Choosing homebirth after abortion and misscarriage, anxiety, having a PPH & secondary PPH and bicornuate uterus and why homebirth is amazing || Sam's birth of Archie at home (New South Wales)

Epsiode 52 is shared by Sam from NSW who tells her huge vulnerable, honest, and beautiful story of how her homebirth baby boy, Archie came to be. 
Sam’s story starts in her 20’s where, alike many women, she chose to have an abortion, partly influenced by her birth imprint. Some years later, when the timing was better, she was excited to become pregnant, then experienced a miscarriage. 

These events had significant influence  on her journey and experience in being pregnant with her now 16 month old, baby Archie. She also shares her experience with a post partum haemorrhage after her homebirth, and then 2 weeks later, a secondary post partum haemorrhage which required surgery. Whilst this is a longer episode, it is a great story that includes many different topics and experiences. 

Connect with me, Elsie, the host :)

www.birthingathome.com.au

@birthingathome_apodcast

birthingathome.apodcast@gmail.com

Links to resources: 

• What is a birth imprint? https://ishasoulseededucation.com/birth-imprints/
• Stigma of Abortion https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-26/senate-inquiry-universal-reproductive-healthcare-abortion-access/102018234
• Belmont Birthing Centre https://www.hunterbirtheducationcentre.com/belmont-birthing
• Sterile Water Injections for pain in labour https://evidencebasedbirth.com/sterile-water-injections-for-pain-relief-during-labor/
• Secondary Post Partum Haemorrhage https://teachmeobgyn.com/labour/puerperium/secondary-post-partum-haemorrhage/
• Bicornuate Uterus https://www.pregnancybirthbaby.org.au/uterine-differences

Chapters

• 3:19 Sam's Birth Imprint
• 5:30 Unexpected pregnancy
• 7:00 Considering abortion
• 11:00 I need to heal my heart
• 22:00 Second pregnancy
• 23:00 Miscarriage
• 32:00 Choosing & planning a homebirth
• 35:00 Anxiety in pregnancy
• 56:00 The start of labour
• 1:20:00 Sterile Water Injections
• 1:37:00 The birth of Archie
• 1:40:00 Birthing the placenta
• 1:44:00 Fainting postpartum and start of PPH
• 2:06:00 Secondary PPH

Transcript

0:02

Hi everyone, 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, the co -creator of Home Birth Victoria, and I'm a Melbourne based doula. If you want to learn more about me, the podcast, or my work, check out www .birthingathome.com .au. And before we begin today, I would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people who are the traditional custodians of the land I'm recording on in Nam, Melbourne, Australia. I would also like to acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been birthing at home on country for tens of thousands of years prior to the British invasion and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. This is episode 52 and it's also 12 months since I started the podcast. Today we hear from Sam from New South Wales who tells her huge, vulnerable, honest and beautiful story of how her home birth baby boy Archie came to be. Sam's story starts in her twenties where, like many women, she chose to have an abortion, partly influenced by her own birth imprint. Some years later, when the timing was better, she was excited to become pregnant, then experienced a miscarriage. These events had significant influence on her journey and experience in being pregnant with her now 16 month old baby Archie. She also shares her experience with the postpartum hemorrhage after her own birth. And then two weeks later, a secondary postpartum hemorrhage, which required surgery. Whilst this is a longer episode, it's a great story that includes many different topics and experiences. I hope you've enjoyed listening to these 52 birth stories, partner stories and midwife stories. And I'll be back very, very soon with even more. In the meantime, keep sharing, rating, reviewing and spreading the word that you can birth at home. Enjoy. Welcome Sam to Birthing at Home, a podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Elsie. Thank you for being here. Do you want to give a bit of background to who you are, where you're located, that kind of thing? Yeah, so my name is Sam. am on Awabalkuw Kudchi up in Newcastle slash northern end of Lake Macquarie. And I'm a high school teacher. I live with my husband Ben and my 16 months old baby boy Archie and we have our cat Charlie. Excellent. And so today you're going to be sharing quite a few stories or like your journey to having Archie but then also you have quite an interesting postpartum story. But I guess to begin with, Like growing up, what was your understanding of pregnancy birth? Did you know about home birth? that kind of thing? Yeah, good question. Growing up, I don't think that I knew home birth existed. My mum's birth story was probably the closest birth story that I knew as a kid, teenager, etc. I'm the youngest. of two so didn't have a younger sibling or anything like that. My mum had quite a traumatic first birthing experience with my older brother and I've definitely delved into understanding that a bit more now that I've gone through birth myself. Anyway, fast forward to my birth with my mum. My dad had, I guess, supported her to have a private obstetrician thinking that they would have better care in a private hospital and the obstetrician swaned in at the very end of the labor and was kind of just like, I'm here now, what can I do? Do you want some help? And he cut her and then I was birthed. It was kind of just like, I'm here, let's get this baby out. don't waste my time. And then I was to be Yeah, holy moly. Yeah. So, so my family's opinion of obstitutions and birth isn't the most amazing and like we didn't really talk about it much at home. Anyway, fast forward. My understanding of birth was just like, it's a lot. I don't want kids. And you know, if I do, I'll probably get an epidural or whatever. Like, you know, just the status quo. I didn't actually want children just because I was very conscious. Like, so this is in my twenties, I guess. I was quite conscious of the state of the world in regards to the environment and the impact of people and like, what's like, what's the point of bringing more kids into the world, like to add to the impact and anyway. I was with my now husband. were together for, so this was 2016. We'd been together for about six years at this point. We had just bought our house, but we had moved in with my in -laws. And so we living there for a few months while we just paid back some things to afford to move up and organize our new lives in our current home in Newcastle. And I started feeling unwell, not quite sure why. And then eventually I was like, you know what, I probably haven't had my period in a while. Maybe I should test. I just, yeah, was, I felt very self -conscious and embarrassed to go and get a pregnancy test from a chemist. And I mean, like I was 25, which you know, for some people that's like a great time to get pregnant. For me, I wasn't ready. was studying. We'd just bought a house. We'd committed to this huge debt. yeah, pregnancy test had come up with very positive lines. I was in complete shock. And so was my partner, my now husband Ben. And yeah, he was like, you should take the day off work tomorrow. We need to sort out what we're going to do. We need to talk about it. I was like, no, I'll go to work. Anyway, he spent that day researching what to do. And he was like, yeah, like if we terminate, like there's a pill you can take and Yeah, it's over and done with, you can sort it out at home yourself. And I was like, I don't really know what I want. And then we'd already had this booking to go away for the weekend. like, we've just been given this massive news that we had to deal with very privately. We couldn't tell anyone, we didn't know what to do. I would have been about... food thing as well. And you're not like, it's always so... You know, like, who can you tell? Because I feel like various people have different takes on termination and it's not, you know, I like home birth. Like home birth is for anyone and so is termination. But and so you can't really tell like who is your, you know, who's in your corner. So that must have been like so stressful. So. Yes, it was. Anxiety -booking, confronting. Yeah, and like for me, who was like adamant that I didn't want children, all of a sudden, you know, we were driving up to this property up near Mudgy. on the way up there, I'd called a clinic and And I discussed, like, isn't there a pill I could take? And the lady on the phone was so lovely. was like, honestly, honey, if you were my daughter, I would not want you to take the pill. You would not be having a very good experience, basically, and that it would be better off to come in to the clinic and have it done like a DMC done. And I remember just still not feeling like really certain about what I wanted to do. And then we were in this, we went and we arrived at this property that we were staying at and it was very peaceful. Like it was just in the middle of nowhere. It was a really cool place called permanent camping. Look it up. It's really cool. Ben had won it in a design competition because he's a furniture designer and yeah, he submitted a chair and won people's choice and got all these things. side tangent. Anyway, I remember we didn't really have anywhere to go or anywhere to be and I was just sitting with this decision. And I just didn't feel comfort. I didn't feel like termination was the right thing. I'd been thrown into it. I think I must've been about seven and a half weeks pregnant at this point. And I felt from the lady who was on the phone, like I really needed to book in and get it done if I wanted to go forward with a DNC. And I just, didn't, I wasn't committed to that. And my husband, my now husband, Definitely couldn't understand how I could go from, you know, one end of the spectrum of like, I don't want kids. This is not for me. It's a burden to society to bring more people in, whatever, to being like, actually considering how continuing with this pregnancy and going forward with it. I went in and you know, the entire time My heart was saying, don't do it. But my head, and you know, not necessarily having the support from my husband at the time, I went forward and had the procedure. Anyway, from that moment forward, I was like, I need to have a baby. I cannot heal my heart. And I didn't. I didn't bring it up with my husband, how I truly felt, but there was a lot of stuff that we worked through eventually when I actually felt like I could open up and say, know what, like I actually do want children. That experience completely changed my perspective. And I don't think that I'll be able to fully until, you know, I can have this next baby. I think it's like, you know, so you go back to being pregnant at, do you say 25 you were pregnant? Yeah. So I think with Murphy, I think I was 24. I'm quite young. Yeah. So Murphy's yeah. So I'm 28 now and Murphy's four. and yeah, I remember like, like, like I think. Actually, I worked at a GP clinic and I remember like a friend, she was always like so worried about her health and whatnot. And she was worried. She was pregnant actually. And she had a pregnancy test and she was like, no, I'm being ridiculous. I'm not pregnant. And then it dawned on me that, wait, like I haven't had my period for a while. and so I used this pregnancy test like one morning before work and, the shock when like those two line, I felt like, you know, even thinking about like that moment, it still brings me a bit of panic. Yeah. There's a lot of anxiety with it. Like, you know, I just started, you know, to be like, like I had my like first nurse, real nurse job, like we were renting, we'd only like move to Melbourne like maybe 12 months before, maybe less. Like I didn't have like any community here. I was also trying to do like other career things. And like none of that was going to work if I was pregnant. when I, yeah, and I mean, I totally really relate to what you have just said about like, the environment and like, do we need more people? Like the world's already in such a chaotic state. Like, you know, you can look at it very pessimistically, very easily, I think. And I actually did ring up and like book myself in to have an abortion. like, just, remember like laying on the couch, like, being so torn over this decision. it's the weight of the decision is, you know, I think so many times like when the media portrays abortion, whatever, I think they're like portrayed as like a sort of flippant decision that like, like, you know, women just go and do this because like, x, y, z, like, they don't want to like, confront being a parent, but like, All of that is going through your mind. It's like such a complex thing. And, know, I rescheduled that. Like, so I, booked the appointment and then it was like the day before. And then I was like, no, I'll book it for like the next week. So I went and booked it. then, yeah, I mean, ultimately I canceled it and like Murphy is four years old, but like, yeah, the weight of that decision, Sam, like, yeah. And I think so many, so many women experience this tornness and like, you're having such a, know, with your mum having had such Well, especially with your brother, like not a very nice experience with birth. can understand that like, you're not really at that point, probably, you know, before being confronted with that, imagining what's, what an empowering and beautiful and like life propelling experience, like having a baby can be, you know? So I just, totally. Yeah. Like, holy moly. I didn't mean to like. like take over your story. I just thought I've never shared that before. wow. Yeah well look there'll probably be some people who know me, especially family members on my husband's side if they listen, that have no idea that this is actually what happened in that time. But I feel like all is well because I've got a baby now. Exactly, you decide you work through with, did you say your husband's Ben? Yes, I'll have to refer to him as Ben because it's annoying saying my husband. My husband. Yeah, so you work through it with Ben and so at any time had you thought like how you would give birth? Like had you ever like imagined? No. would it be like? No, at the I mean, in retrospect, we have talked about it. Because we were just like, you know, if we had gone ahead with that pregnancy, you know, I would have just probably gone to the local public hospital. Wouldn't have necessarily known to advocate for NGP. Wouldn't have tried to have anything or, you know, like maybe maybe I would have been like, how can I get a private obstetrician? Like I had absolutely no idea. My, I guess my only experience with someone who had birthed around that time was my sister-in -law, so Ben's older sister. She'd actually just given birth a few weeks prior to me finding out that I was pregnant. And then I do remember. because we were living with his parents, the night of the abortion, I'd come home and I was lying on our bed in the bedroom. And I could hear them arrive, coming over for dinner. And I could hear their baby downstairs. It was just, it was too much. It was way too much. I was like, I have to get up and go down. and have dinner and sit with everybody. know, knowing and Ben and I knowing what we've just gone through. Me more so, I don't think he at the time, he definitely did not understand what I was going through emotionally. He just couldn't grasp it. He definitely does now. Trust me. Anyone who's hating on Ben. Please don't, because we have talked about this in depth and he is a very beautiful person and just was completely naive. He was in shock, you know, typical male just trying to fix the problem at the time. he's, yeah, definitely made up for it in the time since then. And yeah, anyway, so should we lead on to my next pregnancy and how that ties in with you? So you've decided that you want a baby or that you've you've chatted with him and yeah, you're now on board with with having a baby. Yes, yes. So fast forward a few more years. I'd come I just come out of a really bad burnout with my my teaching. I'd been I worked down in Sydney and that was during the 2021 lockdowns which were quite harsh. I know it was nothing compared to Melbourne. I'm not saying that it was you for that acknowledgement. my brother and sister -in are in Melbourne so I heard from them. was a lot. But it was more just like the combination of we'd left our home in Newcastle, we renting it out. moved to Sydney for this permanent allocation for teaching. I'd lost my, I guess, kind of my support system up here. Not that I have like any family up here, but it was more just like my community that I kind of built in the last few years and then just, you know, being thrown deep end into this new job and the expectations that I put myself and I just my perfectionistic tendencies and anxiety just like skyrocketed. and I was just so, so done. We decided that we just needed to take a break from that, put that on pause. I moved, we moved back home to Newcastle, to our own home. And we just, I just felt, I started working again, but in a different position with less stress. And I was like, you know what, like, I think I want to have a baby. This is the time I'm 30. I think at the time I was 30 years old, was like, I need to, you know, have this baby. Can we start trying? I wanted, I needed to take my IUD out. Actually, that's what sort of provoked it. I my IUD was overdue. Couldn't get it out because of COVID and all the waiting lists and everything to get them removed. And then the question was like, well, are you going to get another IUD put in or are you going to, what's the contraception? And I was like, what's the point in going through getting an IUD if I'm planning on having a baby. Originally I was going to get it replaced and then wait 18 months and then take it out when we decided. then don't know, divine intervention played every time I tried to book it in, it got canceled or whatever. so I was like, you know what, it's too annoying to try and find someone who can take it out. Can I just get it removed? So just got it removed. And then I was like, well, there's nothing there. I actually do feel ready. And then we started trying. And yeah, luck had it like we were just able to fall pregnant. Like straight away. I had been using flow to track my ovulation and you know, when my period was due. So I pretty much tested. I may maybe have waited four days after my period had been due and I was like, come on, it's time. Let's test. And I had a really faint line. Very, very faint. And I was like, okay, that's a faint line is a line. I'll go to the doctor, get them to confirm it. But I'm pregnant. Yeah. And I had gone to the doctor and we did we got we did the test, peed on a stick. She'd arranged for bloods, got bloods taken and I'd come home I think to Ben and being like, this is like, it's actually happening. And then, yeah, we kind of had that discussion about like what this means and he was a bit in shock that it happened so quickly. I was obviously more emotionally ready than he was. I got a phone call that afternoon or maybe it was the next day from the GP that had done organize the bloods and she was like, so if you are this far along, your HCG levels should be higher than they are. Maybe you're not as far along as you think you are. And I was obviously taken aback, really devastated with that news because I knew that they should be higher. It didn't give me certainty either way and that was really hard to hear. I just had to organize to get another blood test and wait and see if the HCD had risen or had lowered. In regards to this, I'd known about home birth in this time between having my termination and planning my own and getting pregnant. listened to a million Australian birth stories, probably almost all of them. So I'd learnt about the Belmont birthing centre up here, which we're very lucky to have. And they offer births in the birth centre or they do publicly funded home birth. And so I knew that I wanted to be with them. I pretty much called them as soon as I got that positive pregnancy test and was like, how do I get on your books? And at the time they're like, would you want a home birth or birth and a birth center? And at the time I was like, or maybe because it's my first time I would try probably with the birth center. And at this point it was very early on, so she was like, just get a referral from your doctor and it would be like a 12 weeks that we would accept you. in after your initial scan to make sure that you're low risk for everything. And then anyway, I'd gotten another blood test and yeah, found out that it was lowering. And I think I can't quite remember this probably because I've blocked it out, but I did start bleeding. had this sort of pulling pain low down on one side of my. I guess, like probably where the baby was attached, I had this pulling feeling and then I started bleeding that night and I went to emergency and yeah, they just confirmed with blood tests that based on the previous blood tests that HCG had dropped and this is just the beginning of a miscarriage. that this all ties into you know, thinking about the termination that I had. And I was like, do I, is this because I terminated my first pregnancy? Did the DNC do some damage? Is this like my punishment for doing it? Like, will I ever be able to get pregnant again? Was that my only chance of having a healthy pregnancy? You know, that could have been it. I may be too far gone, you know. All of the things and so much anxiety and guilt and like self blame and I really spiraled like with my mental health and all I could think about is just like when can I get pregnant again? When can we try again? I need that. I need another baby to like heal. And I was like My poor Ben. So I was like, we need to have sex morning, afternoon, night, like three days in a row. This is my ovulation window. He was like, do we have to have sex again? He was like, surely, surely we've done it enough. I'm like, no. But it was actually quite like it's funny to look back now in hindsight but at the time I was like crying I was like please can we just try again like this I need to have this baby I'm not gonna be able to heal until I'm pregnant again Anyway I So between the miscarriage I got in my period and then I think we might have started trying in between miscarriage and that period. was just like, you know what, like let's try. I know they say not to, but we did try. And then I'd gotten my period and I was like disappointed, but it was actually a good thing because the period can clear out any excess leftover, I guess, tissue. And then I must have ovulated and we'd had sex so many times in that window. And very, very fortunately for us, we fell pregnant that cycle. yeah, with our now beautiful boy Archie. So with that, there was a lot of things that happened early on in that pregnancy that was triggering. after having the miscarriage because I bled a few times in that first trimester. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have had like a couple of moms share their story and yeah, prior to starting this podcast, I didn't really know that bleeding was not uncommon in pregnancy. Like, yeah, I mean, in pregnancy in general, but especially in that first trimester that's not associated with miscarriage like our bodies are so weird. Why would it do that to us? my god. Like, especially like immediately after a miscarriage. yeah, so I mean, the anxiety was already there. And then I think at about six weeks, I'd had, I think I started bleeding and it wasn't bright red blood. It was a darker brown blood. However, it was the same tone and shade. and just looked honestly exactly the same as the blood that I had during the miscarriage. And so I was like, here we go again. And so we got, we got the scan, a scan done and I was so anxious and so upset. And this beautiful sonographer was like, there's a fetal pole and there's the little heartbeat and Yeah, that's a healthy pregnancy at this point in time. And I was so relieved. Anyway, think I continued bleeding. Had you called Belmont again or you knew that just to wait for the referral for the 12 week kind of thing? I think I'd seen my GP and funny story. with the GP. think at that point in time, it was very early days. And I may have probably had called Belmont and, and they were just like, we can put your name down, I guess, like, as an interest, like, you've registered your interest, and we'll just wait for your referral to come through. So I'd already kind of put that in place, but I'd known I'd actually The weirdest thing, I had a conversation with this hairdresser about home birth because I don't know, during this hairdressing appointment, I just, she, I think she asked me if I had kids. I was like, no, I actually just had a miscarriage and she's just such a beautiful person. And she was like, obviously really like empathic and we talked about it and she was like, I think I might've mentioned that I would be open to birthing with Belmont. And she was like, or I don't know, I kind of might've mentioned that I wanted to have a home birth or something like that. And she was like, do it. Wow. I had a home birth with my previous baby and it was amazing. And then I think we might've talked about Belmont. And she was like, be mindful about They can risk you out at any point. You have to tick all of the boxes to continue your pregnancy and birth with them. You might get in with them at the beginning, but then you might lose that continuity of care at the end if your baby is breached or if something comes up, you might end up at the main hospital. And so I was like, my goodness, that is definitely not what I want. My anxiety cannot cope with that inconsistency and she gave me the details of the med-wife that I actually ended up using. my god, that's so crazy. Yeah, she's actually ended up having had another baby since then and used. my my midwife to. like totally random chance experience may have not known about my midwife if if it weren't for this haircut that I got. And and I'm just trying to remember. I'd seen my doctor and we may have talked about things. I know I had to go back for a scan at seven weeks. Maybe for the dating scan, can't quite remember, but I do know that I started bleeding again on my birthday. yeah. And obviously that ruined it. Totally. I had stopped bleeding and then I just I think I might have. between six and seven weeks I was bleeding for eight days. So I think maybe we'd gone in for a scan again at seven weeks to be like, why am I still bleeding? Is baby still alive? Got the scan, baby's there. When you say bleeding, was it like as much as kind of like a period or was it like? Just this dark brown blood, not gushing. like it wasn't, you know, I'd just wear a pad, I guess. Yeah. And Yeah, it was just a small amount of this like dry spotting type blood. Yeah, like spotting. Like if you had a marina and you still got your period, it would be that type of blood. Yeah. So anyway, I'd stopped between I think maybe seven and half weeks and 10 maybe, maybe 10 weeks and then I started bleeding again. And I was at work and I just remember just being like, this is bad. Why am I bleeding again? Yeah. I'm going to have a miscarriage and then yeah, managed to book in to get another ultrasound and baby was fine. Yeah. So that was really fortunate, but like the anxiety that just continues and just keeps adding up. All the what ifs. Yeah. All the what ifs. then At some point between this, had interviewed my midwife, but I'd also interviewed another midwife that had been used by a doula that I'd followed on Instagram. And I asked her who she was planning to use for her birth. then, yeah, did an interview with both of them. And we just, we knew straight away that Haley was the right fit for us. And she's just so much She's just so friendly and warm and we just felt comfortable. knew her shit. She was just very knowledgeable but very down to earth with it. Like, did you have anybody in your circle or extended circle that had home birth like connected to any home birth group? Because in Newcastle and like that area, there is like such a big like home birth community. know, but at the time there was nothing. Yeah, there was nothing. I mean, it was really hard to even find podcasts that had home birth. Yeah. And I think what sold home birth to me or at least like made me feel safe with it was listening to episodes where midwives were having home births. I was like, you know what, if a midwife who knows all of the things that could potentially happen, feels safe, or believes that birth is safe enough to have at home, like I trust that. That sounds great. Let's do that. There's power to that, of course. Yeah. So that's, guess, like how I... how I initially felt comfortable doing it. But yeah, there was no one I knew apart from this hairdresser that had had a home birth. There was no Facebook community. I scoured for podcasts about home birth. Couldn't find any at the time that specifically did home birth. Well, we now we figured out we were like pregnant at like roughly the same time. We were pregnant at the same time. She's just a little bit older than Frankie. And that's why I started this podcast, because yeah, like it was Australian birth stories, but you had to filter through for the home birth specific stories. And like, I was searching for a particular type of home birth stories, you know, I wanted the yeah, the you know, whatever I wanted a particular type of story and I couldn't find like