that was how long ago was this,

Kayleigh Summers  37:24

by the way, so January. So I had my son in July 2019 so I would have started this in January 2020, right before covid hit. Yeah.

Brianna Battles  37:34

And so through starting to share and creating community, did you start to feel like you were turning a physical and mental corner, like, was that a part of your process, or did you feel like they were somewhat separate?

Kayleigh Summers  37:47

That’s a really good question. I feel like they were

Kayleigh Summers  37:55

somewhat separate. I don’t know. I think that we don’t maybe talk enough about the impact of community. We’re all about, listen, I’m a therapist. I’m all about therapy. Like we gotta get people like, helping with their triggers, like we gotta help people figure out their window of tolerance, grow that a little bit like EMDR, ifs I’m all about it, and I also think we downplay the role of community sometimes and connection, because isolation is one of the hardest parts about birth trauma. So I can’t say that it didn’t help me. Like, of course, finding community definitely helped me. I would say, about six months I started to bond with my son. It took a while, and then, like, the whole first year kind of sucked. It was kind of awful. And the anniversary was hard because I went back to the hospital, and it was just like hard. And then I would say, like, 18 months, I felt like my first glimmer of, like, my head a little bit above the water, and then from there, it felt like, you know, you would ebb and flow a little bit. But it has felt like a pretty steady, slow kind of trek forward. And for me, a large part of that, which is what I think made it last a lot like longer, maybe, is like the first year, year and a half, I could not touch the grief of not being able to have any more kids like that was like, No. So then that took another like, year two, year three, year four. Real griefy. And I would say just now my son is six. Now I don’t care as much, like I’m really happy with an only child, and I didn’t think I’d ever feel that way. And so that has been like a newer development, and that’s six years later, yeah, yeah.

Brianna Battles  39:52

And it’s and it’s hard when you’re in a community, just naturally, we as a mother, you end up being around mothers, and you hear their stories. You hear their. Experiences, and during the I call it the dark seasons, it like it was so hard to be around other moms, like I couldn’t go to support groups because I was annoyed, like they my baby was crying, I was having a hard time breastfeeding. I felt like I was falling apart and like not made to be a mom, and then all these other women were acting like it was this magical thing. And I was like, What is wrong with me? Why can I not just, like, hack myself to, like, just be freaking happy that you’re here, that your baby is alive, that you’re like, that you’re fine, like you’re here, why can’t you just get it together? And I was so frustrated, but then I was so annoyed with these moms, and I couldn’t relate to like anyone. They were too fluffy and girly and it I just was so out of place.

Kayleigh Summers  40:50

Yeah, that’s a great way to describe it. Mom groups are tough because they are wonderful spaces where people should connect and where people should be able to complain about like this, the little things are, you know, lament about the things that are bothering them, and almost every birth from a survivor who has ever been one of those groups has really struggled to relate. And that’s no one’s fault. It’s just the the fact of the matter. And so you have to find a community who gets it. And that’s really where this community was born out of is like, I just wanted people who, like, could show up and understand what you meant when you said that you love your baby, but the day they were born was the worst day of your life. Yeah, without judgment, without shame, and you could just, like, feel validated in that, yeah, absolutely.

Brianna Battles  41:34

Having that community of people who can truly keep it real and like validate that motherhood is not is a beautiful experience, and it comes with really brutal moments. I had a post go viral a while that was like, every mother experiences something that’s fucked up at some point, like you just don’t know what it’s going to be or the severity of like, how fucked it is, but totally experience something at some point in your motherhood journey that just humbles you, and instead of trying to pretend otherwise, I think honest motherhood, honest conversations like this, being able to acknowledge the variety of experiences, whether you can relate or not. Frankly, I hope no one can relate to this episode, but, but I do know that many, many women do. I would love for you not to relate to this episode, right? But absolutely, the reality is a lot of women do, regardless of what your trauma looks like, like that look for

Kayleigh Summers  42:36

everyone, which is a good point, and I’m glad that you brought that up, because I’d like to bring it up in almost every episode or every time I share my story. I want people to know this is like one tiny example of a very specific kind of birth trauma. And you know that right now we’re at one in three, so one in three pregnant individuals feel traumatized by their birth experience. That is over a million individuals in the US each year who feel traumatized by their birth experience. It’s a ton and that birth trauma can look many different ways. A lot of birth trauma is related to like a stripping of your dignity, a lack of respect, feeling unheard, feeling unseen, lack of autonomy, lack of informed consent, like a lot of birth trauma is, is relational in that way to your team. And so I want to kind of call that out too, that birth trauma is subjective. It is anything that overwhelms the nervous system’s ability to cope and causes ongoing distress. Yeah, yeah. I think

Brianna Battles  43:35

it’s just that sentiment of, Why didn’t anyone tell me? Like, that’s a thought that trolls so many women. You know, I work with them more on the other side of like, why didn’t I know about diastasis and what could happen to my abs or pelvic organ prolapse? Or, like, Why does my vagina feel like something’s wrong with it and I’m peeing myself all the time? Like, or I feel like I can’t exercise and be myself again. Why didn’t anyone tell me that this could happen? Or my body could feel like this, or mentally and emotionally, I’d feel like that, or there could have been a really, like horrific birth experience. Why didn’t anyone tell me? And I think that’s the part that leaves that’s a question that silently just trolls so many women.

