Podcast appearances and mentions of ashley edwards

Aubrey shares her three birth stories that tell of resilience, healing, trust, and miracles. She has had a vaginal birth, a crash Cesarean, and a VBAC– all of which presented cholestasis. Aubrey's first birth was a long but routine induction. Her second birth was a traumatic whirlwind including a complete placental abruption, general anesthesia, and her baby miraculously surviving 15 minutes without oxygen. Though her third pregnancy had many complications, the open and honest relationship Aubrey had with her provider is what ultimately led to her TOLAC and successful VBAC at 37 weeks and 6 days after another medically necessary induction. Aubrey is proof that no two births are the same, and miracles happen even when circumstances threaten to say otherwise. **Aubrey also wanted to mention that after her VBAC, she was readmitted to the hospital for postpartum preeclampsia. She had a headache every day, decided to eventually buy a blood pressure machine, and it was through the roof. She took herself to L&D, and they put her on magnesium. Aubrey had no idea it was even possible to get it postpartum and wanted to share!Managing Cholestasis SymptomsHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, everybody. It is almost Christmas, and I am so excited to bring another story your way. This is a VBAC story from a mama who is from Louisiana. She had quite a few roadblocks within her pregnancies that could have easily stopped her from having a VBAC, but she really established a good relationship with her provider even though her provider wasn't actually as gung-ho or excited about the VBAC specifically because she was nervous, together they communicated their feelings and understood where each other were, and came up with a plan to ultimately have a VBAC.I just respect that so much. It's important to know. We talk about providers all of the time. Providers are so important, and they make such a big impact on our outcome, but this provider, even though she wasn't really comfortable with VBAC, she truly believed in our guest, Aubrey, today. You'll have to hear it from her own words. It's awesome to hear how everything unfolded. We also have a topic today that maybe isn't shared a ton. It's called ICP or cholestasis that we are talking about. It is a liver condition that can occur during pregnancy and cause a range of symptoms. A lot of the times, it is baby being born that is the thing to end cholestasis. We are going to talk a little bit more about that, but I wanted to go over some of the symptoms. We've got dark urine, pale or light gray stools, and she'll talk about this. That is definitely something that is not normal in pregnancy, so if you are seeing that, that is a reason to contact your provider. Nausea, she described some other symptoms there. Decreased appetite, pain in the abdomen, or jaundice. These are some things to look out for. Now, there is a website called icpcare.org. We're going to make sure to attach that in the show notes, so if you have had cholestasis before or you want to learn more about cholestasis and how to manage the symptoms, and what types of things like healthy diet, they have so many amazing resources on their website. They even have recipes and different types of healthy fats and grains and legumes and things that we can focus on. We know that all of the time in pregnancy, really what we are putting into our body is so important. Definitely check out icpcare.org if you want to learn more about ICP and managing symptoms and resources and community support and all of the above. We do have a Review of the Week, so I want to get into that, and then turn the time over to Aubrey. This reviewer is reneekc89. The review title is, “A Turning Point”. It says, “When I was pregnant with my first, I was one of those ‘whatever happens is fine' moms about birth. Then I had an unplanned Cesarean after a stalled induction. It wasn't until I saw family members and friends so easily have vaginal births that I knew I had to try something different the second time around. I found this podcast through a local mom's group and immediately binged every episode. I continue to listen every week even after my successful VBAC in October 2020.”It says, “Listening to what seemed like every possible outcome helped me release my fear that I might have had. I felt emotionally prepared for anything that might have come my way. I switched hospitals and advocated through my entire 25-hour labor in the hospital, and felt like every decision was a conversation between two adults rather than demands.” Oh, what a powerful thing right there, you guys. She says, “I advocated throughout my entire 25-hour labor in the hospital and felt like every decision was a conversation between two adults rather than demands.” That is how it should be. It says, “I have to thank this podcast for helping me gain that kind of confidence. Thank you also to the Facebook Community for always answering my questions.” Oh my gosh. Thank you, reneekc89, for that review. Just a reminder, you guys, if you have not found us on Facebook yet, check us out. You can find us at The VBAC Link Community. You have to answer a few questions to get in, and then you'll get into this amazing community. We have the community on Instagram, and Facebook, and in this Facebook group. I believe so much that this Facebook community will empower you along the way. Like she said, you can ask questions, share pictures, and share concerns, and share triumphs and feel that love and support along the journey. I also wanted to throw out that we have a CBAC group, so if you are going for a TOLAC and it does end in a Cesarean, or you choose a Cesarean birth after a Cesarean, this group is here for you as well. You can find that at The CBAC Link Community on Facebook. Meagan: All right, Ms. Aubrey. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. I know you've probably been waiting. I feel like there are so many times when people are really excited to record their story, then I'm like, “Hey, you're going to be aired this much further out.” You have two months to wait. You're recording now, and then in two months, you'll be airing on, but I'm so glad you are here to share your three stories. You had a C-section, then two VBACs, right? Aubrey: I had a vaginal birth, then a C-section, and then a vaginal birth. Meagan: That's why I'm thinking two vaginal births. So vaginal birth, then Cesarean, then vaginal birth. You've got all sorts of different things added to your story. Aubrey: So many. Meagan: Cholestasis is one of them, right?Aubrey: Yes. Meagan: Okay. I'm excited to talk about that, because I think a lot of people think with cholestasis, there's only one answer. We're going to be talking about that, but I'm going to turn the time over to you.Aubrey: Okay. I guess we'll start with my first birth. Heads up if I cry at all during it because I just do that sometimes. Meagan: That is okay. That is okay. Aubrey: My first pregnancy was totally normal. I had no complications. I was big and miserable, but that was about it. I did have SPD, so my pelvis hurt really bad. I didn't know enough about it to go to a chiropractor to fix it. That was really my only thing until right at 38 weeks, it was that night at about 11:00 at night. I started itching on my feet. I couldn't scratch the itch. I got my husband's socks, and I put gel ice packs inside of them and wore them. That helped, then the itching started in my hands. This had been going on for about 2 hours, so I got in a really cold bathtub. The itching had started to spread more. It wasn't just my hands and my feet. It wasn't a normal itch. It was coming from underneath my skin. It was like my blood was itching. Meagan: People have described it to me as an unreachable itch.Aubrey: It is. It's the most miserable. Meagan: You touch the spot, but you can't get to it.Aubrey: Yeah. It's like when the inside of your ear itches. You're like, ugh. It's like that but all over. Nothing helps. I called the after-hours line at probably 4:00 in the morning. The doctor on call was like, “Pregnancy can be itchy. Take some Benadryl.” I was like, “I've already taken Benadryl. It's not helping.” She was telling me to take some creams, and I knew something else was wrong. I spent the rest of the morning researching. I came to the conclusion that I was 99% sure that I had something called cholestasis, and that I was going to have to be induced.One thing that solidified that was that there were other symptoms that I didn't know about. My stool was white. It was really weird. It just was white-colored. I had this really violent episode of vomiting beyond anything I had ever experienced in my life. That's one of the things. It's this uncontrollable exorcist-style vomiting. Meagan: I actually did not know that. Aubrey: Yeah. It was unnatural. I remember thinking, “That was so weird,” but it was a couple of days before that, and then the next day or so was when I had the weird white-colored stool, but again, I had never been pregnant, so I was like, “I guess this is just pregnancy,” then the itching. That's when I put it all together, and I was like, “Well, I've got cholestasis.” My husband was working that weekend, so I got my best friend to bring me to the hospital. When we got there, I was scratching all over. I was saying, “I'm pretty sure I've got cholestasis.” They clearly didn't believe me. They weren't being ugly. They were like, “All right. Let's see what's really going on here.” They put me in triage, and the on-call doctor came in. She is a lovely person. I don't mean anything bad, but she walked in. She said, “Okay, here's why you don't have cholestasis.” She starts listing off all of these reasons. One of them was that I wasn't jaundiced. Later on, in my research, there's only 30% of women who have elevated bilirubin levels when you have cholestasis. I wouldn't have been jaundiced because my bilirubin wasn't elevated. I said, “Okay. I understand all of that, but can you please just run the labs?” She was like, “Okay, if you want me to run them.” She brought the lady in there. They did the labs, and about 30 minutes later, she came back in, and she was like, “Okay. You were right, and I was wrong. You have cholestasis, and we are going to induce you right now.” I was like, “Okay.”Meagan: Oh my gosh.Aubrey: I called my husband and told him he needed to leave work. At about 5:00, I think– I guess it was about 5:00. They put misoprostol. Meagan: Mhmm, misoprostol, yeah. Cytotec. Aubrey: Yeah, they inserted that. After the first dose, they determined that my cervix was not tolerating it well. They decided to not continue it. They went straight to Pitocin. I didn't know then that what they were doing was really, really fast, but they were upping it every 15 minutes 2 milliunits. Meagan: 15? Wow. That is really fast. Aubrey: It is. Now that I know. At the time, I was like, “Okay.” During my birth, I prepped. I read books, and I went to classes, and I did the Bradley method, and all of the things, but I didn't prepare for induction because I had no idea that I would ever need that, so I knew a lot about birth, but I did not know anything about induction. I was like, “Okay, if you say we're going to do that, we'll do it.” I think I felt my first contraction. It wasn't that long after the Pitocin, but it wasn't that strong. I had contractions off and on for several hours, and the nurses would come in and say, “Oh, are you okay? That was a really strong one.” They didn't feel that bad to me, so I was like, “Oh, I can do this.” That went on for a while, and I guess once I got going more, It just felt like I was always contracting. I didn't know any different, again. I didn't know any different. I just thought this was what it was. Sometimes, it would be more intense, but there was always a contraction. Even on the monitor, you could see that it never dipped down. She asked if she could break my water at 