anything. Yeah. At least Australian based. And so that's kind of like, yeah, what drove the inspo for this podcast. So, yeah, now there's, you know, there's also home birth stories, Australia. So there's heaps more out there. Like this was only, yeah, like 16 months ago or whatever. like. I know, right? it's funny because before I found, think maybe Home Birth Stories Australia may have started just before you did. before, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because before that I was like, why is there not somebody doing a podcast on Home Birth? And I actually thought maybe I'll do mine. Yeah. Because I love Home Birth Stories and I love podcasts and the amount of times that I drive between Newcastle and Sydney. Yeah. I need something that's about an hour to an hour a half in length. And that's the perfect amount of time for me to get chuck it on and listen and be, you know, entertained and concentrate for the journey. As well as fill my mind with a beautiful story and the knowledge that comes with it. So I mean, look, if it wasn't like you or Laura and I can't remember the other host at Yeah, Home Birth Stories Australia. I would be the host. So you've taken it from me, but anyway, it's fine. don't have time. Now you're on it. Now I'm finally on a podcast that I'm like so stoked. Through your pregnancy. So you've got ladies ongoing anxiety, understandable through your pregnancy, you know, of course, so you've already had two pregnancies and sort of had your journey with that. But in terms of like birth education and whatnot, did the knowledge come from the amazing Haley or did you seek out like separate like birth related stuff or were you like looking at books or just listening to whatever stories you could find? Good question. I know that I did probably a lot of my education was self -directed through listening to pull casts, Australian birth stories and I think I started listening to Positive Birth Australia as well because they were a little bit less traumatic to listen to sometimes. Australian birth stories, well I mean a lot of the time there's stuff that, you know, things happen to women, end up being very traumatized. find it quite triggering. Yeah, I actually don't go back to it now. I can't. Positive birth stories. I mean, it's in the title. It's positive birth stories. So yeah. Yeah. I just think like, especially listening to like Home Birth podcasts, usually interviewing somebody who comes to Home Birth after having a really horrible experience with hospital. So I mean, I still get, I hear the thing that happens in hospital still, but You know, it ends with a happy story because people get their empowerment and a positive experience back with home birth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In regards to education, I did a lot, think probably through Instagram, to be honest. And then Newcastle Birth Movement is up here too. That's run by a doula and like she has volunteers and she suggested hypnobirthing. She runs hypnobirthing classes and. I'd done a lot of research myself and every time I saw Hayley we talked about things too. But we did do our hit no birthing course maybe at about 30 weeks and it was a five week course, over five Sundays. It big. and it was like maybe from... full days or just like a couple of... Maybe nine till 12? It was like hypnobirthing plus extras plus birth education plus tangents plus all these things. So it was there was a lot included and it was like an affordable price. So we went with it. Yeah. And I felt like I knew a lot of what they were saying, what was being talked about. I was the only only we were the only couple of about five that were having a home birth with a private midwife. Everyone else was like, there were two private hospital birth couples. One was going to go to Maitland. Maybe it was only four couples. May have started off with five and then went down to four. But yeah, we were the only one that was A, having a home birth and B, having a private midwife. Ben definitely learnt, it kind of brought him up to speed more to where I was at. in regards to education and understanding. I didn't have any fears about birthing despite what my mum had gone through. I wasn't scared of birth, especially doing education and listening to podcasts and stuff. I felt very empowered about the birthing experience. felt, you know what? I'd gone through a lot of painful experiences by breaking my ankle and falling off horses and breaking my collarbone and all of these things. I was like, you know what, I'm a strong person. I've gone through these horrible, painful things. I can deal with the pain of labor, which comparing it to my labor definitely did not expect it to feel as intense. of it. Because I had quite a hectic back labor. Yeah, well, that was really intense. So yeah, I think, I think, at the time, maybe there was Australian Birth Stories released their guide to pregnancy, I bought the book, but it was kind of already, I was already so far along in my pregnancy, it wasn't that relevant to me anymore. But I still read everything. When did your anxiety sort of taper off like the further you got along or did you still feel like the same level of anxiety throughout? Yeah, think it was, I know on the Flow app, would just keep checking how many weeks I was and I just kept on moving the goalpost, I just need to get to the next week. the further, with every week I felt like The chances of having a miscarriage, know, at 15 weeks is dropping. 16 weeks drops even more, et cetera. And I remember distinctly having a conversation with Haley and just being like, when will baby be able to survive if I give birth? And she was like, generally babies are only viable with life after 23 weeks. So, you know, if you go into labor. at 20 weeks. It's probably not going to survive. There's nothing I can really do. They're just, they're not developed enough. So then that made me move my goalpost to 23 weeks. was like, just need to make it to 23 weeks. And then I'll feel less anxious about losing this baby. And then yeah, you know, made it to 23 weeks. So a little bit less pressure. in regards to anxiety. And then it was, guess, kind of by then I better emotionally. had a really rough trot in regards to like pregnancy symptoms. I did feel really nauseous, really, really nauseous, 24 -7. Couldn't catch a break. Till about 20. 23 weeks as well. So I mean, I had that constant reminder that I was pregnant. I know if I hadn't had nausea at all, like some people do, or you know, it dropped off at 12 weeks or something. I may not have had that constant reminder that I was pregnant. I still wasn't convinced. was like, you know, some people can still have a miscarriage and your body just continues on with the symptoms of pregnancy and then you've got a like babies just just needs to have a D &C. So I never felt fully comfortable. I don't think my anxiety ever really stopped. Even until after he was born, the anxiety was like, he's alive, but now I have to keep him alive. What he's going to die, know, like SIDS or something. Anyway, I'm definitely, I'm better now. I've kept him alive this long, I'm okay now. And I think if I have another pregnancy, as long as I don't have another miscarriage, I don't think I'll deal with as much anxiety. I think I really hope I don't go through a miscarriage again. took away the joy that I was hoping to have with pregnancy. I definitely was really jealous of people who'd gone through pregnancy. And I mean, I still kind of am. Yeah. I am very jealous of people who get pregnant straight away and don't go through that miscarriage experience because it's, it's it's almost like it's not fair that they get to enjoy the whole, the whole thing. Yeah. When I couldn't because I was just crippled by the anxiety of, you know, going through a miscarriage again. Yeah. because it promotes so much like why, why, why did that happen? Like, what caused it? Like, Not able to this. What have I done? Like, and you know, you can't, you can't change history. So it's like, yeah, yeah. Such a horrible way to, you know, emotionally and mentally start that journey. but I guess it's very positive in that Archie's here and your body does work exactly the way it's meant to. weeks like, sorry. Did you have any signs that your body was preparing for labour? No. I mean, was working in Sydney. I was driving down three days a week. It's just this stupid thing with permanent jobs. I can't transfer, so I'm driving back and forth. While I was in my third trimester, and I was like, I'm going to work like until about 38 weeks. and I just remember Haley being like, yeah. Right. Probably not great, but like we'll see. and she, I guess she was more concerned that I was sitting, you know, in a stagnant position, sitting in a car for an hour and a half every time, like twice a day. then I ended up feeling quite, my heartburn was really bad. And I just became really nauseous with the heartburn. So I ended up finishing work at 36 and a half weeks. And I don't know, I was like, I'm, I just feel like I'm going to have this baby early. That's just, I feel like that's my story. I will have them at 38 weeks. I was like, I feel ready. I feel different. But I think that was just, you know, my body was just getting prepared for labor, not that it was about to go into labor. because it took another four weeks. So I didn't have any symptoms of labor. The first sign would have been that things were actually happening was on the Friday before I gave birth. Had an appointment, my second midwife. It had been organised my second midwife was coming around to do the rounds with Hayley. I guess to, I don't know, they might have had other women that they were seeing as well. But just to re -establish that rapport and relationship. And when I was waiting for them to arrive in the morning, a little bit of mucus plug had come out. I was like, like there's actually something happening. So I was 40 plus four. No, I would have been 40 plus. two on the Friday. 40 plus two. I'd had some days where I'd felt really ill and had been a day Haley had come over and I just felt really run down. But on this Friday felt great. And I knew that a mucus plug doesn't signify that I'm going to go into labor in the next couple of days. I was like, it could be a week. know, everything you Google is like, You know, could be, labor could start within 24 hours or it could be a week away or whatever. You never know. So I wasn't too like, my God, labor's starting. but I mentioned it to them when they arrived, they were just like, yeah, that's great. Things are happening, but like not expecting anything to happen at all. and so we, Haley did her. as usual, checked blood pressure, checked my tummy and she was like, there's lots of fluids, baby's feeling really good, like obviously facing the right way. Didn't say he was low or anything like that. I don't know if he ever was. Anyway. And then I was like, like, can we listen to his heartbeat? Because I always just like to hear his heartbeat with the Doppler to ease my anxiety that the baby's still alive. still was like, baby could be dead and I have no idea. I still didn't know if I could feel him properly all the time. Anyway, he obviously was alive because he's today. she checked her bag and she's like, I've left my Doppler at home. I was like, The catastrophization was intense. Anyway. So Sarah, second midwife was like, I don't have my Doppler either. But Haley, she used that little scope thing, the pinard. She could use the pinard and here and you know, like she palpated my stomach and she's like, baby's fine. Yep. Like I'll come back next week, know, Monday or whatever, and we'll do Doppler again and we will check that he's fine. There was no concerns there. Anyway, the last few appointments I had with her, we would do meditations and it was all about, I guess, like releasing fears and trying to calm and calm the nervous system. So, They left. I felt fine that day. I think I might've gone to the beach in the afternoon. was beautiful weather in April at that time. then Saturday morning, I hadn't had a lot of sleep in my last trimester. I've had so much heartburn. I just couldn't get comfortable. Anyway, woke up, probably didn't have much sleep. But I felt fine. I actually felt great. My husband and I, then we went to out to breakfast. That was our little thing. We got went out for breakfast. I was wearing a dress. So it was quite a warm day. Yeah. And then we went for a walk around Newcastle Harbour. Just, you know, just to keep moving. know, walking helps with babies coming. It was funny. There was another pregnant lady like sitting down and she was like, You're doing better than me. I was more pregnant than her. And that's like, yeah, little did we know that like I was going to go into full -blown labor at 7pm that night. So we come home, did have lunch because we'd had this massive breakfast and we were doing this puzzle. I, you know, joked with Haley and Sarah that They would be so bored during my birth that they'd need something to occupy themselves. So I was like, I'll get a puzzle. We'll start a puzzle. You guys can work on the puzzle. I've got this great one. Anyway, so we got home and I was like, well, I'm sorry. I forgot to mention in the morning I had done my wee and as I wiped, I noticed there was a big. big amount of mucus plug there. So I'm like, okay, big amount of mucus plug has come out. Yeah. Obviously I'm dilating at some point again, not convinced I was going to go into labor because I felt great. It was a great day felt probably the best idea than my entire pregnancy. And yeah, so we're standing over doing this puzzle on a dining table. I had talked about moving our wool rugs from the living area where I was planning to birth to underneath the dining table so that nothing would get on this wool rug. Of course, while I'm standing and thinking about where puzzle pieces were, I start waking. I start waking, my water started breaking. Fortunately, they were clear. And yeah, I was like, my God. I'm my waters are leaking and grab a towel and I'm like sitting on my towel call my midwife very excited. I was like, Hey, waters are leaking. This is at 5pm. 5pm waters start leaking. No contractions. Don't feel like anything's really happening. It's just, just, you know, the warm fluid coming out a little by little. I guess it was kind of gushing if I stood up, like not a full blown waters of broken chaos. She was like, just look for signs of, you know, if the color changes, you've got like 48 hours ish. These are signs of infection. Just monitor and then. we decided that probably should start making dinner. We hadn't had lunch, hadn't eaten anything since, you know, like nine, 10 o 'clock in the morning. And then decided when we were making dinner, contraction started. This is about