This week on The Mommy Labor Nurse Podcast I had a chance to chat with Kim Perry about her birth stories! Kim is a prenatal and postnatal fitness specialist and the face behind the very popular Instagram account @kimperryco, where she shares glimpses into her life as a mom to three little ones, and educates and empowers women to stay fit, strong, and healthy during pregnancy and beyond.
It was so fun to connect with her for this podcast episode! I always love the opportunity to get to know other voices and accounts that serve similar audiences to the community here at Mommy Labor Nurse. She’s so sweet, fun, and loving, and I know you’re going to love getting to know her through her birth stories just like I did.
All of her births were wildly different which made for a super fun conversation! Here are some highlights from today’s episode:
Kim’s first pregnancy and birth (8:29)
After we finish up the introduction, Kim dives into the story of her first pregnancy, and is very open about how much she didn’t like being pregnant and how hard it was on her! We chat a bit about how this is very normal, and that it’s OKAY to say this out loud.
Kim talks about how she really didn’t know what she was getting herself into when it came to birth the first time. She did take a hospital birth class but she is very candid about how strongly she believes that this was not enough and she couldn’t believe how unprepared she really was when it was actually happening.
An honest conversation about birth expectations vs. reality
She did have the support of a doula and she is a huge advocate for doula care (which I am too!). She had a super long active labor, an epidural that didn’t work (and was placed twice), and all-around just not the experience she had envisioned. You’ll hear Kim open up about how even once she pushed her baby out she was crying and felt so angry about the entire experience and how it resulted in birth trauma for her.
I am so grateful for Kim’s openness when it came to how she felt immediately after her baby was born, because it isn’t always this magical moment of baby being put on your chest. We need to normalize this and takeaway any guilt moms have for not feeling happy immediately after birth.
Her second birth (16:30)
Kim talks about their decision to try to have their babies close in age, but then how her second pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Again, she is very candid and open about what the experience of a missed miscarriage was like for her, and the way it opened her eyes to pregnancy loss in general.
Then you’ll hear her talk about her third pregnancy (second live birth), with her daughter Rosie. As she describes, this was kind of a textbook pregnancy in terms of symptoms and the way things progressed. Her body was more used to pregnancy at this point and the whole experience was a lot easier.
When you tune in, you’ll hear the details of her second birth, and – spoiler alert – it was a way better and even redemptive experience compared to her first birth, in her words it was beautiful ?
Kim’s pregnancy experience during COVID (27:36)
We keep chatting through Kim’s motherhood timeline, and you’ll hear her share a bit about her recoveries after her first two births. Then Kim found out she was pregnant with her third right around the time her middle daughter turned one!
Kim’s third pregnancy was exhausting because she had two little ones at home, and she experienced significant anxiety for the first time during pregnancy – which she didn’t realize could have such an impact! In the middle of her pregnancy, COVID hit and she was suddenly at home all of the time, not seeing people, and unable to bring her husband to appointments.
Here’s a bit of what she said,
“It was a long winter that I was pregnant, and I was anxious at those first trimester symptoms. And now it’s like, we’re in lockdown. I can’t go anywhere. We can’t do anything. We can’t see anybody. I can’t bring my husband to appointments anymore. So, I just felt like it was a long pregnancy with everything going on in the world.”
You’ll hear her talk about how she did a lot of research on home births and even talked to eight different home birth midwives about that possibility. In the end, she didn’t end up going the home birth route, but she shares how she applied everything she learned about that process to her third birth.
This is also when she was reading a lot of books about unmedicated childbirth and took my course, Birth It Up: The Natural Series!
Kim’s third birth (35:37)
In this part of the episode, we get into the details of Kim’s third birth. She actually went to 41 weeks with all three of her girls! She shares about how leading up to this birth she just felt so READY. She had done so much more research and education than she did prior to her other births, and she was totally pumped to rock it (I just loved her energy and the way she talked about this!).
When her contractions started she spent a lot of time on her birth ball at home and used a breathing and meditation app that works with your contractions called the Freya app – which she highly recommends! They head to the hospital, and things were feeling intense for Kim, but they had a student nurse check her who said she was only at 2-3 centimeters. When she heard this she felt a bit defeated and figured she should just have an epidural ordered because she didn’t think she could go without an epidural after all if that was where she was at.
Well, things moved along fast
Within about 30 minutes everything seriously changed while they were waiting for that epidural! You have to listen in because Kim tells this so well, but here’s a little peek:
“Like my hips were just swinging around and I’m like something is happening and yes, Liesel, I’m telling you, like it felt like just this crazy release. And her head came out! Her head came out and mind you like we have this [student] nurse who’s like learning and Justin [her husband] and me. And I’m like, and I reached down but that was honestly the most beautiful moment of my entire life. I just reached down and I could feel her head. But I was also petrified – like I had a baby between my legs, I didn’t push at all like she was just there!
So we’re all standing like oh my god. And the girl is yelling “nurse, nurse!” Nobody’s at the nurse’s station. One is checking on someone. The other one was in the bathroom. So it’s just the three of us. And she yells to Justin to pull the emergency cord because she didn’t know what to do. She’s never like caught a baby. She’s like, you have to push – just push – and I did one push! And we all caught her coming out!”
When you tune in you’ll hear so much more about how that felt for Kim and what a wonderful and positive experience it was!
About Kim Perry
Kim Perry is an entrepreneur, fit pregnancy coach, mom of three, and strong believer that new and expecting moms can be both fit and happy. But, her life didn’t always look this way; during her first pregnancy, she had no idea what to expect. Her body was changing and she just didn’t feel like herself anymore. The only thing that made her feel like herself was movement — exercise always left her feeling strong and in control.
After becoming pre/postnatal certified, she began to share her workouts online and slowly built a close-knit community. She went from recording and editing videos in her basement at 5am before work to eventually quitting her full-time teaching job. She realized that helping other moms was incredibly fun and fulfilling, and it became her dream job. Learn more at the About Page on her website.
Connect with her:
- On Instagram: @kimperryco
- On her website: https://kimperryco.mykajabi.com/
- Inside of her pregnancy and postpartum workout programs
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