Finding and choosing homebirth as a first time mum & breastfeeding challenges (severe tongue tie) || Meg's birth of Dylan at home (New South Wales)

This is episode 65 and it’s shared by Meg in NSW who shares her experience being a first time mum who chose to have a homebirth. 

She shares her journey to finding homebirth, her pregnancy journey, the birth of her baby girl Dylan & then her post partum experience including post partum hameomorrahe and breastfeeding difficulties influenced by a severe tongue tie. 

A fantastic episode for anyone planning a homebirth for the first time!

Resources: 

• Birth Time: The Documentary 
• The impact on midwives and their practice after caring for women who have a traumatic childbirth: A systematic review
• Trauma and fear in Australian midwives
• The Dinner Ladies (post partum food)
• Birth Circle (Abby & Sheryl Siddery)
• The Birth Sling
• Tongue Tie 

Chapters

• 3:03 Meg's Background and Family Life
• 5:59 Discovering Home Birth
• 9:11 Addressing Fears and Concerns about Home Birth
• 17:59 Choosing the Right Midwife
• 21:02 Pregnancy Journey and Experiences
• 35:08 Preparing for Labor: The Final Days
• 1:12:00 The birth of Dilly
• 1:22:00 Postpartum Challenges: Navigating Feeding Difficulties

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to Birthing at Home, a podcast. I'm Elsie, host. I'm a home birth mom of two little boys, a doula in Melbourne supporting birth at home. I'm a mental health nurse and the co-creator of Home Birth Victoria. If you want to learn more about me, the podcast, or my work, check out www.birthingathome.com.au. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people who are the traditional custodians of the land I'm recording on in Ngaam, Melbourne, Australia. I would also like to acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been birthing at home on country for tens of thousands of years prior to the British invasion and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. This is episode 65 and it's shared by Meg in New South Wales who shares her experience being a first time mum who chose to have a home birth. She shares her journey to finding home birth, her pregnancy journey, the birth of her baby girl Dylan, and then a postpartum experience, includes a postpartum hemorrhage and breastfeeding difficulties influenced by a severe tongue tie. It's a fantastic episode for anyone planning a home birth for the very first time. Enjoy. Welcome Meg to birthing at home a potast. Nice to be here. It's very lovely to actually finally be chatting in person. Yes, indeed. Thank you so much for joining me. Are you able to give a bit of background to who you are, where you're located, who's in your family, what you did before, you know, you're a mom to a nine month old, that kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. My name is Meg. I am married to Josh and we're in southwest Sydney, southish Sydney at the moment. We have Dylan, who is our little nine month old and you'll get to lots of her story of coming into the world through this. She's the best. She's so much fun. She's our first and we have been married for now, I think three and a half years, which is pretty fun. We met during COVID, so that was a fun time, fun kind of getting to know each other through that time of life. But we have both been working for churches over the last few years. I am the kids minister at a church in Surry Hills, so in central Sydney. We'll probably end up moving back that way at some point. But that's lots of fun, beautiful chaos, I like to call it. know, 70 to 80 kids at any one time trying to coordinate that with lots of lovely volunteers is pretty fun. But I'm primary teacher trained. So my background is in primary teaching. I got to do that for a number of years, especially specialist primary music teaching, which was a real... Love is lots of music stuff. Lots of fun. I've actually just gone back to work in the last few weeks, just two and a half days. My boss is a legend and is happy for me to do that pretty flexibly and sometimes with Dylan in tow. So wow, it's been great. Yeah, she's oh my good. that's so special. I, as you were saying, I'm primary school teacher trained. I was thinking, I feel like there's a lot of teachers that have home- Yep. Bye. should go back and like look at all the episodes because there's been so many teachers actually now that I think of it. Yeah. Yes, help us out. So how did you learn about home birth, I guess to begin, like, did you know about home birth like as you know, a young woman? What was that like? So I am how old am I? 31. It was probably not until I was in my mid 20s that that home birth crossed the scene, I guess you could say. was living in the south of Sydney in Cronulla, coastal beach side. And I feel like those are the kind of places you bump into other home birth mums. And... For me, it was that I was working for someone whose wife had had a home birth. Her fourth of four kids was born at home. And that was a really beautiful story that she would often tell. She was training to be a doula as well. And another of my closest friends in that scenario was a birth photographer. So she had had all these incredible stories of women birthing at home. Obviously lots of stories of women birthing in hospitals as well, but just hearing the beautiful stories of women's experiences at home was a really, really special, I think, thing to hear. And it was through those conversations with both of them that I started looking into home birth and thinking about what I would maybe want to do. in the future. So I think lots of my friends would probably call me a bit more woo woo, a bit more on the alternative side of things, particularly when it comes to health, having essential oils business, all that kind of thing. And I have kind of gone down a path of figuring out my health, particularly through a few years of fairly intense chronic fatigue when I was in my early 20s. And so I think for me, I had learned to question everything, had learned to think critically about stuff, particularly from a few not so great experiences in the traditional healthcare space. And that meant that I was willing to do the same thing when it came to birth. So I had done lots of reading in the home birth space, lots of thinking through what that could look like. And funnily enough, about a year or so before we got pregnant, my sister-in-law had locked in to have a home birth herself. Wow. Yeah. So what was really kind of great about that was that she and my brother started conversations with my family around home birth. braille blazing. was great because I think everybody probably knew that that was what I wanted to do, but we'd never had to have the discussions. so my husband is probably not so on the alternative medicine side of things, the alternative side of the health world. But he I think had just accepted that that would be what we did when we had babies. Yeah, cool. Yeah. was happy to go with that line of thinking. And as we started to investigate more, he was completely one on board. But my brother and sister-in-law were the ones who had all those trailblazing conversations with my parents and with other siblings who I think then started to realize what an awesome experience a home birth could be, which was great. Sadly, she ended up, her baby was breach. So she ended up having to have a caesarean in the end, what is... planning a home birth for her second who's due in the middle of this year, which is really exciting. So yeah, really, I think a few different things that played a huge part in helping me think through home birth. I have to give a shout out to, so Joe Hunter was my midwife in the end. And I think All of that started through watching their documentary, so watching Birth Time, which my friend who is a birth photographer recommended to me. And I think that was probably the moment that I knew that home birth was something that I wanted to pursue. the data, seeing the statistics, actually home birth didn't just have better outcomes, well, the same outcomes for babies often. research will say better outcomes for babies, but incredible outcomes for women as well. Far, far fewer rates of, or fewer, I guess, stories of birth trauma, women having lower rates of perineal tearing and things like that. And I kind of realized that I'd be silly not to look into to go down that. I 100 % agree. I suppose in all of those conversations and even, know, with your did you your sister? My sister-in-law. law. Like did, do you remember like if there was any particular like, what if this happens or like any fears or anything that you remember? Absolutely. I remember sitting around the dining table with my family. So there's four of us kids and them having the conversations with my parents who, my mom's a science teacher, know, straighty 180, has gone the traditional route in terms of healthcare and birthing her four babies. Yes. And so hearing those kind of conversations where there was definitely lots of, I guess, probably fear and doubt and big questions about, what would happen if there were any issues along the line or if a baby needed extra help, if a baby needed to be transferred to a hospital, have you considered that risk and lots of questions. about those kinds of things. And I think for me, the biggest thing that I got out of that was realizing that there was great answers to all those questions, that actually, yeah, privately practicing midwives are