Military Birth Talk

In today’s episode, I’m speaking Hannah who is Active Duty in the Navy as an ER nurse. Her first birth took place at the MTF where she worked, and it was a very long experience which ended with a forceps delivery resulting in a birth injury that took nearly a year to be resolved. Her second experience was totally different, and ended up being an accidental unassisted homebirth, which she describes as an amazing and empowering exper...

In today’s episode I’m speaking with LT Samantha Mclaughlin, who’s Active Duty. LT Mclaughlin shares the birth story of her daughter who was born just shy of 33 weeks, after her water broke at 31 weeks. At the time, Samantha was working as a Labor & Delivery Nurse in 29 Palms, but because there was no NICU there they had to be transferred to another local hospital about 45 minutes away. Samantha stayed as a patient for 2 weeks ...

In today’s episode I’m speaking with Melissa, who is Active Duty in the Coast Guard. Melissa mostly focuses on her third birth experience, which was a natural birth through a midwife clinic out in town. She had had epidural births with her prior two and wanted to try something different this time so she dove into hypnobirthing and really prepared for a different experience with her third and final baby. We also chat a lot about the...

In today’s episode, I’m joined by Navy Spouse Ebony. Ebony is a homeschooling mom of five kids, and she and her family are currently stationed in Stuttgart. In this episode Ebony shares the birth story of her third child, who was born at home on base in Yokosuka Japan, while her husband was deployed. Ebony had a wonderful team around her and describes the experience as incredible and amazing. Ebony is also a doula and hypnobirthing...

In today’s episode I’m speaking with Dr. Jen Bertoluzzi who is a Coast Guard Spouse and Physical Therapist with a focus on pelvic floor PT. Jen’s birth experiences begin with a miscarriage that happened right at tbeginning of the COVID 19 lockdowns. They got pregnant again, and Jen gave birth out in town with a team that was not very supportive of her birth plans and it ended up being a very long delivery. They PCSed from Massachus...

Alice is a Navy Spouse who is originally from the UK, where she worked as a licensed midwife. She joins Military Birth Talk today to share the story of her pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experience with her first daughter. She had originally planned for a low intervention birth center birth, and ended up transferring to the hospital when her labor stalled. Though though things didn't go to plan, she remembers her birth posit...

In today’s episode, I’m speaking with Captain Jessica Cooper, who is a medical service officer serving in the Army. During Jessica’s pregnancy she saw midwives through the community hospital on Fort Campbell, and she had a really positive experience there. She ended up being induced when her baby started having heart decelerations during a 40 week check up, and even though it was a very long, 46-hour induction, she was still able t...

In today’s episode, Space Force spouse Genesis shares her pregnancy and birth story with her son. During her pregnancy, she opted to do genetic testing, which revealed that her son was at risk of being diagnosed with a chromosome abnormality. It was a bumpy road to understand the results and get more information, and the experience made it really hard for Genesis to enjoy the pregnancy. Thankfully, her baby boy was born healthy. Th...

In today’s episode, I’m speaking with Amber who was active duty in the air force for 4 years, before getting out  after the birth of her second child. She had a very challenging first pregnancy with her son, which included a lot of mental health challenges which were really hard to navigate on top of being active duty and living far away from family. The birth didn’t go as planned and ended up in a csection, so it was a challenging...

In today's episode, we're joined by Dr. John Richard who served 24 years as an OB in the Navy. During our conversation he shares his perspective on a whole range of issues including military medicine as a whole, staffing issues, how rank impacts pregnancy care for service members, and he also answered some follower questions. Please be aware that our conversation includes a discussion about abortion and what military prov...

In today’s episode, I’m talking with Air Force Spouse Courtney. Courtney shares her two c-section birth stories, which both took place at the same military treatment facility in Florida. Courtney’s husband deployed shortly after both births, but she had great support from visiting family, and her husband’s squadron who brought over lots of delicious meals. Especially during her second postpartum period she relied heavily on the fre...

In today’s episode, I’m chatting with Myer & Tiana Krah who were both Active Duty in the Navy, and are both now retired. They have four little boys, including a set of twins, so we hear about Tiana’s C-section, then her VBAC, and then the birth of her twins which was also a military hospital VBAC. They talk about navigating deployments, overseas orders, their family care plan, career sacrifices, childcare, and breastfeeding, an...

In today’s episode, we’re hearing from Navy Spouse Sarah, who tells the story of her third pregnancy and birth. When Sarah was 28 weeks pregnant, she was in the car with her other two kids when she had an eclamptic seizure. Her husband, a submarine officer in the Navy, was underway at the time and rushed back after receiving an American Red Cross message. Sarah gave birth to their daughter via c-section, and then navigated a stay i...

In the first episode of Season 4 of Military Birth Talk, Lieutenant Jacqueline McCrory shares her journey through pregnancies and births as an active duty Navy pilot. Jackie recounts meeting her husband at the Naval Academy, their careers as pilots, and managing dual military duties while starting a family. She discusses the challenges of multiple miscarriages during an operational tour, the shift to more holistic methods to improv...

In this episode of Military Birth Talk, we're speaking with LCDR Anne Laird, who was active duty in the navy for 12 years and now serves in the reserves as a midwife. Annie shares her extensive experiences both as a military midwife and as a mother of five, who has had pretty much every type of birth you could think of from a hospital birth with an epidural, a home birth to hospital transfer, two more homebirths, and then a ho...

In this episode of Military Birth Talk, EmilieAn shares her experiences as a military spouse, mother, and doula. Her first child was born the day after 9/11. After that birth, she suffered 11 miscarriages, 9 of which she managed at home and 2 of which required D&Cs while her family was PCSing. She then went on to have two more babies. She’s now been a doula for 15 years, and talks about some of the surprising ways that being an...

In this episode of Military Birth Talk, Michelle shares her experiences with gestational trophoblastic disease, a rare form of cancer which was discovered following the miscarriage of her first pregnancy, and required multiple DNCs and chemotherapy. Following her diagnosis, Michelle went on to have two children, and then had a hysterectomy after her second child’s birth. She highlights the support provided by the Coast Guard commun...

Today's guest Molly shares her experiences as a new military spouse and mother. Molly discusses the challenges and positives of her husband's Air Force duty station at Scott Air Force Base, her pregnancy and birth journey with an off-base OB in Missouri, and coping with the distance from family. She talks about leveraging a doula for support, the highs and lows of her labor and delivery, and navigating postpartum struggle...

Brawnlyn is Active Duty serving in the Air Force. Prior to the birth of her daughter, Brawnlyn and her husband battled infertility, an experience which led her to begin working with the Air Force’s Women's Initiatives Team to improve infertility care and options for service members. When she got pregnant with her daughter, despite having a hospital 6 minutes down the street from her, she was required to be seen at the military...