Jess's birth of Jacob at home (New South Wales) || Homebirth after traumatic c-section + shocking traumatic post partum hospital experience

Episode 18 is from Jess in NSW who shares her homebirth after (traumatic) c-section (HBAC) story. An incredible story, with unfortunately a lot of drama, including problems getting a referral to a private midwife, issues around the GTT and GDM & then shockingly, after needing to transfer to hospital after Jacob was born, was treated horribly in hospital & was denied seeing or holding freshly newborn Jacob face-to-face for THREE days because of totally unaccetable reasoning surrounding Jess having COVID-19.

Homebirth story begins approx 28:50

Links to people/business/resources for this episode:

• Calmbirth https://calmbirth.com.au/
• Obstetric Violence & Sexual Assault in Maternity Care 
  • "Obstetric violence often focuses on labor and childbirth even when referring to maternity care, which includes pregnancy, given that these are moments in which women are particularly vulnerable to health care abuse and over-medicalization, or non-medically justified obstetric interventions, e.g., episiotomy and caesarean section. Other important components of obstetric violence are dehumanization and non-consensual care, as well as overall conversion of biological processes into pathological ones."
  • https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10778012221140138
  • https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/newscentre/news_centre/more_news_stories/study_finds_one-in-ten_australian_women_have_experienced_obstetric_violence
• Postnatal anxiety https://panda.org.au/articles/postnatal-anxiety-signs-and-symptoms/
• Birth Debrief with Core & Floor Restore https://coreandfloor.com.au/products/birth-debrief
• Birth Time Doco  https://www.birthtime.world/
• The Unbelievable Tactics of teh Formula Industry on The Midwives Cauldron https://open.spotify.com/episode/3BsQomw00EvZ5NWfYPTbEA?si=9258a8e558ec4e15

CHAPTERS: 