trained in, in resuscitation actually have all the equipment they're ready to go. they actually, far more trained than, than the hospital midwives. and hospital midwives. And so for me, when I started to face those questions, having made the decision to home birth, I actually felt really well equipped to be able to talk to the people who had big doubts or big fears to say, actually, no, if you look at the data, if you look at the research, you'll see that there's far, far better outcomes for. Yeah. low risk pregnancies for women choosing to birth at home. And there were definitely those people. I remember telling my colleagues, I remember telling my colleagues that I was pregnant and my boss and a few of the other guys there who had seen their wives give birth, a little bit mortified that I was choosing a home birth and my boss I remember very vividly my boss saying, I thought my wife was going to die all three times. just the thing you wanted to hear as you told them that you were and your first baby. Yeah. my goodness. But I mean, the reality is like that they're not alone. Like they speak to the greater percent, you know. Absolutely. What is it? Is it one in three Australian women come out with some sort of experience? Trauma? trauma. For me, that was the statistic that was high enough for me to go, like something is very wrong here. Yeah. There can't be that many women who are coming away from a birth in typically a hospital setting who are experiencing what they would describe as that. So that was an alarm in my head. I realized actually, there's got to be some things that we're doing wrong. That's the whole reason we would need to have a birth inquiry. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't like read it in detail, but I don't know if it particularly has any sort of focus on the trauma experienced by the partners or, you know, support people involved in that situation, because I mean, so much of the way, at least the way that I was taught and understand it is that The system, there's so much vicarious trauma within the system that the responses of the health professionals within that system, they're responding because of unresolved trauma that they experience, not just like once every two years or whatever, but every single day. Yeah, I had a friend, I should say about those situations that often things became as you dig deeper and ask more questions about those births, you realize that there were steps along the way that sometimes contributed to things feeling chaotic by the end. Lots of them, it was that they were induced and things started to go really fast, which I think is often an experience of women. Yeah, from details that I've read and stories that I've heard from people that often induction can mean that for people. And so thinking, I wonder what might have happened had that cascade of intervention not just been at play in those stories. And I think also, it's also like, I mean, doing this podcast, the stories that I hear, like some of the things that people like the health professionals say, and the coercion and like the outrageous comments that are said, it just I mean, nobody expects to ever be put in a situation like that before. Like, that's not how we see the healthcare system, right? Absolutely. And so when you're thinking about that cascade, then I get the sense that for some, they think, well, it won't happen to me. I like that's just, you know, those people that add this and that or don't do this or don't do that. Or, you know, I'm different, but actually the system doesn't really, you know, discriminate. So home birth is where it is at. And so all of this, do you remember your husband, his name is Josh, did you say? Yeah. Do you remember Josh, you know, he's not like him, like on the woo woo spectrum as you. But did he have like any particular fears or like, do you remember having to have any like really thorough conversations with him about something or. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, sometimes our, I guess, mindset over health related stuff is quite different and can often even be opposing. And so that's been a really interesting thing to navigate, particularly as we go into parenthood. step one was deciding to home birth. I think he respected the fact that obviously I was the birthing person. and so wanted to leave that decision largely up to me, but there definitely needed to be some, bringing him on board and helping, ease his fears. I, as I briefly mentioned, we, had the incredible Joe Hunter as our midwife. and she must do like 40 something births a year. She's absolute superstar, complete weapon. would go to our prenatal appointments and. people would be like, you have Joanne because she's such a weapon. Probably yet her name precedes her. Yes, I know you've had her on the podcast here before. In those prenatal appointments, I think that was the opportunity for Josh to ask all his questions. And she had great answers for every single one of them. Yeah. whether that be what happens if we have to transfer, like reassure me about if the baby needed resuscitation or extra care, how would that work? And her answers to every single one of those questions were incredible. I didn't make him watch birth time. still don't think he's watched birth time. interesting. Actually, that was one of going to be one of my questions before. Yeah. Yeah. But, so Joe was just, you know, joke to him. Yeah. While we were pregnant, we did go and watch Born at Home together. I dragged him along to watch Born at Home. Yes. I think that was an incredible experience for him. He had dated a midwife previously who I think told him lots of fun stories about birth and how... the first time I've heard that actually. An ex-midwife girlfriend. I think that worked in our favour because he had lots of, you know, little bits and pieces of information about how it worked that actually meant he was well in the know. yeah, we did the birth course that we did was Birth Circle with Abby Sidary, who is amazing. Cheryl Sidary is also a home birth midwife has been well, actually, sorry, she isn't anymore a retired home birth midwife. in the Northern Beaches of Sydney. so Cheryl started Birth Circle. Abbie has continued it on. She's a midwife herself. And that was an incredible birth course to do, just a one day birth course, which Jo had recommended, particularly because it was more geared towards people who might be choosing to home birth, rather than going in and having a hospital setting type education about what might go down. Obviously you still talk about a few of those things, but probably not in so much detail as you would in other birth courses, which was incredible for us. Another of Joe's moms who was having a baby around the same time of us as us actually did that same course. And that was really lovely to have a bit of community in terms of, oh, there's a few of us in this class even who are choosing to home birth, not to be the only ones in a sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Having had Dylan, is there a bit of a home birth community in your area? there is a South Sydney home birth group. Funnily enough, my sister-in-law who didn't get to have her home birth, crossing all having is praying that you will get to have this V back at home later this year. She is now a doula in this Southern end of Sydney. So she's doing a great job of that and has a Just this week was hosting a South Sydney home birth meetup, which I sadly didn't get to go to because I was at work. But there's a bit of a community down here, which is great. But one that I've really enjoyed is just Jo gets all her mums together once a month and started doing that last year with sort of all the bubs due around the same time. And that's been really special to get to know a bunch of mums who, you know, think similarly, we're all different in different ways, but it's been really lovely to have a bit of a community who are like-minded in that sense. all, yeah, Joe's our hero, each and every one. All different stories, but great, great community based on that. Yeah. So that's more in a West of Sydney, but that's been really cool to be a part of as well. Yeah, no, it's like such a big part of home birth because of yeah, like what you said about the values. Yeah, it's just nice to not have to like explain why you've chosen or, you know, have value in physiological birth, which sounds a bit bizarre now to say out loud, but I mean, that is reality. And so, taking a step back. So did you? How did you like come across Joe? Like did you, you like birth time, that's going to be my midwife? That was her interview. I must have her. Yeah. So very funny. think I had, I was, I'm one of those people who has always wanted to be a mom, always wanted to have babies. Um, people ask me how many kids I want and I say five. Uh, I, when you work with kids and you love what you do, I think it's really easy to go, Oh, give me lots of babies. Yeah. We'll, see how that goes. says Max 3 and knows he might lose out. And then I just, you hope it's twins at the end, We'll see. Yeah, wiggle room indeed. But I, we were living in North, in the North of Sydney at the time in Neutral Bay, so just across the Harbour Bridge. And I think as I started to look around for midwives when we were trying, I sort of investigated a few options and my birth photographer friend said you should definitely try and see if Jo is available and sort of had my eye on that, that she was