Dr. Tabatha Barber, an OB/GYN, shares a traumatic delivery from a decade ago where she saved a newborn but lost the mother to amniotic fluid embolism. She connects that crisis and her recent marital breakdown to lessons about trusting God and leaning on community as she heads into 2024.
Hi, I'm Dr. Tabitha, the gutsy gynecologist. I'm a triple board certified, OB, GYN and Functional Medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey. And I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. After caring for thousands of women, I've come to realize that your gut health determines your gyne health and your overall health. And it's a super gutsy thing for me to go against conventional gynecology practice to bring you the truth. No more band aid medicine, ladies. We're talking root cause resolution on this show. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. And I want to be your gutsy gynecologist. So welcome.
Merry Christmas. Happy Birthday to Jesus. Oh my gosh. I'm so glad that you're taking a moment to listen to this short episode during a really important week. A week of birth and renewal and gratitude and giving and thanks and all the things right. We have all these promises for the future and right on the cusp of this is going to be the new year. And we get a chance to hit the reset button and do life differently. We all love to make the New Year's resolutions and do all the things, but I really want us to sit in this moment of Jesus's birth because. I'm sorry I'm so emotional. My life has been turned upside down for the past month. My marriage has crumbled and a lot of things have shifted. And I just want you to know that I have so much trust in the birth of Jesus and what that means for my life and that I'm gonna be okay. My kids are gonna be okay, my business, my future, it's not even gonna be okay. It's gonna be incredible because I am choosing to have complete and utter trust in the process. So if you follow me, you know that I have stories. I've had some big events happen in my life, but I wanna share with you an event that really solidified my faith, that really tested my purpose and tested my trust and showed me the fragility of our life. So this week marks the 10 year anniversary of, of my friend dying in my hands. Okay? I had a girlfriend who was pregnant. She was full term. She was a wonderful woman. She was just full of life. She was so sharp and witty and smart and I. She was great. And she went into labor And I was on call, she wanted me to deliver her, and I was joking in her delivery room with her and her husband. And next thing I know, she looked at me and said, I don't feel right, and passed out. In that moment, I knew she was having an amniotic fluid embolism. It's a very rare event, and I never saw it in all of my training and I have never seen it since. I only read about it in textbooks. But I knew immediately what was happening. And I knew that I had to do an emergency C section and save her baby. And I called the code blue of when we didn't have a pulse or blood pressure and wheeled her into the OR myself down the hall and immediately started performing a C section in my street clothes, in my Uggs, in my jeans, no gloves. And I delivered her daughter. She was healthy and fine. And I proceeded to spend the next three hours coding my friend and trying to save her and, you know, doing everything possible. I even ended up doing a hysterectomy because she couldn't stop bleeding. But in the end, she was not to stay with us. And that event could have gone two different ways for my future. It could have led me down a path of bitterness and anger and resentment and confusion, but it didn't. It led me down the other path. It led me down the path of gratitude and awe for the miracle of God's work in us. Because I was able to trust my ability to save that baby in a time where I should have been paralyzed and unable to perform, but God was there with me and we saved her. Not only did I save her daughter in the middle of it, I went out and I called our mutual best friend and I told her to get in there and to hold that baby, who really was my rock throughout this. For a long, long time afterward, we were each other's rock. We call each other foxhole friends. But seeing God come through in other people and show up for her husband and her children and her family in this time of their needs, it was absolutely so life affirming. And it. It showed us that life could be really long or really short. We don't know which. That's what my friend Megan always says. But we have to make the most of it. We have to surround our pe ourselves with people that are going to lift us up and be there when we need it the most. And we need to trust. Like that is what I learned. That was my lesson that I don't understand. I can't comprehend why such an amazing woman would be taken off the earth so soon in her life and why those children would be without that mother. But it's not my job to understand that. It's my job to trust. We need to trust in God that he is making the crooked ways straight. He will redeem things when they go sideways. He will give us the people that we need and we will come out better somehow, some way. So this week I got to celebrate her 10th birthday. And even though we share nice stories about her mom to her and her brother and we missed her, we knew it was okay. Because God always brings the sun up. Okay, here's what I've come to learn. Like, you know the sun's gonna rise. It rises every single morning. You could be laying in the dark from 2am to 7am and feel like it is never going to be light out. I am miserable. It is so dark. Why does it seem so long? But you know the sun will come up. It just does. There's no question. There's never been a day where the sun didn't come up. As deep as you know that you need to know that you are going to have an incredible life. If you just lean in and trust and don't try to understand the hurtful times, the pain, the human shortcomings that happen, all the things that happen to you, around you, to the people you love. You just have to stay in faith and know that God's got you and it's going to be okay. And I'm doing that in a very hard time in my life right now. And I know that it's for a purpose. And part of it is to share my stories with you so that you know you can get through it and you can find your strength in your faith. Because we need to lift each other up. That's what I'm here to do. God's made it clear to me that I need to lift you up. And when I fulfill my purpose and help other women, it helps me heal. So my lessons that I'm ending of 2023 are life can be short or long. You don't know what it's going to be. So you got to make the most of it. You have to know that God's got you and he's somehow going to give you the strength to get through the most painful of situations. And that sometimes your broken heart or your painful situations are meant for your growth. If you'll only accept the responsibility and lean in and do the growing, you will come out and on the other side and have an amazing life. I'VE already made huge strides in the past month in my personal situation, and I feel better than I ever have. Even though I'm sad and I'm lonely and I miss people, I am stronger. And I don't question why I'm here because I know God's got me. So I hope this helps. Super vulnerable. Really hard to do. But if you ever watch, like, Mel Robbins, she's from Muskegon, which is like five minutes up the road from me. And I just think she's an incredible example of the strength that you can find in your vulnerability. And so I'm leaning in. I'm being so vulnerable with you right now and letting you know that I've gone through some hard stuff. Like, I haven't even told you half of it, but I'm still standing. And I continue to get stronger and stronger because I lean into the knowing that the sun will rise because God has got me. So if this helped you at all, please shoot me a message and let me know or pray for me. Like, honestly, I would really appreciate it if you would just pray for me. Because I'm praying for you. I'm praying that you all close this year with some understanding and knowing your value and your worth. You are enough. You are enough. The Bible says it over and over and over again, and that is the true truth. You are enough. You're perfect and pleasing to God just as you are. So surrender and know that 2024 is going to be an amazing year. I love you ladies.
