Speaker 1: Apolgiate Production.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name's beck Woodbine and welcome to Tenderness for Nurses.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for the person that I have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to be, so I hit it and parked it for
Speaker 1: Nellie four years. We always have free will, we always
Speaker 1: get to choose. We are autonomous.
Speaker 2: Thank you for turning back into Tennis for Nurses. Today
Speaker 2: we have Sophie Dietera with us, who's she's left just
Speaker 2: breastfed her little Bubba and Hubby's taking the kids for a.
Speaker 3: Little bit of a play at the park.
Speaker 2: But Sophie's a midwife, had two really differing birthing experiences,
Speaker 2: and I thought it'd be great for her to come
Speaker 2: on and have a chat about her experience being a midwife,
Speaker 2: having quite the first birthing I ordeal, and then her
Speaker 2: second child being born and how she came into the world.
Speaker 2: But also Sophie's had pretty interesting life experiences having worked
Speaker 2: and given off her time to work in orphanages.
Speaker 3: So welcome, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: So fill us in a little bit about your background
Speaker 2: and your study. Did you study your Bachelor of midwiffree
Speaker 2: or did you do registered nursing And then midwif.
Speaker 1: Free straight mid Okay, yeah, how long ago was that that?
Speaker 1: I graduated in twenty eighteen end of twenty eighteen, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I just did my straight Bachelor of meda three years
Speaker 1: at ACU.
Speaker 2: And then straight into the hospital sector. Yes, did you
Speaker 2: ever want to do home birth?
Speaker 1: Thing?
Speaker 3: Is it something that would ever be on your radar?
Speaker 1: When I was a student, I thought like that the
Speaker 1: MGP model, so the mid free group practice is like
Speaker 1: gold standard. I thought, that's absolutely what I'm going to
Speaker 1: do as a midwife. But yeah, so straight into a
Speaker 1: hospital for my GRADEA, I went out to Dolby. Think
Speaker 1: it's really cool Delby. Yeah, well it definitely wasn't my
Speaker 1: first reference, but I actually really loved being out there
Speaker 1: and the sort of mid three that I got exposed
Speaker 1: to out there being completely different to the big tertiary
Speaker 1: hospitals where I did all my student training, so I
Speaker 1: kind of got to see a lot more normal birthing,
Speaker 1: which was amazing as a student. I did my training
Speaker 1: in one of the big ones that in Brisbane, which
Speaker 1: was good as a student because you see a vast
Speaker 1: range of everything from normal to all the complications, all
Speaker 1: the abnormal. But yeah, so being a grad midwife out
Speaker 1: in Dolby was much better than what I thought it
Speaker 1: was going to be. The midwives out there were beautiful
Speaker 1: and if that hospital was here in Brisbane, I would
Speaker 1: have just stayed there, But I didn't want to live
Speaker 1: in Delby, so I get that, Yeah, a bit too
Speaker 1: far away from everything here. Yeah, So did that for
Speaker 1: a year, just over a year. I went into midle
Speaker 1: free group practice. At the end of my grade year
Speaker 1: they started to implement that model for all of the
Speaker 1: women out there, so we kind of all the midwise
Speaker 1: got to transition into that. So I did that for
Speaker 1: I think five months at the end of my grade
Speaker 1: yea and then going into my second year of mid
Speaker 1: and I didn't love it. Why is that I just
Speaker 1: couldn't get my head around being on call all the time?
Speaker 1: I think I just for myself wanted to have some
Speaker 1: more experience before I kind of went into doing like
Speaker 1: the mid group practice.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting thing with nursing.
Speaker 2: You don't know what you don't know, yeah, and then
Speaker 2: the more skills you develop and the more you go along,
Speaker 2: you realize that you thought you knew everything, but you
Speaker 2: really didn't. And then you look back at that time,
Speaker 2: and I don't know, this is very true within you
Speaker 2: know my nursing career is I look back, I think,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I thought I knew everything.
Speaker 3: I really yeah, and.
Speaker 2: You sort of take stock of you think I probably
Speaker 2: wouldn't have done that that happened. Now you would, and
Speaker 2: I mean that's age, and that's experienced. You would certainly seeguay,
Speaker 2: probably in a different way, not all the time. But
Speaker 2: did you find that so obviously had insight though.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So as I said when I was a student,
Speaker 1: I thought, mid group practice, that's definitely what I want
Speaker 1: to do. You know, that continuity, that's the best outcome
Speaker 1: for all women, having that continuity of care throughout their pregnancy,
Speaker 1: their labor, their everything, and then postpartum, but then actually
Speaker 1: being thrown into that model of care as a midwife.
Speaker 1: For me, I loved all the women that I looked after.
Speaker 1: I loved that I could see them from start to finish.