seven o 'clock. So contraction started and from the get go, they were four minutes apart. Quite intense. So I called. called Haley and I think she was like very calm about it, kind of expecting that, you know, contract, yeah, first labor, this is gonna take a while. You could be, you know, this could be a like four day process, who knows, or it could die down. And I was, I remember being like calling her and being like, in my mind being like, I want you to come, this is why I'm calling you. Because I'd already spoken to her like, an hour or so beforehand. Entractions were quite intense from the get -go. And I was like, so when do you come? Like when are you going to come over? And she's like, well, I'll come when you feel like you need more support. And I was like, in my mind, was like, I want more support now. But I didn't say it because I was like, maybe I'm over. you know, maybe I'm asking too early. And the thing was like, she's like, I will, if you call me in half an hour, and you say that you want support, that's fine. So I was like, I'm calling you in half an hour, because I actually want you now. I just I don't feel like I can ask you now. Yeah. I was like, am I making a big deal out of nothing? And anyway, in that half an hour, my contractions got a lot more intense. had to go into a dark little bedroom where I had a ball. I was leaning over the ball, rocking back and forth through these contractions. think at this point, I'd gotten Ben to put the tens machine on and I was boosting it every time I had the contractions. Then dinner was ready and I remember I had to quickly eat between contractions because I just knew, this is my only opportunity to eat. fortunately it was like carbs and like fatty carbs too. I think it was like, a plant based mac and cheese. So yeah, quite carby. I had potato and carrot and all the things. and then, what did I do? think Ben had started, blowing up the birth pool. And he was conscious about how loud it was. I was like, I don't care. Just like, just blow it up. Get it done. And yeah, about 7 .30, I got, I got Ben to call Haley and be like, need to come. Contractions are getting quite intense and can't talk through them. just talk it all. She's like in a lot of pain. I just felt like I was getting, yeah, hammered with contractions. And they may have been like three minutes apart at this point in time, lasting for about 60 seconds each. And then there was this thing where I had to get my dog and my other cat picked up because my dog emotionally wouldn't have been able to cope with labor. She's a greyhound, I know that you've got greyhounds. She's unfortunately since past. It was a big thing. anyway, so I had to call a friend to pick up pre -arranged for the dog and this other cat that we had who would have burst the birth pool if he'd had access to it. So was like, the cat needs to get out. Pippa needs to be out because she cannot cope with, you know. The loud noises. Greyhounds are very sensitive. Last night there was a really random storm and it's the first storm we've had whilst we've had the greyhounds and yeah, Buddy, he was like literally shaking. Yeah, they're so sensitive. They're very sensitive to energy. Like they can pick up on your energy and people's energy. They're very in tune to that. So a friend had to come and pick them up. And I remember she, I could hear her talking to Ben in the kitchen and his job was to be making sure that the birth pool was ready and getting filled up. And I could hear them having this conversation and I was getting really frustrated that they were wasting time having a conversation. And I'm just like, Ben, shut the fuck up. I feel so bad because I was so mean to him during his labor. It was really just to be like, this is happening, you cannot waste any time, this birth pool needs to be filled up, that's your job, get it done. Anyway, they organized, pets are gone. And then I think I might have gone to labor on the toilet, the dilation station. Yeah. That was really painful and intense and I don't know why I did that. It's not comfy at Me thinking, you know, hearing all these birth stories on the toilet is a great place if you want your labour to progress. Yeah. And I'm sitting on the toilet and there was nothing to hold on to during these contractions except for the toilet roll holder. Yeah. And this toilet had just been renovated and I actually put in all my pressure. on this toilet roll holder. didn't fall off the wall, but it was definitely a skew when we checked on it in the morning. strength, the power. Yeah, the power of the contractions on this poor toilet roll holder. then I think I might have moved back to our bedroom, like on all fours over this ball. It was a warm night, so all the windows and doors were open. of all of the nights for our next door neighbors to have people over and have like music playing. There's this, you know, yeah, a gathering next door. And I'm going through these very intense back labor contractions that were full body. Every time I noticed every time that I had my very loud You know, you hit my berthing, it's all about letting your noises out. You want it to be low, but let them out, use your voice. Every time I had my audible contraction, they would kind of quiet down a bit. So I was like, well, they're listening to me. They can hear me. Yeah. I think eventually they may have brought their party inside. It may have been like five people. So I think I might've scared them off. I was like, I could hear my other neighbors on the other side close the window. Yeah, really? my gosh, that's so funny. So I was like, you know, yeah, been quite a noisy, noisy neighbor. And it felt like forever for Hayley to arrive. It must have been at about 7 .30 we called her to come over. And then she arrived at 9 .30. So it took about two hours. Yeah, maybe just shy of two hours. She lives in the Hunter Valley up near Dungal. So it is a bit of a drive for her to come down. She had to pack her bag and get herself ready. come over. She probably was taking a little bit of her time because she was thinking that it wasn't as intense as maybe she thought. When she arrived, I had moved myself to the lounge room. don't know how. I was on my knees, crouched over the ottoman. Ten's machine was on. She obviously saw me and was like, this is happening. Yeah. Better call that second. Yeah. Yeah. So it didn't seem like that long until she called the second midwife. She, think was helping Ben a little bit with the birth pool. Yeah. And I do remember when I was sitting on the toilet, I had view of Ben filling up the big 20 litre stockpots of hot water going from the bathroom all the way to the opposite side of the house. to the birth pool and being annoyed by him walking past because I could see him straining and being little bit trying to get this giant hot water pot over to the other side of the house. And maybe that's why I moved away from the toilet because I was in full view of watching him walking past and being paranoid about him dropping all this water on the floor and having to deal with that. And then what ended up happening? I remember I wasn't sure if the TENS machine was working. This was before Haley arrived. So I didn't trust that, you know, that the boost function was actually working. And I was like, maybe, maybe the TENS machine is causing this pain while I'm having a contraction. So I tested it and didn't press boost while I had my contraction. And I was like, yeah, that's actually working. It was very painful. Yeah, yeah. Very painful. And I know like in hypnobirthing, they're like, it's not pain, don't call about pain. It's intense. And I'm just like, no, it was pain. Yeah, no. But it's like, pain with purpose is how I like to phrase it because you know, you know that. It's getting you closer to your baby. Yeah. Yeah. It's not pain because you've broken your ankle. It's pain because you know, your body is going through something very intense. It's birthing a giant thing with bones and fat and everything like is somehow navigating that through your body. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When it ended up happening, she was doing a lot of massage, I looked at her notes and apparently when she arrived, I was contracting four times in 10 minutes and each contraction was over 60 seconds in length and they were very intense. she would provide like a back massage, like I guess on that very lower back every time that gave me some relief from that back pain that I was getting. She did like a Doppler scan. to check baby's heart rate and that it was in the 130s and that it was getting like short decelerations to 115 at the very peak of the contractions. remember it was super uncomfortable to get the Doppler and I really felt it kind of pushing right in and yeah, being really horrible. When baby is like, especially like coming down lower, they really have to like get in like right, like near your pubic area. Yeah. It's just like not. Yeah, not great. It's not nice. However, 100 % advocate for dopplers over, you know, being strapped to a bed with a fetal monitoring device. CTG. CTG. Yeah. So and it was good. Like she was like, baby's not in distress. Babies probably just chillin'. He's not having any issues. So I was quite relieved about that. She had called our second midwife, Sarah, to come. And when I noticed that she did call her, was like, obviously things are happening. If she's calling the second midwife at this point, baby's coming tonight. She's not going to waste her time bringing her over if she doesn't need her at this point. And I asked Haley, I like, how long do you think this is going to go on for? Like how long until baby arrives? And was like, I would say, you know, you're going to have a baby by sunrise. Yeah. And I was like, Jesus, I don't think I can last until sunrise. That's a long time. feeling like he's going to, I feel like, you know. I would have thought he would be arriving earlier. I didn't know it was a hey at this point, but feel like Baby was going to arrive earlier. This is really intense. it kind of made me disappointed a bit because I was like, I don't know if I have that in me. Anyway, I think it was like she was cautiously telling me that not to get my hopes up. She probably was like, Baby's going to come in a few hours, but I'll say if stuff slows down, she doesn't want to get my hopes up. So I actually hadn't gone into the pool because I wanted to wait until Hayley gave me the green light. She did, however, had to take my TENS machine off to do so. And that was really scary for me because it was providing the only amount of comfort for these intense back pain, labour contractions. And then so I got in the water. I remember it was really warm. And she'd another Doppler reading and she noticed, I know these things because she sent me her notes recently. His heart rate was like 130 to 140 with no decelerations. My liquor was clear and I was actually quite pushy. Like my body was pushing him and then I was like. apparently vocalizing a lot. I definitely didn't stop vocalizing the entire time. I had a very sore throat the following day. Yeah. Yeah. he actually started vomiting a bit. And, I'd forgotten about that until I saw Sarah, post birth, like, and she was saying like, she could remember a really funny thing that happened is that I had, we had this stainless steel bowl and Ben was holding the bowl and I was like, you know, get like, retching like I was going to vomit. And like he wasn't holding the bowl close enough to me when I was going to vomit. Apparently I was just like, how fucking hard is it? To hold a bowl? Like hold it closer. Like, I'm not going to like vomit. Like I can't move. Like put your, put the bowl underneath my mouth while I'm vomiting. Poor thing. He just, he got so much verbal abuse from me. Yeah, you're so unfiltered. it's funny, Haley had brought some essential oils to help, guess, during labour in her little kit. And she'd gotten out a bit of peppermint oil on a little cotton pad. This was really early on in the pace and I could still smell it. Like my senses, my nose was so sharp during labour, and mean during pregnancy it's already hyper crazy. bitch like I'd already been like, no, like that's not helping my nausea. And yeah, what else? Ben had I think he I saw I was in the pool at this point. Ben trying to be helpful because he couldn't do the back. massage. Hayley was doing it or Sarah, they were both like going between each other. I'm not quite sure who was there. every time Ben tried to do it, I was like, why are you scratching me? And obviously like being a man, having thicker skin and just like, I don't know, it was like his skin, maybe he had like little bits of dry skin on his fingers. But I was like, you're scratching me. You can't do that. and then another thing he suggested, which like, God love him. He really was trying. he was like, you know, why don't we try some hypnobirthing techniques, know, like moving your hips side to side and all these things. And so I was like, well, if we're going to do that, you're going to have to hold me up and help me stand up. I can barely move. And so he's helping me up standing up in the pool. And then meanwhile, I get this massive contraction. I think I must have only moved my hips once and then this huge contraction came and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then yeah, poor Ben was subjected to more profanity. And yeah, so that didn't work. I basically just like collapsed onto him going through this massive contraction. I needed to resort back into the pool. And so Haley and Sarah, they were like, where's the pain? Like, where are you feeling this pain? And I was like, it's in my back. you know, my friend, I only had one friend who'd given birth. prior and who'd gone through labor and she was like, well contractions, feels like a bad period cramp. That was not my experience. It was a full body, you know, when it's in your back, it shoots up through your entire spine and like it just, you can't isolate it to just like your stomach area. It felt like my whole body was just going through this entire thing. Like when Hayley has come and whatnot, did they think that baby was like posterior or like was this? No, there was no mention of posterior during the labor, not in the notes, prior to birth in like the debriefs. Nothing. So I mean, during the pregnancy, was always, he was like on the left hand side and kind of like a little like forward, but kind of like over to one side a bit. Yeah. And Sarah is a body worker. Like she's a yoga teacher, but also has done a lot of extra training as well as being a midwife. And her, her kind of saying on that is maybe, you know, I need for next pregnancy, I really need to get a lot of body work done to try and like realign. my, I guess my pelvis. And it does make sense because I've had a lot of trauma to my body on my left -hand side. I've broken my ankle and then I've also broken my collarbone and I guess like ribs and stuff. And it's always been on my left -hand side. And I mean, that was a side he was kind of more on. So if he was like more on the left -hand side, guess maybe he was just pushing on something and my body had more tightness and it actually seemed like an osteopath. A very short little like massage type thing and she'd helped realign me but that was like weeks before and I should have taken her suggestion to come back and do a bit more and I definitely will do a lot more. Investing in my health during my pregnancy so next time I'll go to get an acupuncture and osteo. so that I can survive through the next pregnancy. I mean, keeping in mind like the, like in general, like we're a lot more, yeah, like we spend a lot of time in cars and sitting at desks and things like that. Like what you said about, you know, doing all of that driving as well. Like, you know, that probably, yeah, I mean, possibly also like contributed. Yeah, totally. mean, it's not out of the scope. yeah, so I don't think he was posterior, which I mean, like, you know, if you have back labor, people go, well, baby was probably posterior. But I also hear that if you have a posterior labor, goes for longer because baby's not putting the pressure on the cervix as effectively if it was anterior. That's what I hear. So I mean, this labor was progressing quite quickly. I that's why they were like, he's not posterior. Otherwise we'd be here for twice as long. So I think it was more just my body as opposed to him being in the wrong spot. And then so because of the back pain, they, I mean, in Healy's notes, apparently I asked, I'm not sure if I asked, maybe I did. but she offered water injections. okay. Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about this in like our ante needle sessions. And so I understood it. I'd heard about it in other birth stories I'd listened about. So it wasn't like this foreign concept. I knew that they are meant to feel like a big wasp sting. That's what they say. That's what they say. However. So I mean, during this labor, I am using my voice to like the loudest decibels I can, but being conscious of being low and just like, roaring. And so they got me out of the pool, they helped me out, popped me on the couch, which was horrible. I remember just was covered in like again then being trying to be good covered it in plastic and then put towels on top yeah and so when i got out onto this onto the onto the couch i hadn't been dried off so was sopping wet yeah on this couch and i'm like slipping around on these towels and i just been like this sucks this is revolting i'm wet I'm slipping and I'm in pain. Meanwhile, I'm like having contractions as I'm like standing up and getting to the couch. So they did four injections. think traditionally they do six. They did four for me. So Sarah and Haley both had the needles. They both did a side at the same time, I guess, so you're not stabbed more than you need to be. They put the needles in and they, my, my reaction was to scream at the very, at the loudest I could, guttural scream from the pain. It was, I was, I was at the absolute capacity of my pain threshold. There was, there was nothing. nothing else like it. mean the labor pain was a lot. Yeah. And I'd never felt pain like the labor pain in my back. Yeah. This was, I honestly felt like I was being murdered. I would say being killed. mean, or like, like, like for like, I don't want to put people off them. Just be prepared that it is. A wasp might be an understatement. A wasp was definitely an understatement. If the wasp was the size of a bus and it had a really big stinger, that's probably how it would feel. So at that point, if anyone was listening, they probably would have thought I was being murdered. And I was kind of shocked as well. Like I'm in Laborland, but I was kind of shocked by how loud. and intense this scream was and poor Haley and Sarah probably like. no. Yeah, anyway. I can't remember exactly how sterile water injections work, but I'll link something into the description if somebody's listening and is enticed by a bus -sized wasp. Look, for an unmedicated birth, like without any type of, you know, opioid or whatever, it is worth it. for me, it did work. So they had to do two sets. So they did the bottom two and then the top two. and then I didn't feel the top two go in because my pain threshold had already been like pushed to the very max and all it did was just prolong how long that stinging was for. and, you know, I hopped back in the pool and I did get relief from it. It was amazing for me to have that relief and it lasted for long enough. I think that if it had worn off and I was still in that same amount of pain and I was nowhere near birthing my baby, I don't know what I would have done. I was just very lucky that by the time they were starting to wear off, had, you know, he was starting to come. And they got me to do an inversion and being in a complete version, know, like ass up in the air, like head down on the ground and having full blown contractions nearing the end of the labor. was absolutely wild. was so wild. I would have loved to have recorded all of this because it would have been so entertaining to watch back. cringy, but anyway. So bold of midwives or birth workers to suggest that in the middle of labour, probably completely naked, your butt up. Yeah, fully exposed. like, thank God it was nighttime and there wasn't a lot of light. But I mean, at that point, you know, like I was just surrendering to everything that they suggested. I had full trust in them to have the best, you know, intentions for everything that they did for me. I really do believe that they were on my team and they're not one of those like medwives, they're really holistic and alternative and will do everything that they can to avoid having to use drugs or transferring or anything. apparently at 2 .45am I progressed to the second stage of labor, which I guess is the second stage where you're pushing? I don't know. When I go back through these notes, I was like, swear to God I was inactive labor the entire time. like it's technically speaking, it's hard to put like, like time constraints or, know, because yeah, it's, it's such an internal process for, you know, ourselves as individuals so far, somebody else to be observing it. Like they just go in by like noises and like, you know, if like especially like pushy, like when I was told that I was only pushing for 20 minutes, I was like, well, I don't know about that, but if that's what you reckon, go for it. like, yeah. So I'm not sure like technically what the, how people define the second stage, but yeah, definitely like that, that pushing phase. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, like, again, throughout this labor, I was really like pushy. I kept feeling. Like my body pushing him down. mean, I couldn't feel him like in my arm, I don't know, my vagina or anything at this point in time, but my body was like, I don't know. was like involuntarily, like I could feel that sensation, you know, that sensation you're about to vomit. It's like, it's, it's happening without you. So it's like, it wasn't technically the fetal ejection reflex because he wasn't coming out. I like from my understanding that is when they're just like push straight out where this was just like some other reflex that I used to know the name of it. But anyway, regardless. I remember they then asked me where I was feeling the pain again. And the pain now that I wasn't feeling the back labor pain, the pain was like, I was like, can feel it in my vagina. And I think now also, the inversion helped him get into that right position to then start going right down into that birth canal properly. in in, in retrospect, after he was born, we could actually see that in his in his in his skull. So doing that inversion was so crucial. you know, if this had played out in a hospital, would have had would I've had a midwife who would have suggested to do an inversion to try and get him in that right position. Yeah, totally. It's really hard to know. And so he so I could start feeling him in my vagina and it was Yeah, that ring of fire, which immediately after birth, I was like, it was the ring of torture. Yeah. Again, like the wasp and fire, they're not, they're words that aren't quite descriptive enough of the intensity of the feeling. And I, again, like I'm not trying to put anyone off with it. It's just, it's, it is a very intense experience. you know, feeling your body starting to open up for that, for the very first time with the first baby coming through. it was, felt it on the second time too. Okay. Well, yeah, obviously, it happens every time and it was, it was a lot and, you know, I felt every bit of it and. I don't think I was necessarily, I know some people are like, I feel relieved now. I know it's like being productive. I was just like, I am so done. I was like, I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to do it anymore. And I kept repeating it. Are you saying it out loud? Yeah. Yeah. I just repeated it so many times. Which I mean, it was happening. like regardless, I still had to keep going. When I was back in the pool, was just kneeling over and I was kind of draped over the side of the pool and they had this little mirror like watching and this is something that I've, because I recorded my birth story after the fact and I don't remember this, but apparently They they'd asked me, do you want to check yourself? Do you want to see if you can feel anything? And so I did. it didn't really feel like what I expected. was like my description at the time was like a like a watermelon pushing on my pelvic floor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and I guess I must have been pushing a bit more again, like involuntary. They weren't. They weren't like coaching me like or anything like that, but they were more they were like, or like make sure that you keep your like your voice low. And like I think they were also saying like you need to start like panting to help stretch with the stretch the perineum. Yeah. And then Sarah was like, I think we can see. head and they got Ben to have a look and yeah he's like yeah there was like a little bit of hair coming through couldn't really see much but there was you know just like a little bit of dark hair coming through yeah and they asked me do you want to feel do you want to feel your baby's like he's coming because obviously I sorry I've skipped like I've had a few contractions in this position and I'm coming and he's coming through and I was like No. And that surprised me. I thought I would, but I was just in so much intense pain, like feeling that burn. I just couldn't move. And the effort of moving myself so I could feel it wasn't something I was very interested in at the time. Anyway, I guess I must have had a few more contractions. And he's, and I guess he was kind of coming out and then coming back in again and then out and back in again with each one. Yeah. Just slowly stretching the perineum. And then, yeah, I think his head was starting to show and then his think there was this really big contraction, a really big push and his head came out. wow. Was that a relief? No. didn't feel any relief. Honestly, the head was not the biggest part of his body. his head was just sort of sitting there, he was just sleeping. I didn't I didn't look or anything. was really like focused hanging over. I was in the pool, like leaning over the side. was gripping Ben's hand with all of my strength to get him out. then, so head was out and Sarah said, with your next contraction, baby's probably going to come. and when he does, I'm going to catch him and I'm going to like, I'm going to send him to you, like push him through and you're going to catch him. so I guess she just prepared me for like, this is about to happen. and I think it may have been another two contractions and, and then he just, the rest of his body just popped out. It was very quick. so he, yeah. his shoulders and his body felt just as intense as birthing the head. was a meaty boy. Yeah, A meaty boy? He was meaty. And yeah, so she, yeah, you know, in a split second, he popped out, she reached under and pushed him through and I grabbed him and pulled him up to my chest. And I watched the video of this, so Hayley's videoing all this while Sarah's kind of doing all of the tending to me. And I grab him and I kind of like, I guess shuffle back to the other side of the pool so I'm leaning against the back of the pool and I've got him on my chest and it felt a bit tight. So Sarah's like, I think he's a little bit tangled. He didn't have. his cord around his neck or his body or anything, but it was a bit tangled around his legs. So once she untangled his legs, gave me a little bit less pressure. wasn't like pulling on my... Pulling and yeah, just the relief. Like I was like absolutely breathless. was still in a bit of pain even though he'd been born. think maybe because I did tear as well. And I guess just like the intensity of everything. And yeah, we were just, yeah, the video is just so beautiful. You know, I'm just like holding him and I'm like, and you know, within about 10 seconds, he just let out this like croaky little like cry. And Ben was like, I can't believe you just did that. And I'm just like, my God. Thank God that's over. That was so intense. And I was really just relieved, the relief that I was finally finished with that labor and the birth. And I was just like, we were just in awe of this little baby. And then, you know, he was just so healthy. He was moving around and like his eyes were kind of opening up a little bit, but not quite. Like he was still quite squinty for a few days. I think, yeah, Haley was like, do you want to check what you have? And we were like, yeah. And I tried to have a look and it was a little bit hard to see and they just if you can kind of look from the side. so I did and I was like, it's a boy. And yeah, we were just loving on him so much. And he was like a nice, beautiful. pink color and the two midwives were like, look at his size, like he's such a healthy boy. and just so stoked and we were obviously just so stoked too. And, this is where things start to get a little bit hairy. so, know, we, in this video, it was only five minutes and at the end of it, she's like, Hailey says, you know, there's a little bit of blood coming. Now that's just your placenta detaching. And yeah, basically the video stops. And so all of this is now recounting from my memory. She was like, placenta is probably ready to be born because the blood, I guess, kind of started to come out. a bit quicker than they were expecting. am