maybe potentially going to be close enough and so sure enough when we did get pregnant she was the first person I called. I was thinking about this and I realized I may have even called her before I even told my husband because When you are trying to choose a home birth midwife, some particularly, popular ones, you kind of need to give them a call right after you pee on a stick. Yeah. Book out fast. yeah, Joe will often say she's booked out really like nine months in advance. So I, I gave her a call or maybe texted her and just said, we'd love to chat. And yeah, because we were living across the bridge, she was happy that that was not too far for her to come. But the reality was that we were probably going to be moving somewhere in the sort of southwest, probably a bit closer to her in the end. And that worked out well because we were then only 20 minutes from her when we did move about a month before Dylan was born. So that worked out. really well in the end. yeah, definitely a much easier setting to have a baby than where we did live in a very, some people described our old apartment as a mouthy coast vibes, not in the whole glamour of it. was close to the water and had a lot of stairs. Yeah, and the half bedrooms, tiny living area wouldn't have really worked for home birth or for a baby pot where we live now is a great spot that's also really close to our families. So that's been a huge blessing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so you only moved to that place a month before Dylan. Yeah. And so what was your pregnancy like? you always into it? Because a lot of people also seem to move during their pregnancy. I know, actually, did. Yeah. Like, what was the rest of your pregnancy? Yeah. So we had been trying for just a couple of months. So I think in the grand scheme of things, we felt very lucky to get pregnant in the time that we did. It's a real gut wrenching thing. I know talking to friends about just their journey to falling pregnant, even in this last few months, every time that it doesn't happen is like a a real loss in its own way. yeah, we felt very thankful for that. And I had just been away on a staff retreat where I was sure I saw a lion on the stick when I peed on the stick. As I was about to go away and showed it to Josh and he was like, nah, you're seeing things. You've got lion eyes. That's definitely not it. and convincing himself. And I was sure it was. And I got back from being away for these few days and did another test. And sure enough, that line had gotten darker. And I remember walking into him and being like, no, no, that's a line. And I think in that moment, he probably, yeah, yeah. crapped his pants a little bit because he didn't quite know what to do with himself. He had always said that he wanted to wait until he'd been married for two years and felt a bit more settled. We'd had time with each other. We got married pretty quickly, maybe within the year after we had started dating. So yeah, wanted to be married for a little while and just have that time with each other. And so we'd been married for about two years. got pregnant and yeah, I think he kind of had this moment of like, my goodness, now it's real. So we, I had a pretty good pregnancy all in all. My sister gets hyperaromysis and as does my sister-in-law, funnily enough. And so I think I had seen them go through that and just wanted to be wary because they say that sisters are like, you know, 80 % more likely to actually have hyperemesis if that's in the family is genetic. And so was preparing myself for that a little bit, but in the end, had some nausea, had some vomiting and things like this as you do in those first 12 to 15 weeks, but nothing that HD extent. that was, yeah, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah And we had actually planned to go to the US to visit my sister-in-law, my brother's sister, who lives over there, who married an American and lives in Texas. And so we were there from the time that I was about nine to 12 weeks, which was an intense time to be traveling. I must say, I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I would have. had I not been in that first trimester, then a lot of time just trying to sleep and sleeping until ridiculous hours of the morning. But she actually had a newborn herself, which was part of the reason that we were going over was to meet her new little one. I had never met my sister-in-law in person because her good times had meant she couldn't come in. Um, six year old niece. So that was really special to go over there and spend time with them. Um, and be there, even though I was sometimes not very fun to be around. remember driving to, oh, we dropped my niece off at school one day and I threw up in her school parking lot, which I had gone inside by that point. Really not a fun time at all. And the other time that was fairly horrific was the day before we flew home where I had already thrown up once in the bathroom sink at their very new house because we helped them move as you do when you're 12 weeks pregnant and you're on holiday. We helped them move out and I had already thrown up in their brand new bathroom sink that morning. We were flying home that evening, had like a six hour layover in LA and we were driving to the airport and I felt so ill. And all I could find was a tiny, snug size Ziploc bag in the bottom of the car and ended up throwing up in that because she was on the phone and I didn't want to tell them to pull over. And drew up and just said, Josh. He was like, we need to stop the car. So it was a pretty grim time in some ways. And I thought that that was going to be my whole flight home, but thankfully. it ended up being okay. think I just got it all out beforehand. But yes, all in all, apart from normal first trimester things, I could be tired by 30 something weeks, know, waddling around at work. I think I'd planned to finish up at 37 weeks, which didn't happen in the end because we found someone to be my temp, matte leave cover. I needed to do some last minute onboarding for her, which, you know, you just got to do what you got to do at that point in pregnancy. And so at 38 weeks, I finally finished up and that was like a big sigh of relief because yeah, we had just moved house. Everything was still in boxes. Things had been chaotic. I'd run a weekend away with 50 kids or something crazy, not so long before that. And yeah, waddled my way through that as well. You do what you've gotta do, don't you? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, I mean, you don't have a choice, right? And I was looking at your Instagram before we started. Was Dylan born at 39 weeks? We had like one week. I remember my first day of Mat Leave, my friends had bought me this beautiful voucher for a, like a massage facial beauty place that I really like. And so I went and got a pregnancy massage and you know, had a coffee by the beach or a side bowl or something like that at my favorite place. And I just was like, this is so great. I had all these grand plans to meal prep and had, you know, I think I'd started on a few little bits and pieces, but I love cooking and that's my jam. So I was so excited to get into that. and was really tired too. So just ready to slow down and rest. but, and unpack our house because. So, was, yeah, slowly plotting away at bits and pieces of that when at 39 weeks, I, 39 weeks on the dot, I was like, this feels like it could be something. And lo and behold, it was. Yes. So I had, been going to the chiropractor to, I guess, just, get my body in check. get my pelvis aligned, all those things. And I'd also still been going to the gym until probably like 37 weeks or something like this. That's kind of my thing to just for my head that I love to do. The trainers have been great. They were probably some of the first people I told to just to say, go easy on me. yes, that was a really great, think, bit of an escape, but also just like a really great thing for my mental health throughout. pregnancy because particularly the first half of my pregnancy, just mentally, I hadn't necessarily been in a great frame of mind, got heaps better after about 22 weeks, which was awesome. And so, yeah, was, we moved around to Easter. Dilly was born beginning of May. And so, We moved, I must've been 37-ish weeks. It was like my last week of work and I worked for church, so Easter is crazy. And we moved on like Easter Saturday. So went from like church stuff Thursday, Friday, moving Saturday, church stuff Sunday. And I think just totally crashed on the Monday after all of that was done. But I think my panic was, we need to move because if this baby does come early, like, know, we're not going to have space to have her in the other apartment. So my parents own this apartment, they had offered it to us. But it took a bit of time to get the tenants out. So finally, when we moved in, just when we knew we could move in, we just had to pull the trigger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and do it, yeah. Made that happen. Finished up my last week of work and then finally stopped to a house full of boxes and attempting to get something done. Yeah, not quite. you especially because she was born at 39 weeks. Did you have like in that 37 38 time did you have any signs that your body was preparing for labor? Great question. I don't think so, which is the wild part. So I think I had the whole time, particularly in that late stage, been thinking, you know, is this