7:00 that morning. It was my doctor. I don't know if she came to check on me or if she happened to be on rounds. She asked to break my waters. I told her I didn't want her to right now. She came back later, and I was okay with her breaking it, so the floodgates opened. I had so much fluid. We did not realize how much fluid I had. That was that morning or maybe the mid-morning. That evening, I hadn't slept in two days at that point because of the itching the night before, and then the contractions. I asked the nurse, “If I get an epidural, will I sleep?” She was like, “Probably so,” then I was like, “Then give it to me. I am so tired.” I did. I slept like a baby. The nurse, I wish I knew her name, but she was so sweet. She came in the night. She put a peanut ball in between my legs. I was only 4-5 centimeters at that point. She put a peanut ball in, and she would come in every 30 minutes. She would flip me from one side to another while I was sleeping. I woke up the next morning at 6:00 in the morning. I had been in labor at that point for 39 hours. I got the epidural at 30 hours. Meagan: Wow. Aubrey: Yeah. She came in the next morning, and the doctor was like, “Okay. You're ready to push.” I was like, “I am?” The epidural was so strong. I couldn't wiggle my toes. I had no idea. She came in, and set everything up. I pushed her out in 15 minutes. Meagan: Whoa. That's awesome. Aubrey: 14 minutes actually. My doctor was like, “That's the best I've ever seen a new mom push.” I was like, “Wow, yeah. Okay.” Meagan: Go me!Aubrey: Yeah. I didn't have any reference. For me, I was like, “This is taking so long, but apparently it was very quick.” Now I know it was pretty quick. Afterwards, my uterus would not contract back. My placenta wouldn't come off. Now I know it's because afterwards, she told me that my contractions never stopped. There was never a break between contractions, so my uterus was just completely exhausted. Meagan: Uterine atrophy, yeah. Aubrey: Yeah, so she had to manually go in there inside of me and start my uterus to contract again which was not pleasant, but she just basically had to shock it. Meagan: Stimulate it, yeah.Aubrey: Yeah. Eventually, it did, and my placenta just fell out. That was that. When they broke my water, I forgot to say, they did find meconium which is common in cholestasis. It was very light, and she wasn't worried about it. It wasn't an automatic C-section because of the meconium. It was really light. She did have to be suctioned, but other than that, she was perfectly fine. We didn't know any of the genders for any of my babies, so it was fun to find out that she was a girl. That was birth number one, and that was in 2018.A year and a half or whatever it was, I got pregnant right before COVID became a big thing. I was pregnant all through the COVID scare. I was due in September, at the end of September. Again, it was non-complicated. I forgot about this. I had a subchorionic hemorrhage around 16 weeks which I didn't know about. I didn't have any bleeding or anything. They just found it on the ultrasound, and then by the next time I went, it was resolved. I was considered high-risk though the whole time because of the cholestasis, so I had frequent scans all the time. That was really the only thing that was weird. We had tested for cholestasis. There were a couple times because anyone who has had cholestasis knows that anytime you itch, you're like, “It's back.” There were several times I had her test me, and there were no elevated levels. Right before 39 weeks, I told her about some intense itching on my foot. I told her that this time was it. It was the itch. She was like, “Okay, well because of COVID, and we're not sure what the hospital bed situation is going to be like, we're going to go ahead and test your blood and find out if it's present, but in the meantime, let's go ahead and schedule your induction to make sure you have a place if we do have to induce, then you're already there.” She wanted me to induce that day. I couldn't because my husband was gone for the Army. I said, “I just need a few days for him to get back in town.” That was on a Thursday or Friday, and I was induced either Monday or Tuesday. It was on September 1, 2020. I went in for my induction. This time, I had not prepared at all. I was like, “Oh, it's like riding a bike. I've done it once. I can do it again.” I want to say upfront that anything they did during the induction, I was totally a party to it. I agreed. I never said no. I never asked questions. I was uninformed or unprepared or whatever, but I never spoke up, so I don't blame them for anything that happened because I could have spoken up, but I didn't. They always asked me. They never told me, “This is what we're doing.” They asked me my permission for everything. We got there. They did not do Cytotec because it hadn't worked before. They went straight to Pitocin. Again, the same 2 milliunits every 15 minutes. Meagan: Is this just their way?Aubrey: I think it was. I don't think it is anymore, because it was different when I went for my VBAC, but yeah. Meagan: Well, I wonder if that's because you were a VBAC though. Aubrey: No, because one of the conversations I had with one of the nurses, I asked her if we could start slow. She was like, “Well, our policy is to go 2 milliunits every 30 minutes.” I was like, “I'd like to go slower than that.” I think they must have changed their policy. I don't know. That's what my hospital records say is that they were doing 2 milliunits every 15 minutes. I got those thanks to y'all. I was like, “Let me go see what that says.” Meagan: It's nice to see what it says, yeah. Aubrey: Yeah, it is because in my situation especially with what happened to my son, it was so amazing to read what really happened and to know my son is where he is. I'll get to that. Anyway, so she came in around 7:00 in the morning. My doctor was on shift. She asked if she could break my waters. I was like, “Sure, go ahead.” She broke my water. So far, it had been a pretty uneventful induction, nothing to write home about. I didn't have an epidural. I didn't feel like I needed one. I was going to try to do it without one if I could, but that might have been at 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. I don't know. It was in the morning. Around lunchtime, they started saying that the baby was wiggly and that they couldn't really get a reading of his heart. He had been wiggly before, and so they were like, “Is it okay if we insert an IUPC?” I had that with my daughter. It doesn't harm the baby. It didn't hurt me. I didn't mind them putting it in, which is for those of y'all who don't know, it is a–Meagan: Intrauterine pressure catheter. You've got it. Aubrey: It measures the contractions from the inside so you can see how effective they are and all that. I was like, “Fine, yeah.” My nurse, whose name is Becca, she's lovely, inserted the catheter into my uterus, and the tube that comes out is clear, and it filled with dark red blood. I knew something was wrong. I said, “That shouldn't be red like that.” She said, “It's okay. Sometimes we have a little bleeding.” I said, “Not like that. That's red.” She was trying to calm me down. Meagan: Yeah, and sometimes they can knick the cervix and it can cause bleeding, but you were like, “No. Something's not right.” Aubrey: Yeah. I just knew something was wrong, but before that, I had no symptoms. I had no clue that anything was wrong. I didn't feel bad. I didn't feel any pain. Nothing. I was like, “You need to take it out. Please take it out. Please take it out.” She called my doctor who was in her clinic down the hospital, and she said, “It's okay to take it out if she's not comfortable with it.” When she took it out, blood just came shooting out of me. It was gushing. Meagan: Really?Aubrey: I know it was blood mixed with fluid, so that's why it was so much, but it looked like it was pure blood. It was so dark. I mean, I was like, “Okay, I need the doctor.” Becca was so sweet. She said, “Okay, just give me one minute. I'm going to go outside and get the doctor.” She was so calm. I was freaking out. She went out there. My doctor was in my hospital room within a couple of minutes. I think she was across the hospital in her office. She was there within a couple of minutes. She had an ultrasound machine. There wasn't a lot of time for talking about what was going on. She just got the ultrasound machine, looked for a second, pushed it up against the wall, and my doctor has the most wonderful bedside manner with the way she talks even when she is stressed out. She said, “Okay, Aubrey, we're going to have to go back to surgery now. Brandon, I need you to tell your wife goodbye.” As she's telling him that, they're pulling my jewelry off. The other nurse handed me a consent form for a C-section. They were prepping me as we were talking. Then they ran me down the hall. It felt like Grey's Anatomy. They pushed this poor woman up against the wall. I remember her head hitting the wall. It was that fast. We were running down the hall. We got into the OR, and I just remember them prepping my body and prepping the room. They were getting the instruments lined up. There was no time for anything. I didn't have an epidural, so they didn't have time to call an anesthesiologist to my knowledge. They started putting the lidocaine where my incision was or was going to be. I started hyperventilating. The nurses threw a bedsheet over my head. They popped up under there with me. They were like, “I'm so sorry, but this is the best we can do. We don't have time to put a sheet up. We're going to have to stay under here. We'll stay here with you.”Meagan: Oh my lanta. Aubrey: Yeah, it was really scary. I remember right before they threw the sheet, I could still see the door swinging. That's how fast everything happened. They eventually, she was like, “You have to calm your breaths down because the baby needs the oxygen.” Little did I know that it really didn't matter how much breath I took. He wasn't getting anything. Eventually, they put me out with gas. Meagan: Did they put you under general?Aubrey: I had to be gassed out. I was hyperventilating. They were like, “We need you to be still.” At the time, they were literally about to cut me before they threw the sheet over. I remember the very last thing that my doctor said to her nurse was, “There's no fetal heartbeat. There are no fetal tones.” I knew at that point that he was dead. Meagan: That's the last thing you heard. Aubrey: Yeah. I woke up. I don't know how much longer it was. It was pretty quickly after surgery because I don't think they anticipated me waking up so early. I was in a hallway. I wasn't in a recovery room. Because I wasn't out all the way, I don't know, but I woke up, and two of the nurses, because there were like 18 people in the room with me when everything happened. The nurses' backs were to me. I said, “Is my baby alive?” One of them said, “Oh, she's awake.” They turned around. One of them said, “They're doing everything they can.” I passed back out. Then I woke back up in the recovery room. My doctor was waiting for me. It was COVID, so my husband wasn't anywhere near any of this. Meagan: Yeah, I was wondering. You said his name was Brandon, right? They were like, “Bye, Brandon. We have to take her.”Aubrey: Then he was just left alone in the labor and delivery room freaking out. Meagan: No one talked to him?Aubrey: He told me later that my doctor had come in after the surgery to tell him everything that happened. Immediately afterward, she came in there to tell him. She is the best doctor in the whole world. Meagan: But he had to wait. Aubrey: Yeah, he had to wait. There wasn't any time for anybody to tell him anything. Meagan: How scary for him. Aubrey: Because come to find out, my placenta had spontaneously 100% completely detached from my body in a matter of a couple of hours. If anybody has ever had a placental abruption, it starts