01:00
Jess's traumatic first birth experience

02:25
Jess's home birth after caesarean story

08:11
Jess's experience with gestational diabetes

14:49
Jess's caesarean birth experience

20:30
Decision to have a home birth

33:36
Options for home birth

43:36
Difficulties with GP and referral

45:28
Care with private midwife

48:17
Preparing for birth and moving houses

49:40
Midwife's Holiday and Breach Position

51:14
Turning the Baby

53:03
Miscarriage and ECV

56:14
COVID Diagnosis

58:08
Collaborative Care and Home Preparation

01:00:32
Onset of Labor

01:04:57
Pushing and Birth

01:09:40
Baby's Breathing Difficulties

01:13:00
Separation and NICU

01:21:39
Postpartum and Frustrations

01:28:17
Reflection and Future Birth Plans

Transcript

0:02

Hi, welcome to Birthing at Home, a podcast. I'm Elsie, your host. I'm a home birth mom of two little boys. I'm a mental health nurse, a home birth advocate broadly, but also more specifically in the state of Victoria, and I'm an ex-student midwife. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people who are the traditional custodians of the land I'm recording on in Melbourne, Australia. I would also like to acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been birthing at home. on country for tens of thousands of years prior to the British invasion and acknowledged that sovereignty has never been ceded. This is episode 18 of Birthing at Home, our podcast. And today Jess from North Richmond in New South Wales shares her amazing home birth after Caesarean story that she achieved whilst sick with COVID-19 and after having had a traumatic first birth experience. We also reflect on hers and Jacob's post-birth transfer to hospital. where the hospital unreasonably then denied her from holding or seeing Jacob in person for three days. This is a pretty emotional episode that highlights many issues with the maternity system, including the stigma around home birth and the lack of support for breastfeeding moms, including those with babies in NICU or special care. Enjoy. Welcome, Jess, to the Birthing at Home, a podcast. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Um, we were just discussing that we're both boy moms, um, and exchanging some funny stories. Um, I have Frankie in the background and Jess has a little Jacob in the background as well. Um, but we're going to start off, Jess, if you would like to give a little overview of who you are, where you live, who's in your family, et cetera. Yeah. So I'm Jess, boy mom to, uh, Oli who is almost three. and Jacob who's eight months old today, married to my husband Rowan. We live in North Richmond which is in the Hawkesbury region of New South Wales. It's about an hour and a bit out of Sydney. Yep. And we've got two little fur babies as well, Duke and Baxter, who hopefully remain very quiet. For this, that's okay. That is the nature of parenthood. And so you're going to share today a home birth after caesarean story, right? Yeah. So I guess, let's start with the caesarean with Ollie. I guess, yeah, you can give like an overview of like your pregnancy with Ollie and how it all led up to that. Yeah, so he was kind of a COVID baby. He was born early 2021. So after the first wave, Well, we sort of had the first wave, went into lockdown while I was pregnant, which was amazing. I actually have no idea how women go to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The pregnancy was all pretty smooth sailing. He was, he was planned and we were very excited to have him. I chose an interesting model of care, which was sort of touted out here as like the premium economy. of private. But yes, it was mixed care between midwives and a rotating roster of obstetricians. Okay, they really marketed it as getting is crazily enough getting continuity of care because you had midwives. That sounds really good to me. Like I feel like I really would more appreciate the midwives than the obstetricians. So we went for that and it was cheaper than going private private. When we booked in, I had no idea that the midwives actually wouldn't be there for the birth. Basically, it was just whatever obstetrician was on call. What's the point? It was literally just like, it was just public care, but in a private hospital. Oh my gosh. So it was all it was all like, it was all fine. We did calm birth, which was really good. And I just remember like the first, one of the first questions that they asked when we got to the course was to write down your fears around birth. And I remember just looking at Rowan and being like, I don't actually don't have any, like I felt, I felt so confident in my ability to birth that I was just like, none. Like I was actually felt a bit sick that I was excited to give birth. I was like, yeah, I'm really cool. Yeah. You're crazy. Um, but yeah, that was like my mentality. I probably in hindsight, you know, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Yeah. Probably didn't, didn't research enough just because I just, I just felt really confident. Yeah. Did you know much about birth or like even pregnancy before you were actually pregnant? So I'm one of four kids. Yeah. And my mom had four natural births. I don't know if that's what gave me. you know, that was my story, well, half of my, I suppose, around birth. Yeah. I had a few friends who had given birth before me and one of my sisters also had a, she's got three kids. Um, all of them had caesareans. Yeah. Wow. Never really thought about that at the time, but so, and probably never really questioned it because I just can't think. I just didn't think it would be me because I was like, yeah, like mom had four, she had four babies, they were all good. And yeah, I just didn't really think about it. Yeah. But the whole, the whole way through my pregnancy, almost from the dating scan, very much from the 12 week scan, I was told that Ollie was a big baby. He was always measuring ahead. Um, always questioning my dates. And I was like, no, like I tracked everything. I'm a really bit of an OCD person. Yeah. No, I know my June is right. Yeah. Even up to my 36 week appointment with the obstetrician, they did the scan. He was like, look, you're measuring really ahead. We should start thinking about induction or maybe scheduling a cesarean. And I was like, no, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. But had that in the back of my head, obviously the whole thing. Yeah. But other than that, yeah, it was a pretty smooth thing. So the main reason they thought Ollie would be big was from the scans or? Just from the scans. Yeah. I mean, my husband was a 10 pounder. Yeah. When he was born. I don't know if that, I mean, we're both quite tall. Yeah. And did that kind of influence if you did the gestational diabetes testing as well. Those kind of comments. Yeah, I did all the testing the first time around. I didn't really know that it was an option. It was more just like, this is what you do now. Yeah, yeah. I didn't really know that you could say that you could say no to things. Yeah. And just yeah, so I did the gestational diabetes test. It was like I was fine. But again, after the fact had been after he was born and he was a big He was a big baby. Yeah. Oh, you probably had undiagnosed gestational diabetes is what I thought. So you did the test. The test was negative. Yep. And then after you had a big baby, they were like, oh, you even know what the heck. Oh my God. That's horrible. Yeah. So, um, so were you induced to then? No. Okay. It came up at that 36 week appointment and then crazily enough, I don't remember it being mentioned again, which is probably, I don't know what I would have done if they tried to bring it up again, but they didn't. I went into labor at 39 and six days. Yep. Which, yeah, my borders broke in the middle of the night. Yep. And so, yeah, we did, yeah, long story short. did the whole went into hospital for monitoring. Everything was fine. My contractions hadn't started yet, but basically was told if you're not in labor, or even if you are, you need to be back here by eight o'clock tonight to start antibiotics. Yeah, no pressure. No pressure. And my friend was standing there like, look, what do you want to do? And I said, I really want to go home. And yeah, the language that you reflect on now. after obviously knowing more is like crazy. I remember them saying, yeah, we'll just call and ask the doctor if that's okay. And then came back and like, yep, he's happy for you to go home. And I was like, okay, great. Like, thank you for letting me as an adult woman. Yeah. As an independent human, take myself to my house. So we went home, it was about a half an hour drive to the private hospital. So we went home and basically by the time we got home, it was about I think eight o'clock in the morning, about half an hour later, my contractions started. Yeah. So we were back in the hospital by midday. They were, the contractions were kind of all over the place. They weren't really, like some of them would come really close and then it would taper off a bit. But I think we were both a bit stressed that we wouldn't make it to the hospital in time. Okay. So we headed back in. Yeah. And it was like, had you ever heard of home birth or I know like in the media, you see like, stuff of like women not making like in the comments, like not making it to the hospital birthing and the car and stuff. But like in terms of planned home births, had you ever heard of that before? No, it was not even a marina as an option. Yeah, no idea. Absolutely no idea. It was more like, Oh my gosh, we don't imagine if we had this baby at home, like we better go to the hospital. Yeah. Wow. Yep. And so you went to the hospital. And like, what was that car ride? Like, awful. It was awful. My so my waters had broken in at 2am and they just continuously gushed. Yeah, I just felt so disgusting to me. Like it was like, waters, waters constantly changing pads. I was sitting on towels. the walk up to the birthing unit was like, yeah, really uncomfortable. We got there, it must have been around midday. So Patcar park, yeah, waddling to the left. I was having to stop and like hunch over cars for contractions. Oh my god. And just a trail of waters just following. Yeah, leaking water. You're welcome. One contraction in the hallway on the way to Bursweet. going all over the carpet. Oh, just rubbing some water at home on the rug. And I was just like, yeah, this later. Yeah. Why do they carpet these hallways? It's crazy. Oh, my gosh. And so that's why hospitals are actually pretty gross places. Yes. So gross. So in like the first minute. Yeah. we had was really, she was really good. She basically just left us to our own devices. Of course, because my waters had broken, I had to have CTG monitoring. Okay, yeah. After about a bit putting that on. Yeah. I very much wanted to be in the shower the whole time. Yeah. And I remember it was so uncomfortable there because you couldn't the lights and the exhaust fans were connected, you couldn't have mmm exhaust fan on without the light being on and I didn't want the lights on so it was just that's hot and steamy yeah that's such a um like thing that I think people don't consider when they go to give birth in a hospital is that you are not in charge of the air conditioning you know some sometimes if you're lucky you might have a bit of control over some part of the lighting but the Yeah. Like, I mean, they're not going to go get the tradesmen to come and disconnect the light and the