What You’ll Learn

A Florida-based chiropractor navigates and negotiates her way through multiple miscarrages, a healthy birth, and the question of vaccines. Her journey provides a portrait of the vaccine-hesitant parent, as well as insights into the value of buildng trust and connection with patients and parents of patients.

VIVO: When was the last time you were inspired to change something about your health and what led to it?

Interviewee: During pregnancy, because I’ve been bad about it lately. I was good about taking everything, all the prenatals, the iron and everything that they gave me. And I’ve been really bad about taking stuff lately. But pregnancy made me go, “Okay, I need to take this, this and this.” And then since having him, I’ve been bad about it again.

VIVO: Is that different from before you realized you were pregnant?

Interviewee: I have always been bad about taking vitamins in general, except when I was in high school as a cross-country and track runner trying to get to college athletics, which I did. I took all the vitamins, like a multivitamin, all this stuff so my body would be healthy. Then after that I let it go. I took them halfway through college and then stopped. A little more than two years ago when I knew I wanted to start conceiving, I started taking prenatals to prepare my body. I’ve been taking them for over two years now. I even switched prenatals two years ago because the one I’m taking now is even more expensive and better than the previous one.

VIVO: What’s the best experience you’ve ever had with healthcare?

Interviewee: I love going to my primary care doctor. I don’t feel like I’m a number there. Even with the nurse too, because I’m more with the nurse than I’m with the doctor.

Also my gyno. I love my gyno’s office. I love the front desk person, the nurse and the doctor. She’s a straight up gyno. I like going in there because they know your name and you have general conversations. When bad things happen… He is my rainbow. I had four miscarriages before this baby, so every time I would go in there after a miscarriage at my gynecologist office, it was great because she would always say, “This is not your fault.”

And then she’d take me from the exam room if I had any more things to go to her office and talk about. That’s one thing I liked about her first visit. It wasn’t going right into the exam room. We went to her office and went over my history. I even got additional stuff that wasn’t even related to gynecology when I first saw her going over family history. I like when a doctor really cares about you.

It’s the same with my primary. I saw her at the beginning of my second pregnancy and then I had the miscarriage. Because she’s linked in with who I was going to for OBGYN, she saw that and she even privately messaged me saying, “I saw that on your chart. I’m so sorry that happened to you.” I have two great doctors, primary and gyno, and they make my experience really great.

VIVO: What about the opposite? What’s the worst experience you’ve ever had in healthcare?

Interviewee: The primary care doctor I had before my current one. I only went to her one time in 2021. It was when the Delta variant was very high and I didn’t have the vaccine yet. I had gotten done with my antibiotics for upper respiratory infection and it was my first visit with her, but I still had the lingering cough from that.

I went in there and first the nurse came in and said, “Oh, we don’t think we’re going to be able to see you today. We’ll have to reschedule you.” I had been waiting for this appointment for five months. I was like, “Why?” She’s like, “Oh, because you’re coughing and COVID’s going around and you don’t have the vaccine.” I was like, “But I’m coughing because of this. You can look at my charts. I was prescribed antibiotics a few weeks ago. I’ve been tested, I’m negative. It’s a lingering cough from the infection.”

Finally she saw me and then she went into a whole thing about why haven’t I gotten the vaccine? Do I get the flu vaccine every year? She asked something else weird and I was like, why are we going into this? This should be about what I’m currently experiencing, not about vaccine talk. And getting my normal health stuff checked out.

Then after she used the stethoscope on me, she told me to go in the corner of the room and then she whipped out the wipe and was viciously wiping her stuff down. I felt like an animal. Like I’m dirty. I was like, you couldn’t wait until I left the room to do that? I never went back. It was the one visit I saw her and I said, “Nope, I need to find a new one.”

VIVO: What is something that’s not being said about healthcare that needs to be said in your opinion?

Interviewee: There’s a lot of problems with our healthcare system. For one thing, I don’t like that insurance can decide things. I don’t like how they decide care. I’m a chiropractor myself and I hate that sometimes you’ve got to wait to get an MRI when you should get the MRI more than the x-ray because it tells us more with the soft tissues. But sometimes they want us to do a treatment plan.

I hear patients complain about it all the time too, and I know because my husband went through it with a CT scan, the loops you have to do to get to that thing. And then also how our society is more prescription-based. Like here, try prescription instead of trying something natural first. Or too much prescription based and I don’t like it.

VIVO: What do you think healthcare will look like in 10 years in the US?