Kayleigh Summers  44:14

It does. It’s an interesting phenomenon that I’ve had a lot of thoughts on lately, actually, because I think there’s this interesting cycle where people are like, don’t tell me. Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me. And then they kind of get to the which, I don’t blame them, and they get to the other side, and they’re like, why don’t anyone tell

Brianna Battles  44:32

me? Yep, that was me, exactly fair.

Kayleigh Summers  44:35

And like, I like, there’s it’s so hard. And this is why I’ve always, this is what I’ve always said about pregnant people who come across my space, who have never been pregnant before, who have never had a baby before. What I want them to take from that I do not want them to sit in it. I do not want them to unless they, for some reason, want to. I don’t want them to, like, bathe themselves in the stories of trauma. What I want them to know is that birth trauma exists. If it happens to them, they’re not crazy, and that there’s a space that can support them and they know that it exists, like, that’s my goal, because people will be like, Well, I don’t want to know about X, Y and Z. That’s your choice. Honestly, yeah, that’s your choice. But it’s hard to end up on the other side having no idea that this was even an option, which is why the catastrophic birth planning is a really interesting way to get people to not have, not sitting in specific trauma stories, but just thinking about, hey, if I end up in an ICU, what do I want out of that?

Brianna Battles  45:33

Yeah, yeah, you know. And it’s funny, I can almost hear the objections to that, of like, Well, you shouldn’t manifest that kind of birth or give energy to that. I mean, because we know that this is a big part of the birth community. Is almost like positive self, talking yourself into birth. But we know that there are so many variables that influence birth and outcome and whatnot, and I think it can be hard because, of course, we want to think positively. Of course we want to go into this feeling empowered. And also, like feeling empowered is also feeling informed and like that’s, that’s the but it feels like it’s, it should not be mutually exclusive. But a lot of women and a lot of birth professionals and fitness professionals and doctors kind of treated that way. I always say,

Kayleigh Summers  46:23

if I had the power to manifest an amniotic fluid embolism, I would be much more important and powerful than I am right now. Yeah, like the manifesting stuff has, I am all for practicing, you know, affirmations and feeling empowered and doing the things that make you feel empowered, but with the idea that, exactly like you said, information is empowerment.

Brianna Battles  46:52

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I think in both the birth and the fitness communities, there is a lot of dogma attached to motherhood and what is right, and what is best? I try to tell everyone like that is just, it is so relative, it is so individual. There’s, again, I’m going to keep saying this, just so many variables that influence these experiences, outcomes, like your fitness will always be a benefit, just, I guarantee. But I think that can be a hard message to convey when, again, a lot of these communities are like, well, if you’re fit enough, and if you’re really healthy, and if you think positively, and if you do these breathing exercises and attend these classes and get into these positions, then you can almost like, out hack the process.

Kayleigh Summers  47:35

The Venn diagram being someone who’s a part of this, I feel like I can say this the Venn diagram between some parts of fitness communities and perfectionistic tendencies are like almost a complete circle. So it makes so much sense that there would want to be so much I just love that you said that. And listen, we’re, I’m a part of that. I lean into that so much like, but this you can, I can just see the grip for control happening, and then that right, that whole like I the dogma comes from if we believe that if our kids get X number of, let me get actually, Let me give a personal example, baby led weaning. Okay, I did baby led weaning. I for some reason, this is some, like, weird space that I was in. I can’t even, like, articulate it. Like, I don’t understand where my brain was at. But like, I decided that, like, it was baby led weaning or bust. Like, no, like, there were all kinds of rules I read on like, one random Facebook group, and all of a sudden, like, I couldn’t be giving any mesh pouches, like, no pureed foods at all. Like, it was this, like, very strict. And that’s kind of what it reminds me of. Like, why didn’t I just, like, do some baby led weaning with some like, pouches and purees? Like, what was the big deal?

Brianna Battles  48:57

I know. Well, I did the same thing with breastfeeding. And in hindsight, I’m like, it’s because I wanted to have control of one freaking thing in my motherhood that I felt like I could get really, you’re like, nothing else is gone, right? I lost control in every other capacity, and I made myself absolutely neurotic with breastfeeding. And I feel like we do you almost like, try to find a way to redeem a small part of yourself.