Braxton Hicks? I don't know, like maybe some tightening, but nothing really that was obvious. I think I just, it all down to, you know, pregnancy discomfort and feeling really big and large, which I don't think I was. I remember walking into bakery near work, where the guy we'd gotten to know and he was like, where's like, where's the rest of it? It's funny the things people comment on 38 weeks pregnant and really, really want people's remarks. But yeah, so I don't think I really had many signs at all. That Yeah, I was feeling large and un-in-charge and ready to have a baby, except that I was absolutely not ready to have a baby. remember going to my chiropractor, well, in my head, I was not ready, going to my chiropractor and saying to her, I just feel like there's so many things I still have to do and I'm 39 weeks. And funnily enough, this was the day where I had started to notice some signs. And she has had think seven kids herself, a number of them born at home. And she just said to me, you know what, a baby doesn't need much except for you. So if your house is still in boxes, that's okay. You know, in a good way and you're feeling calm and ready to welcome them in, then that's okay. It doesn't matter what your house looks like. There'll be people around to help you. Cause I think I had this big mental barrier. about needing to feel ready and completely organized and having the perfect meal done. That day at 39 weeks or it must have been 38 and five or six, I had ordered a big box of fruit and veg to be delivered to my house and a bunch of meals from there's this company here in Sydney called the Dinner Ladies, which are beautiful, crushing meals and that I could have in my freezer. So I'd ordered a big box of veggies to do my own meal prep. plus all those so I'd have heaps of stuff ready for that postpartum period. And funnily enough, those then were delivered after Dylan was born. goodness. Also you did the order that day and then yeah. wow. That's actually perfect timing. In some ways, the venti box I think didn't quite totally get used to it. I was postpartum and on the couch, but we tried. Yeah. So I had booked in this chiropractic appointment for pretty much 39 weeks so that I could go and get my pelvis into shape and aligned and ready to go and make sure everything was looking good. And it was that morning that I'd woken up feeling like, there's definitely something happening here. But again, when it's your first labor, you sort of don't know what should feel like. What? So had woken up and said to Josh, I think like I've had some kind of cramps, like they feel like period pain. It woke me up a few times throughout the night, but I was able to go back to sleep and kind of said to him, You know, like, keep your phone on you today, just in case. He'd just started a new job and he had been, this was his third day on the job. And funnily enough, ended up being his third day before two weeks of paternity leave. They knew that going in. But was quite funny because he had to, by the end of the day, walk in and tell his new boss that he probably wouldn't be back for a couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah, Um, and so he, um, yeah, went off to work and I just tried to take it really slow. I think probably had a bit of a sleep in cause I'd had that disrupted night and, um, yeah, it just would have looked an absolute schmozzle when I went to the chiropractor that day. I was in a bit of pain and had sort of started doing heat packs on my belly. Um, and didn't even bother doing my hair. threw on a dress that probably needed ironing and walked into the chiropractor after ordering those food boxes. the receptionist, I remember just saying to me, like, are you okay? And I looked back at her and said, I think I might be an early laborer, but I don't really know. And she just looked flabbergasted that I was so chill about it. I think because I thought this could be Braxton Hicks, this could be early labor that could go on for weeks. And in my brain, said, 40 plus five. That's the, that's the average for first time mothers. and was preparing, trying to prepare myself for that because I'd known so many people who'd been overdue and just was so frustrated by that point. Yeah. I'm sick of being pregnant. so sat there in the waiting room. And she kind of said, okay, just like, let me know if you need anything. Walked into my appointment and I, my chiropractor, I guess, looked at me and knew that in that moment I probably needed more of the neuroemotional. Yeah, emotional support. actually the realignment of the adjustment. so we had this big chat about being ready, quote unquote, for a baby. And it was, I think, just what I needed in that moment to go, actually, my house doesn't need to look perfect. I don't need to have the immaculate, incredibly prepared and organized freezer full of food and the perfect nourishing meals. to be ready for this baby. Like all she needs is me. My mum would always say a baby can sleep in a cardboard box. Is it in Finland that they give people a Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, there's this adorable picture of me when I was a baby sleeping in a suitcase when they took me on holidays. And just like we think that babies need all this stuff or a perfectly organized nursery, perfectly decorated nursery. But actually, it was a good reminder to me that it can be very simple. Yeah. can brought into a loving home and a loving home. So that was really great to have her kind of reassure me about those things and say, your pelvis is ready. Like you're ready. You might have a baby tonight. gave me a hug, sent me on my way. And by the time I got home, things had started to ramp up a little bit. I remember texting Josh and saying, if this ain't labor, I'm going be mad. I was really starting to feel it. I ran a bath and I think by that point I'd surrendered to it a little bit and kind of gone, well, I better, I'm going to put my Clary Sage in the bathtub. So really, had, had those drops of Clary Sage in the bath. I'd been eating my dates and was kind of like, okay, let's do that. Let's get a cup of, a cup of, red raspberry leaf tea happening and just doing all the things that I I'd more. and so ran the bath, lay in there for probably a good long hour, which was heaven, but was really starting to feel things ramp up a little. And he had just gone back into a job being a mechanic after a number of years doing more desk type jobs, payroll and music publishing and didn't have any of his tools and had said, I'm going to drive to my parents to get my tools at the only problem being that they live like an hour and a half away from us. my goodness. And I said to him, no, not today. You're not doing that after work today because I need you to come straight home. I think this might be it. And so he very quickly packed up and spoke to his manager and I watched his location the whole way home. of going, hurry up. I need my support person right now. So that would have been about 4.30, five o'clock and it was, yeah. that's when I really started to go, I think this is it. Yeah. And so you were going to have, obviously Joe and a second midwife and Josh, obviously. And, was your photography friend there? Yeah, so, funnily enough, well, sadly, my friend who's a birth photographer, moved to Perth in a year before we had Dylan and had just bought a house and we were trying to make work to bring her back. It's not going to work. And so she was incredible. She lined up another photographer to be there. and that photographer actually it was her first time shooting a birth so she was thinking about getting into it and yeah offered to come and shoot our birth for us which was incredible. Lisa Trina is her name on Instagram I have to give her a shout out and Yes, I'll put her details in the description. And honestly, she blew us away. She went above and beyond. We met her a few weeks before Dylan was born. And she, yeah, she'd never photographed a birth before. In fact, she'd had two, one emergency and another planned caesarean herself. And so this was the first time actually seeing physiological. Came with its own like, is this going to be okay? Like how will this go and how will this be for her as well? Yeah, totally. It will be a really different experience. And so she, we'd had her, we had her lined up to come and shoot our birth. And she was a little nervous because she was on the Northern beaches and we were now in the South of Sydney, which is about an hour and a half drive in. And so I think we probably, I probably texted her right as everything was starting to kick off. at about that 5pm mark as I was watching Josh's location, sent Joe a message and then the other person who he had planned to have there with us was my sister-in-law who as our doula. So she had kindly offered to be our doula, you know, family rates, non-rates for us as our kind of extra support person and that was All I wanted in that moment was, well, I thought about having my mom there as well. I think I feared that because she had never, yeah, been around a home birth for her seeing her daughter in that situation that I might've seen the fear in her eyes or something like that. So maybe for this next one, not this next one, there's no baby yet, but for a second or third baby, I'd definitely invite her along to be there. But I think for this, for a first time birthing, I went, do you know what, let's keep it small and intimate. And even the thought