Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mumma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our respects
Speaker 2: to elders past, present and emerging, and feel privileged to
Speaker 2: continue the sharing of birth stories and knowledge that has
Speaker 2: been a fundamental part of Indigenous culture. I'm Cassanna Lukisch.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Diary of a Birth. How would you like
Speaker 2: to give birth in the place you feel most comfortable,
Speaker 2: with all your stuff around and with as many loved
Speaker 2: ones on hand as you wish. Sounds pretty idyllic in theory, right.
Speaker 2: That's describing a home birth, a choice that less than
Speaker 2: one percent of Australian women make to bring their baby
Speaker 2: into the world. The Aussie figure is half that of
Speaker 2: British homebirths and only a third of New Zealand's number.
Speaker 2: Many members of the homebirth in community rave about them.
Speaker 2: And while a homebirth isn't for everyone and strict medical
Speaker 2: condition must be met to have one, home births like
Speaker 2: the mum we're meeting today, shout loudly and proudly about
Speaker 2: their experiences.
Speaker 3: Everybody is very shocked. If you say, oh yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have my baby at home. They go, oh,
Speaker 3: what really, Oh, why would you want to do that?
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, why would you not want to?
Speaker 2: Today we're going to learn about a truly magical birth.
Speaker 4: I would describe my birth as healing, as magical, and
Speaker 4: absolutely perfect, just everything that I had hoped that it
Speaker 4: would be and more.
Speaker 2: A birth where Mum was able to tune right into
Speaker 2: her body and be a crucial part of the most
Speaker 2: special moment.
Speaker 3: One push, I was able to bring him up out
Speaker 3: of the water, and I remember when I reached down
Speaker 3: and saw his face. He was so stunned. He looked
Speaker 3: like a stunned mullet.
Speaker 2: And this mum was able to choose the guest list
Speaker 2: for her son's arrival, including a very special four year
Speaker 2: old helper.
Speaker 3: Having her there was the most beautiful thing. I needed
Speaker 3: her to know that women are so strong. We are
Speaker 3: so strong. What we can do is absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2: So let's meet today's supermom.
Speaker 3: Hi. My name is Casey and this is the diary
Speaker 3: of my birth with Brodie.
Speaker 2: Any city dweller who's dreamt of slowing life down a
Speaker 2: bit will envy Casey's laid back rural life that sounds
Speaker 2: a world away from the right race.
Speaker 3: Before I had Brodie, I was thirty years old and
Speaker 3: we live on our family's apple orchards, so we grow apples, peaches, nectrons.
Speaker 3: And our family's been here since nineteen thirty nine, so
Speaker 3: a pretty long time. We lived in the country out
Speaker 3: of the place is called Imbrellen Laurie for a few
Speaker 3: years before meeting back with my husband and our then
Speaker 3: six month old, and when he was two and a bit,
Speaker 3: we finally decided that it was time to add another
Speaker 3: to our little troop and complete our family, so we
Speaker 3: decided to have Brodie.
Speaker 2: Casey had long been fascinated by the idea of having
Speaker 2: Brodie at home on their farm.
Speaker 3: I knew very early on that I wanted to have
Speaker 3: a home birth with Brodie.
Speaker 2: It took her husband, Callum, some convincing.
Speaker 3: I talked to my husband and we talked about the
Speaker 3: implications of home birth. He was a little bit unsure.
Speaker 3: He's a paramedic, so he was a little bit unsure.
Speaker 3: But I was so so confident that I really, really
Speaker 3: really wanted a home birth and I wanted to experience that.
Speaker 3: So I applied as soon as I found out I
Speaker 3: was pregnant for number three, I applied to the Midway
Speaker 3: Free Group Practice Program at Wolligong and I was so
Speaker 3: fortunate enough to get in. So we're very lucky down
Speaker 3: here in that the Midway Free Group Practice Program does
Speaker 3: offer home birth. There's quite a few hoops that you
Speaker 3: do have to jump through to be allowed to homebirth,
Speaker 3: but I was lucky to pass all of the tests,
Speaker 3: I guess you can say, and my beautiful midwife and
Speaker 3: I worked towards our home birth.
Speaker 2: Casey's pregnancy was nice and mundane, exactly as she wanted it.
Speaker 3: I started off feeling a little bit sick, but after
Speaker 3: the twelve fourteen week market all settled down, I barely
Speaker 3: even knew I was pregnant. It was the first time
Speaker 3: I'd had a posterior placenta, which means that the placenta's
Speaker 3: at the front, So I felt his kicks and everything
Speaker 3: a little bit later than my others, which I was
Speaker 3: devastated about because I prided myself on feeling them really early,
Speaker 3: so I felt like I was waiting forever for that.