Speaker 1: But I just didn't enjoy being on call. And that
Speaker 1: was just my biggest thing. I think I just couldn't
Speaker 1: train myself how to be on call properly, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't switch my brain off when I wasn't on call,
Speaker 1: and then having like other people's phones over the weekend,
Speaker 1: and you're just like, oh my gosh, Like, how am
Speaker 1: I gonna manage all of this?
Speaker 3: And it's not for everybody?
Speaker 1: No, and it's not. And I kind of was upset
Speaker 1: that I didn't enjoy it much as what I thought
Speaker 1: I would, But I'm glad that I got to experience
Speaker 1: it for a few months, and maybe I'll get back
Speaker 1: into it when like the girls are older and you
Speaker 1: don't have other people to be looking after and you
Speaker 1: can just be called in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: and be up and do whatever you need to do
Speaker 1: and not have children to look after. But so maybe
Speaker 1: eventually I'll get back into it.
Speaker 2: In Brisbane, are those midw free groups attached to the
Speaker 2: different hospitals. Yeah, and then there's an independent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's not home birthing. Yes, So the middle
Speaker 1: free group practice is just a model of care you
Speaker 1: can select and I would say most hospitals have that
Speaker 1: as an option, and there's just different advisor. Yeah, work
Speaker 1: in smaller little groups in the group practice.
Speaker 2: And then is there an obstetrician that then it works
Speaker 2: with you as well, or you call someone in their.
Speaker 1: It would just be like the whoever's working in the
Speaker 1: public hospital. Yeah, so it's just your little little groups
Speaker 1: and you can select to be a part of that,
Speaker 1: or you can if you don't want to do that
Speaker 1: as your birth in experience, you can and do them
Speaker 1: just be like through the public hospital system and you
Speaker 1: just go to the clinic and get a different midwife
Speaker 1: every time and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, do you think it's a good model of care?
Speaker 1: I think yeah, it is a good model of care.
Speaker 1: There's just not enough midwives available to do it. But
Speaker 1: there's a way. They're just always have too many women,
Speaker 1: i think in their case loads, and not enough midwives
Speaker 1: to be working it. And a lot of women love
Speaker 1: that model of care, so more people are opting to
Speaker 1: have it, which is amazing. But then I just don't
Speaker 1: think there's enough midwives to service it, and they get
Speaker 1: burnt out and they get you know, working too many
Speaker 1: hours over time.
Speaker 3: And then is there a shortage of midwives?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there always will be with midwives and nurses,
Speaker 1: isn't they.
Speaker 3: It's really problematic.
Speaker 2: A lot of midwives and nurses are leaving the health
Speaker 2: space and going elsewhere. Yeah, because of so many reasons,
Speaker 2: just workload bullying, work life balance, pay rates, it's there.
Speaker 3: It's so problematic and it is.
Speaker 2: I mean over a hundred psychiatrists are walking off the
Speaker 2: job down in New South Wales right because they're not
Speaker 2: there's no parody with pay with the other states, and the.
Speaker 1: Same with the midwives down in New South Wales as well.
Speaker 2: So they're all resigning in mass and it's going to
Speaker 2: leave the mental health space, isn't it. Yeah, So imaginea
Speaker 2: all midwives or the nurses or.
Speaker 3: Strikes like that. It never happened.
Speaker 2: I just think there should be one pay system across
Speaker 2: all of Australia for all nurses and all doctors.
Speaker 1: We're all doing the same drill. I don't understand. We've
Speaker 1: all had the same training, we've all got the same degrees,
Speaker 1: So yeah, why is the pay not reflective.
Speaker 2: Of That's so it's bizarre. Did you find having just
Speaker 2: done straight midwif free and not r in midw free
Speaker 2: do you think there was a real divide within the
Speaker 2: midwif free space or no one cared?
Speaker 1: Not really anymore, I don't think because they hard even
Speaker 1: know how long it's been since they've had just a
Speaker 1: straight midw free course in a while. It has been
Speaker 1: a while, so obviously before that you had to be
Speaker 1: a nurse first and then you could do extra to
Speaker 1: be a midwife. But I think because the straight mid
Speaker 1: has just been around for so long, there's so many
Speaker 1: midwives who are just rms. So no, I don't think
Speaker 1: so when you think about.
Speaker 3: It, Yeah, mire has been around for centuries.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and if you're working in a maternity setting,
Speaker 1: you're not really working as a nurse.
Speaker 2: With the training they go into the full systems or
Speaker 2: like you get also a knowledge of different disorders or
Speaker 2: is it everything related to midw free.