of having a photographer I armed Nard on. Having Lisa there was so, special. We said to her, like, it would be amazing if you could kind of just like blend into the background and she did. But also got up close and captured some really precious moments for us, which was Incredible. yeah, when Josh got home at five o'clock, I think he kind of knew it was go time. I was feeling very, think, yeah, in labor, you start to go more and more inward. And I noticed that happening. And I think we kind of started to go, let's, you know, maybe try and drag some boxes out of the living room so that We have a bit more space. We had the birth pool there, but not blown up. Tell me you just moved house and it's 39 weeks without telling me. Chaos. so texted my sister-in-law to say, Hey, this is happening. I was trying to time contractions and it was just after Josh got home that I went to the bathroom and realized that I had lost my mucus plug in that. moment and told Josh and he just looked at me and said, well, I guess I'm having a baby tonight, which was this amazing moment of realization and so exciting. Oh yeah, we got to meet our baby girl. And you know, I think in my mind, I was still trying to go, oh, it's still, you know, it's still good days, for whatever might. come. But yeah, that's kind of when we really kicked things into gear and went, okay, let's get set. had plans of making all these rollers and essential oil misters for labor and just none of that even happened. I grabbed the clary sage, grabbed some peppermint and other energizing oil and just went, this is going to have to do because that being good is the myth. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, so that was really special. Yeah, and I think that's when it really got real, was in that moment when Josh got home from work because that's when things really ramped up. I think my body just kind of knew that it was safe and him being home meant, okay, I'm not by myself. It's go time. Yeah. How because it seems like it's sped up quite quickly. How long do you say your labor was? This is what I really struggled to put a time to because I would say that really only when I got home from the chiropractor, I feel like it was maybe early labor throughout that day, that day as I kind of, you know, felt the niggles, that bit of pain, but I still left the house to go and all that kind of thing. And so it probably wasn't really until about through a 3pm, 4pm that I think I started to go, oh, I think this might be something. And then really only after I lost my mucus plug at about 7pm that I think I would say the contractions became more regular. I was trying to time them, couldn't really, because I couldn't focus on them enough when I was just trying to be in it. it was at that that I messaged that we said to my sister-in-law, okay, I think if you can come now, that would be great because she had all the tools, the robozo, the birth sling, and even just for her to be there to time the contractions so that Josh could focus on supporting me. So probably that's 7 p.m. and then Dilly was born at 3.55 a.m. long all in all, less than 12 hours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty good. And so, uh, did you, so at what point did you, or do you remember like asking for Joe to come along or how did that unfold? Yeah, so at 7.30 when my sister-in-law got there, kind of, gave her the job of timing contractions because they're about three minutes apart, but kind of fluctuating a little bit. So between three and five minutes apart and lasting for maybe like 40 seconds. And we called Jo and she heard me have a contraction on the phone while I was in the birth sling. Great. Fright tool, by the way. Cool, how did you use it? How did you attach it? Yeah. we, like, you know, just as standard, we just in a standard apartment. And so we closed the berth sling into a door. we closed the door on the top. Yeah. Just wedged it in and, yeah, used that there. I was, what I found, I guess in, being pregnant and also particularly in labor was that I was perpetually boiling hot. and so we had the air con cranking, which was wild because it was the beginning of May. and so fairly chilly outside, but I was just so, so warm that I had to have that, that temperature low, in the house. And so I kind of, hung out on the berth sling for a good hour or so, using that just to counteract the weight and to. and yeah, just try to relax and get low to the ground, which was really helpful to let gravity do its thing. Josh and Tian, my sister-in-law kind of took turns, know, holding pressure points, reheating the heat packs that I had in the oven because we don't own a microwave, all the fun things you've got to do. And as we called Jo, she kind of said, yeah, it sounds like things are really getting, you know, getting underway, but she didn't think it was quite time for her to come yet. So that was at about 7.30 and what we kept doing was just making sure we were on top of timing contractions. Jo had heard me have a contraction. So for her, the listening was a big. part of the equation of her going, yeah, I think we've still got some time. And at about nine o'clock, my photographer arrived and truly didn't notice her come in, which was what we wanted. And I was just hanging out in the lounge room, on my hands and knees, on the birth ball, trying to make the most of my... combs and acupressure balls that I'd invested in and just having Josh and Tian use the heat packs and acupressure points on my back to get through each of those contractions. And at 9 p.m. I had said, like, I think I do want to get Joe here. We'd blown up the birth pool. I had to wear headphones because the noise of that inflating was is very loud, yeah. when you're trying to be in the zone and listen to some music through that. But I think I as a first time mom, not knowing kind of where things are at, I think it felt like it would be a comfort to have Joe there. And so my sister-in-law texted Joe and what actually happened, which was quite funny was they decided that still wasn't quite time for her to come. think knowing that, you know, first time labors can last a while. so they decided that Joe would get a few hours sleep. And there was a slight miscommunication between my sister-in-law and my husband. And he started saying to me, oh yeah, Joe's on her way. Joe's on her way. at about 11 PM when I really, I was like, guys. Is Joe close? Why is it so near yet? And was this big moment of such disgust in him, which I lived to laugh about. But when he was like, actually Joe's just getting a few hours of sleep. We'll text her when it's time. knows what to look for. and so this really funny moment of being like, told me she was coming. Never. Well, never give the wrong information to a woman in labor is my hot tip. my gosh. So this heart-dropping moment when I realized it might still be another hour before she got there, because she'd have to wake up and then be on her way. But at about 11, things were really starting to get more intense. And yeah, the birth pool was up, but not full. I had heard lots of stories of women getting in the birth pool or getting in the shower and things kind of slowing down. And so I think that was a fear of mine where I didn't want, I wanted to let things progress really normally and didn't want to slow things down. I wanted to do all I could to kind of keep the labor going, keep things progressing. And said to my sister in Laotian, Do you think if I hop in the shower, that it's going to slow things down? And she just so kindly said to me, think realizing that at this point that I was inactive labor. No, think you'll be fine. Let's do that. Let's get you into the shower. We tried the peanut all on the bed so that I could potentially try and get a bit of rest and that just, you know. wasn't very comfortable, wasn't happening because things had really intensified. And so I jumped into the shower probably at about 1130 and was in there for a good long while. Yeah, my, I think one of my fears about having a photographer at my birth was that I would feel self-conscious. But it's funny when you're in labor, that you're so primal that you barely even noticed that someone's there. So yeah, I was in the shower, kind of just doing my thing. And I remember she popped her head in and took a few photos. And in that moment, I went, is that? Do I Do I want? Yeah, it's fine. What a memory it will be. And so, yeah, Josh kind of tried to stay nearby. Tiam was just watching and waiting. And it was while I was in the shower that Joe arrived, probably getting close to 1am. So in my mind, it was much earlier than that, that Joe got there. But they had texted her sort of just after or around the time I got in the shower saying, yeah, this is really looking like active labor. Contractions were consistently three minutes apart. I was ready to have some extra support there. So she arrived while I was in the shower and like I said, being overly warm was my view. And so after a little while there, I needed to get up because the heat was helping with the pain on my back in particular, loved it. Ended up getting someone to bring in a stool so I could sit for a little while or just lean. down over the stool or on the wall. But I had to get out because I was getting way too hot. Absolutely. I just couldn't do it anymore. Throughout pregnancy would get really high, almost like pregnancy tachycardia. everyone just said, don't worry about it. It's sometimes