Speaker 3: I did start to get a little bit of back
Speaker 3: pain just from being on my feet all the time
Speaker 3: with two other little ones running around. But on the
Speaker 3: whole it was a very, very boring pregnancy. I like
Speaker 3: to describe it as so.
Speaker 2: While Casey was full steam ahead with her plan to homebirth,
Speaker 2: everyone shared her enthusiasm.
Speaker 3: Everybody is very shocked. If you say, oh, yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have my baby at home, they go, oh
Speaker 3: what really? Oh why would you want to do that?
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking, why would you not want to? You're
Speaker 3: in your own space. We got to set up very lights,
Speaker 3: got to have real candles. I didn't have to have
Speaker 3: battery powered candles. I could have whatever music I liked playing.
Speaker 3: I was in front of our fire. We set up
Speaker 3: the home birth pool right in front of the fire,
Speaker 3: which Callum graciously pretty much rebuilt just for the birth
Speaker 3: because that's what I wanted. Then after you have the baby,
Speaker 3: you can be on your own lounge, you can be
Speaker 3: in your own bed, eating your own food. There's no
Speaker 3: hospital food to deal with.
Speaker 2: I think the question that most people grapple with around
Speaker 2: home birth is a bit one what happens if something
Speaker 2: goes wrong?
Speaker 3: The Midwifree group practice has a relatively low threshold for
Speaker 3: transferring to hospitals, so the minute anything looks like it's
Speaker 3: not going to go right. You do transfer to hospital,
Speaker 3: whether that is through you driving from your house to
Speaker 3: the hospital, or if something is going not very well,
Speaker 3: then you will get an ambulance, but that is very
Speaker 3: very very rare. And before you have the birth, they
Speaker 3: bring up the birth pool and a bunch of medications
Speaker 3: that are in the fridge, and they bring up a
Speaker 3: whole emergency kit to your house so that if anything
Speaker 3: does go wrong, everything is there that you'll need. And
Speaker 3: that made him feel a lot more comfortable because he
Speaker 3: could see that it was so prepared. And the statistics
Speaker 3: of people transferring to hospital with a home birth are
Speaker 3: very very low because things generally tend to go right
Speaker 3: in home births, very very luckily.
Speaker 2: With ninety seven percent of berths in Australia happening in hospitals,
Speaker 2: we're pretty limited with who is in the room sharing
Speaker 2: the experience. Most women are restricted to one birth in partner.
Speaker 2: But at Casey's place, she was able to surround herself
Speaker 2: with loved ones, including a very junior helper.
Speaker 3: You can have whoever you want there, So I had
Speaker 3: my beautiful mother in law, I had my sister in law,
Speaker 3: my now five year old. She was four and a
Speaker 3: half at the time, was able to be there. We
Speaker 3: talked about it a lot leading up to the birth.
Speaker 3: She wasn't quite sure if she wanted to be there.
Speaker 3: She thought that she would, but she was a little
Speaker 3: bit scared of whether she would like it or not.
Speaker 3: So before the birth, leading up to it, we watched
Speaker 3: lots of videos. We watched YouTube videos, and after she'd
Speaker 3: seen a couple, she didn't want to stop watching them.
Speaker 3: She wanted to watch more and more and more. And
Speaker 3: then after that she was so excited. So we actually
Speaker 3: woke her up to be part of the birth. She'd
Speaker 3: been involved in getting ready for it as well, like
Speaker 3: colecting all of my supplies that I wanted. She also
Speaker 3: painted beautiful birth affirmations and pictures for me so that
Speaker 3: we could stick them around the fireplace. It looked like
Speaker 3: a little pregnancy shrine. It was a really, really beautiful experience,
Speaker 3: and I wouldn't let anybody talk me out of it.
Speaker 3: I knew that it was definitely the right choice for
Speaker 3: me for this birth, for sure.
Speaker 2: So how do you prep to give birth at home?
Speaker 3: Getting ready for a home berth in the last month
Speaker 3: of pregnancy was a little bit crazy, particularly for me.
Speaker 3: I always leave things right up to the last minute.
Speaker 3: But my first two pregnancies, I had both of those
Speaker 3: babies like in the thirty eighth week, so I knew
Speaker 3: that I had to be ready for the thirty eighth week.
Speaker 3: I wasn't even sure if I would make it to them,
Speaker 3: so I knew that I had to get everything ready.
