Yvonne Strahovski How I Met Your Mother

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Lacy Tortelli

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Aug 3, 2024, 5:47:53 PM8/3/24

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Yvonne Strahovski is the Emmy-nominated, SAG Award-nominated and Golden-Globe-nominated actress whose voice you may recognize as the stoic Serena Joy Waterford from The Handmaid's Tale. She is the mother of a toddler and newborn, with starkly different birth stories to share. During Yvonne's first pregnancy, she felt an intuitive pull toward birthing at home, but suppressed her inner voice in favor of the rational, which warned Yvonne that she lived too far from the hospital in the event of a possible transfer. Choosing not to explore it further, Yvonne had her first baby in the hospital. Despite having an obstetrician she deeply trusted, she felt her birthing body start to shut down as soon as she arrived to the unfamiliar setting and found herself surrounded by numerous "strangers" - e.g. hospital staff. Yvonne began her second pregnancy sensing some PTSD from her first birth, and this time allowed her inner voice to grow louder. Yvonne shares her story of consuming a series of inspiring home-birth stories on Down to Birth Show and other platforms, until finally she said, "If all these women can do it, why can't I?" Yvonne's second son was born at home in December 2021, with her husband, midwives and doula present, along with some of her closest friends and even her obstetrician, who served as a back-up attendant.

Yvonne shares how her fear was never completely eradicated before going into her second labor, and said her supportive team and HypnoBirthing - which she had once assumed was best-suited for those with an inclination toward yoga and meditation - were what kept her erring on the side of grounded and calm through pregnancy and birth rather than fearful.

Yvonne commented on the irony of playing Serena Waterford in the world of Gilead during these formative years as a new mother, and is certain she'll have more to say when she can speak freely after the next season drops. Even though Yvonne is typically very private, she felt compelled to join us as a way to pay forward an inspiring story that might reach those with their own inner voices about pursuing home birth.

Cynthia is an expert in the HypnoBirthing method. Her classes are live, interactive and online, and they're offered six times per year. You can reach her by emailing Cyn...@HypnoBirthingCT.com or by visiting HypnoBirthingCT.com or texting 203-952-7299.

Hi everyone, I'm Yvonne Strahovski I play the lovely Serena Joy Waterford on The Handmaid's Tale and I'm here with Cynthia and Trisha to share my book story or both of them really in the labor. I started into like a fear spiral and I, I just opened up and I said, I'm, I'm, I'm really scared, I'm scared, I can't do this, my body extraordinarily, surprise, surprise knew exactly what to do when it felt safe. And when it felt you have an inner voice for a reason. And I learned to listen to it in a very big way.

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Hi, everyone, I'm Yvonne Strahovski. I play the lovely Serena Joy Waterford on The Handmaid's Tale, and I'm here with Cynthia and Trisha to share my book story or both of them really talk about talk about all things birth and what inspired me.

Yeah, William. Yeah. Well, with William I, you know, we live aways from the hospital, we're not in the in the city. So that was kind of the biggest factor in the deciding that I wanted to birth at the hospital, even though intuitively instinctively, you know, who I am as a person really just wanted to birth at home. But I didn't feel brave enough at the time. And I, I didn't really, I probably could have looked into it more in the way that I did my second book, but I didn't do that. I went to the hospital. And it's a strange thing, because I look back now. And in hindsight, after both the books, I realized, you know, what my body was trying to tell me both, you know, before I planned Williamsburg, and during it, which is, you know, instinctively I knew that I was going to kind of clam up in the hospital, which is kind of exactly what ended up happening. I had a 46 hour labor. So it was it started in the evening, and went for two nights and two days. And it was kind of a bit like a traveling circus. It was, you know, it started at home. And then eventually, it was time to go to the doctor's office to check things out. And I was advised at that point that I would probably have my baby by sundown. So we should stay in the area, which meant not going back home, you know, doing the drive again. And so, you know, then it meant, okay, well, where do I go to continuing to continue labor. And so then we got a hotel to continue laboring while the hotel was being sorted out by my husband, who was unfortunately kind of doing all these things rather than being present with me. You know, I was walking around the streets, you know, laboring, which also wasn't, you know, something that I was terribly comfortable with our you know, being a super private person and someone who kind of likes being enveloped in a safe cozy space, especially when I'm given giving birth. It wasn't ideal. So, you know, we moved to the hotel, and, and I just, it just kind of went on and on and on. But the next night, and obviously, I was exhausted. So by the time you know, my OBGYN came to the hotel at various intervals throughout the night. He's wonderful. My my obg and he, you know, he did checking in all that stuff. And then finally in the morning, he said it was time to go to the hospital.