Speaker 1: No, So the first year you do like your biology
Speaker 1: classes and everything. So a lot of our classes in
Speaker 1: the pretty much that first first year of mid you're
Speaker 1: doing it with the nurses, of paramedics and the mid students,
Speaker 1: so you kind of all together. So all your biology,
Speaker 1: all your basic health professional subjects, all that sort of
Speaker 1: stuff is with your nurses, paramedics and midwives. We kind
Speaker 1: of all do the same courses and then after that
Speaker 1: you kind of break off into your different streams.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what happened in your background that made you
Speaker 2: want to go and give of your time and go
Speaker 2: work in orphanages and how old were you when you
Speaker 2: decided to do that.
Speaker 1: I the first time I went to Africa was when
Speaker 1: I was sixteen, so I just went for a month
Speaker 1: at the end of grade eleven. So we had family
Speaker 1: friends that were missionaries and they had moved over to
Speaker 1: a small little country called Lusutu. It's like a landlocked
Speaker 1: country in South Africa. They moved to Lsutu to work
Speaker 1: at an orphanage over there. So me and my sister
Speaker 1: who's two years younger than me, went over with my
Speaker 1: cousin just for a month to stay with them and
Speaker 1: just to see what they were doing over there. And
Speaker 1: just year I visit and I just loved it. We
Speaker 1: fell in love with the orphanages that we went to visit,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, I really want to come
Speaker 1: back here when I finished school, So I did.
Speaker 3: And how long were we there the second time?
Speaker 1: Six months? The second time. It was amazing. By that point,
Speaker 1: they had adopted two children from Lusutu themselves, so they
Speaker 1: were preschooled in grade two. I think they were quite young,
Speaker 1: and they were living up in the mountains and they
Speaker 1: were working with some organizations over there doing helping to
Speaker 1: like do some farming in the villages and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So I pretty much just went over there and just
Speaker 1: lived with them for six months, and I just helped
Speaker 1: home school there too little kids, hung out with the
Speaker 1: village kids, and tried to form some relationships with some
Speaker 1: other teenagers that were there, and kind of just followed
Speaker 1: them along with what they did. In that six months.
Speaker 1: I loved it absolutely, and it was really cool to
Speaker 1: just experience that sort of village life and so just
Speaker 1: see what they were doing over there and what different
Speaker 1: missionaries and different organizations are doing in that country. And
Speaker 1: then for my last month that I was there, I
Speaker 1: went back to the city and volunteered at the orphanage,
Speaker 1: so one of the main orphanages over there, and just
Speaker 1: stayed with the other volunteers that were living there. So
Speaker 1: I did that for my last month and really enjoyed
Speaker 1: doing that. So I came home after my six months,
Speaker 1: worked for a year and a bit, and then went
Speaker 1: back again for another six months.
Speaker 3: And was it education you were doing or was it health?
Speaker 2: Was it teaching you know, hygiene, Was it just helping
Speaker 2: to school the kids?
Speaker 1: It was probably mostly just helping with the school ling.
Speaker 1: So my last six months didn't that I did.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically the orphanage stayed with the Yellow Volunteers and
Speaker 1: just went to the orphanage every day, and everyone kind
Speaker 1: of just did their own little thing that they wanted
Speaker 1: to do when they were over there. So I was
Speaker 1: helping another lady who was doing like after school programs
Speaker 1: for all the school aged kids. So every afternoon we
Speaker 1: would open up one of like their little rooms, and
Speaker 1: we would have different grades each day and just help
Speaker 1: help them with their homework, help them with English if
Speaker 1: they had like assignments I needed help with. So it
Speaker 1: was mostly this helping them with English. The younger kids
Speaker 1: like their basic masks and stuff like that and doing
Speaker 1: like educational games and so they had like these two
Speaker 1: little function rooms, so we would do that in one room.
Speaker 1: Then the other room was so for the older like
Speaker 1: high school kids, and we just opened that up and
Speaker 1: they just had like books and games and like a
Speaker 1: pool table and stuff, and we would have like craft
Speaker 1: activities and stuff in there.
Speaker 3: So I think you decided to do midwif free.
Speaker 1: No, So I wanted to be a midwife for a
Speaker 1: long time. So growing up, I've got heaps of cousins.
Speaker 1: I've got two younger sisters and an older sister. But
Speaker 1: I've always just been around babies and little children, and
Speaker 1: I'm just comfortable with them. Like I just love babies,
Speaker 1: and growing up, I would always like be babysitting like
Speaker 1: my sisters and looking after like my older cousins their
Speaker 1: little children and that sort of stuff, and just loved them.
Speaker 1: So I just always thought, oh, just be a midwife,
Speaker 1: like I love babies, isn't that what? Like what midwives do?
Speaker 1: Was always fascinated with birth and that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: and would always look through some books that my mum
Speaker 1: had and of women giving birth, and I thought, that's
Speaker 1: amazing it.