exhaust for you, are they? How annoying. Yeah. The things that you just don't think of. No. So it was like, I liked the heat, but I was just getting so hot, just so crazy, but like just so, yeah, flustered in there. Yeah. And then it got, whatever happened, it got to about eight o'clock. which was the time I had to have the antibiotics start. Yeah. It was also shift change at the hospital. Oh, yeah. So I left this beautiful midwife who's like, she was great. She was like, she was encouraging me to get up and move. When I was too hot in the shower, she got me a gym ball to sit on, like all, she was doing all the things. She was really good. Yeah. The new midwife came in and was like, okay, Jess, it's time to start the antibiotics. We also, we might as well put. the centosin in as well, because the cannula is going in. So it was sort of like, we might as well just put it in. That was literally how it was presented to me. And I think I don't remember what I responded, but I probably was just like, okay, yeah, sure. Yeah, but how do you know? I mean, yeah, like if you're there, I've heard stories as well where for vaginal examinations and a woman's waters haven't broken and they're like, oh, whilst we're there, we'll just... give you a stretch and sweep or we'll just do this or like as if you're, oh gosh. Okay. So they started Cinto as well at the same time. Yeah. So they started Cinto, which obviously ramped things up. I feel like I was managing labor pretty well up until that point. Yeah. But yeah, obviously then it really ramped up. I was really tired. I think in my mind, I just had the whole like, don't lie down. What I took away from calm birth was like, stay active, but I really didn't allow myself to rest at all. Like, because my waters had broken, I went home and I was like, right, I'm on the clock already. I've got until eight o'clock to start until I get induced. So I was bouncing, I was like walking. And that I think was a big hindrance because I was obviously tired. Yeah. One VA that they did, I remember the midwife saying, Oh, you're fully dilated, but you've got a cervical lip. Yeah. He said, I just need to just push it aside, but you're fully dilated so you can start pushing. So I started pushing while she was inside me, trying to lick my cervix over around his head. Um, because it was, again, it was like, yeah, TikTok, it's time to get this baby out. You're 10 centimeters and it's time to go. Yeah. Like my body actually holds a lot of trauma around just that feeling of being like violated, I suppose. Yeah. I can't even explain it. Like, yeah, having someone inside you where you're trying to push out a baby. Yeah. Was just crazy. I just, like, I cannot. like, and to go from like having this midwife that, you know, has kind of left you to your own design devices in a way to then come and have this midwife, it really is just like luck of the draw. And I can't believe that this whole program, like basically was, Frankie, Frankie's blowing lots of bubbles over there. I can't believe the whole program basically. misused this, you know, very researched idea of continuity of care with midwives, and then didn't even provide midwifery can it continue with care? You had that's mind boggling. Yeah, when you actually need it. Yeah. Like that's the whole point. I'm just gonna grab Frankie just hold on. Yeah. Wow. That's Horrible. And so Rowan at the time, like, how much did he know about birth and pregnancy and whatnot? Probably not a lot. Like we did the calm birth together. He held fears around birth. Okay. With the caesarian baby himself. Yeah. We're not sure if it's because he was because he himself was big or actually no, I think he's sorry, his older brother was a caesarian. Yeah. He was Breach. And so he, as the second, subsequent pregnancy, was just a sister because they had to. That's what it was like. Yeah. So yeah, his knowledge basically was Calm Birth. I think the Calm Birth course did a lot to, he learned a lot from it. And he was, as a birth partner, he was really good. He knew all the things to try and encourage me to do. But he, I think, had a bit of fear in the space. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so the midwife is trying to manually rearrange your body in a very unnatural way. And then what how did it go from there? I basically I pushed for two hours. Yeah, I just remember thinking like the way that they would talk. So by this stage, I was tired. I was on my back. I was in stirrups. Yeah, I pushed for two hours. And I remember at one stage, like, it's funny the little things that really stand out to you about what you remember. I remember Rowan saying to her, she needs to get up. Like I always thought in my head, I pictured myself birthing upright. Because I'm a soccer player and I've got pretty strong legs. I was like, that's the strongest part of my body. I sort of thought, I'm just going to get this baby out or whatever. And he knew, like he knew that I shouldn't be on my back. So yeah, I remember him saying to the midwife, like she needs to get up, like this isn't working. And she said to him, she can't. And in my mind, I just remember, I feel like screaming like, I can, like you just need to help me. Yeah. By this stage, like, you know, you're so in your head, I couldn't verbalize anything. And it was just like, I don't know, it was obviously just. Like quite defeating really. Yes, yeah, that's a good word for it. And I guess, yeah, and I guess if you've been primed to this entire pregnancy, basically saying, you know, your baby's going to be big, you're not going to be able to do it like then when you get to the actual thing, like try at some point, there must be a time in your head where you think. or mate like it's not actually working. You know, I've been pushing for two hours. They're saying I can't do this. Yeah, maybe this baby is too big. Maybe this baby is too big. Yeah. The doubt. Yeah. And so you push for two hours and is that hours at that stage? It was okay. The obstetricians called in. It was about 2am by this point, I think. Yeah. The obstetrician, I don't even know who came in, because they were talking to Rowan, of course, not to me. Yeah. Someone came in and basically said, look, we need to get the baby out. There was no fetal distress. He was fine. We need to get the baby out. We can either try four sets or go for a cesarean. They were the two options. And he, bless his heart, said, what are the risks with both? like he'd really take on the brain. Nice one. Good job, Rowan. Yeah. And they said, this is all they said to him was the risks, the forceps is a higher risk for the baby and the caesarean is a higher risk for the mom. That's it. That's the risks that they gave him. That's how they summarized. That's the summary. Oh my God. And then I could just feel him. obviously hesitate. He's basically just been presented with making a decision. To what year? For his child. Basically. Yeah. Yep. And I very much did not want forceps. I'd seen a women's health physio throughout my pregnancy. My mum has got prolapse, not surprisingly, after four children. Yep. And I, I was probably more scared of the forceps than the caesarean to be honest. And they also said. if it's a forceps delivery, we still need to go down to theater because of the time of night, just in case then we have to do a caesarean. So I piped up at this stage and I said, just do the caesarean. Yeah. Just get this baby out of me pretty much. Yeah. Wow. And so we were wheeled down another funny story about the trip down to theater. I was getting sick from the Sinto. Yeah. Before we left, Rowan actually said to them, can you turn that off now? He had to ask them, turn the cinto off, because he could see how uncomfortable it was making me. Yeah. On the way down... Well, there's no need for it. Yeah, that's it. Oh my god. On the way down, whoever's pushing the bed, pushing the bed, the obstetrician's walking beside me, the midwife's got all the paper. Rowan was carrying something. I feel I could have known what he had his hands full with, but the obstetrician was the only one with hands free. I said to them just outside theater, I'm going to throw up. Yeah. And the obstetrician handed me a vomit bag, which was still like squished up together. Like, you know how they come in there like flat and you have to pull them out. You can't see me, but I'm just shaking my head. Because like what? And it went all over the place. Of course it just backfired. So then they had to change me completely to go into theater. And everyone was just like, you've got one job, pass the vomit bag. Open it up before you give it to her. It's crazy. Oh, like that actually does not like because I'm a nurse. And that just does not surprise me. Actually. It's just like they say, you know, if you if you want injections, like vaccines or whatever needles, they should always try and get it from a nurse because a nurse is going to have given more injections and done more actual stuff before than a doctor because a doctor is often Um, just the one calling the shots. Yeah. Um, not actually physically doing it, but anyway, um, that doesn't surprise me. How horrible. So you're, yeah. Yeah. What a great memory. Oh my gosh. Okay. So they've changed you and you, yeah. Um, had to get the spinal cause I hadn't had. an epidural or anything. So Rowan was waiting. And then yeah, a couple minutes later, Ollie was born. He was born at about quarter past three. I just remember they just pulled him up over the top of the curtain and then he was taken away for a bit. They do the weighing and everything which just- They weighed him! They weighed him before you got to hold him. So I was watching. I could see like I turned my head to the side. I could see them doing everything like over on the table, cut his cord, everything. And then they brought him over to me. And it's still my body experience. Yeah. Which is like, thankfully, one of the midwives or the crappy midwife, she said, Rowan, like, bring a phone. So she's she took heaps of photos. Yeah. But yeah. Oh my gosh. Like, oh man, that's a whole other podcast. I could go on so many tangents. Anyway, we're here for the context. Okay. And so yeah, how, um, how much did Ollie weigh then? He was 4.3 kilos. Yeah. Okay. So not huge, but big I suppose. Yeah. I just remember when he was born, I was like, wow, you're like, you're actually robust. I felt like I never really had to support his neck. Like he didn't feel like a newborn to me. Yeah. Um, but yeah, like he was mine, the obstetrician made a comment and basically said, like, I wouldn't have been able to get him with forceps. What that means, I have no idea. I don't know if he wasn't. Yeah, like he wasn't at all. I have no idea what he meant by that comment, but. Yeah. What a weird. I made the right decision there. Yeah. Thank you. Oh my gosh. I mean, I made it back up to the maternity ward before and Olly were basically in a room somewhere and with no idea where I was and I was basically just sitting in this room like, well, where are they? Yeah. I had no way to contact them. And eventually, yeah, had the midwife go, oh, we better take you up to jazz. I was rowing saying like, oh my gosh, like, how long has she been up there? Like just sitting there on my own, just mulling over like, Oh, I wonder what my baby looks like or. Oh, my God. This is an outrageous story. I just, I'm so glad you found home birth. Because you see why I went down there. What the heck? What I just. Yeah, it