slow. It comes off a little bit at a time. Mine came off in a couple of hours. It was completely detached. We didn't know why at the time. It was very unexpected. She was there. I woke up, and I said, “Is my baby alive?” She said, “Do you want to know what you had?” I said, “Is the baby alive?” She said, “He's alive, and he's a boy.” Then she told me what happened. He was dead when he was born. He was dead for 15 minutes. Meagan: Wow. Aubrey: Yeah, 15 minutes. He had no blood flow or oxygen flow to his brain. A lot of his blood had been drained out of him because my placenta had pulled it out of him because it was detached so quickly I guess. He was not completely exsanguinated, but he lost a lot of blood and he had no heartbeat. According to my hospital records, they tried compressions. They tried the electrode things. They tried an epinephrine shot, and they tried an epinephrine drip, and nothing started his heart, and then after 15 minutes, his heart just spontaneously started by itself. Meagan: Wow. Aubrey: Yeah. That's why it was so cool reading back my hospital records to see. My doctor and everyone involved was like, “We can't believe this. I cannot believe he is alive. I cannot believe you are alive,” but reading it and seeing how amazing it really was was really cool. She told me that the surgery had happened in just a few minutes, and that because of how quickly she had to perform that surgery, that my recovery was going to be really intense, and that most people who have a C-section would not be in as much pain as I'm going to be in because they literally had to rip my body open to get him out, but she said, “Your incision is fine.” Luckily, she's a really skilled surgeon. She did all of that perfectly. She said, “I don't expect any trouble with you healing or anything with your scar.” He was put on a cooling blanket and intubated and given maybe six blood transfusions. If anybody from the hospital is listening, I'm sorry if I get the numbers wrong. But it was a lot. There were six little stickers missing from his transfusion bracelet. He couldn't eat. We couldn't pick him up. We couldn't touch him. I couldn't see him for the first 24 hours because I couldn't move, so the nurses had taken pictures of him and brought them to me so I could see what he looked like. They didn't show me the really scary ones until later because there were some at the very beginning that were very scary-looking. My doctor came in the next day to check on me. It was her day off. She just came in to check in on me to tell me how grateful she was that I was there. I know it traumatized her too because she said she had never opened up someone and seen their placenta floating inside of their body. My nurse, Becca, came to see me. She was also pretty traumatized. But anyway, it was a lot. Once he was in the hospital, they put him on the cooling blanket and all that. He had to be on the cooling blanket for 72 hours, and then they were going to be able to test him to see how significant the brain damage was because we knew that he would have some. I mean, after 5 minutes, you start to have brain damage, and then we knew having been out for 15 minutes that we were looking at something pretty significant based on science. That was the thing that I think was different about me then than now. My background was in physiological psychology. That's what I studied in grad school. My immediate thought was, “I know what science says. I know the probability is of my baby,” and that's what I was looking at. What do we need to do to take care of this baby with significant brain damage?We waited, and on the second day, the day before I was released from the hospital, I had a really cool encounter that was just the way that God changed everything for me which came into my VBAC later because of the faith that it gave me, but I had dragged myself to the shower that morning. It was so painful. My husband was still asleep on the couch. I got in the shower, and the water was cold. That made it even worse pain because it was cold. I was in the shower, but I couldn't get up because I was frozen in pain. I was like, “Why is this water in the hospital cold? It shouldn't be cold.” I sat in there for about 15 minutes. The water stayed cold, and it never warmed up. Finally, I said, “God? If you can't save my baby, can I at least have some hot water?” The water turned hot. I just started laughing and crying at the same time. I just knew that my baby was okay. I don't know how I knew. I just knew that even if he wasn't going to be perfect, whatever was wrong with him was okay. It helped me to get through the next few days because it was hard to see him just laying there. Finally, when they were able to do his tests after 72 hours, we had to go to a different hospital. He had to go in a little ambulance and go over there. We had one of the best pediatric neurologists in the area, Dr. Holman. She's not known for her bedside manner, but she's an incredible, incredible doctor. I say that in a way that she's very to the point. She doesn't sugarcoat anything. My sister, who is a nurse, warned me, “I'm just telling you that she's the best of the best, but she's not–” Meagan: She's blunt. Aubrey: She'll give it to you straight. That's what we were expecting. They did his little scans, and when she came back she said, “I don't have a medical explanation, but your baby is perfect. There's not a single spot on his brain. The cooling blanket does incredible things, but I should see something, and I don't see anything.” Meagan: Wow. Aubrey: She said, “Your baby's going to be perfectly fine.” She told us that he's probably going to have some issues from being in the NICU and being still. He would have to have physical therapy to help his muscles and all of that, but as far as his functioning as a human being, he was perfectly fine, and nothing was wrong with him. Meagan: Yay. What a miracle. Aubrey: Yeah. That's what she said. She said, “Your baby is a miracle, and I don't get to say that with what I do very much.” Meagan: That's awesome. Aubrey: Yeah. So that was his birth, and after that, that day, my husband left and went back to the Army. I recovered from that. I recovered from that pretty much alone which was almost as traumatic as what happened in the hospital because I was in so much pain, and I had a 1.5-year-old and a new baby who screamed all the time which was one of the things they warned me about after the NICU. They said, “He's going to cry a lot. We don't know why, but coolant babies just scream a lot.” He did. For hours and hours and hours, he would scream. It felt like torture in a way because it was like I couldn't do anything. He would scream and scream and scream. My friend, Ashley, and my sister were the only way I made it through that. I would call my sister, Kelly, and be like, “I need to come over,” at 3:00 in the morning. She was like, “Come on.” She would hold him while he screamed so I could go in the back and sleep because I was so sleep-deprived and in so much pain. Then my friend, Ashley, would come over and help me clean. She helped me with my daughter. They helped me through that part. My husband was gone for the first 6 months of Amos' life. About 2 years later, I got pregnant again. I was really scared of having to have another C-section. I was on a pregnancy app, and I asked, “Has anyone ever had a vaginal birth after they've had a Cesarean?” Somebody on there was like, “Oh, you should try this thing called a VBAC. There is a place called The VBAC Link.” I was like, “Okay.” I had no idea. I had never heard of The VBAC Link or the term “VBAC”. I found The VBAC Link, and like everybody else, I became obsessed. I listened to every episode, read every article, and every post. By the time it came time for my first appointment with my doctor, I knew that I was going to at least give it my best try. When I told my husband that I wanted to have a VBAC, he was not okay with that. He was really freaked out because, I mean, everybody involved was traumatized. He was. The nurses, the doctors, everybody. He was just like, “Are you sure that's safe?” I was like, “Yes, actually. I am sure that's what is safest.” I got on The VBAC Link, and I was like, “How do I make my husband understand?” They were like, “Enroll in the course and show him the course.” Meagan: Yes. Take the course with him. Aubrey: We did. By the end of it, he was like, “Okay. If that's what you want to do, we will do it.” That's what we planned for. I was really hoping that I didn't get cholestasis for the third time. There's not really anything you can do to prevent it, but I was just really hoping that somehow it wouldn't show up. About, I guess, 20 weeks, I was told that I had complete placenta previa, so that was super fun. My maternal-fetal medicine doctor explained it, and this is for everybody who gets diagnosed with that. It made my brain so much more calm. He told me that your uterus is a muscle. It's juicy, and it has all of these blood vessels. Your cervix is a connective tissue. It doesn't have all of that. Naturally, your placenta is going to gravitate toward where it can get the most nutrients. It almost always resolves itself because it's not going to get what it needs off of your connective tissue. I just banked on what he said, and by 28 weeks, it had gone so far up that it wasn't a concern at all. Around 24 weeks, I started seeing a chiropractor for severe SPD. My pelvis was on fire. It was grinding, and all of the things. It was worse than with my daughter. I didn't have it at all with my first son, but man, it was back with a vengeance with my third pregnancy. The chiropractic care helped so much. If anybody is in the Natchez, Mississippi area, my chiropractor moved to Natchez, Mississippi after she helped me. But anyway, that's where she is if you're near there and you need a good Webster-certified chiropractor, she's amazing. Her name is Dr. Ashley Edwards. She helped me. Then she helped me with positioning and stuff. She's really good. That was 24 weeks. I started that. Early on in pregnancy, I had been coming from one doctor to the other in the same building, and I was really huffing it. My blood pressure was high. They let me sit for a minute and retest it, and it was fine. I didn't think anything of it until later on in pregnancy when that happened again. My maternal-fetal medicine doctor freaked out. He was like, “You've had two high blood pressure readings. We need to test you for preeclampsia.” That was in my third trimester at some point. I'm probably skipping around. He kept pinching me to see, and asking me if the swelling was normal. I kept telling him, “That's just my ankles. I just have big calves and ankles.” Every time, he would be like, “Is this swelling always like this?” I'm like, “That's not swelling. It's just what my ankles look like, but thank you.”Meagan: Oh my goodness. Aubrey: That was fun. I had to carry around my urine for 24 hours to the urine test. He said that I did have protein in my urine, but it didn't meet the threshold of preeclampsia, so I was not preeclamptic, but they were going to watch me for it. Toward the end, I did get, “Your baby's really big,” not from my OB, but from my maternal-fetal medicine. My OB– I guess I should rewind. I didn't even talk about how we had that conversation. My OB from the very start was so amazing. When I first came in, she was like, “I'm so excited for you.” She was like, “Is it okay if I tell Becca (my nurse from before)?” I said, “Yeah, you can tell her.” She texted Becca and told her. Becca and I stayed in touch through everything. She texted me, and she was excited for me. But I told my doctor that I wanted to try for a VBAC, and she said, “I'm perfectly fine with that. I don't see an issue.” She was like, “The only thing that could possibly present an issue is if your cholestasis comes back, and it's early on. But for now, let's plan for a vaginal birth, and that's the goal. If something changes, then