Speaker 2: Actually, when I worked with them, marda mom's every time,
Speaker 2: it took my breath away every single time, and I.
Speaker 3: Just used to always think what a miracle it was.
Speaker 3: And that never changed.
Speaker 2: Even if I see something on TV, I find it.
Speaker 3: You find yourself.
Speaker 2: I still find myself getting emotional when I see a
Speaker 2: woman giving birth because it's it's so intimate and it's
Speaker 2: so raw, and I've got goosebumpses talking about It's remarkable.
Speaker 1: It is, so You've always been fascinated by it.
Speaker 2: So, Sophie, your first birth was quite traumatic in that
Speaker 2: Bubby arrived faster than you realized, couldn't get to the
Speaker 2: hospital in time. You were very blessed that your cousin
Speaker 2: had come to support you, which was her role was
Speaker 2: to be a support person, even though she was rich
Speaker 2: a midwife. She wasn't there in the capacity as a
Speaker 2: birthing midwife. She was just one of your support people
Speaker 2: with your husband. Yes, what transpired once you realized that
Speaker 2: Bobby was coming sooner than you realized?
Speaker 1: I think as soon as my cousin arrived, everything in
Speaker 1: me just relaxed and I was able to just completely
Speaker 1: let go to the process. So, yeah, we had made
Speaker 1: the phone call to the hospital that we were coming,
Speaker 1: we were on our way, and then I just all
Speaker 1: of a sudden got urges to push, and I just
Speaker 1: knew in myself that I didn't want to leave my
Speaker 1: apartment and that I just didn't think I physically could. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I checked with my cousin obviously that she was okay
Speaker 1: with me staying where I was and that she happy
Speaker 1: for me to continue berthing our home, which she said yes.
Speaker 2: And you would have assumed you let the hospital know
Speaker 2: that this was transpiring.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, so once we decided, okay, we're just
Speaker 1: staying here where everyone's comfortable with this decision. We then
Speaker 1: caught the hospital back and said, actually, things have progressed
Speaker 1: very quickly in the last few minutes. We're not coming in.
Speaker 2: And you can't I mean once yeah, that urge to
Speaker 2: push comes, there's nothing. You actually can't think of anything
Speaker 2: else to do. That like, it just takes over, it
Speaker 2: doesn't it, It does. Yeah, so you were pushing and pushing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what I thought was, you know, not going
Speaker 1: to take probably very long because I had those urges
Speaker 1: to push, ended up being a couple of hours, which
Speaker 1: is normal for a first time Yeah, mum to be
Speaker 1: you know, pushing for a little while. But yeah, we
Speaker 1: kind of just realized that the baby's head wasn't getting
Speaker 1: past a certain point. We could just see a little
Speaker 1: bit of her head through my pery and yeah, just
Speaker 1: wasn't advancing any further. And I could feel my pery
Speaker 1: so tight. I was trying to stretch it myself with
Speaker 1: each contraction and trying to stretch and stretch, and just
Speaker 1: I could I could feel how tight it was.
Speaker 3: I just had to say, how impressed I am.
Speaker 2: Right now, the fact that in between pushing you actually
Speaker 2: had the.
Speaker 3: Presence of mind to try and stretch a perieum.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2: That's out there, but I think that's probably what Do
Speaker 2: you think that was your midwife training kicking in?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Probably, I think ye's remarkably women are amazing. We are.
Speaker 2: When did you realize that there was a problem and
Speaker 2: Bubby wasn't going to progress because there was no given
Speaker 2: the perodeum.
Speaker 1: I think we tried so many different positions. I had
Speaker 1: been in the shower and we just tried all different positions, standing,
Speaker 1: legs up on the toilet, squatting, all sorts and make it,
Speaker 1: pushing multiple times in those positions, and just nothing was changing.
Speaker 1: So I moved on to the bed just so we
Speaker 1: could have some more light and we could just really
Speaker 1: fully see what was happening and going on. And by
Speaker 1: doing that, my cousin could see that, Okay, we've got
Speaker 1: like that white band around Ji Perry. It is just
Speaker 1: that's the biggest indication that nothing's going to give. We
Speaker 1: need to do an episiotomy.
Speaker 2: In the past, say our woman was at home birthing,
Speaker 2: can get to a hospital in time. Would the peronem
Speaker 2: just torn or are there some paranems that just don't.
Speaker 1: I guess it's hard to know. Some probably, yeah, just don't.
Speaker 1: I guess if you really didn't have anything and you
Speaker 1: were just at home by yourself, that maybe it would
Speaker 1: just really really badly tear or you would just have
Speaker 1: to at that point find the strength to get into
Speaker 1: an ambulance or into your car and go to the
Speaker 1: hospital if you didn't have any health professionals around you
Speaker 1: to because.