completely were out of the pool? No. You're still in the pool? Okay. Still in the pool. Yeah. I'm still holding baby. I am starting to bleed a bit, which I guess she was saying was normal with like the detachment of the placenta. They were probably, you know, looking through the clinical lens, maybe just being a bit wary. They were like, all right, we think it's probably time to push the placenta out if you can. I remember trying to push it out and it took, it hurt and it took more pushing than I had expected because you know, listening to everyone else's birth story, that's like, you know, they cough and it just plops out or they stand up and plops out. That was not my experience. So this gigantic placenta is birthed. So like no wonder it hurt and also yeah, I mean The pool again is like slowly starting to fill up with a bit more blood. Yeah and They they grab the placenta in the spew bowl that I'd previously been using they I guess they rinse that out yeah place the placenta inside and It's funny the placenta actually started sinking the bowl wow, was just like the standard lightweight stainless steel mixing bowl. It was like sinking the bowl. I think Haley kind of managed to rescue it. We tied the cord, it had already pulsated and it had gone white. In the meantime, I think like when he was born, before the placenta was born, I was always really interested in the umbilical cord. So I got to feel the umbilical cord and look at that spiral and it's full of water and jelly. Everything is so perfect and you've grown the most amazing placenta and baby and everything. So I was feeling quite good about that. So we started having a look. So baby's cord was tied. cord was tied. We started having a look at the placenta. Haley was showing us that like the membranes were still intact and it was almost like this perfect tear of where he had like come through. had a look at that and she was like, it's got three big vessels. It's really vigorous. There's absolutely no sign of calcification. And yeah, and then we looked at the underside, which is the bit that's like against the uterus. that was quite gory. Like my husband, Ben is not quite not very good with with blood at the best of times. And I was a bit like, that's like, that's a bit gross. So I've actually got photos that were taken by Sarah of Haley showing us that and my face is just like. But anyway, like I definitely appreciate this placenta. And it was it was really cool to look at the other side of it that wasn't like the gory meaty bit. in this time frame, I guess, well, while these photos were taken, you could also see that the pool was starting to get darker and darker, darker and darker red color. Yeah. getting more blood. So after they'd done that and had a look at the placenta, they were like, okay, we think it's time to hop out of the pool. And again, like they were just so calm about everything. They wasn't like, there's a lot of blood in the pool. We need to get you out. crisis. was, it was, I had absolutely no idea. Complete bliss. So I am like, I got, stood up. And I immediately felt extremely dizzy. And I was like, someone needs to take Archie. I can't hold him. And, and I guess Sarah grabbed him. Yep. And I fainted. Wow. And, I've asked Ben what his reenactment of, so I guess Haley kind of caught me, Ben was a little bit to the side and I'd just fallen back in the pool. I think because I was close to the edge, I was able to kind of like lean back against the pool and they obviously helped support me. So my recollection of fainting was like I went into this crazy, really intense, vigorous dream and it felt like nothing else. It was really, really vivid and lucid. And I woke up and came to and I was just like, what just happened? Whoa. And just had this ringing in my ears that was so loud. And I just felt, you know, like the world had just been like shaking and spinning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Ben's recount of that was that, you know, I fell back into the pool. Hailey helped me and I was out. My eyes were shut and then I opened my eyes and then closed them again and then snored three times really loudly and then woke up again. And then I was like back with them. Yeah. So you say that it was like a like a dream. Like do you remember what was in the dream or it just felt like? I think the dream was like people were around me in this dream, but I can't remember who it was. The dream was more like a feeling. That gives me like chill Sam. I know. my gosh. It's funny I'm just behind a veil or something. don't know. We're watching the OA at the moment and I was like, did I die and come back? my gosh. Yeah. So I, yeah, I had a significant faint and yeah, apparently like I wasn't responding when I opened my eyes. that was that first time. And then I closed them again and snored and then like I came to after that. so yeah, luckily I, you know, had handed. Archie, I guess I'd had that foresight to be like, this is about to happen. And Archie was okay. He didn't, you know, get pulled into the water and aspirate or anything. And so they obviously, when I had come back to enough, they were like, we'd like to get you out of the pool and onto the couch. We'll help you. So they, actually, sorry, they all, they had to lift me out of the pool. And I was conscious at this point, but I had no strength in my body. was completely weak. They had to kind of, know, stand me up and then get my legs over the edge of the pools. apparently it was quite hard because you know, I'm like limp and limp body is a lot harder to move. so I'm, I'm put down on the couch and, I think I still had ringing in my ears this time, like throughout this and they put Archie back on me and they wanted to get Archie to do the breast crawl to try and I guess do that fundal massage to see if that will help, you know, stimulate my uterus to contract down. And I think he yeah, you know, he took a little while because he just just trying to figure it out for the first time. And then they were like, Okay, we really would like to have a look. You know, and see if you know, you've got a big tear. And maybe that's the reason why you're bleeding so much. But again, they didn't use that language. They like, we just want to have a look to see if there's a tear, might explain why there's some blood. Scaring you is counterproductive to this whole thing as well, right? Yeah. Haley started stitching. They were like, we're going to put local anesthetic in. It's going to be a bit of a sting. And I was like, that's nothing. a little sting from local anesthetic is nothing compared to what I've been through. it's negligible. they, it felt like she was stitching me for forever. just seemed to be take a really long time, but I know that Haley is super skilled in that. She's, she's been doing it for 15 years and you know, probably put together a lot of people's vaginas in that time. And so they, guess they kept on watching me from clinical eyes. I think Sarah prepared me some no bleed tincture as well in this time period and mixed it with like juice and it was horrible. So I drank that and at some point they've taken my blood pressure and it was quite low. It really was quite low. Let me just see what they wrote. So the blood pressure was 78 over 50. Holy Gamole. It's like the best of the best blood pressure is 120 on 80. Yeah, that's very low. Holy moly. Yeah, so they were like, all right, let's get some IV fluids into you. And so they start putting in, is it a cannula? Yeah. I put a cannula in my hand and honestly the most stressful bit about the whole night was trying to find the best place to hang up the ivy fluids. okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good point. So we're trying to find the right place to put it and I have a lot of plants and Ben is very tall so they got him to like... hang it over where a little hook was for a plant in ceiling. And you know, she took other obs and my heart rate was quite weak and I was clammy to the touch. So obviously I was not in very good shape. And I think they took my blood pressure and then got my heart rate back up. Sorry, my blood pressure back up and heart rate, I guess more stable. And in the meantime, they were stitching me. don't think they kind of just left me with, you know, -painting and stuff. But yeah, yeah, yeah. So they ended up got my perineum stitched. Apparently it was a second degree tear. So not too bad. She said it. And then I had a graze as well. And I think it was the graze that ended up giving me a bit more grief over like the next week than the actual tear. In the meantime, they were doing, you know, the fundal massage and had quite a lot of after birth pains and they were a little bit confused by that. It's like, why am I getting after birth pains and like still contracting when, you know, I've birthed my baby, I've birthed my placenta. There's not, there shouldn't be anything left for, you know, to stop, well, to stop the uterus from contracting. So they ended up giving me some centosin to minimize the bleeding, think because the stitching of the tear didn't stop the bleeding as they had expected. they're now thinking, what is it that's causing this bleeding? Apparently the fundus was still quite elevated, so they're trying to massage it down. They put, I think when I was being stitched, Archie was over on Ben skin to skin and he was on like the other side of the room. So he couldn't really see what was really happening. Like I was facing a different direction and he could kind of see them. And I think they may have put me back, put Archie back on me to try to get him breastfeeding again. And then they asked me if I'd to the, like if I'd weighed in the birth pool. And I didn't know if I had or not. And I know that I weighed whenever I was sitting on the toilet during that early part of the labor. And I thought I'd weighed in the birth pool, but I couldn't be sure. So they're like, okay, can we, can we get you up and walk you over to the toilet? see if you can empty your bladder. There's something that's stopping a placenta, sorry, your uterus from contracting properly. So I sit up, well actually, yeah, think I sit up, maybe stand up and I felt really dizzy. So we sat back down again. I know that I fainted twice and then I felt dizzy like I almost fainted a third time. And it was every time I needed to stand up to go somewhere. So the first time was, you know, standing up, getting out of the birth pool, I fainted. The second time was either them asking me if I wanted to move to the bedroom and then I fainted again. Okay. And again, had those really intense ringing and lucid dreams and came to and being like, what were the hell am I doing? And then the third time was like almost a faint, but we caught it. and it was, yeah, it could have been when I needed to, get up to try and empty my bladder. So they offered to put in a catheter to empty my bladder. And I agreed. And so they put that in, I remember that was a horrible feeling. Just like a scratchy type feeling when everything is so sore and sensitive. But apparently there was 150 mils in there, so it was worthwhile doing. And they were like, we'll keep this in here for 24 hours and we'll take it out when we see you in a day or so. And they... At this point, my bleeding had stopped and it was really just about that resting and recovering stage, but I'd just been stationed on our couch and we'd said goodbye of lying in bed and having a shower post -birth and getting all nice and clean and leaning into that. was really just like a survival mode for me, just staying on the couch with my baby. Yeah. And they stayed and tidied up and monitored me for, you know, the required four hours. Yeah. They cleaned up the birth pool and they just kept an eye on me and they were like, we're way baby when we see you on Monday. Sure. no. What was it? he was born to 11 on Sunday morning. I'd gone into labor at 5pm on Saturday evening. It was seven hour labor. then so I think they because it was Sunday morning, they were like, we'll see you on Monday at some point in time when we arrange it. And I was like, no, I want to I want to know how much he weighs. Like, let's get the birth rate. And so they weighed him and he was 3 .97 kilos and he'd already done a big poo in the pool and on like the towels when he was on me. So I was like, you know, he's up, he would have been four kilos. Can we just call him four? Like three grams off the four kilo mark, which would have been like... you know, three grams of poo easily. So if anyone asks me now, like, he was a four kilo baby. And yeah, I mean, so he was that lovely big size and it was, it wasn't until they were kind of, you know, packing up, Haley was writing her notes that I was like, so was that a hemorrhage? And they're like, yeah, that was a hemorrhage. I was like, I didn't even know. Yeah. Because they were just so professional, so matter of fact, like just making their clinical observation of like, this is what we need to do. Yeah. Following the steps. Yeah. Like, I mean, they'd taken some bloods from me and put it in the fridge in case I need to transfer like later on in the day, maybe when they weren't with me anymore. But just the way they handled it was just so, so calm. So, I don't know, just, yeah, like it wasn't anything to panic about. Probably they were like, you know, shit's getting real. need to be watching her closely. But for Ben and I and Archie's experience of that immediate postpartum, we were not panicked. We were not stressed. I mean, Ben was obviously. a little bit alarmed when I kept fainting, but he, you know, he trusted them. He trusted that we'd chosen the right birth team. And I still felt, yeah, completely trusting of everything that they did. Yeah. Yeah. Completely safe with their judgment call on everything. And so they left at about 6am at sunrise and I'm just Yeah, just lying next to my newborn baby who's making these little piggy noises. like completely in love and in awe with this baby. Yeah. And I just, yeah, it was just so, yeah, so happy with, you know, being at home. Yeah. I didn't feel unsafe at any point in time. Yeah. And so. Ben ended up pulling a blanket and sleeping on the floor next to us with a pillow. He probably got about an hour of sleep and I didn't sleep at all. He went out and grabbed some McDonald's pancakes. was just there with my baby for the first time on my own. He didn't take that long, it was a wild thing to be like, here we are. And I know that he did help me get up to have a shower and I didn't need to wait, obviously, because I had a catheter in. But I did want to have a shower and I was very, very weak. I felt super dizzy and I had this ringing in my ears every time. And it was, it was a little bit sketchy, but I'd had an iron infusion maybe at like 36 weeks or something. So Haley and Sarah