one of those things. it was probably getting a little bit like that and didn't want to. pass out or anything in the shower because it help things much. yes, Jo being there was such a relief. So there's these great photos of me just sitting on the bed in my dressing gown in my bathrobe, kind of looking like the most relieved woman on earth because she was there. How did they, how did they fend me off for that long? That's the real question. I remember just saying to Josh, what do you mean she's having a sleep? But it was fine. so Joe got there and yeah, it was, was really reassuring that it was all going well. And yeah, so we wanted back out to the lounge room in the air con. And I just labored back on the floor again, because that was becoming my favorite spot, I think, just to be on the floor, hands and knees, kind of rocking here and there. And yeah, Josh was doing his acupressure points, Joe just observing from a distance. And that was really lovely. think in that moment, I was like, yeah, this is my birth team. This is really great. Yeah. And my waters hadn't broken yet. what was interesting about that was that I, and I realized afterwards, I really forgot to drink much water. Yeah. Throughout the whole process. And so I don't think I had weed that through that whole time. And so Joe suggested trying to go to the bathroom to see if that helps things get underway. I coddled back into the bathroom in our bedroom and yeah, that really helped because yeah, I could definitely feel her getting lower. But when I did go to the bathroom and weed, I felt my waters break. And that was a really fascinating feeling. And actually had a little feel myself as to how things were going and Um, that blew my mind because I felt her head. Cool. Um, but it was in that moment that I was like, I don't think anyone had quite realized we were that far along. so I said, Oh, uh, Joe asked if my waters had broken. said, yeah, I had, um, yeah, felt a gush of water. Um, so I'm pretty sure that happened, but I said to her also, Oh, but I can also feel her head. I can also feel baby's head. And she said, okay. And I think herself was kind of surprised in that moment to hear that we were that far along. Especially having that my waters had only just broken. And so the pool was not at all full yet. So my husband and so Josh and Tia and my sister-in-law kind of frantically started to get. water ready and poor Tian kind of ended up with that job. think even Lisa, our photographer, was hauling buckets at one point because I was ready to get in the water and sitting on the toilet for a moment there thought that that's where Dilly was going to be born. We have this bath rail, towel rail, right opposite the toilet and so it was holding on for dear life, realizing that these were starting to be pushing contractions that felt really different to the contractions I'd been having before. And it was really just letting my body do its thing. I would get kind of a chill and feel a little bit like I was gonna vomit before everyone. But she was coming down and I couldn't do anything about it. So they were frantically trying to fill the water. And I just remember keeping on asking, it ready yet? Because... I was a bit worried. It was just all happening really fast. And so I was probably on the toilet for about half an hour as they got that full because a birth pool is pretty large. You don't realize how long it's going to take. poor Tian, my sister-in-law, just kept saying, yet, not yet. And Josh tried to help, but I'd call him back. Cause I didn't want him to go anywhere too far and said, know, don't, don't leave this room, please. He, for a little while there was like scrolling Instagram or something with his hoodie on. I was like, can you put your damn phone away? because it's all just happening and I was in the zone. I don't think anyone really realized that it was, yeah, that the pushes were happening, that those surges were going on in that intensity. So, yeah, that was kind of amazing to sort of just, and I think great to be in a tiny dark room, like a five of hour little en suite. That was actually a of a sweet spot. Yeah. You know, on the toilet, lots of people say that's where these things happen because it's... in the tight corners of, you know, the randomest places. Yeah, absolutely. So I think that worked in our favour and finally the pool was full and in that moment I honestly did not know how I was going to get back to our living room because I could feel her so low that I thought if I stood up she might just fall out. But I think we just managed it between Josh on one side, Jo on the other, totalled in. to the edge of the pool and had this realization that I needed to lift my leg, which also felt like a possible task to get in. I got into the birth pool and that was sweet, sweet bliss. Jo had kept saying, no, don't get it. I said, can I get it while it's half full? And she said, no, wait till it's full. You won't regret it. It'll be like your epidural. You know, that'll be. the moment. so getting into that pool was so great. Amazing, amazing pain relief. And what I loved about those surges was that they were much more spread apart than the contractions I'd been having before, which were starting to feel really, really hard, hard work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the space between each one of these pushing surges was really nice in terms of being able to slow down a bit and just take it all in. And so I was in the pool leaning over the edge and it's funny looking back because I feel like this was where I got really funny. telling jokes and trying to actually be the entertainment when there was a thing and I look back and I'm like, what is this? that. Yeah, that's all your hormones like flooding you with like, the endorphins. Yeah, you're basically high. Pretty high. So that was well and truly what happened. looked at Josh and said to him, are you going to get in? And he said, well, I think we had maybe talked about it, but I hadn't really come up with a decision. And he said, well, dude, like, if you want me to, I'll get in. And I said, yeah, but you have to wear some boardies. No naked men allowed in the birth pool because I think... watching Born at Home, there'd been, you know, some fairly minimally dressed partners. Joe had told me about a circumstance where someone had just dropped his dachs and I was slightly mortified that... That would happen. Didn't want to expose Joe to that. So I said to Josh, you just have to get your bodies. And everyone thought that was really hilarious for some strange reason. And so I think he was just about to do that. Mon, my second midwife had just arrived and kind of everyone was sitting around the birth pool at a distance, Lisa taking photos. I should have said my beautiful sister-in-law had kind of set up the room for me because we were so in moving mode, trying to make things work. We literally had like dragged boxes out of our living room into the spare rooms, which stayed as box caves for three months after that. She had set up my fairy lights and gotten everything ready and made sure the music was just as I wanted it and all those beautiful things. so, was just a really special moment of having everybody there, but feeling like, yeah, it was a really special, I guess, environment that this baby was going to be brought into. No one was stressing. No one was worrying about getting things sped up or all those kind of things. Jo was on it with checking baby's heart rate and she was doing great. being in the pool was the best time. And Jo had this fancy new mirror that she had bought with her name engraved on it and was so excited to let it have its inaugural occasion. So Lisa got some photos of that watching Dil's head come through. And Mon had arrived and I was really nervous that my neighbors would hear the noise from inside. But she said, no, no, there's no noise in the corridor. Like I couldn't hear a thing. That day I had made all these beautiful flyers that I was going to print and say to say to my neighbors, you know, we're having a home birth. Don't, we're so sorry if you know, you hear any noise, but. Yeah. It's exciting. We're having a baby. Here's more info from Home Birth Australia. And I hadn't got to print them. And so it was this like, oh, I hope everything's okay. We were going to give her cookies and earplugs just in case. That's so sweet. But Mon was really reassuring as she came in and said, no, you're fine. It's all good. And I think about five minutes after she walked through, Dilly's head was on show. So, um, Joe said, she's got really dark hair. And I said, Oh, that's funny. Which in retrospect, wasn't funny at all because my husband and I both have brown hair. And again, everyone thought that was hilarious. And so I was just in a world of my own. And yeah, it was just amazed by feeling these contractions come and go. having chats with people in between them. And I said to Joe, it feels a little bit discouraging because I'm feeling her come down, but then at the end of the contraction, you feel that retraction a little bit. And Joe said to me, well, why don't you put your hand there for the next one and just feel how it goes, feel the ebb and flow, which was such wise advice because I think just feeling that pattern. was really helpful. so Josh had not gotten up to get bodies or anything like this. Everyone was kind of sitting around just watching things unfold. And he had in his mind that on