we'll talk about it when it changes.”She's a very great doctor because you can talk to her, and you can be open with her and be honest and never feel like she's judging you for telling her how you feel. I can't tell you how many times I cried just with her telling me all kinds of different things. She just listens and never judges. We went through most of the pregnancy with that as the goal until at the end, around 32 weeks, my itching came back. They tested me, and I had elevated bile acids, so I was considered to have cholestasis. They put me on ursodiol. I only itched for a few hours, but I knew what the itching was. It's so different. I knew what it was. I never itched again the whole pregnancy. Even before I got on the medicine, before I had even picked up the prescription, the itching had stopped. I still took it. At that point, they were like, “Okay. We can't let you go into labor naturally. We're going to have to induce,” because that is an automatic induction. Then the whole thing with the preeclampsia came around a little bit after that, so my maternal-fetal medicine doctor was talking about, “We might need to do this at 35 or 36 weeks.” I was like, “I don't think I'm comfortable with that.” My doctor was like, “We'll see, but if you have preeclampsia, that changes everything.” My doctor, my OB doctor– I was talking to her about everything, and she was like, “The reality is that what you have could potentially be dangerous for baby. So every week from about 35 weeks on, we're just going to have to determine if baby is safer in or if baby is safer out, then at that point, we can determine how we are going to deliver the baby because we don't know what your body is going to be doing. We just have to see.” She said, “I'm not telling you that you can't have a VBAC. I'm just telling you that we need to be open to the possibility that it could turn into a C-section if this doesn't go the way we want.” She said, “I feel like as your doctor, I wouldn't be doing you any service if I didn't at least have this conversation with you because if it came to the point that we had to have a C-section, and we had never talked about it, then you would be like, where did this come from? I don't want you to feel blindsighted.” I appreciated it. I did leave really discouraged from that conversation. I cried because I thought that secretly she was trying to bait and switch me. But I should know that my doctor really is great. Anyway, so we went through the next couple of weeks where she would tell me, “Baby is safer in, so baby gets to stay in.” I had scheduled a lunch with Becca. I had asked her if she would be at my new baby's birth. She said she would be my labor and delivery nurse. We'd get to try it again. She was like, “I'm going to help you have a VBAC. You can totally do this.” We had lunch. I told her about the conversation that I had with my doctor. I said, “I just want the opportunity to try. If I get to try and something happens and it doesn't work out, then I'll be okay with that. I just want to try because I know my body can birth a baby.” I said, “I don't have to have the epidural, but if that's what makes her comfortable, I'm okay with that because I've had the epidural before. It's not like I'm anti-epidural. I'll have it if that makes her more comfortable.” I've realized that she is a person with trauma, and I knew that what I was asking her to do was scary for her because of what happened and because probably most people don't know, but cholestasis comes with the risk of placental abruption. It does something to the vascular structure, so it's not that it causes it, but it makes you more susceptible to placental abruption. I knew that she was worried about that. I knew that everything else that had popped up and popped up and popped up, she probably was like, “I don't think I want to do this anymore.” I told Becca all that, and she said, “Have you ever told your doctor that?” I said, “No,” because she knows her. She works with her. She said, “I think if you have that conversation with her, and you tell her just like you told me that she would feel a lot differently about it.” The next appointment was the appointment where we were going to do my first cervical check. We needed to know what my body was doing, so if I had to induce, they knew. Meagan: Where you were at. Aubrey: Yeah. It was one that I wanted and that I needed, I think, in that situation. Before she checked me, I knew that this time if she checked me and it wasn't doing anything that she was probably going to be leaning more toward C-section because I was going to have to be delivering within that week or a few days after based on everything that was going on. When I got in there, I said, “Before you check me, I want to tell you something.” I said, “I just want to tell you this so you don't think that my response to whatever happens in the check is me begging or anything like that. I just want you to know that this is how I feel.” I told her everything I told Becca. I told her that I wanted to meet her halfway and do whatever made her comfortable as long as I got to try. She said, “Okay. Let's just check you and see what's going on.” She checked me, and she said, “You're soft. You're 1 centimeter dilated, and we can have a VBAC.” She said– hold on. Let me get myself together. She said, “I'm uncomfortable with this, but the reason that I'm okay with this is because I trust you. I trust you enough to know that when you tell me your body can do this, I believe you. I know that you trust me enough to know that if I tell you it's time to call it, then you'll believe me and we'll call it.” She said, “The reason that we're doing this is because we have a mutual trust and understanding. We can be honest with each other.”I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I mean, I was just so excited. On the way home, I got into a wreck. I totaled my car. Meagan: Oh my gosh!Aubrey: Yeah. It wasn't as bad because it was totaled because my airbag came out, but it was in very slow bumper-to-bumper traffic. I had to go back to the hospital. She was on-call, and she was like, “Why are you here?” I had to be monitored for that, but everything was okay. Saturday at midnight was my induction. I came in, and they started my IV. It took them a while because I have really weird veins and they are hard to stick. Eventually, they called in an anesthesiologist to use his machine to find my veins. If anybody has hard-to-stick veins, you can use an anesthesiologist, and it works like a charm. He got my vein, and we started fluids. About 30 minutes later, it was probably at 2:30 or so whenever the Pitocin was in. I had my first baby contraction. Rebecca– a different Rebecca, but her name was Rebecca– said, “Okay, here's the schedule we're going to go on.” I forgot to mention this too, but right before my induction, my husband surprised me with his VBAC certification doula course. He had gone through the doula course. Meagan: Oh my gosh!Aubrey: He went through The VBAC Link doula course. He was like, “Surprise! I can be your doula.” Meagan: That is amazing. Aubrey: It was cute. My husband, when she starts telling me the schedule of how we were going to do everything, was like, “Excuse me, I think we need to not be going every 30 minutes. We need to be going every 45 to an hour.” He was so well-educated about the whole thing. She did. She did it slow at first, then we did that through the night. I don't remember if I slept or not, but Becca came on her shift at 7:00. She was like, “Okay. You're doing good, but here's the reasons why I think that we need to increase the interval. We were having contractions, but we need to get a pattern going.” She told me why. I agreed with her that I was okay with it as long as it didn't go faster than 30 minutes. We did that, and that started to actually get a pattern which was really nice. She is a brilliant nurse, and she knows what she's doing. She was like, “We're going to get you moving. Come on. Get up. We're getting out of bed.” She had me walking down the hall, and with the peanut ball, and sitting on the ball. My doctor came in around 9:00. She told me that she thought we needed to break my water. I was really nervous about that because in my research of what happened to my placenta, I had found that it was likely that I had a placental abruption due to the rapid decompression of my uterus. My doctor agreed that that's probably what happened, but when they broke my water, because my vessels were already weak, the pressure suctioned it off. I was really worried about breaking my water. She was like– I've never seen her be so stern with me before because she's always so calm and nice. She said, “Aubrey, I'm very uncomfortable right now. I do not want to see you have a rupture. I do not want to see your placenta detach. We need to be real about this.” She said, “You have a lot of fluid. If we do not let some of that fluid out, your baby is not going to drop. You have a lot of fluid.” I did. I guess I forgot to mention that. I wasn't quite poly, but I was pretty close to having poly.Meagan: Borderline. Aubrey: Yeah. I told her that I was scared. She said, “You cannot make decisions based off of fear. You have to make decisions based off of what is happening and what is fact. The facts are that your baby is high. Your body is contracting. You have a pattern, but your baby is not dropping. There is a reason, and it's likely because of the fluid level.” So, she said, “I can break your water in a way that is not aggressive. I will just cut a tiny little slit and let it come out on its own, then it will come out.” I agreed. I mean, when I step back and look at it, I was like, “She's right. Scientifically, the baby is buoyant and is just floating there.” Come to find out, I definitely had poly. I had so much fluid. When it finally came out, Becca was like, “I don't think I've ever seen that much fluid come out of somebody.” It was the exact thing that the baby needed. He came down, and immediately, I went from 4 centimeters to 6 in an hour. I could feel my body doing very differently. It was changing differently than it had before. I started to get nauseous and shaky. I knew that I was probably getting closer to go-time. I told Becca, “You might want to get the guy to come give the epidural now. I promised her I would get the epidural, and if we're going to get it, we're probably going to need to get it now.” She was like, “Yep. Let's go ahead and get it put in.” She had him put it in really light though so I could still move my legs and wiggle my toes. I could even put pressure on my legs which was nice. That was maybe at 2:00 in the afternoon or 3:00. Oh no. I got the epidural at almost 5:00. I was way off on the time. It was almost at 5:00 that I got my epidural. I had been between a 6 and a 7 and about 70% effaced. After the epidural, they had to go to an emergency, her and my doctor. They came back afterward, and me and my husband were playing Scrabble. I started throwing up. I had the bag, and I was like, “I need to throw up.” Becca came in and she was like, “You're throwing up? This is the best!” She was like, “It's time. It's time.” I was like, “How do you know?” She was like, “I'm telling you. I'm telling you.” She checked me, and then Dr. Barrios came in, and she was like, “Okay, Aubrey. We're going to have this baby.” My husband caught the moment. He has a picture of me the second that she told me I was going to have my VBAC. It was just the least flattering picture I could possibly have, but it's so cool because it's a live picture, and I could see the wave of emotion washing over me. I could feel pretty much everything. I mean, I'm sure if I had no epidural whatsoever, and I think Becca said she turned it down, but I'm sure it was way more intense if I was doing it without completely. I could feel everything. I could feel the ring of fire. I could feel opening up. To me, it didn't feel like I had to poop. It felt like I had a bowling ball just sitting there. They were still setting up while I was trying to push. They were like, “Wait. Let somebody get there, so we can catch it.” Right as they were finished setting up and getting dressed and everything, I was like, “Okay, we're pushing now.” I pushed. I don't remember how many times I pushed, but I felt the head come out. I said, “Is that what the head feels like?” She was like, “Yep. That was the head. We just need one more push and we can get the body.” I pushed. He was out in 4 minutes. Meagan: Wow. Aubrey: Yep. It was crazy. I had to go back and make sure I was not crazy. I looked at the timestamps of the pictures because I was like, “There was no way that it was that fast. It felt like an eternity.” It was 4 minutes. Everybody cried. My husband got a picture of the first time they put him on my chest. As soon as I pushed him out, it was like all of the trauma and everything from before just washed off of me. It was so amazing. Meagan: I bet it was so healing for you to see that you could have a different experience. Aubrey: It was. Meagan: Even though you had a different experience with your first, after having that experience the second time, I'm sure that weighed over you for sure.Aubrey: Yeah. I love the fact that both my doctor and my nurse from the time before were there and we all got to do it again. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say that. I bet this was really healing for your provider and your nurse, and not even just healing for your provider, but something that stepped up her experience to see that birth could go a different way after a very traumatic experience. Aubrey: Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I hope that. I would say she's not, “Woo, I love VBACs.” She was not anti-VBAC at all, but I would like to think that it helped her see VBACs in a more positive and more probable light. Meagan: Mhmm, exactly. I think you probably did a lot for her that she may not have even known that you did. Aubrey: She did a lot for me. She's the best. The sad thing is that I have different insurance now so if I got pregnant again, I can't have her. But she's incredible. She really is. My baby– we didn't have a name picked out. One of the other nurses, Jordan, who helped me deliver my baby was like, “I know you don't have a name picked out. You don't have to use this if you don't want to, but I was just thinking that y'all wanted a cute, short name that started with A, and Becca's last name is Anders, and it would just be really cute.” So we named our son Anders.Meagan: Cute. Oh my gosh. That's adorable. I bet Becca is so happy. Aubrey: Yeah. When she left the hospital that night, because she charted forever and she left at 11:00 that night, we still hadn't picked out a name. Jordan came in after she had left. She suggested it, and we were like, “That's it. That's his name.” I sent her a picture of the announcement with his name on it. She said, “I had to pull my car over on the road. Don't do that to me while I'm driving.” Meagan: Oh my gosh. That is so cool and so special.Aubrey: Yeah. There were so many times on The VBAC Link where I see people who are like, “I don't know if I should do it. I'm scared.” Just do it. Just try. If you succeed, it changes you. It's so, so powerful. Meagan: It really is. It's hard to explain. It's so hard to explain that feeling that you get after having a VBAC. It's unreal. It really is unreal. We just had a client the other day who had to be induced due to some pretty severe preeclampsia, and she was a VBAC. The second she found out that she had preeclampsia and needed to be induced, I think a lot of her faith slipped and her belief that it was going to happen slipped. We too have a very raw, beautiful, live photo of the second she saw her baby and her hands reaching down to grab the baby. It tells the whole story within that and that one image tells her whole story. It's incredible. It's incredible. Aubrey: The picture that I submitted to y'all is a picture of right when they put him on my chest, and I mean, it was so surreal. Another thing that I think I didn't really mention is that there was a point when– because I had so much going on. I had all of these different complications and week to week. We don't know if you're going to have a baby this week. It was so stressful. Eventually, I just had to say, “Okay, God. You healed my baby. You started his heart. You healed his brain. You can make my body do what it's supposed to do. I can only do so much. I can eat the dates. I can drink the tea, but after a certain point, there's nothing else I can do other than just walk it out and just trust that God's going to walk me through that.” I had to keep reminding myself of that with every single step because it got really hard. There's a community called “Labor Nurse Mama”, and I was a member of that community too. There's a doula on there. Her name is Lamay Graham. I think she's in Milwaukee. I'm going to tell you where she is, but she's a doula, and she's incredible. We would have these live chats and Zoom calls. They would talk to you.She would help remind me, “You can only do so much, Aubrey. You're doing everything that you can. Stop putting it on you because your body is going to do what it's going to do, and you're not going to change that the more you stress yourself out. You have to just trust God.” She is one of the reasons I kept being able to come back to reality. It was because she would remind me, “You have to just remember. Stop trying to do it all yourself.” Meagan: Yeah. We have to trust, have faith, and do everything we can within our own power, but then understand that there are going to be other things, and you have to have faith in those things. The more educated we are and prepared we are, we can navigate through those things. Well, I am just so stinking happy for you. I can see the emotion. I can hear the emotion. I saw the pictures. If you guys are listening right now, go over to our Instagram or Facebook page, and check out this beautiful image of her just holding your baby. You've got Jordan in the background, your nurse Jordan. I mean, really, it's so beautiful and I'm so happy for you. Congrats. Aubrey: Thanks. I'm sorry I was kind of all over the place. Meagan: No. Listen, that's okay. That is totally okay. I'm just so happy you are here to share your stories. Aubrey: Thanks. I appreciate you. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Regular tickets are now sold out for Latent Space LIVE! at NeurIPS! We have just announced our last speaker and newest track, friend of the pod Nathan Lambert who will be recapping 2024 in Reasoning Models like o1! We opened up a handful of late bird tickets for those who are deciding now — use code DISCORDGANG if you need it. See you in Vancouver!We've been sitting on our ICML recordings for a while (from today's first-ever SOLO guest cohost, Brittany Walker), and in light of Sora Turbo's launch (blogpost, tutorials) today, we figured it would be a good time to drop part one which had been gearing up to be a deep dive into the state of generative video worldsim, with a seamless transition to vision (the opposite modality), and finally robots (their ultimate application).Sora, Genie, and the field of Generative Video World SimulatorsBill Peebles, author of Diffusion Transformers, gave his most recent Sora talk at ICML, which begins our episode:* William (Bill) Peebles - SORA (slides)Something that is often asked about Sora is how much inductive biases were introduced to achieve these results. Bill references the same principles brought by Hyung Won Chung from the o1 team - “sooner or later those biases come back to bite you”.We also recommend these reads from throughout 2024 on Sora.* Lilian Weng's literature review of Video Diffusion Models* Sora API leak* Estimates of 100k-700k H100s needed to serve Sora (not Turbo)* Artist guides on using Sora for professional storytellingGoogle DeepMind had a remarkably strong presence at ICML on Video Generation Models, winning TWO Best Paper awards for:* Genie: Generative Interactive Environments (covered in oral, poster, and workshop)* VideoPoet: A Large Language Model for Zero-Shot Video Generation (see website)We end this part by taking in Tali Dekel's talk on The Future of Video Generation: Beyond Data and Scale.Part 2: Generative Modeling and DiffusionSince 2023, Sander Dieleman's perspectives (blogpost, tweet) on diffusion as “spectral autoregression in the frequency domain” while working on Imagen and Veo have caught the public imagination, so we highlight his talk:* Wading through the noise: an intuitive look at diffusion modelsThen we go to Ben Poole for his talk on Inferring 3D Structure with 2D Priors, including his work on NeRFs and DreamFusion:Then we investigate two flow matching papers - one from the Flow Matching co-authors - Ricky T. Q. Chen (FAIR, Meta)And how it is implemented in Stable Diffusion 3 with Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis Our last hit on Diffusion is a couple of oral presentations on speech, which we leave you to explore via our audio podcast* NaturalSpeech 3: Zero-Shot Speech Synthesis with Factorized Codec and Diffusion Models* Speech Self-Supervised Learning Using Diffusion Model Synthetic DataPart 3: VisionThe ICML Test of Time winner was DeCAF, which Trevor Darrell notably called “the OG vision foundation model”.Lucas Beyer's talk on “Vision in the age of LLMs — a data-centric perspective” was also well received online, and he talked about his journey from Vision Transformers to PaliGemma.We give special honorable mention to MLLM-as-a-Judge: Assessing Multimodal LLM-as-a-Judge with Vision-Language Benchmark.Part 4: Reinforcement Learning and RoboticsWe segue vision into robotics with the help of Ashley Edwards, whose work on both the Gato and the Genie teams at Deepmind is summarized in Learning actions, policies, rewards, and environments from videos alone.Brittany highlighted two poster session papers:* Behavior Generation with Latent Actions* We also recommend Lerrel Pinto's On Building General-Purpose Robots* PIVOT: Iterative Visual Prompting Elicits Actionable Knowledge for VLMsHowever we must give the lion's share of space to Chelsea Finn, now founder of Physical Intelligence, who gave FOUR talks on* "What robots have taught me about machine learning"* developing robot generalists* robots that adapt autonomously* how to give feedback to your language model* special mention to PI colleague Sergey Levine on Robotic Foundation ModelsWe end the podcast with a position paper that links generative environments and RL/robotics: Automatic Environment Shaping is the Next Frontier in RL.Timestamps* [00:00:00] Intros* [00:02:43] Sora - Bill Peebles* [00:44:52] Genie: Generative Interactive Environments* [01:00:17] Genie interview* [01:12:33] VideoPoet: A Large Language Model for Zero-Shot Video Generation* [01:30:51] VideoPoet interview - Dan Kondratyuk* [01:42:00] Tali Dekel - The Future of Video Generation: Beyond Data and Scale.* [02:27:07] Sander Dieleman - Wading through the noise: an intuitive look at diffusion models* [03:06:20] Ben Poole - Inferring 3D Structure with 2D Priors* [03:30:30] Ricky Chen - Flow Matching* [04:00:03] Patrick Esser - Stable Diffusion 3* [04:14:30] NaturalSpeech 3: Zero-Shot Speech Synthesis with Factorized Codec and Diffusion Models* [04:27:00] Speech Self-Supervised Learning Using Diffusion Model Synthetic Data* [04:39:00] ICML Test of Time winner: DeCAF* [05:03:40] Lucas Beyer: “Vision in the age of LLMs — a data-centric perspective”* [05:42:00] Ashley Edwards: Learning actions, policies, rewards, and environments from videos alone.* [06:03:30] Behavior Generation with Latent Actions interview* [06:09:52] Chelsea Finn: "What robots have taught me about machine learning"* [06:56:00] Position: Automatic Environment Shaping is the Next Frontier in RL Get full access to Latent Space at www.latent.space/subscribe