Speaker 3: So I was madly going to buy towels and my
Speaker 3: birth comb and making sure that I had a tens
Speaker 3: machine and essential oils that I could diffuse. I had beautiful,
Speaker 3: a beautiful diffuser going with my lavender oil because I
Speaker 3: love the smell of lavender padsicles. Getting ready for a
Speaker 3: home birth in the last month of pregnancy was It's
Speaker 3: a really nice introduction to the finish line, almost because
Speaker 3: you can have exactly what you want. You can make
Speaker 3: your space exactly how you want it, and it's not
Speaker 3: a shock. It's not a hospital room. It's not got
Speaker 3: bright lights, it's not got a bed right in the
Speaker 3: middle of the room, so you can be up and
Speaker 3: moving about. I knew that that's what I wanted. When
Speaker 3: I have my berths, I know that I want to
Speaker 3: be upright and I want to be moving and swaying
Speaker 3: and leaning over things rather than being on my back
Speaker 3: on a bed. That's the worst possible position that I
Speaker 3: could imagine being in giving birth. I love home birth.
Speaker 2: So along with Casey's daughter, there was another surprising guest
Speaker 2: of honor. Many women wouldn't be so keen for Casey,
Speaker 2: it was an easy choice.
Speaker 3: Some people might think it's weird that I had my
Speaker 3: mother in law there. We have the most beautiful relationship.
Speaker 3: She is like a second mother to me. She is
Speaker 3: also a midwife, so I am so so thankful that
Speaker 3: she was there. She is such a beautiful support. She's
Speaker 3: a beautiful woman, and she's absolutely incredible coming up and
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, I can feel myself poohing,
Speaker 3: which was my biggest fear. I did not want to
Speaker 3: pooh in front of everybody. So for the few days
Speaker 3: before labor started, I was niggling. And for me, when
Speaker 3: I niggle, all three of my pregnancies have felt like
Speaker 3: period pain coming and going, so I knew that as
Speaker 3: soon as that started it was getting close. Except it
Speaker 3: happened for longer with this last pregnancy than it did
Speaker 3: with the other two. It was a good few days
Speaker 3: and then I might have had a day where I
Speaker 3: didn't niggle, and then another two days where I did.
Speaker 3: So it was probably like five days or so before
Speaker 3: that I was niggling for before I actually went into labor.
Speaker 3: The day that I went into labor, I think I
Speaker 3: woke up and I knew that something might be happening.
Speaker 3: I don't know how, you know, but I just knew.
Speaker 3: So we decided to go for a walk around our farm.
Speaker 3: And our farm has a little a few hills on it,
Speaker 3: so we were walking up and down the hills, and
Speaker 3: that whole time I was getting like Braxton Hicks type contractions,
Speaker 3: so not real contractions, just tightenings. They weren't painful at all,
Speaker 3: but they were there. So it got to five thirty
Speaker 3: six o'clock at night and I was still getting these
Speaker 3: regular tightenings. We were like, yes, it hasn't fizzled out.
Speaker 3: This is awesome. Let's just feed the kids and we'll
Speaker 3: get them into bed and hopefully then I'll do some
Speaker 3: bouncing on my birth ball and that might get things
Speaker 3: going and we'll really get into it. This is perfect timing.
Speaker 3: The kids will be asleep, particularly our middle one, because
Speaker 3: he wasn't planned to be there. So we got the
Speaker 3: kids fed, and halfway through dinner, Callum and I were
Speaker 3: eating and I'm going, ooh, these are I think I
Speaker 3: can start to feel there's a bit This is exciting.
Speaker 3: So we called my mother in law and we let
Speaker 3: her know, Hey, we think you might need to come
Speaker 3: up tonight. We'll let you know. But I'm just like
Speaker 3: starting to feel things. It's not painful at all. She
Speaker 3: could tell that I wasn't in pain, but she knew
Speaker 3: better because she'd seen me with the other two how
Speaker 3: quick they went. So she started to get ready to
Speaker 3: come up, and she's saying, would you like me to
Speaker 3: pick up Kirsten. That's my beautiful sister in law on
Speaker 3: the way, and we'll both just come up and if
Speaker 3: nothing happens, and we'll just have a cup of tea
Speaker 3: and go home. And that's totally fine. So another five
Speaker 3: minutes later, I called my midwife because I could start
Speaker 3: to feel it getting a little bit more intense, and
Speaker 3: the midwife's going, Okay, well, I'll call our second midwife
Speaker 3: and make sure that she's available, and we'll get out
Speaker 3: student midwife as well. And I'm going, oh, don't rush,
Speaker 3: like I'm only just starting to feel a couple of
Speaker 3: like tightenings every now and again. I think at that
Speaker 3: point they were not painful, but it was like every
Speaker 3: three or four minutes or something. They were relatively close together.