Interviewee: In America, probably the same old, same old as it is now, but maybe more restricted because they are getting more restricted. When it came to choosing a pediatrician, that was hard because I want him to get vaccines, but I want it to be delayed. I don’t want to be on the schedule and I want to be able to say no to some of the vaccines. Finding a pediatrician here in the Tampa area that will let you do delayed is really hard, which we found an amazing one. But I feel like things are becoming more restricted and I’m scared about that because it’s our bodies. We should be able to choose what we want to do and not feel pressured.

Before I gave birth, I was talking to one of the midwives about delivery and she said, “I see that on your chart it says you’re not getting the Hep B shot for him.” And I said, “No.” The only two reasons you need Hep B is if you’re a drug user or sex. He’s not going to be doing either one of those and we’re not going to be exposing him to that stuff. He’ll get it when he’s older, but he doesn’t need it as a baby right now. I hate how I got judged for that. I’m not saying he’s never going to get that vaccine. He’s not going to get it when he’s first born.

I know they’re also trying to take away homeopathic drugs, which I get it’s not pharmaceutical, but still we should have other options. I do better on homeopathic remedies. There’s a company called Boron and they’re homeopathic and I feel better taking their stuff than taking Tamiflu. It’s grounded up duck liver, so there’s no side effects compared to Tamiflu where you can have all these different side effects, and I get better in two days with it.

VIVO: How do you learn about those alternatives?

Interviewee: I’ve found out a lot of this through being a chiropractor because a lot of chiropractors are holistic, so I’ve learned a lot of holistic stuff through them. And then joining Facebook groups that are crunchy. I don’t consider myself wholly holistic and crunchy. I consider myself scrunchy. Someone used that term and I was like, I like that. There’s some things, I know there’s chemicals in cleaning products, but I still like them because they help it feel clean. And there’s still some drugs I will take, but at the same time, I do want non-toxic stuff for him, like laundry detergent and no scented stuff. I call myself scrunchy. There’s some things I’ll give and take on. I’m not like, “Oh no, we cannot use this at all.”

VIVO: What were your first thoughts when you discovered you were going to have a child?

Interviewee: My first pregnancy was in May 2022, and I didn’t even suspect being pregnant. The only reason why I found out was the day before I got in a car accident and my neck was hurting badly. I don’t have an x-ray in my office, but my landlord, who’s a chiropractor does. I was texting him, “Hey, can I get an x-ray because my neck’s really killing me?” And he said yes. I realized I was supposed to start my period yesterday and it didn’t start. It was normal for me back then for my period to start late because I had ovarian cysts, but I thought I should take a pregnancy test to be safe.

I took it and there was a faint second line there. I showed my husband, he said, “Yeah, there seems to be a second line there, a faint one.” I was like, “Oh my gosh, we need to go get more testing.” Then we took others and it confirmed I was pregnant. We got very excited about that and we announced it to everyone. Then week eight is when I miscarried that one.

The second pregnancy after the first miscarriage, they tell you it’s most likely not going to happen another time. You’re not going to have recurrent ones. We got excited about that one too. But I kept it more secret until we found out it wasn’t going to make it. That one we got tested and I didn’t know they could tell you this early. I was supposed to be at around 11 weeks when I miscarried, but it was only measuring at six weeks. That’s why we knew something was wrong with it. When we went back for the ultrasound at 12 weeks, they said, “Yeah, it does not have a heartbeat anymore. And it didn’t grow.” But that’s the one I got tested. And that was trisomy 16, and it was a boy. I did not know you could find out that early.

The third one was a chemical pregnancy. I hadn’t even taken a test yet, but I started miscarrying right away when I started suspecting it. I knew it was a miscarriage because I had been through the other two, and then the tissue came out and I went to the doctor and they confirmed it was a very early miscarriage.

By the time we got to my son, I was very cautious with that whole beginning of the pregnancy. I didn’t get excited about it because I thought, “I’ve had three, when am I going to lose this one?” It was our first time ever getting through a first ultrasound too. When we went there, they said, “Oh my gosh, he’s measuring correctly” – they didn’t know it was a he then – “and his heartbeat is very strong. You’re doing good.” That’s when we started getting more excited about it, but we were more cautious with him because of having the three other ones before.

VIVO: When did you start to, or did you at any point start to move more into relaxed and excited as opposed to keeping it closer to the vest?

Interviewee: I was anxious the whole pregnancy. Even when we hit trimester two, right when we hit trimester two, I had spotting with him. We suspected it was a subchorionic hematoma. That happened at week 13 with him. There was bright red blood in the toilet, so that brought back all miscarriage memories and I was freaking out. They didn’t see it on the ultrasound the next day when I went. When I went to my visit two weeks later with the midwife, he said, “I think it’s a subchorionic hematoma.” Because I was still having brown blood come out, which means old blood.