When should we prune roses? What plants grow well in rubble and grass? What's infecting my Prunus avium?Peter Gibbs and a team of horticultural experts are led on a guided tour of Regent's Park in London, while dipping into the GQT postbag to answer your gardening conundrums.Leading the tour is head gardener and fellow GQT panellist Matthew Pottage, who's also joined by pest and disease expert Pippa Greenwood and head gardener Ashley Edwards. Later in the programme, head gardeners Anna Rafal and Anne Tuomisto offer advice on pruning roses and designing a Mediterranean garden, as well as winter tidying with hibernating animals in mind.Producer: Dominic Tyerman Assistant Producer: Rahnee Prescod Executive Producer: Carly MaileA Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

7:35 a.m. - Ashley Edwards - Coastal MS Entrepreneur, Former President & CEO, Gulf Coast Business Council & SuperTalk MS News Column Contributor Topic: The latest Trump appointment and Gaetz withdrawal from AG consideration, was the nomination an entire smokeshow? Lots to discuss re: transition in the next few months and what the next couple of years will look like. Also, need to mention the state runoff elections on Tuesday. 8:35 a.m. - Dixon Williams - SuperTalk MS Sports Director Topic: Preview of weekend sports, the biggest sports news of the week, etc

Reminding you why the Mississippi Gulf Coast is such a great place to live, work, and play… Hosted by Ricky Mathews. Listen weekdays 9-10am on SuperTalk Mississippi 103.1 WOSM-FM. This show is a production of SuperTalk Mississippi Media. Learn more at SuperTalk.FM

7:35 a.m. – Ashley Edwards - Coastal MS Entrepreneur, Former President & CEO, Gulf Coast Business Council & SuperTalk MS News Column Contributor Topic: Thoughts and insight that he has on the presidential election as voting draws near. He has also been in North Carolina and can share a firsthand account of the devastation that he has seen from Hurricane Helene. 8:05 a.m. – Jenifer Branning – Senator, District 18 (Leake, Neshoba, and Winston) Chair, Highways and Transportation Cmte. & Vice-Chair, Government Structure Cmte.??& Candidate, MS Supreme Court Justice Topic: Her run for Supreme Court, platform, the work she has done during her time in the Senate, and why she believes she is the best candidate for the job. 8:35 a.m. – J.T. Mitchell – News Director, SuperTalk MS News Topic: The week in the news and some of the biggest headlines of the week.

7:20 a.m. - Ashley Edwards - Coastal MS Entrepreneur, Former President & CEO, Gulf Coast Business Council & SuperTalk MS News Column Contributor Topic: Thoughts and insight that he can add about the Vice-Presidential debate last night. 8:05 a.m. - Andy Gipson - Commissioner, MS Department Agriculture & Commerce Topic: The State Fair opens this week! He can also discuss an update from MDAC and what he has coming up. 8:35 a.m. - Todd Taylor - Manager, Samaritan's Purse U.S. Disaster Relief Topic: the devastation from Helene and what Mississippians can do to support the individuals dealing with the aftermath. Samaritan's Purse is based out of North Carolina.

Ashley Edwards, who was working at DeepMind when she co-authored the Genie paper and is now at Runway, covered several key aspects of the Genie AI system and its applications in video generation, robotics, and game creation. MLST is sponsored by Brave: The Brave Search API covers over 20 billion webpages, built from scratch without Big Tech biases or the recent extortionate price hikes on search API access. Perfect for AI model training and retrieval augmentated generation. Try it now - get 2,000 free queries monthly at http://brave.com/api. Genie's approach to learning interactive environments, balancing compression and fidelity. The use of latent action models and VQE models for video processing and tokenization. Challenges in maintaining action consistency across frames and integrating text-to-image models. Evaluation metrics for AI-generated content, such as FID and PS&R diff metrics. The discussion also explored broader implications and applications: The potential impact of AI video generation on content creation jobs. Applications of Genie in game generation and robotics. The use of foundation models in robotics and the differences between internet video data and specialized robotics data. Challenges in mapping AI-generated actions to real-world robotic actions. Ashley Edwards: https://ashedwards.github.io/ TOC (*) are best bits 00:00:00 1. Intro to Genie & Brave Search API: Trade-offs & limitations * 00:02:26 2. Genie's Architecture: Latent action, VQE, video processing * 00:05:06 3. Genie's Constraints: Frame consistency & image model integration 00:07:26 4. Evaluation: FID, PS&R diff metrics & latent induction methods 00:09:44 5. AI Video Gen: Content creation impact, depth & parallax effects 00:11:39 6. Model Scaling: Training data impact & computational trade-offs 00:13:50 7. Game & Robotics Apps: Gamification & action mapping challenges * 00:16:16 8. Robotics Foundation Models: Action space & data considerations * 00:19:18 9. Mask-GPT & Video Frames: Real-time optimization, RL from videos 00:20:34 10. Research Challenges: AI value, efficiency vs. quality, safety 00:24:20 11. Future Dev: Efficiency improvements & fine-tuning strategies Refs: 1. Genie (learning interactive environments from videos) / Ashley and DM collegues [00:01] https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.15391 2. VQ-VAE (Vector Quantized Variational Autoencoder) / Aaron van den Oord, Oriol Vinyals, Koray Kavukcuoglu [02:43] https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.00937 3. FID (Fréchet Inception Distance) metric / Martin Heusel et al. [07:37] https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.08500 4. PS&R (Precision and Recall) metric / Mehdi S. M. Sajjadi et al. [08:02] https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.00035 5. Vision Transformer (ViT) architecture / Alexey Dosovitskiy et al. [12:14] https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.11929 6. Genie (robotics foundation models) / Google DeepMind [17:34] https://deepmind.google/research/publications/60474/ 7. Chelsea Finn's lab work on robotics datasets / Chelsea Finn [17:38] https://ai.stanford.edu/~cbfinn/ 8. Imitation from observation in reinforcement learning / YuXuan Liu [20:58] https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.03374 9. Waymo's autonomous driving technology / Waymo [22:38] https://waymo.com/ 10. Gen3 model release by Runway / Runway [23:48] https://runwayml.com/ 11. Classifier-free guidance technique / Jonathan Ho and Tim Salimans [24:43] https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.12598

How can I control alexander plants? How can I encourage my gage trees to flower? What tips do the panellists have for increasing biodiversity?Kathy Clugston and her team of green-fingered experts are by the Suffolk Coast to share their advice with an audience of garden enthusiasts.On the panel are head gardeners Ashley Edwards and Matthew Pottage, and pest and disease expert Pippa Greenwood.Meanwhile, Matthew Pottage explores the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney. He dons his hard hat to get up close with a particularly dangerous local pine and admires the wollemi pine, a living fossil thought to be extinct for two million years until a small population was discovered in the Blue Mountains of Australia in 1994.Assistant Producer: Rahnee Prescod Senior Producer: Dominic Tyerman Executive Producer: Carly MaileA Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

Reminding you why the Mississippi Gulf Coast is such a great place to live, work, and play… Hosted by Ricky Mathews. Listen weekdays 9-10am on SuperTalk Mississippi 103.1 WOSM-FM. This show is a production of SuperTalk Mississippi Media. Learn more at SuperTalk.FM

Do grass snakes have any benefit to my garden? How do I stop my autumn raspberries from getting maggots? What I can plant between now and next June that will flower in time for my daughter's wedding? Kathy Clugston and a panel of experts are in the hot seat as they answer the gardening queries from an audience in Southwold. On the panel are head gardeners Ashley Edwards and Matthew Pottage, and pest and disease expert Pippa Greenwood.Later, Matthew Pottage sneaks away to Wootens of Wenhaston Plantsman Nursery in Darsham, where he meets co-owner Jill Stafford to discuss Pelargoniums and how there's a variety for everyone.Producer: Dominic Tyerman Assistant Producer: Rahnee Prescod Executive Producer: Carly MaileA Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

Discover how gardens can heal from Horatio's Garden Head Gardener Ashley Edwards Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, we're joined by Ashley Edwards, a member of technical staff at Runway, to discuss Genie: Generative Interactive Environments, a system for creating ‘playable' video environments for training deep reinforcement learning (RL) agents at scale in a completely unsupervised manner. We explore the motivations behind Genie, the challenges of data acquisition for RL, and Genie's capability to learn world models from videos without explicit action data, enabling seamless interaction and frame prediction. Ashley walks us through Genie's core components—the latent action model, video tokenizer, and dynamics model—and explains how these elements collaborate to predict future frames in video sequences. We discuss the model architecture, training strategies, benchmarks used, as well as the application of spatiotemporal transformers and the MaskGIT techniques used for efficient token prediction and representation. Finally, we touched on Genie's practical implications, its comparison to other video generation models like “Sora,” and potential future directions in video generation and diffusion models. The complete show notes for this episode can be found at https://twimlai.com/go/696.

In this 24-minute episode of our CAAS Matters podcast series, we welcome Ashley Edwards from Insperity alongside host John Yeager. Together, they discuss the world of Human Resources (HR), examining the ins and outs of outsourcing from an HR perspective, and the role and benefits of a Professional Employer Organization (PEO), among other vital topics. Don't miss out on this opportunity to discover the profound impact HR can have on an organization, often in ways that go unnoticed. Tune in and keep an eye out for future episodes in this series. 

7:05 a.m. - Ashley Edwards - Coastal MS Entrepreneur, Former President & CEO, Gulf Coast Business Council & SuperTalk MS News Column Contributor Topic: Trump Biden Debate 06/27/24 8:05 a.m. - Scott Burns - Co-Founder, 7DaysFortheTroops Topic: Co-Founder Scott Burns joined the Marines after graduating from high school in Jackson, MS during the height of the Gulf War. Although he never made it to a combat zone, then Lance Corporal Burns served as a motor transport specialist for four years at New River Air Station, Jacksonville, NC and Okinawa, Japan before injuring his ankle during a training exercise which cut his military career short. He later lost his leg to an amputation. Unsure of what to do with his civilian life, Burns used his earlier experience as a disc jockey to open is own DJ business in 003, which is when he found his inspiration to found 7 Days for the Troops. Scott Is Married with 3 children. Scott has used his Life experiences to help mentor others. Scott has spent the last 16 years promoting veterans and volunteering at a Tupelo Christian Preparatory. “I know 1st hand what it is like to have limitation due to an injury, and I want to do what I can to help others, work past their limitations and be the best them, they can be.” 8:35 a.m. - Dixon Williams - SuperTalk MS Sports Director Topic: Preview of weekend sports, biggest sports news of the week, etc.