Speaker 2: What a health outcome If the baby can't get through
Speaker 2: the birth and canal.
Speaker 1: Well, the baby would get very distressed, especially like with
Speaker 1: all that pressure on their head, and especially if you've
Speaker 1: been pushing for a while, So that would be.
Speaker 2: The biggesting medication scenario would be the baby would get
Speaker 2: so distressed that they would.
Speaker 1: Die if it was left long enough.
Speaker 2: Possibly Yeah, wow, that's terrifying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when did the ambulance arrive? So we called the
Speaker 1: ambulance after we had called the hospital to say change
Speaker 1: of plans were not coming in. We hadn't decided we
Speaker 1: were going to call an ambulance then. We didn't really
Speaker 1: think it was necessary, but the hospital midwives kept calling
Speaker 1: back and saying, Okay, if you're not coming to the hospital,
Speaker 1: maybe you should have the paramedics there just, you know,
Speaker 1: in case anything happens. So we said, okay, fine, we'll
Speaker 1: call them. So they had been there for probably a
Speaker 1: good couple of hours. Oh yeah, yeah, but they were amazing,
Speaker 1: the two paramedics that came. They just they didn't interfere.
Speaker 1: They didn't even come into the space until we moved
Speaker 1: on to the bed and we realized, okay, we need
Speaker 1: to be doing something.
Speaker 2: So they're really respectful of yourself. Yeah, they were at
Speaker 2: the moment, and that's lovely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm like my cousin obviously being a midwife,
Speaker 1: they were probably more comfortable with her being in that
Speaker 1: space because that's her bread and butter, whereas a paramedic
Speaker 1: they you know. So yeah, they were very respectful of
Speaker 1: us in that space. They just stayed in the hallway
Speaker 1: until we needed them, got them into the room when
Speaker 1: we realized, okay, we need to do something here.
Speaker 2: So at that stage, you realized you need to do
Speaker 2: in a poy. Yes, So do you want to explain
Speaker 2: for the listeners that may not know what any is?
Speaker 1: An episiotomy is when you have to cut the perineum.
Speaker 1: So you make a cut, usually on the right side,
Speaker 1: with scissors. In a hospital, we have like a pisiotomy
Speaker 1: of scissors. They're just on an angle and they're just
Speaker 1: what you use normally. You would, if you haven't already
Speaker 1: got an epidurol on board, you would give like local
Speaker 1: anesthetic to the perry so that you can't feel it.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so it's just a cut downe to the
Speaker 1: perineum to allow space for the baby to be born.
Speaker 3: And do you want to explain where the perineum.
Speaker 1: Is, Well, it's the part between your vagina and us.
Speaker 2: So when women get tearing in child birth, that's usually where.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it occurs.
Speaker 1: Usually, Yeah, you can get internal tears and to other
Speaker 1: parts your laborer and all that sort of stuff. But yeah,
Speaker 1: first second degree, third degree tares, a fourth degree all
Speaker 1: through the perineum.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty nasty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the theater.
Speaker 2: When so you decided or your cousin decided that you
Speaker 2: really needed to happen to pisiotomy. She then proceeded to
Speaker 2: cut the perineum and baby was born. Yes, and fairly
Speaker 2: rapidly after that, I'm assuming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much as soon as we did the cut,
Speaker 1: baby was born.
Speaker 2: But the story doesn't end here with a healthy bubby.
Speaker 2: It actually turned into a little bit of a significant
Speaker 2: event for your cousin and for you guys. Yes, in
Speaker 2: that a complaint was then put in to our the
Speaker 2: Nursing MIDWI regoverning governing board and opera about your cousin. Yes,
Speaker 2: do you want to explain what happened there?
Speaker 1: I can only explain from what I So, my cousin
Speaker 1: did absolutely everything necessary that she had to do to
Speaker 1: deliver a safe baby. She was put in a position
Speaker 1: by myself to change her role from going from my
Speaker 1: support person to a mid with a midwife role with
Speaker 1: no equipment, So I put that on her, which at
Speaker 1: the time she was okay with and we discussed that,
Speaker 1: and yes, she was absolutely comfortable to be there as
Speaker 1: my midwife now. But yeah, working with very little resources,
Speaker 1: only what the paramedics had. So yeah, baby born needed
Speaker 1: a little bit of assistance with her breathing, which indicated
Speaker 1: to us that absolutely the episiotomy was necessary, but in
Speaker 1: the condition that the baby came out, so that was
Speaker 1: all fine. I was absolutely fine with the events that happened.