sounds like some weird. TV show, you know, like my, um, I remember this story from my uncle once that he got acupuncture and they like forgot about him. And so he was just like laying in the room with all these like needles in him, like wondering, and he couldn't move. He couldn't like contact anyone and they'd like forgotten about him. So he was just, and I just remember thinking, what the heck, but that's pretty much exactly what has happened to you. But like, it's, but it's, oh my gosh. What was your recovery like with Ollie and postpartum period? It actually really surprised me. I felt okay. Obviously they tried to get you up. I think it was lunchtime that day. So he ended up being born at 40 weeks on the dot. And I was like, thank you for being prompt, baby. Yeah. You're on time, that's really great. I like lunchtime though, right? Up, shower, we moved rooms. And yeah, it was fine. My milk came in pretty quickly the caesarean. Like all the labor had started and all that as well. It helped. Probably won't surprise you but I had massive postpartum anxiety. Yep. I mean I'm not sure what else you would expect if you're leaving a woman in a room by herself having not met her baby but anyway. It probably is. I spent a lot of time in the Yeah, as crazy as this sounds, I've I felt like I didn't want to be disappointed about the caesarean because most of my friends and family had also had caesareans and I didn't want them to think that I was judging them about the way that they birthed if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I felt bad about like I was disappointed, obviously I was very disappointed that I didn't get the birth the way that I envisioned. Yeah. I felt very much like my body had let me down and when I had any issues like breastfeeding. I remember screaming at Rowan one time when I was trying to feed him. And it's going like, it's just another thing that my body can't do. That was very much like what was going around in my mind. That's heartbreaking. It's fine, yeah, it's like it's fine. It's a serine, like I'm fine. I'm up and walking down to the cafe at two weeks postpartum because that's crazy. And I was like, I'm fine. Healthy baby, healthy mum, yadda yadda. Yeah, grateful to be alive, you know. Grateful to live in Australia where we have this awesome medical system. That's right. Yeah. Where we need it. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And then obviously we had lockdown as well, which in... Oh, of course. He was born in February. I think it was around May, June. We've been into pretty hard lockdown up here. Yeah. So yeah, we were just isolated, had no help from anyone. Yeah. which probably can't be there as well. Who knows? Yeah. Goodness knows what would happen without that. But around that six month mark, I found, I don't know how I stumbled across her on Instagram or what path led me to her, but I found Cora Forrestore. Oh yeah. And I booked in a birth debrief with her. Yeah, amazing. Completely unraveled me. Yeah. Is that how you learnt about Home Birth then? Yes. I remember just obsessing like at my six week checkup, which was with the midwife, not the obstetrician. It was with just the midwife in the program. So the one that wasn't in the birth at all. I was saying, if I have another baby, can I have a VBAC? That was the only question I had for that whole appointment. So I was obviously obsessing about it then. And she was like, yeah, most of the doctors here support it. You'll be fine. Yeah. Okay, cool. That was sort of where I left it. And in the debrief, yeah, I remember we were talking about it. And she said to me, have you heard of the... Oh my gosh, what's that? What's the movie? Birth time? Yeah. She was like, have you heard of birth time? And I said, no. She said, well, what I suggest is you and Rowan just watch it. Because your best chances of having a VBAC will be to have it at home. Yeah. And at the time I was like, oh my, no, you're crazy. You're like, that's not crazy, but it was still such a foreign thing to me. I had no idea. Anyway, at the end of it, I was like, yeah, if we have another kid, it's going to be born at home, like 100%. There was one was like, yeah, like his eyes were very much opened. His stepsister, not too long after Ollie was born, she had her third baby at home as well. Oh, OK. It was that has like kind of warmed up to the idea, I guess, in a way as well. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was like, oh, my, yeah, it's like a possibility. She had it because her first two labors were pretty quick. And she was up in Newcastle. And she's an hour drive from the hospital. And whoever's saying like, if so they the hospital up there do the publicly funded home birth. Yeah. And she basically called them I think she was just outside the area for her second baby. And she was like, Look, if you don't let me in this program, like the baby's going to be born at home anyway. There's like a hospital so that was obviously a bit of an introduction to us. I'm like, oh, you can have a baby at home. Yeah. And actually- Yeah, that's amazing. And then- And then, I started following Coram Flores Store, which obviously leads to other accounts and just- Yeah, the algorithm. The algorithm started working in my favor and I was like, why could I have not found you before I was pregnant? Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. So yeah, it definitely was on the radar. And I was like, yeah, I said to Rowan, if we have another baby, that's it. It's gonna be born at home. Yeah, yeah. And then, so you find out that you're pregnant with Jacob and what kind of options do you have where you live for home birth? Like, did you just use a private midwife or is there any group practice around or? Um, there's MGP at my local hospital, which would have been my local. Um, they wouldn't have supported a VBAC. Oh, of course. There's a home birth program, I think also locally, but I'd be out of the area. And again, you, they wouldn't support a VBAC at home. Yeah. My options were go try and find someone probably whatever, private. Yeah. or go public. I could have, sorry, the NGP would have supported a VBAC, but not a home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The public home birth program wouldn't have supported it. So as soon as I found I had a miscarriage in between the two boys, when I found out I was pregnant with that pregnancy, before I literally peed on the stick, and I went on the home birth, New South Wales website, and I called it on the list. And I was like, I know how competitive it is. Yeah. Called them and I was like, I must have spoken to three or four, booked out, booked out, booked out. Yeah. And finally found one that was like, yeah, we'll support you. Like, yep, we're local. Yep, we have availability on your G date. And I was like, oh my God, I should ring and tell Rowan that I'm pregnant. I was like, yeah, I didn't even tell him. I feel actually so bad that I'm talking to other people about me being pregnant and my husband doesn't know. It felt really strange. Oh, priorities though. It's already too late. There's nothing he can do about it now. Yeah. So we ended up losing that one at about five weeks. Yeah. And then fell pregnant again, first cycle after that. Okay. Yeah. And it was like, Oh my gosh, it's just crazy. So I basically messaged these midwives and I was like, I'm pregnant again. It's just due a month later. Are you still available? Yeah. And yeah, they were great. She was like, yeah, come in for a booking appointment, make sure that we're the right fit and whatever, all that stuff. Yeah. You mentioned to me on the phone, she was like, you'll need a GP referral eventually, you don't need it straight away, but to get your Medicare rebate. Of course. Yeah. Eventually. And basically, if you want to do a dating scan, you're nuts. If you don't want to, don't. Yeah. And yeah, I think it was probably around 10. maybe 10 weeks. I definitely saw her before the 12 weeks. Anyway, that I was going to go and meet her. The booking and appointment. So I decided I wanted to do a dating scan, particularly because of the miscarriage. This is another story that's going to completely blow your mind. I was obviously very paranoid about losing the baby again. Yeah. So I went in to get the bloods tested. I just went to the local medical centre. I didn't have a great GP. Yeah. Because I'd finished up work. I had a good one in the CBD that I was seeing because I just go and see her. Like when I was working, I don't have a lot of sleep, but I wasn't going to commute with a baby at this time. Yeah. So I just went to the local medical centre and said to them, like, yeah, I'm pregnant. I just want the bloods. and a referral for a dating scan. And also I would like a referral for my private midwife. Yeah. It starts the conversation of, okay, where are you gonna give birth? How was your last pregnancy? And so I got the bloods done and she forgot to test the HCG levels. What? That's the whole... So I must have been like six weeks pregnant, maybe five, maybe five weeks. Pretty early on. I went back to get my results and she was like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry they haven't tested. I'm here by, I'm like, I'm literally peeing on a stick every day because I'm that paranoid about having another miscarriage. And I'm like, okay, cool. But then she says, but you do have gestational diabetes. What? At five weeks pregnant. What? So this is the GP that says this. This is the GP. She might have tested my glucose levels, maybe. So I was like, oh, cool. And yeah, so she said to me, okay, how was your last pregnancy? Did you have gestational diabetes? No. How big was your baby? 4.3 kilos. Okay. You probably had it and you've probably got it now. And where am I writing this referral to? I said, private midwife, where are you going to, where are you going to birth the baby? I'm going to birth the baby at home. Oh, I wouldn't recommend that for you. No, not after a cesarean. What? I'll be like, I'm going to a local hospital. I said, well, I won't be taking that referral. Can we just retest my bloods? Obviously, I want the HCG levels. Can you do what I've asked you to do? Can you just give me what I've asked you to do? So I went and did the other blood test. Came back, yeah, you're pregnant. I'm like, yeah, thank you. I know. Can I get those now and be done with you? Yeah. And she was like, look, I think what we should do is add about eight weeks if you do the fasting glucose tolerance test, just to make sure that you don't, like just to test that you've got to confirm basically, she's saying that you've got gestational diabetes. Um, and then I'll give you the referral. She's basically like, she's bribing me to get this one. That doesn't, just that doesn't, none of this makes sense. What the actual heck? In the in the back of my mind, I'm like, I just want this referral so I can literally never see you again, like, Yeah. And then she says, I also like to book you in with the diabetes specialist at the medical. Oh my god. Talk to you about diet. I'm like, yeah, I'll come like, yep, it's fine. And then I'll get my referral. Okay, cool. So I go I do the GTT at eight weeks. And then I think it was maybe the following week I had this appointment with the diabetes specialist. I've got the results back for the GTT. I had this appointment with the diabetes specialist. So did you have to, did they make you do like the glucose drinks and everything, the