Reminding you why the Mississippi Gulf Coast is such a great place to live, work, and play… Hosted by Ricky Mathews. Listen weekdays 9-10am on SuperTalk Mississippi 103.1 WOSM-FM. This show is a production of SuperTalk Mississippi Media. Learn more at SuperTalk.FM

May 14, 2024 – News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers   ---- Master Cattleman Program: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/livestock/beef_cattle/master%20cattle/find%20classes%20in%20your%20area   ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu   Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind.   ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

Get ever changing year round interest with the beautiful golden rain tree - Koelreuteria Paniculata Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

April 30, 2024 – News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers   ---- Master Cattleman Program: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/livestock/beef_cattle/master%20cattle/find%20classes%20in%20your%20area   ---- Save the Date:   DeSoto Parish Beef and Forage Field Day Friday, May 10, 2024 The Branch Ranch 134 Paradise Ln, Mansfield, LA 71052 Pre-register by May 3rd by contacting Josh Salley jsalley@agcenter.lsu.edu or 318-872-0533   Advanced Master Cattleman Dates: May 17, July 12, August 2, and October 18 Register by May 3, 2024 Cost $200 For more information visit: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/livestock/beef_cattle/advanced-master-cattleman For registration form, contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.   ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu   Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind.   ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

April 16, 2024 – News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers   ---- Master Cattleman Program: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/livestock/beef_cattle/master%20cattle/find%20classes%20in%20your%20area   ---- Save the Date:   Northwest Beef and Forage Field Day Thursday, April 25, 2024 8:30 AM – 2 PM Red River Research Station – Bossier City, LA   DeSoto Parish Beef and Forage Field Day Friday, May 10, 2024 The Branch Ranch 134 Paradise Ln, Mansfield, LA 71052 Pre-register by May 3rd by contacting Josh Salley jsalley@agcenter.lsu.edu or 318-872-0533   Advanced Master Cattleman Dates: May 17, July 12, August 2, and October 18 Register by May 3, 2024 Cost $200 For more information visit: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/livestock/beef_cattle/advanced-master-cattleman For registration form, contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.   ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu   Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind.   ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

Reminding you why the Mississippi Gulf Coast is such a great place to live, work, and play

April 2, 2024 – News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers   ---- Master Cattleman Program: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/livestock/beef_cattle/master%20cattle/find%20classes%20in%20your%20area   ---- Save the Date:   BQA Certification 115 Texas St., Raceland, LA April 10, 2024 at 6:00 PM Contact Randi Lyn Toups at rtoups@agcenter.lsu.edu   Louisiana Producer Artificial Insemination School Hill Farm Research Station – Homer, LA April 10-12, 2024 Contact the Hill Farm at 318-927-9841   Northwest Beef and Forage Field Day Thursday, April 25, 2024 8:30 AM – 2 PM Red River Research Station – Bossier City, LA    BQA Certification April 29, 2024 at 6 PM Scott Center Conference Room 212A Macon Ridge Road, Winnsboro, LA RSVP with Tripp Morgan by April 15 at tmorgan@agcenter.lsu.edu or 318-368-9935   DeSoto Parish Beef and Forage Field Day Friday, May 10, 2024 The Branch Ranch 134 Paradise Ln, Mansfield, LA 71052 Pre-register by May 3rd by contacting Josh Salley jsalley@agcenter.lsu.edu or 318-872-0533   ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu   Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind.   ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

Episode 308: Welcome back to the @kempower series where we highlight aspects of the company's work and mission of powering the electric movement with quick and scalable EV charging solutions for everyone and everywhere.In this week's episode, Francie discusses the EV revolution with Ashley Edwards and Jed Routh. EVs are gaining popularity but still have a long way to go. EV charging infrastructure must support current EVs while also considering future needs and requirements. Ashley and Jed explain how Kempower hardware and software is designed with scalability in mind in order to help support the transition to EVs.Find out more about Kempower here: https://kempower.com/Find us on all of these places:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/outofspecpodcastApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/out-of-spec-podcast/id1576636119Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tKIQfKL9oaHc1DLOTWvbdAmazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/473692b9-05b9-41f9-9b38-9f86fbdabee7/OUT-OF-SPEC-PODCASTFor further inquiries please email podcast@outofspecstudios.com#kempower #evcharging #scalability Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

March 19, 2024 – News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers   ---- Master Cattleman Program: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/livestock/beef_cattle/master%20cattle/find%20classes%20in%20your%20area   ---- Save the Date:   BQA Certification 115 Texas St., Raceland, LA April 10th at 6:00 PM Contact Randi Lyn Toups at rtoups@agcenter.lsu.edu   BQA Certification 212A Macon Ridge Rd, Winnsboro, LA April 29th at 6:00 PM RSVP with Tripp Morgan by April 15th tmorgan@agcenter.lsu.edu   Northwest Beef and Forage Field Day Thursday, April 25, 2024 Red River Research Station – Bossier City, LA More information to come.   ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu   Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind.   ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

Welcome back to the @kempower podcast series where we highlight aspects of the company's work and mission of powering the electric movement with quick and scalable EV charging solutions for everyone and everywhere.This week, Ashley Edwards and Jed Routh talk us through Kempower's current product lineup. They explore the important factors in creating a good user experience. They also discuss the future of charging and the role of government incentives and regulation.Find out more about Kempower here: https://kempower.com/Link to episode 1 (intro): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZdKGbOgurcIntro to product lineup: 0:00Software and app: 6:25Kempower globally: 7:58User experience: 13:14CCS vs. J3400/NACS: 16:33Trends and the future of charging: 19:04The role of regulation: 25:34 Find us on all of these places:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/outofspecpodcastApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/out-of-spec-podcast/id1576636119Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tKIQfKL9oaHc1DLOTWvbdAmazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/473692b9-05b9-41f9-9b38-9f86fbdabee7/OUT-OF-SPEC-PODCASTFor further inquiries please email podcast@outofspecstudios.com#kempower #electricvehiclecharging #reliability Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Reminding you why the Mississippi Gulf Coast is such a great place to live, work, and play

March 5, 2024 – News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers   ---- Master Cattleman Program: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/livestock/beef_cattle/master%20cattle/find%20classes%20in%20your%20area   ---- Save the Date:   Acadiana Spring Beef and Forage Field Day Saturday, March 16, 2024 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM. Lunch provided.   BQA Certification 115 Texas St., Raceland, LA April 10th at 6:00 PM Contact Randi Lyn Toups at rtoups@agcenter.lsu.edu   Northwest Beef and Forage Field Day Thursday, April 25, 2024 Red River Research Station – Bossier City, LA More information to come.   ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu   Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind.   ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu

February 20, 2024 – News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers   ---- Master Cattleman Program: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/livestock/beef_cattle/master%20cattle/find%20classes%20in%20your%20area   ---- Save the Date:   Breeding Soundness Exams Opelousas, LA February 22, 2024 Contact Lanie Richard (337-291-7090), Brittany Zaunbrecher (337-948-0561), or Mike Dominique (337-654-4030) for more information. To register, visit https://forms.office.com/r/NAqYBT1BSb.   Breeding Soundness Exams Lake Charles, LA March 2, 2024 Call Bradley Pousson (337-905-1318) or Jimmy Meaux (337-721-4080) to sign up the bulls and make arrangements.   Acadiana Spring Beef and Forage Field Day Saturday, March 16, 2024 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM. Lunch provided.   BQA Certification 115 Texas St., Raceland, LA April 10th at 6:00 PM Contact Randi Lyn Toups at rtoups@agcenter.lsu.edu   Louisiana Producer AI School Hill Farm Research Station – Homer, LA April 10-12, 2024 Contact Lee Faulk (afaulk@agcenter.lsu.edu) or Ashley Edwards (akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu)   Northwest Beef and Forage Field Day Thursday, April 25, 2024 Red River Research Station – Bossier City, LA More information to come.   ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu   Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind.   ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

February 6, 2024 – News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers  ---- Master Cattleman Program: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/livestock/beef_cattle/master%20cattle/find%20classes%20in%20your%20area  ---- Save the Date:   Pesticide Recertification - Lafourche Parish 115 Texas St., Raceland, LA January 24th at 12:30 PM and 6:00 PM Contact Randi Toups at rtoups@agcenter.lsu.edu   Breeding Soundness Exams Opelousas, LA February 22, 2024 Contact Lanie Richard (337-291-7090), Brittany Zaunbrecher (337-948-0561), or Mike Dominique (337-654-4030) for more information. To register, visit https://forms.office.com/r/NAqYBT1BSb.   Breeding Soundness Exams Lake Charles, LA March 2, 2024 Call Bradley Pousson (337-905-1318) or Jimmy Meaux (337-721-4080) to sign up the bulls and make arrangements.   Acadiana Spring Beef and Forage Field Day Saturday, March 16, 2024 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM. Lunch provided.   BQA Certification 115 Texas St., Raceland, LA April 10th at 6:00 PM Contact Randi Toups at rtoups@agcenter.lsu.edu   Louisiana Producer AI School Hill Farm Research Station – Homer, LA April 10-12, 2024 Contact Lee Faulk (afaulk@agcenter.lsu.edu) or Ashley Edwards (akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu)   Northwest Beef and Forage Field Day Thursday, April 25, 2024 Red River Research Station – Bossier City, LA More information to come.   ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu   Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind.   ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