Speaker 1: But yes, not long after baby was born, maybe like
Speaker 1: a week or so a complaint was put in to
Speaker 1: Aprah against my cousin.
Speaker 3: How did that make you feel?
Speaker 1: Absolutely awful? That was my fault that I put her
Speaker 1: in that situation and for that to then happen to
Speaker 1: her when all she was doing was delivering my baby safely.
Speaker 2: So a senior paramedic came, Yeah.
Speaker 1: A critical care paramedic came along to the scene. I
Speaker 1: I'm of blurry all the timeline of events and who
Speaker 1: was actually present for what parts of it. My understanding though,
Speaker 1: is that the critical care paramedic was not there at
Speaker 1: the time of the episiotomy my daughter being born. She
Speaker 1: was kind of under there just after we needed to
Speaker 1: do some help with the baby. So yeah, she didn't
Speaker 1: witness the birth. And we don't know who exactly put
Speaker 1: the complaint in, but most likely it was one of
Speaker 1: those paramedics. But judging from the two paramedics that had
Speaker 1: been there the whole time, they were so respectful and
Speaker 1: so lovely throughout the whole process and even postpartum, that
Speaker 1: I don't believe it would have been one of them.
Speaker 2: When the third paramedic ry, the critical care paramedic, what
Speaker 2: equipment did they bring with them?
Speaker 1: Not a lot. I think she had just some more
Speaker 1: like baby recess equipment and maybe more like birth like
Speaker 1: more of a birth kit. But when we needed to
Speaker 1: use a mask to help my daughter with her breathing,
Speaker 1: it wasn't even the right size marks that fit her face.
Speaker 1: And so my cousin was doing everything that she could
Speaker 1: with the equipment that she had.
Speaker 3: So it's a bit like that Swiss cheese.
Speaker 1: Pecked, isn't it?
Speaker 2: And everything lines up and the holes all line up,
Speaker 2: and yeah, why do you think someone would put a
Speaker 2: complainting when you your life was saved and your baby's
Speaker 2: life was saved, and what transpired really happened so fast
Speaker 2: it was out of your control, absolutely, and you were
Speaker 2: so blessed to have your cousin with you who was
Speaker 2: a midwife, and she was able and comfortably step into
Speaker 2: that role of which I have no doubt forever in
Speaker 2: a day you'll be so grateful for.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Why would someone do that?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I know that midwives, especially private
Speaker 1: practicing midwives, there's just it's just a witch hunt for them, absolutely,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, I don't know. Even APRA doesn't support
Speaker 1: them as much as they should.
Speaker 3: Reboard certainly doesn't.
Speaker 1: No, No, so yeah, I don't know why someone would
Speaker 1: want to put in a complaint like that when, as
Speaker 1: you say, yeah, she literally saved my life, saved my
Speaker 1: baby's life. If it wasn't for her, I would have
Speaker 1: it would have been a lot more traumatic if she
Speaker 1: wasn't there or wasn't a midwife and I had to
Speaker 1: transfer to the hospital with a babysitting on my perineum
Speaker 1: and in so much pain. Oh, and go through that
Speaker 1: whole process at the hospital, And the exact same events
Speaker 1: would have unfolded in a hospital. So it's not that
Speaker 1: we did anything unnecessary or that we year I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been done in a hospital.
Speaker 2: It's interesting if you've listened to the podcast that I
Speaker 2: did with Kelly. She transferred a mother and the baby
Speaker 2: was actually born in the hospital, and then a hospital
Speaker 2: put a complaint in against her. But the baby was
Speaker 2: actually born in the hospital and she did all the
Speaker 2: right things.
Speaker 3: Yep, and I.
Speaker 2: It blows me away that will the responsibility of that
Speaker 2: birth was actually at the hospital, you know, and Kelly
Speaker 2: did everything right.
Speaker 1: Home birthing midwives, the women who choose to homebirth, everyone's
Speaker 1: so scared of that who has no understanding or has
Speaker 1: little understanding of just how normal birth is. That it's
Speaker 1: just a physiological process. It's not a medical event. But
Speaker 1: everyone who's not trained in it is so scared of
Speaker 1: it for some reason. What do you think that is?
Speaker 1: I don't know the way that birth and pregnancy is
Speaker 1: portrayed in the media, that people think that you have
Speaker 1: to have a doctor, president, you have to it has
Speaker 1: to be done in a hospital, that that is the
Speaker 1: safest option for people, when in reality it really isn't.
Speaker 2: And people are allowed to have a choice absolutely, you know,
Speaker 2: and women have been doing this, oh how long.
Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly forever exactly.
Speaker 3: So I do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit of a minefield for my wives,
Speaker 2: I believe, especially midwifes. Absolutely, when the complaint went in,
Speaker 2: were you notified or was your cousin notified?