I was dilated enough, and then we went over there. And as soon as I got there, my body just went Oh, yeah, no, no thanks. I just can't I mean, it just I clammed up and the process stalled and, and kind of stopped and so consequently, I did things that were not part of my birth plan, which is fine. You have to be flexible. And all the rest of it however, you know, it was the Pitocin and it was you know, breaking my water man, you Normally, it was having someone come into the room, who I didn't know, which automatically makes me freak out. And of course, you know, I'm hyper aware, I'm hyper aware anyway of my surroundings just as a human being, but, you know, especially when I'm, you know, when you're birthing, and so it was just, it was just a lot. And then, you know, we dealt with a Mykonian problem. So then, of course, you know, once he was born, a NICU team was all standing by right there also, you know, not ideal for me, I understand that, you know, they were there for the safety of my child. And I totally respect that. But, you know, as someone who, again, is freaked out by people I've never met, that was also another thing that was like, Oh, my God, here's like, four people standing here, looking at me doing this super intimate, private, special thing, you know, and he was fine. He was great. Everything, you know, after that was was fine. But just knowing I looked back on that, and I, and I felt like, oh, I, I really should have listened to my original instinct about planning for something that wasn't going to be a hospital, I just really didn't know how to do that. And so when I was facing, and I say, facing, planning my second book, because it was kind of a little bit of PTSD. You know, it was it felt like I had to kind of face something and change something that was scary to me at the time. And, and I had to kind of start again, and a lot of it was really about trusting myself, and trusting those little voices in my head and my gut instinct on what was going to be right for me. And I was lucky to have two very healthy pregnancies, though, I didn't have complications. So with the second one, I kind of ended up, I had a talk with myself, basically. And I was like, Listen, you need to, you need to stop calling all your friends, just start having conversations, use your resources, just stopped talking, and something is going to come to you. And that's exactly what I did. I spoke to two friends who had just had a baby, they recommended their their doula who then recommended the midwife that she was training under. And I met them both and, and I loved their energy in there, they were very calm, and very powerful women. And I thought that was such a contrast and in their energies, but so necessary for me and for what I needed. And so it just kind of built from there. And essentially, these two women gave me infused me with more trust in myself. So I came to them with a little bit of trust in myself, and then they put it right back into me, to set myself up for what I really truly wanted fully knowing that if something were to happen, we could easily transfer. And that wasn't going to be a problem. But that involved a lot of, you know, getting educated on all the things that you guys know all about, you know, like cords wrapped around necks and all the fears and concerns and all the things that you worry about as as a as a mom birthing, and what is actually a real threat, what isn't how it actually works, all the things to the point where I, I just really learnt to trust myself, and set myself up for that home birth, which is what I did the second time around. And it was a dream come true.

I think it's so easy for women to assume that those who have home births get pregnant and they go, I totally trusted my body. And I just don't want to be anywhere but home. And I'm so looking forward to this birth that I know everything is going to go perfectly. But a majority of the women that I've worked with over the years never initially planned on birthing at home, they felt that they first felt an aversion to the alternative. Like Well, I really don't want to birth in the hospital, or I don't want to birth in the hospital again. And then they're like, oh god, how am I really going to do this at home and then they have to get calm interesting about the plan to birth at home. And that's okay, that's a legitimate approach. If you start with an aversion like to know what you want to avoid before you know what you're pulling toward. But isn't it interesting how your second pregnancy got you to reprocess your first birth? It just makes you realize how much we carry for years. And sometimes it takes another pregnancy to just get us to sometimes women cry processing it years later, they get angry years later, right? Isn't that incredible? So we're holding that in all those years?