were like, confident that my would start making enough blood. to replace what I lost, think it was like my ferritin. I had lots of ferritin. So it was really just a matter of my body, like kicking into gear and being like, need to make a lot more blood to replace what we lost. And so it took about five days for me to really feel well enough and not weak enough to kind of, you know, get up and. do, you know, if I wanted to go and get a glass of water, like I felt like I could type thing, and like just move my body. By about a week postpartum, I did feel pretty good. My breastfeeding of Archie was quite difficult in that first week just pushing past that nipple damage. He had an extremely strong sucking reflex. It was insane. And so he was just, you know, so he was always so hungry, just wanting boob. So, you know, I would just, you know, try and feed him and it would just become more and more damaged. And a friend of mine had lent me her silver rats, her silver nipple cups, which was an absolute lifesaver. I tried the nipple creams and they just didn't even touch the sides. I once I started getting my milk to come in after the second day with the silvarette holding the milk against my nipples, I really did start to get some healing. And he was taking to the boob really well. He didn't lose weight. or he lost like 10 grams at that first like way like it was really nothing. However, there were there are a couple of things that popped up he ended up having a posterior tongue tie, which we didn't get fixed until 10 weeks postpartum and until he was 10 weeks old. The main problem with that was he was just started to projectile vomit. And he yeah. He was still gaining weight. It was just not as much as we hoped. And he was kind of just getting fatigued. And we'd done a lot of work with the orthopedic chiropractor to try and release tension for him. she did do a really good job in aligning him and getting him nice and well adjusted. But yeah, she was like, I think you probably need to get that release. wanted to get a second opinion just to make sure that I wasn't jumping the gun. went and saw an IBCLC. And she also made the recommendation that that's probably the natural step because he just cannot get his tongue up high enough with the posterior tie, limiting him being able to get it there. And he had a really high arched palate also because of that. But yeah, so we got that resolved. that helped with that situation. But coming back to my healing, it was about two weeks. I'd started to feel much better. Like we'd gone out for the first time, know, taking him out to the beach, just had a little walk, nothing major, but just to get ourselves out of the house. And two weeks later, almost to like, the day and to the time as well. at about 7pm, I went to the toilet and I stood up and I was like, there's bright red blood. This is interesting. And then I noticed that it kept coming and running down my leg. we remember, we remembered like Haley had mentioned that if I, if I'd noticed that blood was running down my legs and that I needed to lie down immediately, start doing a fundal massage and call triple zero because that's the secondary postpartum hemorrhage. So that's what we did. I remember just being like, Penn, think I'm bleeding. Can you come over? I got on our bed, he started doing a massage and we got a towel and I called instead of calling triple zero, cause I was like, I don't know if this warrants calling triple zero. I called Haley. Anyway, she didn't pick up. So I called again and one of her other second midwives answered the phone and she was like, Hey, Haley's just at a birth at the moment. like what's happening. I'm like, Hey, I I'm bleeding like bright red blood. I think I'm having another hemorrhage. She's like, like put on a pad, see how you go. Like if it's still coming and you're filling up, you know, three pads in an hour, whatever it is, the recommendation then call triple zero. Yeah. Anyway. So she's like, can you stand up and tell me how much blood? you know, or maybe like, I can't remember, but I had to stand up and because I was lying down when I stood up, all of that blood that had collected in my vagina just gushed out. And I was like, my God, there's so much blood. And yeah, so Noreen on the phone, she was like, okay, call an ambulance. get Ben to continue doing the massage, get baby onto your breasts, get him feeding, get that oxytocin flowing. We need to try and, you know, stimulate the uterus to contract back down again. So we did in the background, there's this poor woman laboring because she's at a birth with Haley. she was at the birth with Haley. She was, yeah, she was with a birth with somebody who was, you know, having her full on contractions in the back. my gosh. Wow. That's so funny. Anyway, we called triple zero, Ambos came. A bit judgmental when I mentioned that we'd had a home birth. But it was like two weeks ago. I That's like old news by this point. They would have no freaking idea. I know. And it's so stupid because they are... they're in the area where Belmont would be servicing. So they would probably come to other home births, know, for transfers that, you know, Belmont midwives are still having to follow protocols that are put in by the hospitals. So it could be like, labor's taking too long, we've got to transfer. they don't necessarily show up to like these horrible situations where like women and babies are dying. Like they would surely see a whole range of things and probably most of the time. completely fine. It's just a hospital policy. And this kind of thing could happen in a hospital as well. Like what I was thinking, yeah. Imagine all of those women out there that, you know, don't have access to maternity leave and have to return to work. Like you hear crazy stories, especially out of like places like America and whatever where women are going back to work. Yeah, like four weeks later. two weeks on like some pages. Imagine if this happened. Yeah, Molly. And apparently it can happen until, you know, you're the part of your uterus fully heals like it could just spontaneously open back up again. So it's like six weeks maybe is like the period that it could. you could you are susceptible for another hemorrhage. it doesn't and just because I'd had a previous hemorrhage doesn't mean that this is why I had the second one. I mean, it is but we didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. had no idea why the first one happened or the second one happened. All we know is that it took a long time for my uterus to contract fully. second time around. I mean, Haley had been monitoring me over the last two weeks since birth for, I guess, like signs of infection. So, you know, she'd palpate my stomach and be like, do you feel like pain? Are you feeling like feverish? And the ambulance, the paramedics did the same thing. They pushed down on my lower abdomen where my uterus would be, expecting me to be in agonizing pain. So they were confused. Haley was confused. They were like, you know, if there was retained placenta at the two week mark, you should be infected with like some necrotic tissue that's still in there. there was a lot of like, we're not sure what this is. The paramedics transferred me up to John Hunter Hospital. Which is like, Archie. poor Ben had to pull Archie in the car by himself. Archie had been taken off my boob because the paramedics didn't want him to be feeding while they were looking after me. They'd given me a shot of Sintosan and by that point my bleeding had curbed. Ben had done an amazing job doing this fundal massage. So poor Archie had been pulled off the boob when he was having a lovely comforting feed. And that really upset him. And they were like, we're going to get you up and we're going to, it's too hard to get the stretcher down into your house. So can you walk to the ambulance? I don't know what they would do. Legitimately needed to be on a stretcher. don't know what would have happened anyway. So I have to get, you know, I get dressed and yeah, walk myself up to the ambulance that's up on the street. And yeah, Ben is, you know, holding this two week old baby first time he's ever been left with him. And he puts him in, he has to, you know, pack a bag expecting me to be up in, you know, the hospital for at least the night. my neighbor across the street saw this happen. This was like, By the time I left, would have been about 9 o 'clock, maybe 8 .30. By the time I went into the ambulance, my neighbor was about to leave. So she kind of saw what was happening and came over to help Ben with Archie and ended up being spewed on by Archie and then whole thing. And then Ben, so I got to the hospital and my bleeding had stopped. They'd given the sin toast and worked both times. But in saying that, the bleeding had stopped by the fundal massage. I think it was a precaution. And so we waited in this room in, like, I think it was just the standard unit that they put women in. In just this private room, they wanted me to monitor how much I bled since the hemorrhage had started. And I was like, honestly, there's nothing coming. And so I wasn't really on their radar at this point. And we sat in this room on this bed for about two hours. It was like 11 o 'clock and they're like, sorry. We can do blood tests and send you, we'll give you a referral for an ultrasound. There's no one there to do an ultrasound for you right now to see like if there's anything in your uterus that's causing this. Hemorrhage. And so like, why are we here? So we just left. I got my referral. In the meantime, I forgot to mention this, but so between, between giving birth and this secondary postpartum hemorrhage, I was passing very large blood clots. Like golf ball size, which then also increased to one that fit inside the palm of my hand. Like I've got a photo of it because I was like, this needs to be documented. And I remember I was sitting on the toilet and I could kind of feel like I was something was coming out of me like something was coming through my vagina. And I already had my hand I already had toilet paper in my hand. So when I went to wipe this, this big clot just like came out of me and I caught it because I was already kind of there ready to go. And I caught it and yeah, took a photo of it, sent it to Haley. She was like, like, this isn't great, but just keep watching it. It's probably just because you had such a large placenta and you know, the big wound that is left, it's just blood's collecting, it's clotting and you're passing it. And... I think I also another time I actually blocked the toilet with a big clot too. Yeah. So anyway, lots of blood at this point. Very, I'm very, yeah. Used to it. must be very used to it as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to say I'm like showed him. was like, look at this. This came out of my body. And so. I was just really uncomfortable after we'd left the hospital. just, was bleeding so much and just kept passing these big clots. I went to go and get this ultrasound. In the meantime, my mum had actually, she'd come up. She was coming up the next day after we'd gone to hospital and that was pre -arranged. That wasn't like, hey, we need you to come. Like she had to drive all the way from Victoria. and she arrived the next morning and I was like, hey, so this happened last night. So she helped me look after Archie for a bit and she helped me just, she took Archie while I went and got this ultrasound. I had to wait two days to find a place that could fit me in to get this ultrasound. I don't understand why the John Hunter wasn't like, come back first thing in the morning and you'll be first person to get this because you presented last night and. You have a tiny baby and... Yeah, it's the inconvenience. Yeah, what the heck? And, you know, if they'd been able to do the ultrasound there, I would have been already there. And things would have just been a lot quicker. But anyway, they made me go get one at a private ultrasound place. And I'd forgotten to drink two litres of water. I just just completely surpassed my mind because I hadn't had to do it at my 20 week scan. because baby was already big enough and they, and I, yeah, and I sleep deprived. And so I like scald two liters of water while I'm waiting. And they're like, there's no point after the fact, they're like, there was no point in drinking all that water because it's not going to be in your, in your bladder. So I'm sitting super uncomfortable knowing that I'm like bleeding and I get this ultrasound and they can't see anything from the outside. So they were like, we need to do an internal. And it was this young, young guy who would have been like maybe late twenties. I was like, I just don't, I don't feel comfortable you doing an internal. Can you please see if there's a female sonographer who can do it for me? so I So they're like, okay, we'll see what we can do. In the meantime, they were like, I was like, can I go to the toilet? Like I can feel that I'm bleeding. I feel like there's clots coming out. I need to go. So I went to the toilet and in the meantime, and I'm just like passing these golf sized blood clots. And I come back out and this lovely older sonographer, female was like, hey, I can do it for you. So she did and she did all of that. And I just remember like when they pulled it out, it was just absolutely covered in like bloody tissue and it was just so gross. And I was just so embarrassed because I was like dripping blood on the floor as I was walking from the toilet to the bed because I'd had to take my undies off and all the things. And then they'd... they'd booked me in for another iron infusion at the John Hunter in that clinic. so when I presented there on Wednesday, so I'd had the secondary postpartum hemorrhage on a Sunday and got the ultrasound on Tuesday. And I'd been booked in for the infusion of iron and they were also going to have the doctors look over my arm. ultrasound results while I was while I was there. So I'm there. Luckily, my mom was with me. She was able to help with Archie while I was getting this in infusion. And this, I remember a like a trainee doctor came and she's like, we've had a look at your, the ultrasound scan and it's looking like there's retained products and your I would say it's very likely that you're going to have to stay the night. We'll admit you, but I can't make that call. I have to give this, you know, to the head doctor to have a look at. So I'm already like, my God. actually, the reason why my mum had come up to help was because Ben had to go back to work. This was two weeks postpartum. He'd done his two weeks. And he'd gone down to Sydney. This was his first day back in Sydney because we both, we're stupid, we both work in Sydney but we live in Newcastle. you know, he just pretty much got settled, started