the next contraction, he was going to come around to where Joe was behind me and see her head. And so on that contraction, he's in front of me holding my hand and felt her head coming and this was probably one of the biggest surges that I'd had and her felt her head in my hand and then all of sudden her head came out and with a whole extra surge after that her whole body was out and we were so I guess surprised that that had happened. so quickly because active labor really only started at about 11 30 that by 3 55 a.m when she was fully out and in the water we actually almost lost her in in there because we joe and i kind of were like oh what joe said oh where'd she go and pulled her out of the water um she had her cord wrapped around her neck three times oh think I saw a picture of that or something. Yeah, because it was almost like she just knew she needed to get out quick. Yeah. And that's what she did. Joe unwound the cord from around her neck and passed her to me. We kind of unwound together in the kind of franticness of, my goodness, she's actually here. Yeah. And then she was on my chest and I kind of was in this disbelief that we've done it. Yeah, that was your heart. Yeah, the most surreal feeling having your baby on your chest after a few hours of yeah, doing your thing, having your people around about you and realizing that birth could be like that. Birth could be that, I guess that simple and that beautiful, which was an incredible feeling. Yeah. But you go from like, yeah, like it's just always so incredible that, yeah, it's like, I'm trying to think of like an example, but like you, you know, one minute she's not in the world, like not in the, you know, the outside world. Less than a minute later, she is and that's like the rest of her life. Yeah. Eyes, you've never looked straight at her face. And then in the next moment, she's on your chest. Yes. The wow feeling. I've never met you before. And yet I feel like I know you. That was what was wild. My husband is not a crier. And in that moment, he shed tears because he just was like so overcome by the beauty of the whole thing. And Lisa, our photographer, think it was just gobsmacked to have seen what a physiological birth could look like where a baby could be born in the safest place in the place they call home into the world. And as she was editing a few photos later on while we were having beautiful skin to skin in that golden hour or golden few hours, I should say, she Mon or, I can't remember if it was Mon or Jo, walked over to her just to say, like overlooked the photos and just was amazed by what she had captured having never shot a And Lisa just cried because she was so overcome by how magical a birth, yeah, that looked like that could be. And, and even kind of said, like, imagine how different my birth could have been had I known this was a way that women could do things. I think it was a really big moment for her. She posted a beautiful story on Instagram a few days later, just saying that her world was forever changed because of what she'd seen. And that's the thing, we are so sheltered from, I think, I always say from birth and death, it's, world, the world we live in doesn't, yeah, I guess hides those things away. And as a woman, it's likely that you've never seen birth before you actually do it. It was wild, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. To actually be able to witness someone else in that is such a special thing. But I am so excited for Dilly as a woman. Hopefully to be able to witness more if we have more kids to be able to stand by and watch that happen and actually to be able to see what it can look like and to be able to see what the female body can do. Yeah. And the magic and like, gives you like an appreciation for the magic, you know, in our modern world, like there's, you know, I feel like, yeah, I mean, we're, it's considered woo woo because yeah, we believe that there's like some sort of, you know, I mean, I guess there's a generalization, but like some sort of spiritual element to it. Like, I mean, you, you're literally like giving life, like you grew life and you're Like, like that's life. And yeah, it's like, it's so powerful, but yeah, in, in this world, I think, yeah, I mean, it's so commonly still said, which shocked me, but you know, yeah, a live baby, a live mom or whatever, and that's the best you can go for or whatever, which is just, no, that's, you can go for so much more than that. Because I would do my birth all over again. And I probably said that within days. Yeah. And I would do it time and time again because it was so magical. think what they say, it's like the three year itch for moms where, you know, they've moved past the newborn stage, which often people find really hard. They've kind of blurred enough of it out of their memory, blurred, you know, birth and labor out of their memory. so they Suddenly. funny because there is a three-year gap! Now what happened to you? No, I've got to keep that in mind. Because right now I'm like, I'm on like no baby number three train. Okay, I'm going to remember this conversation. time. Watch out! that conversation with Meg? The three year itch? And so interesting to think about that because I think I came out of my birth and I still feel like it going I would do it again tomorrow. It was hard. I nearly kicked Josh's butt because he kept saying to people, like, yeah, was like pretty easy, really, like pretty, it was a pretty easy birth. And I remember looking at him when I first overheard him say that to someone and being like, I will. kill you. The process of labor and bringing our daughter into the world as easy was not okay. It was by no means easy. This thing I've ever done, but the most incredible and I would happily do it again and again. And this is probably not helping my my I think my colleagues had a bet that I would be pregnant again by the time I came back to work, but it's okay. You've done well, you've already, you know, overcome that. So now it's good. What was the birth of the placenta? Great question. So we had this beautiful time in the water, in the birth pool, just with Dilly on my chest. There's this amazing photo that Lisa took where she was pulled out of the water and she kind of is just reaching out into the world like, here I am. You can still see the cord wrapped around her neck. And I remember looking at Joe just after we'd unwound it and kind of said, Um, is she okay? Because she hadn't made any sound and I guess that we expect that a baby will cry. Um, and Joe just said, she's fine. She's got great tone, great color. Um, and I've never trusted someone's words so much in my life because we built this beautiful rapport with Joe. That's the beauty of continuity of care, right? Um, and we knew she knew what she was doing. And so I, absolutely trusted her. She had just, yeah, blown us away and we, she just said, blow on her face, you know, keep talking to her. And we did, and she gave out a little cry. she'd done a little poop as she came out too into the water. And so it was just this awesome moment of staring at her face and kind of being in disbelief that we'd really done it. and sat in the water for probably a 25 minutes, half an hour when my placenta detached. And so the pool filled with blood and... Joe and Mon were a little bit concerned that maybe I was losing a bit too much blood. And so wanted me to hop out of the pool and onto the lounge. And so we moved from the pool to the couch. I held Dilly the whole time and just had her on my chest still. And as I stood up, they retell it as I went very white. And so it turns out it probably was a bit of a postpartum hemorrhage that Yeah, the bleeding kept going while I was on the couch to the point where Joe had said, like, we might need to give you some, um, sentocin and, um, that synthetic oxytocin, which I hadn't wanted. But again, in that moment knew that I trusted Joe so wholeheartedly that if she said, this is what we need to do, I was all in no questions. Um, and so Joe, She said, look, if this doesn't slow down, we might need to think about transferring. And I think for every home birthing mum, that's the one word you don't want to hear. But kind of was starting to feel better at that point. So she had noticed around that point that the colour was coming back in my face, that I was talking, that things were going okay. I guess it's only ever an estimate with how much blood have you lost, but it probably was about 700 ml, which is about the point where you start to go through... Should we? Yeah. And I guess like if you respond, if you're like, like some people can lose more and not be so like, you know, they can tolerate that loss. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So the bleeding slowed down and it was at that point that she was happy to go, yeah, we can stay. And so it had probably been about an hour and I still hadn't birthed my placenta. We tried to do a bit of a breast crawl, which kind of worked. She was a pretty sleepy little girl. And so had her sort of there and on the boob and having a bit of a suck. Joe just said, like, do you feel like, you know, there's, I was having a few like after birth pains who said, do you feel like there's something coming down again? Like, do you feel the need to maybe go to the toilet or something like that? And I was kind of starting to feel it. I was feeling a bit uncomfortable, just wanted to. get it done. feel like there's such a release when you do finally birth your placenta. And so it was starting to get there. And what Jo said was that she would just, I felt that like pushing sensation a little bit. And she said she would just put a little, we didn't want to pull or target anything, but she would just give a little bit of resistance to the cord. And so that's what she did. And that I think was what really did the trick. Cool. and birth the placenta, no issues. Yeah, didn't need to have the centosin in the end or anything. Really pleased with. And so then the beautiful thing about a home birth, don't, well, actually, I don't know if all home birth midwives do this, but a little while after that, Mon gave us a beautiful placenta tour. and kind of us through what the different chambers are for and where Dylan would have been if he died. And that was just so incredible to realize this organ was served such an incredible purpose of keeping her alive and safe and well in there. And she's been living the dream. And now out in the big wide open world. that was really special. We, I, in retrospect, I kind of wish I'd done something more special with my placenta. I think in the whirlwind of newborn life, we, got left out of the fridge for a bit too long or something like this. And so we did just have to chuck it. But, next time I think, I'll definitely, I don't know if I'd encapsulate or, plant a tree, something like that. I'd love to kind of. to like honor it a bit. make that something really special. yeah, that was really cool to see. And yeah, it was, that was, that would have been probably about 4.30. Mon and Jo were doing all their lovely checks and probably a couple of hours after did their, gave Dilly her first way and measured her and all those things. And just so special to have that all happening, you know, in the comfort of your own home. was on the couch just taking it all in, had it right by her. She didn't leave my sight. She was never more than a meter away and she only was lifted off my chest a few hours after she'd been into the world. And just, yeah, having that time to soak it all in those golden hours was I think an incredible, incredible thing. Interestingly, the data shows that home birth, women who plan to home birth even, because it's your planned place of birth, where you actually end up giving birth that can actually determine your outcomes sometimes, that home birthing women have a greater... chance of success when it comes to breastfeeding. so we had a really interesting journey with that because, yeah, Dilly was born 39 weeks. And I think just being that little bit early, she was pretty small and probably fairly lethargic still just, you know, trying to wake up to the world. And so over those first few days, kind of couldn't figure out why she wasn't gaining any weight, very normal for babies to lose that weight, of course, but she, yeah, it was just dropping and dropping and my milk hadn't seemed to come in on day three. Joe walked in and looked at my boobs. They were so engorged and just was like, the milk bar is open. the size of my head. and so. we kind of got, had to get onto that because basically Dilly was so small. And ultimately what we found out was that she had a tongue tie. and so she just, it seemed like she was latching, she was winging and pooing, but, just wasn't getting enough from the breast. and wasn't kind of sucking enough that, that the milk was properly coming in. we started, we did a little bit of pumping to try and help get things. moving. That helped heaps with bringing in my supply. And when she was about 10 days old, we went and had her tongue tie assessed. And she had that released. And I remember walking in and saying, we think she has a bit of a tongue tie. And the lactation consultant said to me, we never say a little, a little bit of a tongue tie, like a tongue tie is a severe tongue tie if it's affecting their feeding. And so I was rebuked in that moment to know that she had a severe tongue tie. She was 90 % tongue tied, but really it's only an issue if they're having feeding difficulty. so we had that released that day in that appointment, which was great. They gave us a good few hours of their time. And we'd been pumping and finger feeding with syringes, which was Yeah Good morning. Demanding. Sort of every two hours in the day and every three hours at night. So we were pretty excited. But making it happen, really committing to the cause to get her fed and get her growing. so that was at about 10 days and we saw a tiny bit of improvement with her weight just after that. The lactation consultant had said, just get her on the boob, go with her. And so topping up her feed, feeds a little bit still, but probably had become a bit more relaxed because the tongue tie was done and we kind of thought, yeah, this is surely it. This is the answer. But in a sense, I think she kind of had to relearn how to feed then. so it was at about once she was about, when she hit about three weeks old, she actually was probably her lowest weight ever. Well, how many was she when she was born? She was 3.1 kilos when she was born and she dropped more than 10 or 11%. So at three weeks after the tongue tie was released, Joe had been seeing us every kind of second day really trying to get on top of this and was starting to get a bit worried by that point. And so Joe had said, maybe we'd kind of tried. doing some bottles even just to supplement her feeds. And then it was at about three weeks when she really wasn't gaining weight that Joe said, do you know what? I think she's burning too many calories on the boob. For now, why don't you pump and bottle feed and try her on the boob maybe once or twice a day. But what we need to do is just get her, get her. to have the energy to do it. Yeah. And so, it was interesting because I never had thought I might bottle feed, never ever. and we managed to do it just by expressing, which, I kind of feel really proud of ultimately. Yes, you should be. Yeah. We worked really hard to do that. We did work really hard to get her fed. And it was in that next week as we sort of just did lots of pumping and feeding that milk to her. bottle feeding that milk to her that she finally started to gain the weight and we were felt like we were winning at life. The late nights and the setting alarms for every two to three hour feeds was all kind of worth it. And she had just been so lethargic and so little. Once she had lost the weight, just didn't have enough energy to Yeah, getting too many calories just trying to do it. You don't realize until you're there. We were doing crazy things like trying the wet wash like tickling the feet behind the ears under the chin, but even getting wet washes and to the point of ice cubes down his body. And I just remember feeling like everyone must think I'm torturing my tiny, tiny baby because she was so tired that That was the only thing that might wake her up. But we got there and that's... So at nine months now, she's thriving. Absolutely thriving. Yeah I gonna say, I saw pictures of her, she looks like she's driving. You see, think that would be my word of reassurance to moms who are in the thick of feeding difficulties because, you know, when we were in it, it was like we were weighing her every day, every second day, just if we were getting anywhere. And Jo said, be careful, don't become obsessive with it. But we just make sure she was, you know, and she she loaned us a pair of scales, a spare pair of scales that she had. And that was kind of our job. It was to make sure that every second day we weighed her and she was still getting bigger. And so at eight weeks, we kind of went a bit longer than the norm with a privately practicing midwife when we kind of said our goodbyes. It was like really special to see how far we'd come. And yeah, and now she's probably, should... get her weight or weigh her because I would assume she's probably on the upper end of the curve when it comes to... This chubby little thing with the croissant arms and croissant legs and wrist rolls that you kind of realize she's paler in there because the sun hasn't hit her. It's amazing. Yeah, she's done well. Oh, well, thank you so much for sharing your beautiful first time home birth story and all of the little bits. think the breastfeeding part of it will be really helpful for so many women as well. Is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you feel like you want people to know or that you wanted to talk about? think that's probably everything. I think I would just say to people who are craving physiological births to trust their guts and to actually, yeah, have a look at the research, have a look at the stats. I've spoken to so many friends whose births, you know, turned out differently to what they wanted. And that was the whole reason I chose home birth because the place of the place that you intend to birth or the care provider that you choose. Yes. a difference in terms of outcome. And when I read that statistic, I went, of course, why wouldn't I? Yeah. So that would be my encouragement. And I'm sure the people listening to this podcast are probably there already. But you know. But I mean, share your stories with people because yeah, ultimately, you chose home birth from hearing other people, you know, having a home birth and like, that's how we all learn ultimately. So and I mean, that's the power of this podcast is that it's the power of a story. absolutely. Thank you so, much, Minik. Thanks, Elsie.