Speaker 3: Or you just found out through your cousin.
Speaker 1: I found out through my cousin. Yeah, so she was
Speaker 1: notified that, yeah, this complaint has been put in, and
Speaker 1: then she always had to go through the necessary process.
Speaker 1: I was never contacted to make a statement or anything
Speaker 1: like that. It kind of my cousin went home after that.
Speaker 1: Berth and wrote lots and lots of notes about it
Speaker 1: because I think in her head she thought something's probably
Speaker 1: going to come from this, So I'm just gonna write
Speaker 1: all of my notes while it's fresh in my mind.
Speaker 1: So I've got, yeah, my own documentation of what happened.
Speaker 1: And yeah, she was right not long after she received
Speaker 1: a complaint. But I think once she submitted her statement
Speaker 1: and all of her documentation, nothing then came of it.
Speaker 1: But was she stood down while I believe she was. Yes,
Speaker 1: And the thing I think that cut her so much
Speaker 1: is that they said you've been deemed unsafe to practice end,
Speaker 1: which she absolutely is not unsafe.
Speaker 3: She saved your life and yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I know that's what hurt her the most
Speaker 1: for someone to say that about her. This biggest passion
Speaker 1: of her life has been to be a midwife and
Speaker 1: she's an absolutely amazing one. And yeah, to have something
Speaker 1: like this happen and be told or you're unsafe to
Speaker 1: practice and you can't practice while this investigation is going on.
Speaker 1: That really so while.
Speaker 2: The investigation was on, she was stood down and actually
Speaker 2: couldn't make a living. Yes, that's horrendous, it is, and
Speaker 2: the impact that has on people is profound.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, it's traumatic. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: Once she had the right to reply and sent in
Speaker 2: her notes, what transpired from that that just she'd been.
Speaker 1: Cleared, I believe. So yeah, yeah, I'm not one hundred
Speaker 1: percent sure what kind of happened after that, But yas
Speaker 1: I said, I never got notified to even about the complaint.
Speaker 1: I never got asked to make a statement. My husband didn't.
Speaker 1: Nobody else at the hospital got asked to do anything.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think once she wrote in her reply
Speaker 1: and everything like that, it was realized that what she
Speaker 1: did was correct, it was safe, she did what she
Speaker 1: had to in the circumstances. And yeah, then nothing came
Speaker 1: of it after that.
Speaker 2: So if this is hypothetical, if you had have had
Speaker 2: another cousin with you that wasn't a midwife, but you
Speaker 2: as a birthing midwife like new enough to say, oh
Speaker 2: my god, we need to do an episiotomy, and a
Speaker 2: lay person had have done what your cousin did, nothing
Speaker 2: would have come of that.
Speaker 1: Would it, No, Because they're not governed by anything.
Speaker 2: So no, but she wasn't. She wasn't with you in
Speaker 2: the capacity as a midwife.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So I find it hard to comprehend why a complaint
Speaker 2: was put in when yes, she stepped up and did
Speaker 2: use her knowledge to protect you and protect the baby.
Speaker 2: But her role there wasn't as a midwife.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that just gives me away. But I guess
Speaker 1: if she, yea, if she wasn't a midwife, was just
Speaker 1: a normal person, nothing would have come of it, No,
Speaker 1: because who do you make a complaint to if they
Speaker 1: don't have a governing body.
Speaker 2: But I wonder if people realize when they put complaints
Speaker 2: in like that, if they think about the impact and
Speaker 2: the trauma it causes healthcare professionals, because I know nurses
Speaker 2: within the aesthetic space that patients haven't been happy with
Speaker 2: an outcome from say piller and they've put a complaint in,
Speaker 2: and the trauma and stress that has caused that nurse
Speaker 2: has been horrendous yea, And they don't think about that.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, because it affects their practice. It
Speaker 1: affects what they think of themselves.
Speaker 3: And they question themselves.
Speaker 1: They do when they're such safe practitioners and have been
Speaker 1: doing it for a very long time. But yeah, as
Speaker 1: soon as someone makes that complaint, even if you know
Speaker 1: that the complaint isn't correct or valid or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It still, yeah, makes you question your practice.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting thing.
Speaker 2: Yvon Smythe came and spoke on the podcast and she's
Speaker 2: the Q and mus laws had lawyers, and she was saying,
Speaker 2: in relationships where there's DV cost of control that sort
Speaker 2: of thing, partners were ringing up and or putting in
Speaker 2: complaints about their partners who were nurses to make their
Speaker 2: life hell and then they were being investigated by Reward
Speaker 2: an opera. And how that can happen is beyond me,
Speaker 2: but it was. It's something that happens. And you know,
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know. It's a stressful enough time going
Speaker 2: through a divorce, break up, removing yourself from an unsafe environment,
Speaker 2: and then on top of that to be concerned about
Speaker 2: your profession and being able to work. And I do
Speaker 2: think there needs to be some vetting of some of
Speaker 2: the complaints.