his first day trying to get his head wrapped around what had been happening the last two weeks and I call him and this was probably about 1, maybe 1pm, maybe a little bit earlier and I'm like, I think they're going to admit me. heads up probably need to start packing up and heading home and he catches the train so it's a three hour journey for him. so yeah the head doctor comes in and talks to me and she's like it is definitely looking like we're going to admit you, we're going to have surgery tomorrow. can't guarantee when it's going to be. They're going to probably do all of the caesareans in the morning and then all of the, I guess, more like immediate things and then emergency then planned and then you kind of come last in the chain of importance. Which like that's totally fine. But I was expecting to, you know, know, be nil by mouth for over 24 hours. And so I didn't go home. I think we stayed in hospital and they moved me down to the postpartum ward and Ben was on his way home. He gathered all of the things for my hospital visit. He was well trained in that because in the span that we've been together, I've been to hospital like seven times or something. So he knows what to pack. accident prone and illness prone. And so he came and I think my stressor was like, I'm breastfeeding. What am I going to do with these drugs that they give me while I'm under general anaesthetic? I'm going to need antibiotics. You know, how do we feed him while I'm in surgery? I might have recovery for a long period. I don't know. So then we had to organize getting like bottles for him. We'd never used a bottle with him. And I'd luckily had a bit of expressed milk like, you know, from my let down that I started stashing in the freezer. So Ben has some milk that he could bring and I think I'd started maybe pumping while I was in waiting. And I just remember like I'd been wheeled, was sitting in this room with four other, well, three other women. It was a four bed room. And I was with other women who were in their immediate postpartum. And one of them was getting, you know, she must've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. And they kept on like pricking babies foot all through the night and disturbing them in their sleep to like keep checking blood sugars, which kept me awake. And then there was another woman who, you know, she just had a caesarean and then another woman next to me who must have been like a refugee and yeah, listening to her story, she'd apparently had seizures while she was in labor. And so they were trying to figure out why she had seizures. And yeah, then there was me with this two week old baby in a very different position. And it just made me really reflect on that immediate postpartum that I had. Like despite the fact that I felt like absolute trash and you know, I wasn't able to get cozy in my bed with a cup of tea and like, you know, be clean with a shower. Like I was still at home. I still had that first immediate bit with people who I knew. I felt safe. I wasn't being woken up by nurses coming in and doing OBS and not only on me, but on people in the room and you know the noises of the hospital and just like you know public hospitals aren't that clean. I know the nurses and midwives do the best they can but you know the floors are not clean and just feeling like you're in a shared space just yeah so it just it really put all of that into perspective and I'm just so eternally grateful that Haley and Sarah didn't make the call to transfer me. they felt confident in themselves, in their skills and abilities to be like, know what, she's going to be fine. We've done everything that the hospital would have done. What is the point in transferring to ruin this experience for them? yeah, like I definitely come away from this in that like, no, I shouldn't have been transferred. And I know that that's the first thing that certain people thought, i .e. family, mostly the mothers. Yeah. Yeah. Mother and Laura and mother. Yeah. But, you know, that wasn't, it wasn't necessary. And like, yeah, we'd, we'd planned for everything we'd had. We employed somebody who was so capable. There was no need to transfer to be like, to establish like that two weeks of breastfeeding and although like having to think about bottles and pumping and stuff like that still like, like, In that newborn stage, like every, every day is different, you know, and every day you're more confident or every day, like, changing sort of have two weeks of like that, or even though two weeks is such early days is better than having, yeah, like being taken in day one and then like, if they still would have suggested to do the surgery. And the like a one day old two day old baby would have been that like that would have been so much worse. So much worse. And it would have I think that it would have probably impacted on my breastfeeding journey significantly. Yeah. Like, you know, it's for like, like your sake, but also Archie, like how he's like what his introduction to totally, you know, well, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And, know, I mean, at the very first couple of days, every breastfeed is so important for both of us. I think that, yeah, like given his tongue tie situation, probably would have cut it short. And also like him being exposed to all of those drugs coming through the breast milk at one or two days old, like at two weeks, obviously it's not ideal, but. He'd had enough time to establish a bit of flora in his guts and like, you know, actually have enough milk stashed away that he could be, you know, given some milk that didn't have antibiotics in it or blasting the flora in it. So we were very, very fortunate that, you know, I didn't get infected or that, yeah, I didn't get transferred early. earlier than I did. So what ended up happening with the report that... So sorry, I managed to get the surgery done first thing in the morning despite being told I'd be waiting all day. They were like, hey, we're ready for you. And I had a really beautiful midwives in a postpartum ward. Like they were absolutely beyond beautiful. to me and they weren't judgmental of me having a home birth or anything like that. was always fine. So we went off. I ended up actually being quite scared of going in for surgery. And yeah, the midwife and Ben and Archie walked down with me and it wasn't really until they were kind of like about to wheel me into the like surgery suite that I was, you know, started panicking and started to like cry and they're like, like, you're gonna be okay. and yeah, like. I'd had surgery a couple of times prior to that, fortunately, so I kind of knew what to expect. But I think it just, you know, at the height of all of your emotions being in postpartum. And also, like, you know, if I don't wake up, who's going to look after my baby? And I'm also handing my baby off to, like, my husband. And he's kind of... gonna have to deal with him on his own for however many hours. And apparently the, was in recovery for quite a long time because I had a significant amount of blood loss during the surgery too. So my poor body lost a lot of There wasn't, I mean, it wasn't like crazy hemorrhage or anything, but they were just like, there's, there's a lot that we have to, So what ended up happening in the report? None of the surgeons came and spoke to me after I had my surgery, which is ridiculous. So I was really just referring off, you know, like the, I guess like the biology report or whatever the name is, histopathology report of what they found. So the description of what was found was several large seven centimeter long pieces of, vascular mass, which in, I guess, you know, everyday language, that would have been parts of placenta that still had blood supply. so I mean, we talked to Haley about this and I can't remember the exact name for it, but it's probably most likely that I had another little lobe of placenta growing somewhere in my uterus which had kept alive. It obviously detached from the main placenta at some point and I don't know what was holding it to the other bit or if it was just completely separate. But it still had blood supply. I think when they did the DNC they weren't expecting it to still have blood supply and because of that they probably had to like you burn off all of the the vascular tissue that I guess was bleeding. And they just weren't expecting expecting that to be there. And that and that so that explains why I didn't get infected. I didn't have any fevers or pain or anything to show like the typical signs of retained placenta. And I think that that's really interesting about my my story is that just because your placenta looks perfect and it was checked and there was still something there. I mean, yeah. So I guess, you know, it was mind boggling for Haley and Sarah as well. And they were like, we checked the placenta, like we looked for it. We looked for anything like there wasn't any membranes like everything was intact. So this also brings back to me finding out early on with that termination when they put in the marina during that surgery. obstetrician or whoever it was that did it, maybe the doctor, she was like, I found it really hard to put in the marina because you've got a bicornia at uterus. So I was like, What is this thing? What does this mean for me? So my theory is maybe it's a mild bicornurate. So it looks like a heart. It's got the septum in the middle. My unmedical theory is that maybe this little lobe found a little spot up in that top part of my uterus. And yeah, it just grew there. Yeah. So I guess I kind of went back to that, like the Lockyer after the surgery, but it, just, you know, it went back to that normal light blood, how it was meant to be, which is what I had in that first, in that first week and a bit. And then, and then I started getting clots after. yeah, super crazy journey. moly. many things. So many things. Obviously you reflected, you being in that shared postpartum ward room, whatever, you were able to compare, contrast your postpartum experience. I guess I feel like I know what your answer is, but would you choose home birth again? Absolutely. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind. It always was going to be a home birth and it always will be for me unless there's some serious reason why I can't. I definitely was not put off. I am such an advocate for it. Every person that's pregnant, I really just want to be like, have a home bath. Yeah. It's the, I guess the thing for me was, you know, like I'm very grateful I had my midwives with me during that, with that birth. Yeah. I know that women do free birth. And I at the time during pregnancy, wasn't something I was ever going to do. in my postpartum, I'm definitely learning a lot more about free birth. There are more women up here in this community who I know personally that have had successful free births. And I guess it's kind of reduced that anxiety for me. However, I definitely would want somebody who knows birth around me. This whole thing with the indemnity insurance and the risks and things like that, I probably would fall into being too high risk for a private midwife now. Yeah. Especially if they're going, well, I wouldn't be, I know that I would have been accepted, but if they change it to being all private midwives have to take the lowest risk women. Yeah. Even like part of the blurriness of this whole thing is like the category. Look, I don't know if you'd fall into category B or category C, but category C is like no, but category B is like, with like, yeah, second opinion. like, you would be really relying, like if you, think, the blurriness at the moment is if you said, no, I don't actually want that second opinion. I. trust that this is, you know, I like, want this. and we can deal with whatever comes up. Like would that private midwife still be able to support you even if you say, no, I don't want a second opinion. Or if, you know, that midwife, because the blurriness is also like who, who is allowed to provide this second opinion. it another midwife? And like, if this other midwife says no, how does that affect what you want. it's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Once you hear these stories and understand, you can totally understand why women choose and sometimes feel like they have no other choice. So it's not even a choice to free birth because like, so limiting. But yes, that's exactly like what I'm I'm feeling is that I'm probably not going to have the luxury of choice. Second time around, I'm not going to have the luxury of choice to, to have a private midwife look after me. which is just devastating. because that's what I want and I should be allowed to have that. It's, it's up to me if I want to take that risk. Like it's my body and my baby. and I mean, I've, I've already gone through quite a significant. postpartum hemorrhage and I survived it and I'm not scared by it. So if that was the risk factor, it didn't take that much for me to stop bleeding. It literally took a shot of his sinthosin and I was fine. And so why should it be treated as this insane scary thing when, yeah, anyway. I so I'm definitely I've had to you know, open up my eyes to free birth more. My first preference would be obviously to have a midwife again. But if I was yet needed to have to free birth I would want a a birthkeeper or somebody who knew birth who could just provide that support and just be like, know what, I'm happy for them to be, for them to tell me in their opinion, maybe it is time that we transfer. a second pair, you know, a third pair of eyes. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, to provide a bit more clarity. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not against hospitals, but. Yeah. let's save them for true emergencies and illnesses, not pregnancies and birth. Yep. Because they're totally normal. you end up, you know, having another birth at home, you know where to find me. 100%. I can't, I can't wait to share the next story already. Thank you so, much for like all of your insights, like such a unique story. And yeah, like really like because yeah, so many people say, but like, what if this, what if that? Well, the actual birth went fine. like that's the part, you know? And baby was so healthy. I love like proving to naysayers that, you know, or just you babe, like you're not going to be able to cope with the pain at home without, you know, drugs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, what a dangerous thing to be doing at a home. What if something happens? I am so, I'm so glad that I'm like, you know what, I did it and it was amazing. And we are so healthy and yeah, like, yeah, the proof is in the pudding. Well, thank you so much for your big, big stories. I'm so sorry. It was so long. There was so much to it. That's all right.