La journée mondiale de l'intelligence animale est célébrée chaque année, le 4 février. BSG rediffuse à cette occasion les 12 épisodes de la série "La bête en nous" avec Jessica Serra.Le prix Ig Nobel (prononcé Ignobel, en référence à "ignoble" est un prix parodique créé en 1991. Il distingue chaque année 10 recherches scientifiques au premier abord loufoques, qui amènent ensuite à réfléchir. Quelques primés récents :Biologie : Susanne Schötz pour avoir analysé les variations de ronronnements, hurlements, grognements, miaulements et autres variations entre le chat et l'humain.Entomologie : John Mulrennan, Jr., Roger Grothaus, Charles Hammond et Jay Lamdin, pour leur étude sur une nouvelle méthode de contrôle des cafards dans les sous - marins.Transport : Robin Radcliffe, Mark Jago, Peter Morkel, Estelle Morkel, Pierre du Preez, Piet Beytell, Birgit Kotting, Bakker Manuel, Jan Hendrik du Preez, Michele Miller, Julia Felippe, Stephen Parry et Robin Gleed, pour avoir déterminé s'il est plus sûr de transporter un rhinocéros en vol la tête en bas.Acoustique : Stephan Reber, Takeshi Nishimura, Judith Janisch, Mark Robertson et Tecumseh Fitch pour avoir introduit un alligator de Chine dans une pièce étanche remplie d'air enrichi à l'hélium afin d'étudier les changements dans la fréquence de ses vocalisations.Physique : à Patricia Yang, Alexander Lee, Miles Chan, Alynn Martin, Ashley Edwards, Scott Carver, et David Hu pour avoir découvert comment et pourquoi les wombats font des crottes cubiques.Biologie : à une équipe formée de deux Japonais, d'un Brésilien et d'un Suisse pour avoir démontré l'existence d'un pénis chez le représentant femelle des insectes du genre Neotrogla et d'un vagin chez le représentant mâle.Littérature : Fredrik Sjöberg (Suède) pour son travail autobiographique en 3 volumes traitant de son plaisir à collectionner des mouches mortes et des mouches qui ne sont pas mortes.etc ..._______ 

January 23, 2024 – News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers   ---- Master Cattleman Program: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/livestock/beef_cattle/master%20cattle/find%20classes%20in%20your%20area   ---- Save the Date:   Pesticide Recertification - Lafourche Parish 115 Texas St., Raceland, LA January 24th at 12:30 PM and 6:00 PM Contact Randi Toups at rtoups@agcenter.lsu.edu   Breeding Soundness Exams Opelousas, LA February 22, 2024 Contact Lanie Richard (337-291-7090), Brittany Zaunbrecher (337-948-0561), or Mike Dominique (337-654-4030) for more information. To register, visit https://forms.office.com/r/NAqYBT1BSb.   Breeding Soundness Exams Lake Charles, LA March 2, 2024 Call Bradley Pousson (337-905-1318) or Jimmy Meaux (337-721-4080) to sign-up the bulls and make arrangements.   Acadiana Spring Beef and Forage Field Day Saturday, March 16, 2024 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM. Lunch provided.   BQA Certification 115 Texas St., Raceland, LA April 10th at 6:00 PM Contact Randi Toups at rtoups@agcenter.lsu.edu   Louisiana Producer AI School Hill Farm Research Station – Homer, LA April 10-12, 2024 Contact Lee Faulk (afaulk@agcenter.lsu.edu) or Ashley Edwards (akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu)   Northwest Beef and Forage Field Day Thursday, April 25, 2024 Red River Research Station – Bossier City, LA More information to come.   ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu   Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind.   ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

Hello fellow garden enthusiasts!

Reminding you why the Mississippi Gulf Coast is such a great place to live, work, and play

January 9, 2024 – News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers   ---- Save the Date:   Louisiana Agricultural Outlook Forum January 10, 2024 State Evacuation Shelter, Alexandria, LA Registration: https://forms.office.com/r/S3q78gXttH Contact Dr. Deliberto at mdeliberto@agcenter.lsu.edu.   Breeding Soundness Exams Lockport, LA Contact Randi Lyn Toups to register. rtoups@agcenter.lsu.edu or 985-446-1316   Breeding Soundness Exams Opelousas, LA February 22, 2024 Contact Lanie Richard (337-291-7090), Brittany Zaunbrecher (337-948-0561), or Mike Dominique (337-654-4030) for more information. To register, visit https://forms.office.com/r/NAqYBT1BSb.   Breeding Soundness Exams Lake Charles, LA March 2, 2024 Call Bradley Pousson (337-905-1318) or Jimmy Meaux (337-721-4080) to sign-up the bulls and make arrangements.   Acadiana Spring Beef and Forage Field Day Saturday, March 16, 2024 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM. Lunch provided.   Louisiana Producer AI School Hill Farm Research Station – Homer, LA April 10-12, 2024 Contact Lee Faulk (afaulk@agcenter.lsu.edu) or Ashley Edwards (akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu)   Northwest Beef and Forage Field Day Thursday, April 25, 2024 Red River Research Station – Bossier City, LA More information to come.   ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu   Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind.   ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

December 12, 2023, News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers ---- Save the Date: Breeding Soundness Exams January 3, 2024 Lockport, LA Contact Randi Lyn Toups to register. rtoups@agcenter.lsu.edu or 985-446-1316 Louisiana Agricultural Outlook Forum January 10, 2024 State Evacuation Shelter, Alexandria, LA Registration: https://forms.office.com/r/S3q78gXttH Breeding Soundness Exams Opelousas, LA February 22, 2024 More information to come. Acadiana Spring Beef and Forage Field Day Saturday, March 16, 2024 More information to come. Louisiana Producer AI School Hill Farm Research Station – Homer, LA April 10-12, 2023 Contact Lee Faulk (afaulk@agcenter.lsu.edu) or Ashley Edwards (akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu) Northwest Beef and Forage Field Day Thursday, April 25, 2024 Red River Research Station – Bossier City, LA More information to come. ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind. ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

November 28, 2023, News Update for Louisiana Cattle Producers   ---- Save the Date:   Louisiana Forage Conference December 1, 2023 from 8:30 AM to 1:30 PM Louisiana Mega Shelter – Alexandria $25 registration online or at the door. Lunch included. Online registration: www.louisianaGLCI.org/events   ---- Follow us on: Facebook – @LSUAgCenterBeefCattle Instagram – @lsu_agcenter_beef_cattle Twitter – @BeefLsu   Not on social media? You can still receive notifications on new content and programs through the Remind App. Contact Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu with questions or for help registering for Remind.   ---- For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

Cattle Marketing Webinar Series Lee Faulk, Regional Livestock Agent, discusses the various marketing opportunities for beef cattle, as well as some management practices that can help add value to calves. For more information regarding the Beef Brunch Educational Series, please contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

Cattle Marketing Webinar Series Dr. Kurt Guidry discusses trends and cyclic patterns of the annual and long-term cattle cycles. For more information on the Beef Brunch Educational Series, please contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

Cattle Marketing Series Webinar Tyler Braud, Instructor and 4-H Livestock Specialist, reviews considerations producers should make when preparing to sell calves. For more information regarding the Beef Brunch Educational Series, please contact Dr. Ashley Edwards at akedwards@agcenter.lsu.edu.

Reminding you why the Mississippi Gulf Coast is such a great place to live, work, and play

Gallo Radio Show with Ashley Edwards, Michael Watson & Kelly Bennett 7:05 a.m. - Ashley Edwards - Coastal MS Entrepreneur, Former President & CEO, Gulf Coast Business Council & SuperTalk MS News Column Contributor Topic: Election night and how it all played out across the state and additional races that we are still keeping an eye on. 7:35 a.m. - Michael Watson - MS Secretary of State 8:05 a.m. - Kelly Bennett - Multimedia Journalist, SuperTalk MS News Topic: Recapping last night

Ashley Edwards, founder and creative of The AWE Studio in Austin, shares what she learned in her near-death experience, how she lives her life purpose through her creativity—and what that all means as an ADHD business owner. This is a major episode with a conversation you're gonna want to hear. Find out more about Ashley's work at https://www.theawestudio.com Follow Ashley on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/theawestudio Over the Edge Podcast with Paige Ray is a weekly chat about pushing creative boundaries, making big moves without knowing all the answers and jumping off a cliff to our dreams while figuring out how to build a plane on the way down. Creative work is wild, but we can figure it out. Let's go over the edge together, friends. Learn more about Paige on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/paigeraycreative Visit the Paige Ray Creative website here: https://paigeray.com

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What plant related songs would the panel add to their gardening playlist? Why is it so difficult to grow cucumbers? Why aren't my strawberry plants producing any fruit? Kathy Clugston is in Hampshire for this week's GQT. Joining her are pest and disease expert Pippa Greenwood, head gardener Ashley Edwards and garden designer Juliet Sargeant. Later in the show, Matthew Wilson gives us a much needed mulching masterclass, where we find out how to get the best out of our organic matter. Producer: Bethany Hocken Assistant Producer: Dulcie Whadcock Executive Producer: Hannah Newton A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

To snap or to cut - what is the best way to dead head my roses? Why are my tomatoes falling off before turning red? Which plant would you relegate to the compost heap? Kathy Clugston and her team of GQT experts are at the Army Flying Museum in Hampshire to answer all these questions and more. Joining her this week are garden designer Juliet Sargeant, head gardener Ashley Edwards, and pest and disease expert Pippa Greenwood. Alongside the horticultural Q and A, we hear from Deputy Director and Head of Science of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, Chris Thorogood who talks us through Mediterranean-inspired gardening in the UK. Executive producer: Hannah Newton Producer: Bethany Hocken Assistant Producer: Dulcie Whadcock A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

Which luxury vegetable shall I grow in a northern climate? Why are my potatoes perfect on the outside, but black on the inside? How can I get my wife to spend more time in the allotment? The GQT panellists are back in Trafford to answer these questions and more in front of a live audience. Ready to share their top tips on all your garden gripes are proud plantswoman, Christine Walkden, the ‘Mr Cool' of the plant world Ashley Edwards, and passionate ethnobotanist James Wong. Also, regular GQT panellist, Juliet Sargeant sheds light on the mysterious practice of potato chitting. Producer: Bethany Hocken Assistant Producer: Dulcie Whadcock Executive Producer: Louisa Field A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

What to plant to turn my garden into an oasis? Where do I start with an allotment riddled with weeds? How do I grow saffron? In Hale to answer these questions and more are Peter Gibbs and this week's GQT panel - plants expert Christine Walkden, self-proclaimed botanical geek James Wong, and Ashley Edwards, Head Gardener of Horatio's Garden. Also, we return to Horatio's Garden in Stanmore, West London to find out more about the effect nature has on our mental and physical health. Producer: Bethany Hocken Assistant Producer: Dulcie Whadcock Executive Producer: Louisa Field A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4