Speaker 1: To be but come in I believe, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: So how do you look back at that birth?
Speaker 2: Do you look back at it as it was a
Speaker 2: remarkable time, It was a stressful moment in your life.
Speaker 2: It's something you can sit back and have a bit
Speaker 2: of a dare I sayd giggle about now, I'm just
Speaker 2: got Oh my god, I can't believe it.
Speaker 1: Now, how does it?
Speaker 3: How does this sit with you now?
Speaker 1: I honestly hold no trauma with that birth. Everyone else
Speaker 1: around me does, I personally don't. I think it's a
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable birth story.
Speaker 3: It is fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yes, my cousin and I can have a little giggle
Speaker 1: about things, but no, I hold absolutely no trauma against it.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was just so grateful to have had my cousin
Speaker 1: there and honestly owe her my life and my baby's life.
Speaker 1: We've all had babies. She has been present at every
Speaker 1: single one of Beautiful my sister's births, and not in
Speaker 1: his role as a midwife. She's just been support person
Speaker 1: and a photographer for nearly all of them. But we've
Speaker 1: all been like, we can't do this birth without you,
Speaker 1: so you have to be there in some capacity. And yeah,
Speaker 1: she was now a private practicing midwife and I had
Speaker 1: a home birth with her with my second baby, Coker.
Speaker 1: So we just did it all properly and it was
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing.
Speaker 3: And went like a dream.
Speaker 1: It did. Yeah, you would do a home birth again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you felt it was a really beautiful private special.
Speaker 1: It was, and it was honestly was as I said,
Speaker 1: happened really quickly. It was a little bit chaotic. I
Speaker 1: was hoping that the second time around it was going
Speaker 1: to be a little bit more healing for my husband
Speaker 1: because he the first time everything that happened, We were
Speaker 1: not expecting obviously, any of that to go the way
Speaker 1: that it did. And he was absolutely amazing through it.
Speaker 1: But I think he probably holds the most trauma witnessing
Speaker 1: that for the first time.
Speaker 2: Do you think it's a protective thing of the man
Speaker 2: and the husband that he was not just worried about you,
Speaker 2: He was worried about his bubba.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it.
Speaker 2: It was in a hole, and he can't control anything
Speaker 2: at that moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't control it. Didn't really know what was
Speaker 1: going on, didn't know if that was normal or not. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit traumatic for him. So I was hoping, yeah,
Speaker 1: the second time around, it was going to be nice
Speaker 1: and calm, nice and beautiful healing for him. But it
Speaker 1: was quite chaotic. He had just got Remy to sleep,
Speaker 1: I was in the shower. He was trying to then
Speaker 1: blow up the birth pool as I'm making all these noises,
Speaker 1: and the birth pool then wasn't We couldn't fill it up,
Speaker 1: but the hose wasn't working. Jumped into the bath with
Speaker 1: the midwives on the phone asking how far away are you?
Speaker 1: They're only ten minutes away. But then Koku was born
Speaker 1: and then the midwives turned up literally literally a minute later.
Speaker 2: So you birthed your second child by yourself?
Speaker 1: Yes, oh my god, yes, so that one. But it
Speaker 1: was beautiful, it was nothing went wrong, so did she
Speaker 1: that you? I was just in the bath. He was
Speaker 1: obviously right next to me. We had the midwives on
Speaker 1: the phone trying to help me breathe through my contractions,
Speaker 1: but just my body was taking over, and oh my god,
Speaker 1: I was born and I'm not kidding. Literally a minute
Speaker 1: later they burst through the door.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: See you don't just have one, You've got two great
Speaker 2: bairth stories.
Speaker 1: Stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're remarkable. I love it. Well, thank you so
Speaker 3: much for sharing my pleasure.
Speaker 2: Your two remarkable stories of And you know what the
Speaker 2: thing to remember is right now happening. There is a
Speaker 2: baby being born in some crazy, remote, yeap, out of
Speaker 2: the way place and they're coping.
Speaker 1: Fine, absolutely so if we just let birth be birth,
Speaker 1: and just let women's bodies do what they need to do.
Speaker 1: That will be fine. We just need to leave them alone.
Speaker 1: Sometimes time and a place for intervention absolutely, but majority
Speaker 1: of the time, if we can just leave women alone
Speaker 1: to just go into themselves, give way to their bodies
Speaker 1: and their babies, that's so beautiful. Thank you so much, pleasure.
Speaker 3: I love that chat.