I was like, “But the ultrasound said I didn’t have one.” He said, “It could have resolved before then, but it’s caught in you and keeps coming out.” Even then I was still cautious. I thought I would be better when I hit the anatomy scan. They said everything was good there but I was still cautious. I was scared the whole time because I’m in a miscarriage support group here locally, and one of the women went through a whole healthy pregnancy and then had a stillborn. It always stuck in my head – I could get through this whole pregnancy and then give birth, and he’s stillborn. I never calmed down and enjoyed it except for small parts, like the baby shower. But I was always anxious.

VIVO: Until you saw him?

Interviewee: Yeah, until I saw him, and then postpartum anxiety a few weeks after that, which I’m getting treated for right now.

VIVO: How did you figure out that you were having postpartum anxiety? What started feeling different for you?

Interviewee: A lot of people don’t realize that you can have postpartum stuff with miscarriages. I have had postpartum anxiety with every miscarriage and now with him, but his came earlier. It might be because I have a baby this time. With the three miscarriages, I’d get postpartum anxiety three months after the miscarriage happened. I don’t know why that always happened, but that was always a trend.

How I recognize it is, for one thing, I’m a very anxious person as it is. But when I have postpartum anxiety, I will get anxious about a little thing, and my anxiety will go from a zero to a hundred really fast where I’m having panic attacks more often. Now that I’ve learned how to deal with panic attacks, I don’t get them that often, but with postpartum anxiety, I can get them daily and sometimes even more than once a day.

With my son, I knew I was getting them worse than with the others, but I think it’s because now I have a baby compared to when I had the miscarriages. I was getting anxious over small things, like changes in my schedule at work, or one of the dogs seeming sick. It was always things that shouldn’t cause that level of anxiety.

Our first two weeks after having him were not fun. My husband first got COVID, and then I got COVID. Of course I was anxious about that, and I thought, “Okay, this is normal anxiety.” But then after that, I was checking all throughout the night, “Is he breathing?” His bassinet was beside me, and my anxiety was bad.

I was freaking out over little things – make sure you’re using the right laundry detergent, make sure you’re not having the candles on. I was freaking out over things that weren’t going to kill him, but I acted like they would. I finally broke down to my husband and said, “This is the worst postpartum anxiety I’ve ever had. I cannot sleep at night. I’m trying to trust people with him and holding him, but it’s freaking me out. They’re going to do something wrong or get him sick.”

Luckily I’ve been going to therapy this whole time, but then also, I’m starting to see a psychiatrist about it too and get medication for it. It’s helping. My postpartum anxiety is getting lowered now that I’m on medication, but it was not fun. I thought everything was going to kill him.

VIVO: Is that something that was flagged to you in by your OBGYN? Signs to look out for after giving birth?

Interviewee: After birth, they gave me a questionnaire, but they didn’t say anything about the questionnaire. It was the Edinburgh scale for postpartum. At my two week visit, they had me fill out the scale again, and that’s when the nurse flagged it because I wasn’t on medication yet. She said, “I think by next visit if this does not get better, you need to be put on medication. Your scale has not changed since birth and it was high at birth.” When I went to my six week appointment, it went higher, and that’s when we started talking about medication.

I was very honest with them. I told them my thoughts and what was going on. I told them I suspected it. I said, “I suspect it, and here’s what’s going on, and I know this is not normal.” And they said I scored high on the scale anyway, so they would have suspected it regardless.

VIVO : Howdid you first find your OBGYN? What led you to your doctor?

Interviewee: The group that I went to from second pregnancy on was USF midwives. The first pregnancy happened when I wasn’t expecting to be pregnant and I couldn’t go to my gyno because she’s a straight up gyno now. She’s retired from OBGYN. She said, “Okay, you need to find someone,” especially since I was in a car accident.

I went to Women’s Care here and the first visit wasn’t bad, but then when it came to the follow-up, the doctor lied to us at the first visit. She didn’t tell us that the heartbeat was irregular. We knew the baby was measuring behind a bit, but that can be normal. She made it sound like, “Oh, come back for an ultrasound next week so we can determine your exact due date,” acting like it was normal.

My husband said, “I don’t need to come to the next one, right? So I don’t have to take off work.” And I said, “No, I’ll go by myself.” When I went in for the ultrasound, the tech asked, “Are you here alone?” And I said, “Yeah.” She said, “Did they not tell you about the irregular heartbeat last time?” I said, “No.” And she told me they were “seeing if this pregnancy was even viable.” And then that’s when I found out it had died the day after my last ultrasound.