Kayleigh Summers  49:21

Yes, it’s so protective, there’s nothing again when I’m talking about this, it’s not in a shaming way, like this is all just a part of our grip to get some control back, and breastfeeding after birth trauma is a whole nother conversation that we do have some interesting research on. We typically see kind of like one or the other. Either it’s like the person can’t breastfeed chooses not whatever after birth trauma, and it’s like this big, massive grief on top of all of this other grief, just like another grief in a long line of griefs, if you will. And then the people that are able to breastfeed, and like, again, you can pry it out of my dead cult hands, because. It’s the one thing that my body can do right. Is often the sentiment after birth trauma, and there is that exact feeling like you were describing,

Brianna Battles  50:08

yeah, and I mean, and it’s crazy that, like you said, like we actually have research that supports us, not just our lived experiences, but yep, it’s, I just hope those that are listening, that can unfortunately relate, feel really validated by what you’re saying. I know that I do, and this is 12 years later, and in a whole other baby that I was able to have later. But you don’t forget how you felt then, and it stays with your heart, even though, like you do, there is healing, there is growth, and there’s like, a deeper appreciation for motherhood now, like how I value my relationship with Cade at 12, I feel is because I know what it was like, like I so desperately wanted to love him. I so desperately wanted to be a good mom for him, and I appreciate our relationship in such a deep way that I don’t think I would have had that level of appreciation for and protectiveness of if he had entered the world under a different circumstance. And it’s that’s been the beautiful thing to see as he’s gotten older, is I just I really value him and his life and our relationship and like who he’s becoming. It’s just it is so deep and it is so beautiful to see him grow up.

Kayleigh Summers  51:22

Yeah, that’s, that’s such a beautiful sentiment. There’s, I always say there’s so as we allow ourselves to sit with the grief more to like, genuinely feel it, we actually make room for the joy and the gratitude. Yeah, it’s not like something we can really choose. As people like to say, it is more about first sitting with the grief and the devastation of what happened and what you lost to start to make room next to that for more of that joy and gratitude.

Brianna Battles  51:49

I love that. Kaylee, tell us a little bit more about your work, your community, what you’ve created and how people can work with you.

Kayleigh Summers  51:57

Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on Instagram and Tiktok at the birth trauma underscore mama. And there I’m just sharing all kinds of kind of supportive messaging. I have a podcast, the birth trauma mama podcast. We release two episodes a week. One is an educational episode, one is a listener story. And then I own a private practice that specializes in perinatal trauma where we see clients in both Pennsylvania, Florida and soon to be New Jersey. So if you’re looking for someone who does both perinatal mental health and trauma, we are definitely

Brianna Battles  52:29

it so amazing. Well, congratulations on the goodness that you’ve created for so many women to feel seen and heard when they otherwise don’t and they likely feel lost in motherhood and lonely and guilty you’ve created, like, a really healing space, even for me to stumble across you, like, I don’t know, maybe a year ago, and I was like, God, this is so helpful. Even now, where I feel like I’m not, this doesn’t like, live rent free in my head all the time anymore, but it’s still like, it’s very validating, and I just appreciate the space that you’ve created for women, and I really appreciate you having this conversation and and sharing so openly.

Kayleigh Summers  53:07

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for saying that. And the space that you’ve built is also incredible in equal ways, right? It’s like that mix of like the physical and emotional coming together for women and postpartum individuals after some of the most difficult times in their lives. So I really appreciate the work that you’re doing too.

Brianna Battles  53:27

Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for sharing. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the practice brave podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review and help us spread the work we are doing to improve the overall information and messaging in the fitness industry and beyond. Now, if you are pregnant and you are looking for a trustworthy exercise program to follow, I have you covered. The pregnant athlete training program is a well rounded program for pregnancy with workouts for each week that are appropriate for your changing body. That’s 36 weeks of workouts, three to four workouts each week, and tons of guidance on exercise strategy. We also have an at home version of that program if you are postpartum and you’re looking for an exercise program to follow. The eight week postpartum athlete training program would be a really great way to help bridge the gap between rehab and the fitness you actually want to do. From there, we have the practice brave fitness program, which is an ongoing strength conditioning program where you get new workouts each week and have a lot of guidance for myself and my co coach, Heather Osby. This is the only way that I’m really offering ongoing coaching at this point in time. If you have ever considered becoming a certified pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach, I would love to have you join us. Pregnancy and postpartum athleticism is a self paced online certification course that will up level your coaching skills and help connect the dots between pelvic health and long term athletic performance. Especially during pregnancy and postpartum, become who you needed and become who your online and local community needs by becoming a certified pregnancy and postpartum athleticism Coach, thank you again for listening to the practice brave podcast. I appreciate you, and please help me continue spreading this messaging, this information and this work you.