three blood tests and everything? Yep. So at how many weeks are you? I was eight weeks. At eight weeks they get you to do? It was terrible. Yeah. That is outrageous. That is not. I was nervous that the pathology was like, are you pregnant? I was like, yeah. I'm eight weeks and she was like, why are you doing this? Everyone was questioning it. They were like, why are you doing this? And she did the finger prick for me there. The finger prick thing. And she was like, you don't have diabetes. And I was like, yeah, I know. And I just, like, I just want to confirm it. It was like, yeah, it was terrible. doing that fasting test while like, even first trimester of pregnancy was. Oh my God. I don't remember it being that bad from the first time around, like I didn't mind it. I was like, I'm one of those weirdos that actually likes the taste of this drink and whatever. I just sit here for two hours and it's fine. I cannot believe, like, I cannot believe, I mean, on some level I can believe that happened, but I just like, that's just not evidence based. That's just like. That's like, she didn't know what she was doing and she's just like, she's just trying to cover her back or made up some random, that's just mind boggling. I, I'm sure people that listen to this will also be flabbergasted. So I went to this appointment with the diabetes specialist who was going to give me my results for the GTT in your first trimester, my first trimester. I like, I'm working from home. I nip up to the medical center to have this appointment in my lunch break. Yeah, running late. I sit down. They've accidentally booked me in with a dietician, not with a diabetes specialist at this medical center. Oh my God. I was like, I'm so pissed off by this. I'm like, what the heck is happening? And she was like, Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Let me take you to the front counter. I'll book you an appointment with the diabetes. And I was like, no, it's fine. I'm going. I'll book it online. Yeah, on my way home, I made a telehealth appointment with just any doctor at the medical center for that afternoon. And when they called me, I said, I just want my GTT, my test results. He said, Yep, you don't have diabetes. It's fine. It's all clear. And I was like, great. Thank you. Obviously didn't rebook. Yeah. I'd seen one of the registrar straws up there. He was just like walking, like walking only I'd seen him a couple of times with Ollie and he'd been really good. It was very good. Yep. I'm going to book an appointment with him. I literally sat down. I said, I just need a referral for a private midwife. Yep. And he was like, yep, here you go. Literally just like sweep the thing in. Tap, tap, tap. Oh my God. And I was like, thank you. See ya. So finally, after all of this, you get your referral to access your private midwives. Yep. And what did your midwife say when you told her all of this? She was like, I mean, in hindsight, I probably should have contacted her and been like, oh, they're saying this, what should I do? But I think I was just like, oh yeah, I'll see her at the appointment. This must be fine. Like still had some faith in the medical system here. Yeah. Yeah, she was very apologetic. Like, I'm sorry that you had to go through that literally just to get your referral, to get some money back. And I just kept thinking, like, I'm so glad that I'm a second time mom and I've done this before. And like you and I've done some research like I knew. Yeah. I knew what I was kind of talking about and I didn't let her scare me into going like, like she was basically like, no, I'm writing your referral for the local hospital and that's where you'll be going. And I can just imagine how many women would be like, OK, sure. Yeah. But even. If she's getting people, like if she's getting, gotten you to do the GTT yet in the first trimester when you've not ever been diagnosed with it before, like the only thing you did was had a larger than average, I guess, baby. That's the only plenty of people. Oh my gosh. What the heck? So what was the care like with your private midwife? Did you, so you did calm birth when you were pregnant with Oli. Did you do any further education kind of stuff with the pregnancy of Jacob? All we did, we did the free corn flora store, antenatal. Oh yeah. She's like, the calm birth was, I really enjoyed calm birth. I think it was really good. Hers were just like next level. They were so good. They were free for a start. And I was like, oh, I don't think we need anything. I'm pretty sure I know where things went wrong last time. I had great confidence in the team that I was building around me this time. But I was like, oh, it can't hurt to brush up. So I watched all of them. I, Rowan, watched a couple. I was like, you just need to know how to squeeze my hips. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two specific ones. He watched to refresh his mind. But yeah, that was it this time around. Yeah. And did you, what do you usually do for like, I guess, paid work when you're not being a mom, I guess? Yeah, I work for a project management company. So I was just working three days a week when I went back. I did two of them from home, which was really good. So I just went to the office one day a week. Yeah. And when did you finish up with that with Ollie? Oh, I finished so early with him. Because he was born in February and it was the first year of COVID, pretty much. Everyone had heaps of annual leave balances. So I decided to close for longer over Christmas. Yeah. And I knew I wanted at least four weeks off before his due date. And I thought, was going back after Christmas for like a week or two, and then going on mat leave. So I finished up, I was like 32 weeks or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That actually does make sense though. And so for Ollie, when did you finish up work? Oh, sorry, I, Jacob. I plan to finish up at 37 weeks. I knew that I would need the rest of this time, but also just like a million things onto one. We decided to sell our house that year as well. So I was doing open homes while pregnant and it was... Excellent. It was exhausting. Like I was so exhausted. I ended up finishing up at 36 weeks. I said to my boss, like, I'm done. I'm done here. If you're fine, I'm not going to come back. And he was like, yeah, it's fine. Yeah. Amazing. And so... My moving house, I've got to set up. I'm planning a home birth. Yeah. the house. Yeah, yeah. And yeah. So we were going to be like birthing in the house that you were currently selling or in a new house. I had no idea the whole pregnancy basically got to I must have been about 30 weeks and I said to the agent like you need to sell the house this week because if you don't sell it this week, I'm not moving like that's it. Yeah, I'm done. Like I'm not moving when I'm 40 weeks pregnant. That's crazy. Yeah. And they sold it that week. And I was like, why didn't I tell you earlier? Yeah. Ah, amazing. And so how did you spend the last couple of weeks? How many weeks was Jacob when you gave birth to him? He was 40 and two. Oh, yeah. So you had four-ish weeks off that paperwork. So we moved when I was almost 37 weeks. Yeah. Um, he was breach. Oh, wow. So like another fun thing that they could. Like how many hurdles do you need to jump? He was, he was obvious. So I did the scans. I did the 12 week scan. I did the 20 week scan. Yeah. I think I missed the one thing I did miss about the private care was seeing the baby like often. Yep. I love seeing. every appointment I was like, Oh, you look at that squishy face. Like, so I loved going to the scans. My older sister actually has a sonographer friend who works locally. Um, so I went and saw her, which was amazing. I literally said to her, don't do not, I don't care how big is. I don't want to know you do, you do whatever you need to do. Um, but not, I don't want any, like any comments about his side. And she was great. Like she respected that, she was really good. Yeah. As they literally all should. But anyway. I know, I'm not going to go under your breath. Yeah. So at the 20 week scan, he was breach and then all like, obviously I'm going for the, whatever, however many appointments I had with the midwife and she was obviously feeling his position with her hands and he was breach, breach up until yeah, like 37 weeks. Yeah. My primary midwife went on holidays. She had a holiday booked. So she works locally with another midwife and they tagged me in holidays after Christmas. One was away in January. She was away in February. So it might've been my 32 week checkup with her when, before she went on holidays, that she said, look, if he stays, breach. Um, obviously it gave me the options. Um, she recommended doing a scan at 36 weeks to check. his position. Yep. And she would be away during this time. And she said, if he is still breach, you can choose to have an ECV if you want. We, I chose to do collaborative care with her with an obstetrician at Westmead Hospital, which is not my local and purely chose that for in case if I need to transfer to hospital, I knew I wanted her to come with me. Yeah. Amazing. Whereas if I'd had to transfer to the local hospital, she was like, basically, I can't do anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I chose that collaborative care. I'd had one appointment with the obstetrician and she was like, yeah, cool, no worries for your home birth. Like, don't see any reason why you can't get a V back. It's all good. Hopefully I don't ever see you again. Like she was great. Yeah, yeah, I never see you again either. But yeah, then I did the scan at 36 weeks. He was still breach. She was like, he's got heaps of fluid around him. So now's the time to turn him if you want. Yeah. So I booked in for an ACV the Tuesday after we moved house that weekend when I was 37 weeks. Yeah. I should say as well, I'd done a couple of sessions with Bea in the lead up to the birth. Yeah, amazing. I did like a birth prep chat with her. Yeah. With Rowan, he did it with me. Yeah. It was really funny. Basically, I think I booked it for an hour and a half and probably for about an hour and 15 minutes. It was her talking to Rowan and basically spelling his fears about home birth. He was very scared that I would die and he'd have to bring up the children on his own. Wow. And she did a great job of talking him off that. Then I'd sit to him the whole time. Look, I don't care where I give birth. I'm very confident in my midwife. If you need me to give birth in a hospital. Yeah, because I need you to be on board. If you're not on board, like we're not doing this. Like, yeah, I need you to be in my space like, mentally. Yeah. Yeah, that if yeah, if there's like an inkling of doubt, then in the air otherwise. Yeah, okay. Yep. That's amazing of B. So by the end of that chat, he was on board and it was like the last 15 minutes she said to me she was like, you're sitting on something and I said, Oh, yeah, by the way, baby's breach. And she was, she was like, Oh, okay. Have you done anything to try and turn him and I was like, look, to be perfectly honest, not a thing. I don't have time. I've got a toddler. I'm working moving house. Like I don't have time to do inversions. And I I didn't like it, I didn't have good experience. I've done a couple of acupuncture sessions, but I was like, really? No, I'm not, I haven't done anything serious. And then she said to me, she goes, oh, there is a belief that babies who sit breach, they do that because they want to stay close to the mother's heart. Oh, somebody else, that's so cute. Somebody else that's been on the podcast, she must have also had a consult with Bea and she also had a breach baby at some point. And that's what she said as well. I think that's so beautiful. Yeah. And then she was like, she said, is there anything that you're holding on to? And I just like, I broke down and I was like, yeah, the miscarriage. I haven't spoken about the miscarriage. Yeah. OK, I'm really sorry to say this, but we're running out of time. time we'd spent so long. Anyway, so I booked in another session with her and we spoke in great detail about the miscarriage. Yeah. And so that was, I think on the Thursday, we moved on the Saturday, I had the ECV booked on the Tuesday and he turned himself. Amazing. Like not a thing, absolutely not a thing. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So yeah, I fully believe it was like that. holding on to it. There was a tension in my body that was holding him in there, whatever, I don't know. But literally, the doctor was like, oh, just before we put the cannula in, I'll just do a quick scan and make sure that baby hasn't turned. And I was like, ha ha, I wouldn't know everyone was saying to me, you'll know when he turns, you'll feel it. And I was like, ha ha, he's not turned stubborn second baby. Yeah, she put the scan on. She was like, nope, that's his head. He's had his head. Oh, my gosh. How did you feel like? I just started crying. I was like, what the hell? Yeah. I was like, okay, we've moved house. We can, we can have this baby now. Yeah. Like it's all gonna be okay. Like everyone was saying, so if he stays breech, what are you gonna do? And I was like, well, I'm gonna try for a VBAC. He can be breech. Yeah. I'm not having a plantar's area. And he was like, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what you want, dear. I basically said to him, I was like, I've got real confidence in my team this time. Yeah. My midwife says to me, Jess, look, I think we need to go to caesarian. I said, I will know that caesarian is needed. And I'm not against having another caesarian, but I'm against having another unnecessary caesarian. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, we didn't have that. So even the midwives were like, yep, if you want to go for a breach birth, it's fine. But we have to do that in hospital. I'm like, cool. As long as you're going to come with me, no, I don't care. Yeah. And actually have actual continuity. Yeah. Um, amazing. Happy days. Mum helped me unpack the house in an absolute flurry. So I actually had a house to birth. Yeah. Um, at 40 weeks, I got COVID. What? That is so unlucky. Yeah, I hadn't had it in three years. Oh, no. So his due date was the Wednesday. On the Monday, I woke up feeling really crappy and I was like, yes, this is it. I'm going to have the baby today. Yeah. I was like, Rowan, it's on. I just want to sleep. The baby's coming. Yeah. Obviously, he didn't come. Yeah. And then, yeah, on the Wednesday, I was 40 weeks and I had an appointment with my midwife on the Thursday and I thought I still feel pretty crap and I actually couldn't taste my dinner. I should do a wrap just to make sure. Oh, heavy, heavy pregnant. Like if it was a pregnancy test, I would have been over the moon the way that the double lines came up straight away. Instant. No way. No way do I have COVID. That's. So, I just walked in, Ron was watching TV with Ollie and I gave him the test and I just cried. Yeah. It's going to be okay. Oh my gosh. I messaged Abby last night, I was like, I've got COVID. And she messaged me straight back and she was like, look, don't worry. If you're going to labor, we come to you, nothing changes. She's like, don't worry about it. And I said, should we postpone my appointment tomorrow? Yeah. And she was like... Yeah, maybe we'll just have a phone call just in case. Yeah. So yeah, I basically chatted to her on the Thursday and she said to me, your body won't go into labor while it's sick, it knows. I went from this mentality of like, get this baby out of bed so done with being pregnant, I'm tired, we've moved in, I was like, I'm done. Yeah. Get you out to like, don't you dare go into labor. Yeah, I am feeling so exhausted. Do not do it. Yeah. Oh my gosh. She literally she was like, don't worry, we'll still come to you. We'll just wear masks and that's it. Yeah. And you'll be fine. You just do your thing. And she just said the only thing you need to be wary about is if we're looking like we're going to transfer to hospital. Rowan had tested positive by this stage as well. She was like, yeah, I'm going to be on the hospital policy whether or not he could come or not. So I was like, okay, cool, that's fine. We'll just have the baby at home. Doesn't matter. Yeah. It's gonna be fine. So she'd also had, my primary midwife had hand surgery the month in February and Jacob was born in March. Yeah. So she lost full function of her primary hand. Oh my God. Oh no, I'll never forget this conversation. She called me and she was like, look, I've had this surgery, the recovery is longer than I was anticipating. But. don't worry, all that's going to happen is you're going to have three midwives now. And I was like, okay, she's like, I can't be your primary on paper. I'll just need your really experienced doula. Yeah. Of course you obviously need two, two fully functioning midwives for a home birth. Yeah. I was like, yeah, cool. No worries. The more the merrier. Like as I was literally was like, as long as you're there, I don't care. Cause she's the one that I built the relationship with. Yeah. I met the second midwife and then she was like, it will just be, they'll just call someone on the day depending on the B. The third, the third. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so that was the Thursday and then Friday morning, woke up 7.30 contraction. And I was like, nah, no way. Of course I go into labor now. Had you had any like Braxton Hicks or anything like that? Not a thing. No, absolutely not. Just woke up. Just woke up, yeah. And I was like, all right. I was in bed with Ollie. And Rowan was already downstairs and I messaged him and I was like, you need to come and get Ollie. I'm not ready to like get up yet. So he came and took Ollie. And like 20 minutes later I went downstairs and I said to him, I'm in labour and he was like, no way. And he was like, okay, I'll go get you some breakfast. And I was like, yeah, cool. No worries. And so this is probably, I don't know, quarter to eight, 7.30, quarter to eight. Yep. He came back and he was like, look, I just want to do my nine o'clock meeting. He was working from home. cause I'm the guy at the door. And I was like, yeah, no worries. Like took ages last time. Like we had hours up our sleeves. I was like, yeah, no worries. Nine o'clock meeting, I've got this. I sat on the gym ball. I had some breakfast and I said to him, I just want to brush my teeth. Like I had this real thing. I just want to brush my teeth. So I went upstairs to brush my teeth and I was like, no, I'm done here. I'm in the shower. Yeah. 45 minutes later, he comes upstairs with all these like, um, are you okay? And I was like, No, the contractions are two minutes apart. You need to call. Mom was coming over to look after Ollie. Yeah. And I said, Mom goes to aqua aerobics at 930 on a Friday, like you need to call her and get her to come here before she goes down. She's in the pool. Otherwise, she won't be coming until for hours. So yeah, he went and called everyone. So he calls mom. And she's like, yep, no worries. She's on her way. Um, I think he must've called the midwives then. I'm pretty sure. I don't know if it was then or a bit later, but I remember screaming at him like, you need to call Tina. Like you need to get her here. Yeah. Like now. Yeah. And so he came in, he was like, yep, everyone's on their way. It's okay. No worries. So I just stayed in the shower. Yep. Um, I'm pretty sure everyone arrived like around 1130 ish. And I was like, I was actually coping okay. All I had the shower and I had a birth comb. Oh yeah. I did hire a TENS machine. I didn't really use it the first time, but I was like, I'd rather have it there and then use it. The alternative, but I just love water so much that I never put it on. Like I was like, I just actually can't get out of the shower. Yeah. So for some reason. I don't know why I decided to get out of the shower, but I think I just wanted to get into the pool. Yeah. But the only so we moved into a rental at this I'm between us moved into a rental. Yeah, so I did what we wanted to do next. The only like fitting that we could find for the hose to fill the pool, we could only find one that would fit to the shower head not to the basin. No, out of the shower to fill. Oh, that's so One of the midwives said, oh, just maybe sit on the toilet for a bit. Yeah. So I sat on the toilet and my waters exploded. Yeah. Like everywhere, all over Rowan. He had to get changed. Like they just went everywhere. Thank goodness I was in the ensuite because I was so concerned. I just kept saying like, oh my gosh, we're going to rental. Like don't want to rent a carpet and have to pay for the cleaning. Yeah. You've got a bad track record for that. So thankfully we were in the ensuite and yeah, they went boom and I looked at them and they were brown and I was like, oh, I know what this means. My beautiful midwife came over and she was like, look, Jess, it looks like there's meconium in the waters. It looked old, it didn't look fresh. So she said the recommendation is that we go to hospital, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to stay at home. I was like so much in my mind, like I cannot go to hospital because I don't know if Rowan can come with me. Yeah, I was like, no, we're staying at home. And so she's like, Yep, okay, no worries. Eventually, the pool gets filled up, I get in the pool. It was like bliss. Ollie was like walking in and out of the room with my mom and so like I got some beautiful photos that my midwife took of him like just holding crackers in one hand and holding my hand in the other. Oh, so cute. It's so cute. Yeah. And yeah, basically just stayed in there probably for a good couple of hours. Yep. My hand was so sore and bruised from that birth comb. Excellent. And then I think it must have been like a few contractions he, sorry, I should say before I got into the birth pool, they asked me if I wanted to a VE. Yeah. Um, because the waters had broken and there was myconium, they just wanted to see, they were like, it's probably a good idea if we just see where you're at. And I'm like, no worries. So I got up on the bed and I'll never forget the midwife. So this has been the second midwife who came to primary. She said to me, yep, you're going really well. I don't know how many centimeters out. She was like, there's just a little bit of a lip, which obviously I had like a bit of a, oh my gosh, trauma response. Just pop in the bath and it will just dissolve away. Wow. And I was like, okay, beautiful, hopped in the bath, all the pool, whatever. Didn't even think another thing about it. Yeah. But his heart rate, I think, had started to dip on a couple of contractions. Okay. And they said, oh, look, I think they were obviously not paranoid, but they were, like, the meconium and everything that had happened, they were like, oh. We just recommend that you hop out of the bus so we