Then they assigned me to a fully pregnant doctor to give me my choices for how to handle the miscarriage. Because I had a missed miscarriage, the tissue wasn’t coming out naturally. They said, “Either you can try for a few weeks naturally, do the pill or do a D&C.” She asked, “What do you want to do?” And I said, “Well, I wasn’t expecting any of this today. Can I go home and think about it?” That frustrated me. By the time they called me the next day, the natural option was off the table in their voicemail. I was done with that place. I was able to finish handling that miscarriage through my gyno.

After that, I started asking around, and I went on Facebook groups and saw that a lot of people were suggesting the USF midwives. By the time my second pregnancy happened, I started going to them. Going through that miscarriage there, one of the midwives who’s the only male midwife there, made the process so good and was upfront with me when we went in at nine weeks. He said, “You’re measuring at six weeks and you’re supposed to be nine weeks. This is not looking good. I’m going to tell you this is probably not a viable pregnancy like you had before.” He was making sure I was okay throughout giving me that bad news. How he reacted and how he took care of me as a patient made me stick with them. And that’s how I chose them and stayed with them through all the rest.

VIVO: Did you have particular opinions about how you wanted to give birth? Did you have a birth plan to clarify what you did and didn’t want?

Interviewee: Yep. I even got a doula to make sure my plan was followed. That’s the good thing about the midwives – for the most part they let me do whatever I wanted to do. They said the only time they step in is if it was an emergency, and it was like that during birth too.

My birth plan was to do un-medicated, which I was able to do, and only use nitrous oxide, which I was also able to do. I didn’t want him circumcised. I wanted to be able to move around freely. I didn’t want him getting Hep B, but he could get the vitamin K shot.

I wanted delayed cord clamping where the cord would be connected until it stopped pulsating, not for a minute which is what they sometimes consider delayed cord clamping. I wanted skin-to-skin contact right away. USF midwives do some of these things, like the skin-to-skin contact after birth unless there’s a problem, and the golden hour. I got those without having to ask because that was their standard practice.

I did have to request the “not pulsating” part for cord clamping, because their standard delayed cord clamping is for one minute. I didn’t want the continuous monitor, which was nice that they allowed. And I didn’t want that many cervical checks either, and they were okay with that. They were okay with everything in my birth plan and didn’t give me any hassle about it.

VIVO : Given that this is your first child, I’m curious how you determined what was right for you in your birth plan. What kind of research were you doing?¬†

Interviewee: I’m a chiropractor myself, and I’m certified in a technique called Webster Technique, which is a pregnancy technique. I learned this stuff through patients. I follow Evidence-Based Birth, and I have their three booklets with the research in them, and I’ve listened to some of their podcasts.

Also, when I took the Webster certification, the chiropractor there gave us all this information. I’ve researched that information and created a pregnancy packet that I can give my patients if they want to look at the research. Because I see pregnant patients, before having him, I became more into that world. I knew more stuff and then I have that information for my patients. That’s what helped me because I had the research there.

VIVO: Once your son was born, did any unexpected things come up?

Interviewee: I had a one degree tear and had to get stitches because he decided to come with his hand up with his head. He wasn’t even expected to come that early – he came at 38 weeks and three days. My water broke at home, and then I went into labor. He was six pounds six ounces, and the midwife said I wouldn’t have torn if he didn’t come up with his hand up with his head.

The other thing is he was having some latching problems the first 24 hours, and he hadn’t peed. He pooped, but he hadn’t peed yet. We had to do donor milk and give him 20 milliliters each feeding to make sure he could pee. And he peed after that. It was because he wasn’t getting enough fluids at first because he wasn’t latching well.

Being a first time mom, I didn’t know all the things, and I learned from the lactation consultant, but by the time I learned from her it was almost nighttime, and he was born at 9:29 am, and she came around 5 pm. Of course he didn’t have enough fluids by then. That was kind of scary. But then once he peed and then peed again, they said, “Okay. It was because he wasn’t getting enough fluids. It’s not him having a kidney problem.”

VIVO: Aside from COVID, what were those first few weeks like as a parent? What surprised you? 

Interviewee: The exhaustion and being really sleep-deprived. Around two weeks is when we started having visitors come and see him because my family’s up in Missouri and his family’s over in Scotland, so everyone had to travel down here to see us.

At first, when they started to take him and hold him and give me breaks, I was like, okay, this is good. I am exhausted. I need this break. I need this nap. But then it got to where I was only holding him during feedings, and I did not like that. I was not happy about that. I was like, “I want to hold my son more often. This is my son.” That was more my family’s issue because my mom and sister are baby hogs, especially my sister. I was so happy when they left because then I got to hold him more.

I like our time breastfeeding. When he started smiling and all the developmental things that are happening with him, those make me happy each time. I can’t wait for him to start laughing, which he hasn’t done yet. I wish he could get out of this phase of contact sleeping during the day because at nighttime, he sleeps in his bassinet fine. During the day, if he’s not on me or my husband and you set him in the bassinet, he wakes up again right away. You’re like, “Oh my gosh, you didn’t even take a 30 minute nap. You need to nap.”

VIVO: How did you select your pediatrician?

Interviewee: Here it’s hard to find someone who will do delayed vaccines. The only reason why I knew his pediatrician was because I’m part of Tampa Bay Birth Network for work. I had met her once at one of the events, and I liked her plan.

She does not take insurance, but she does a cash plan where you pay $125 a month the first year for unlimited visits, which is good because you never know what’s going to happen with small children since they get sick easily. I chose her mainly because of the delayed vaccine option, and she’s so informative.

I can call her any time of the day as part of the plan. That’s nice, especially during COVID. I was like, “I’ve got COVID now. Do I need to worry about my baby?” And she reassured me, “No, you don’t need to worry because you’re breastfeeding him. He’s getting the antibodies, and this strain of COVID is not really affecting newborns, especially if you’re breastfeeding, so you’re going to be okay.” And he didn’t get sick, or at least he never showed any signs of sickness. She’s a very reassuring, personal pediatrician, and I like that.

VIVO: Is there anything that your pediatrician maybe does or doesn’t do that you wish they would or wouldn’t?

Interviewee: No. To be honest, she’s amazing. There hasn’t been any time where I’ve questioned her. She fully checks him each time that we go. She has a portal – I thought he had conjunctivitis at one point, but it turned out to be a blocked tear duct. I ended up calling her and taking pictures and sending them to her, and she said, “No, it’s a blocked tear duct. You don’t need to come in.” She’s great. I haven’t had any problems with her yet.

VIVO: When it comes to the health of your child, what do you think is the most important thing?

Interviewee: Him being healthy. It scares me with everything out there. I hate how the healthcare society right now suggests that if they don’t get this vaccine at this specific point, they’re going to get sick and they might die. My main thing is him staying healthy and making sure people don’t kiss him and things like that. I’ve had people kiss him and I had to say, “Please do not kiss him. This is not your child.” I don’t understand why people do that.

VIVO: What do you worry about in regards to your child’s health?

Interviewee: I worry about the big things like herpes, people with cold sores and all that stuff, and RSV – the major sicknesses from people contacting and touching him.

I can tell he has an umbilical hernia, but when you do your research, it says that can happen up until they’re two or three years old. It’s normal. After that, it’s not. That’s concerning to see when he cries, but hopefully it’ll resolve on its own. It’s because his abs aren’t developed yet, which is normal for babies.

I want to make sure he doesn’t have any major issues. It’s both good and bad that I know a lot of the children’s diseases, because with the postpartum anxiety right now, I will go down a rabbit hole like, “Oh my gosh, I think he has this.”

Like how he had a blocked tear duct, and I thought it was conjunctivitis. And one thing I did not know about, and now that I do, is that in the first month, breastfed babies can have yellow eyes because of jaundice, but that’s normal. I knew yellow eyes meant jaundice, and I was like, “Oh my gosh.” We went to the pediatrician appointment and she said, “Oh yeah, they’re lightly yellow. It’s not like his skin’s yellow or anything. That’s normal in breastfed babies.” And I thought, “Well, no one told me this.”

Also, no one told me about the grunting stage either. Around after a month, they start grunting in their sleep. I thought he was waking up and I was overfeeding him, and I was getting really tired because I was like, “Oh my gosh, he’s waking up a million times a night.” I was talking to my doula and she asked, “Is it grunts?” And I said, “Yeah, he’s not crying. It’s grunts.” She told me, “He’s not waking up. That’s him in his sleep. You’re overfeeding him and making yourself way too tired.” And I thought, “Well, no one told me about that either.”

Participant Profile:

• • Female, 34, new mother (3-month-old son)
  • Location: Tampa, Florida
  • Rainbow baby after four miscarriages
  • Professional: Chiropractor with certification in Webster Technique (pregnancy technique)
  • Shares parenting responsibilities with husband
  • Currently managing postpartum anxiety with therapy and medication
  • Prioritizes holistic approach to healthcare (self-identifies as “scrunchy”)
  • Advocates for delayed vaccination schedule for her child
  • Key challenge: Balancing traditional medical advice with holistic approaches

</ul