can just do another check, see where things are at. Yeah. Make sure everything's okay. I've also like, I've got COVID. Yeah. I'm exhausted. I was so blocked up that I was feeling okay. I was just very tired and I could not breathe out of my nose. Yeah. I remember Rowan saying to me, he was like, every contraction, just do your horse's breath. Do the horse's breath. I was like. I can't breathe out of my nose. Oh my God. I just can't believe that's so unlucky because I was thinking this the other day as well, um, when I was quite sick, I was like, Oh, I'm so glad I wasn't sick in labor. And then I thought, no, surely your body would know if you're feeling that. And well, don't go into labor. Surely. Crazy. Yeah. So my mouth was so dry. I drank so much water and I also couldn't wait. Yeah. At all. Anyway, so finally I hopped out so they could do another check. And they were like, yep, the lip is completely gone. Like you're fully dilated. Normally we would wait for your body to just start pushing when you feel ready. But they're like, considering everything might be a good idea if you just start pushing. I'll start trying to push, just push with the contractions, do whatever feels right. But yeah. basically, yeah, said you should start pushing. So yeah, we went, I think I sat back on the toilet for a bit and I was pushing, was I pushing on there first? And I basically pushed on the toilet to my bum just ached. Yeah, sitting in that seat. Yeah. I tried pushing squatting and I was just like, no, didn't feel good. So I went on all fours push there for a while until like my arms were just so sore from holding up my body. Yeah. went on my side for a bit until my hip got sore. Yeah. Ended up on all fours again. And that's how he was born while I was on all fours. Yeah, wow. But crazy, like, when I was first pushing in the toilet, one of the midwives said to me, just do you want to feel his head? And I was like, oh, yeah, I do. Yeah. And so I felt it and I was just like, oh my gosh, so after pushing for two hours with Ollie and just having like, I just remember them doing that. like classic coach pushing of like push, just one more big push. And the whole time I thought just one more big push and that's it. He's going to be here. And then having like, obviously just no progress. Yeah. To then be able to just like pull my finger and be like, Oh my God, that's his head right there. Like it's right there. Was it's like so incredible. Yeah. And I said, no, and I was like, do you want to feel it? And he was like, no. And I was like, just do it. Just feel it. Yeah. It was like, you should like, yeah, like how cool it's so, I don't know. I thought it was just so cool. It is very cool. I did that as well with Frankie and I just like it was the yeah, I described it as like the motivation that I needed because I yeah, like it's like yeah, it's a measure of progress. If the head is in your vagina, you are almost done. Yeah, even to like feel then like, obviously, like the stretching and the ring of fire and all that was like, yeah, obviously, incredibly painful. Yeah. so satisfying to just think of something happening. I was like, yeah, I'm actually pushing this baby out of my body. Yeah. Like pretty, yeah, it was pretty cool. Yeah. So that's incredible. Yeah. He was born. Yeah. He was not breathing. Okay. So immediately. A bit more complications. So fun. Fun. Yeah. Um, so like, yeah, another thing in hindsight, like it's incredibly lucky that we actually had three midwives there. Okay, yeah. They immediately started the oxygen on him and I was basically watching like on all fours with the cords still attached and just watching them resuscitate. Yeah. Um, Jacob threw my legs. Um, one of the midwives was with me and then the other one was on the phone to the ambos. Okay, yeah. It would have been within seconds of him coming out. It was like straight into action. Yeah. And yeah. So Ambos came to our beautiful rental property that we'd been in for two weeks. And I was like, Hey, neighbor. Nothing. Yeah. Ambos came to our house. Yeah. Um, and I had, so I had the Sinto injection. They basically were like, look, we. Obviously they would do whatever I want to do, but would recommend, we get the placenta out, we're going to try and get you ready so that we can transfer you to hospital together. Like they were just trying to get me and Jacob together. And I'm like, yeah, whatever, literally you can do whatever to me right now. I don't care. Yeah. So placenta came out, the Ambos arrived by this stage. I still haven't really seen him at all. They're resuscitating him. The midwives are just like. It's crazy to think that something that should have been and was highly stressful was so calm and the whole time was saying to me, he's okay Jess, he's still attached. He was taking every third breath himself. All of that talking to me the whole time. So I was never really stressed, I don't think, about like, oh my gosh, my baby's not breathing. It was almost just like, oh yeah, the ambers are gonna come and he's gonna be fine. Like it's gonna be fine. Yeah. So yeah, they arrived and as the Ambo sort of came in to take him, the midwife said, put him on mom's chest. He needs to go on mom's chest. So I've got this live photo that you can literally put for like two seconds, put him on, they put him on my chest. He opened his eyes and looked at me. Yeah. And then he was taken away. He started crying just like as they left the room. So he had his first cry. Yeah. And then they obviously took him downstairs while they were working on him. I had some tears and things that the midwives asked if they could have a look before we went to hospital. Yeah, they were trying to, well, they're obviously trying to avoid as many people getting up in your business as possible, but they're like, if we can manage it here, we will before you go to the hospital. But they weren't sure if it was a second or third degree tear. So they just left it. Yeah. Then yeah, basically, so Jacob was taken straight away. He was taken straight to Nikyu. Yeah. And I was trying to hobble down the stairs again. It was like the inbos come in. Do you think you'll be able to walk, walk down the stairs or do you need us to get the little chair lifting thing? Oh yeah. Yeah. I'll be okay to walk. I said, but I'm, I'm just really worried about the carpet. Yeah. This damn carpet. Like shoving me. I hadn't packed a hospital bag. So Rowan and my mom were like. running around trying to pack me a hospital bag. It was just like mayhem. I'm like, get the, find the pads, find like, trying to tell everyone where everything is while I'm comatose on the bathroom floor. Yeah, with COVID. With COVID. So, yeah, so Jacob was taken straight to NICU. And I was taken to birth suites where an obstetrician came in and stitched me up. And then I was taken to the isolation room. And I then didn't meet him for three days. No. Oh my gosh, I thought, what the heck? Jess, what the heck? So I got the V back, I got my home birth. Oh my gosh. It's so crazy that, like the thing that you do to try and avoid that two hour separation in recovery. And now you've got three days. Yeah, I've had three days of fighting to just go and see him because I haven't. Oh my gosh. But so, but I, yeah, I, oh my gosh, I don't even, I don't even know what words to speak because I'm just like, holy moly. Were you allowed to see Rowan? So he was allowed to come to the hospital when we transferred. Okay. once he left, he couldn't come back because he had COVID. And we stupid, well, we did stupidly tell him, we were honest and we told them, they knew. Oh my gosh. Yeah, the three midwives came into the hospital with me, mum stayed with Ollie at home. Yeah. And yeah, basically, yeah, Rowan. Wow. That was a Friday night, he couldn't come back to the hospital until the following Tuesday. bloody hospital politics being in there straight away. Like I was so, so lucky to have my midwives there. Yeah. Also, I think to be a second time mom, or that would have just been more of a hellish experience than it was, but I was in this room with, most people probably know like the difference of midwives that you get on a bloody maternity ward. Hmm. Yeah. Some of them actually think I got the best crop because I had, I had some of them like basically had some people throwing my medication from the door because they obviously had to gown up and everything to come into my room. The ones that were just like, whatever. So then I had a beautiful, beautiful midwife on the Saturday morning come in, sit down and she was like, I heard that you had a VBAC yesterday. And I was like, oh, yeah, actually, yeah, I did. Thank you for acknowledging her. She was like, wow, that's amazing. Like, how do you feel? Like she's actually sat down and talked to me like I was a person. And she was like, oh, my experience is so similar to yours. I had a cesarean my first and planning, she was pregnant, she was like, I'm planning a home birth with my second and like, yeah, to like the extremes of just the other ones that just obviously didn't care and there's a bit of a stigma. They've been pretty good so far. Yeah, yeah. They get nuts. Oh, that's okay. Yeah, the stigma around home birth. And what some people think when you're then transferred to hospital, very much saw that, I think more from the NICU people. Oh, really? Yeah, it was like so thanks. On the Friday when we went in, my midwife went to NICU first and she came and saw me and she was like, I've taken some photos, here's some photos. She took a video of him. He was on the CPAP machine. Yeah. But I was like, oh, like I would not have gotten that from the hospital staff. No way. She came and saw me on the Saturday and again she went to NICU before she came to see me. So she had photos, she had an update. Like they were literally telling me nothing at all. And they, like the head of NICU was saying to her like, yeah, it's fine. We can FaceTime with her and send photos. They've got your mobile number. Like they'll send you photos. I got nothing at all. And it was, yeah, it was just crazy. And then have them saying like, oh, we need more milk. So I'm just basically in an isolation room. pumping or hand it for us to begin with, just trying to have- Bring the milk in. Yeah, trying to bring the milk in. When we got there, my midwife said, "'Oh, I declined formula for you.'" She said, I just assumed and I was like, "'Yes, thank you.'" Yeah, yeah."'I need to ask you before they give him anything.'" I declined formula four times for him over that weekend because they just kept saying to me, "'We need more milk, we need more milk, we need more milk.'" And I was like- just fucking give me a second. Like how do you think milk is made? Like I literally like on a Sunday, they were slightly better. So he had a different nurse and okay. They were sending me photos. And I spoke to him, I said literally like you could be sending me photos of any baby right now. I haven't met my baby, but you need to get us back together. By this stage, he was fine. He'd be taken off the CPAP. He was breathing fine. He was starting to get a little jaundice. Yeah. And, but otherwise he was fine. They had him on prophylactic antibiotics. All of these swabs would come back fine. He had two COVID swabs, which were both negative. Like they swabbed him for RSV and probably the flu, whatever. They came in and asked me if I had the GBS test, which I said no. So they tested him for that, which was negative. And yeah, they'll basically like, oh, we need to keep him here until the antibiotics are finished. And so I'm saying to them, okay, can my parents, can my parents go and see him? And they said, no, only his parents are the only ones that can come into NICU. This makes me so angry. So angry. Yeah, right? And I think we both got COVID, like surely, surely you can make an exception. And like- This is a human life. Like, testing this baby, like- Yeah. Yeah. Is he crying and is someone picking him up when he's crying or like, I don't know. Everything was just so unknown. Honestly, it was so maddening as you can imagine. The Monday morning I spoke to Rowan, I said to him, if they don't let me down there, also they said to me Sunday was my day seven of COVID. I was feeling fine. I literally woke up Saturday morning and I was like, I don't feel like I've got COVID anymore. I feel like hey, Sunday morning I felt fine. They said to me, if you do a rat test at midnight, you can go and see him because it's day seven. And that's not a policy. So at midnight, one of the midwives came in and we did the rat. It was negative and I was like, great. I've just like pumped this milk. I'll come down to Nick you and we can take it together and you can show me like. I was like, great. And then she's like, yep, no worries. I'll just go and mother shit to get something. She came back. She was like, I'm so sorry. They won't let you in. And I was like, what do you mean? She's like, oh, the person from infectious control, I think it was, who said that day seven was fine. It's not recorded anywhere. NICU rules are day 10. You can't see him until day 10. And I'm just like, what the hell? Like, oh my God, I would have been. said to Robyn that morning, I said, if they don't let me see him today, I was like, right, they've de-isolated my room literally at midnight. Like, thankfully, it was one of my favourite midwives that was on. She was like, ripped the gown off and she was like, woohoo, we don't have to put this crap on to come in anymore. I was like, if they don't let me see him today, I'm going to go down there and I'll stand up there till I let me in. If they don't let me in, we're coming home. Like, that's it, I'm done. Like, it was just crazy. And he's like, yep, if that's what you want to do, then... fine, I support you. I'd spoken to my wife and she was like, if it's just the jaundice that's keeping him there, like they can send home the blue blanket thing. We can manage it from home. Like we can do the blood tests from home. Like we'll support you if you want to come home. And I was like, I just want to see my baby. That's it. So the Monday morning, I spoke to them. So at this point, at this point, it's been how many, so how many days until you actually got to hold him? the Monday afternoon. So it was three days. I just like, I just can't even. That is so... Like I've had tears in my eyes multiple times, Jess. I just... I cannot imagine that. Like you've had this home birth, you gave your body, did the thing that it's meant to do. And then to then get this other separate, like that's traumatic. Yeah, it felt like a like a real big kick in the teeth. Oh my gosh. That's like and I imagine that's like a bit hard to process as well because like on one hand you're like, yeah, I had like a vaginal birth after caesarean I'm amazing. But then it's like, oh, but my baby needed to go to Neku and then I was separated and then I wasn't allowed to hold him or see him or touch him or like Yeah, it makes it a bit like, was it worth it? Yeah, well, too. Yeah, like, but I mean, yeah, I did. Yeah. Well, the continuity with yeah, your midwife, that's Yeah, holy moly. And so what was your so once you get to take Jacob home, what's your postpartum like then? Did you have a second or a third degree tear? Did they figure that out? I had a second degree tear, internal. I had like all the things. It was like, yeah, crazy. I had a hematoma, which was fine. And I had a couple of grazes, which were fine. They ended up bringing him to my room on the Monday afternoon because Rowan spent that whole morning basically on the phone, just calling Nicky over and over and they kept saying to him like, oh, you've got to wait until the doctors have finished their rounds, got to wait. Whatever. He basically said to them, like, she's going home, we're discharging, you need to get them together. He said like something to them about how I'd had the postpartum anxiety last time. They then called me, the nurse called me and saying like, oh, we've just used the last of your milk. We need more milk. Have you seen the NICU lactation consultant? Have they been to see you? And I said to them, no one's come to see me. Oh, okay, she'll come and see you. And I was like, okay, fine, whatever. Half an hour later, this lactation consultant came into my room and she said, oh yeah, I'm from the NICU. I hear you having trouble making milk. And I said to her, I fed my first baby for 18 months. I haven't met my baby. And she just looked at me and she went, okay. don't she had the papers again for me to sign for the formula. She said, don't sign a thing. I'll get you together. What? I was like, I know, I can tell you what the problem is. I know exactly what the problem is. Like, I know how milk is made. I had no issues in my first, I've never gone to a pump. Like, I just need my baby here. And I'll tell you what probably will happen is that the milk will come. My and she was like, Yeah, no worries. So a couple hours later. Yeah, they brought him into my room. They made a special exception. The NICU nurses came up twice a day to administer his antibiotics. And we were discharged on the Wednesday and went home. I had the hospital social worker come and see me, I think because Rowan dropped the mental health bomb. Why is that? Why? That doesn't make sense. And she was like, yeah, she basically was like, Oh, like, whatever your husband has been, he spoke to the NICU and said you had issues last time I said, Yeah, I did. Like I said, I'm, I'm fine. Like I'm going fine. I just need my baby here. Like I've got plenty of support. The midwives are coming in every day to see me. Um, so they would sit and talk to me and check me and everything. And she was like, Oh, it feels like you're coping pretty well with this. I was like, Yeah, because I've done this before. And like, I've got support in place. And I remember Rowan saying, I'm sorry that I dropped that mental health card. I was just trying to get you together. And I was like, no, the social worker should have been there with me on Saturday. Like you shouldn't have to drop a mental health card. And if support a woman that's for it should go to all the women who have given birth, but especially someone that's been separated in that way and then is isolated. Yeah. And yeah, if they are just I have so many frustrations about Yeah, yeah. whole hospital system is just Yeah, crazy. Anyway, the postpartum has been, it's been okay. I've been like, obviously, a lot more on top of it this time. And I think I've got, I put a very good team around me this time. Like I was seeing a Cairo right through my pregnancy, who'd had three home births. I was seeing a women's health physio who'd had a home birth. Like I had the midwives, obviously. I see a naturopath who helped with the anxiety last time. The minute day we got home, I had an appointment with a naturopath and I was like, look, I've had COVID, this has happened, this has happened, like, what do I need? And she was like, right, I was just a lot more on top of it. Yeah, more aware this time, I think. Like a week after I went and saw my Cairo, who's good friends with the midwives that I used. And so she knew, she knew what had happened and basically just sat there and created the space for me to talk about it. Like, that's yeah, like, like I said before, that is incredible that you, um, you achieved the vaginal birth. Like that's, that's you, you did that. That's incredible. And I, yeah, I don't really know if I have like the right words, but I'm just so sorry. that then that happened because that's like part of me thinks is you know, they send this social worker in or like the lactation consultant or whatever. If they like I don't know if this is how you actually feel. But from my perspective here in this story, if they actually cared, where the hell were they on day one? Yeah. Because yeah, oh, so frustrating. I am so sad. And like, your story I'm sure is just one of many of you know, the whole period of COVID. Just one of many and like that is just so sad to separate someone from their newborn like just out outrageous. Absolutely outrageous. Yeah, yeah, I just I just know words. And I mean, we've talked about a lot for this episode, but like, that's just like the cherry on top. Um, yeah. And it's just like you walk out of the hospital and there's all the signs that are up that say like, um, whatever the seven tips or successful breastfeeding. And it's like number one, skin to skin. Number two, like moving in with your baby, frequent feed, blah, like all the stuff. And it's like, you know, you know all this stuff, but everyone knows benefits, there's skin to skin and kangaroo care and all of this stuff. But why is it still so hard to just like, how come on like the Saturday, they could have put him in the incubator in my room? But there's so, I mean, there's, when you think about it, like, there's so many. there's so many different things they could have done and my experience being a healthcare professional working in Yeah, I might not work in the maternity system, but I do work in the healthcare system. And there's just so much bureaucratic red tape bullshit that just like policies and guidelines and like just so much non woman centered non person centered stuff. Like, it's yeah, I'm just Wow, I guess like reflecting back on your entire journey, though, would if you were to have another baby, would you choose to give birth at home or has this kind of? Yeah, like, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, Yeah. Like chalk and cheese. It's crazy. I think the first pregnancy where it was like you'd go in, you'd see the midwife for 15 minutes if you were lucky, have like maybe a 15 minute appointment that was always running half an hour, an hour late. Like, just, and just ticking numbers is basically what it feels like to then go to a model of care where every appointment was like on average an hour to have someone just knew me and knew like every appointment we were talking about what happened last time, what I wanted, like just actually woman-centered care. It's completely actually woman-centered and even like the postpartum to have someone come to your house and check you in the comfort of your own home and be there for that six-week period. They still like they run monthly. Oh cool. Yeah. So I still see them. Yeah, every month, if you go along. It's a completely different relationship. Like you can't. 100% if we have a third, it will be with the same advice. That's amazing. Thank you so, so much for sharing your entire journey to finding and achieving a Um, yeah, like I guess one of the main things of this whole story is like the power of actual continuity of care. Um, and midwifery continuity of care as well, and not just something that, um, you know, a hospital is latched on as might be a good marketing technique or something ridiculous. Um, yeah, thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you for having me.