Speaker 3: So we hung up the phone, and my kids hadn't
Speaker 3: finished dinner yet, and everything started to get a little
Speaker 3: bit stronger. I'm going, callum, we really need to get
Speaker 3: these kids into bed. I think this is actually starting
Speaker 3: to happen. We were both getting really really excited then,
Speaker 3: so we got the kids in bed, luckily, just as
Speaker 3: it started to ramp up a little bit more. At
Speaker 3: this point, it's probably quarter to seven, and we've got
Speaker 3: the kids in bed, and we're starting to light the
Speaker 3: candles and bring all of my supplies. I had my
Speaker 3: mate sarge oils everything that I could possibly think of
Speaker 3: was in these three kmart baby storage caddies, and my
Speaker 3: mother in law and my sister in law came and
Speaker 3: I was still walking around, fluffing everything up, bouncing on
Speaker 3: the ball, having a great old time, going this is exciting.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have a baby soon, we think, and my
Speaker 3: sister in law goes, do you think we should blow
Speaker 3: up the birth pool?
Speaker 2: I'm going, nah, nah.
Speaker 3: It's still way too early for that. She's going, how
Speaker 3: about we just blow it up just in case, because
Speaker 3: the worst thing would be for you to want to
Speaker 3: get in the pool and it's not ready. And I'm going, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: can't hurt, Maybe we should blow it up. Well, in
Speaker 3: the next fifteen minutes, it really really ramped up, and
Speaker 3: my contractions started to get quite I wouldn't say painful,
Speaker 3: but they were definitely quite strong, and I was starting
Speaker 3: to need to almost breathe through them. The midwives, two
Speaker 3: midwives and my student midwife came. I think it was
Speaker 3: about seven forty that they came, and the birth pool
Speaker 3: was blown up and we'd started to fill it because,
Speaker 3: as I said, it was getting a little bit more intense.
Speaker 3: At about seven forty five, I was starting to really
Speaker 3: go inside myself and concentrate what I was doing, think
Speaker 3: about everything, thinking about how I'm breathing, and I was
Speaker 3: sitting next to the birth pool with my head on
Speaker 3: my hands, trying to concentrate.
Speaker 2: If you're wondering what a birth pool actually looks like,
Speaker 2: think of a giant kiddie pool, but it's a bit taller.
Speaker 2: I'm fascinated by how this actually works.
Speaker 3: You cannot imagine how slow the birth pool fills up,
Speaker 3: and it's got to be warm water, so when it
Speaker 3: comes out of a tap, it's not lukewarm, but it's
Speaker 3: not hot. It's not like boiling water is being poured
Speaker 3: into the birth pool. So it takes a long time,
Speaker 3: and you've got to make sure that you also have
Speaker 3: a continuous hot water system. We're very lucky we had that,
Speaker 3: or burns or some way of heating up the water.
Speaker 3: Otherwise you're going to have a cold bath to get
Speaker 3: into and if it's too cold, then labour stops. So
Speaker 3: it needs to be just the perfect temperature. So the
Speaker 3: birth pool is filling up so slowly, and I'm sitting
Speaker 3: on the edge of it on my berth ball. Then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, my waters break. They go pop,
Speaker 3: and with all three berths. As soon as my waters break,
Speaker 3: the head just comes straight down and smacks onto my cervix,
Speaker 3: and that's when everything really happens. So sitting on the
Speaker 3: ball next to the berth pool, and my midwife is
Speaker 3: standing next to me, and she can see me watching
Speaker 3: the water rise so slowly, and she goes, don't watch
Speaker 3: the water. I'll tell you when it's ready, you just
Speaker 3: concentrate on what you're doing. She's got this beautiful calming
Speaker 3: voice and going Okay, just breathe, just breathe, just breathe.
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, she goes, Okay, the
Speaker 3: water is at the minimum fill level you can get in,
Speaker 3: and I'm going, oh, thank goodness for that.
Speaker 2: So by this time, it's almost eight pm. The kids
Speaker 2: are tucked up in bed. How very lucky for her,
Speaker 2: and this labor is moving.
Speaker 3: The song spirit Bird was playing by Xavier Rudd, and
Speaker 3: this song I don't know how it managed to happen,
Speaker 3: but this is a very special song for me. My
Speaker 3: cousin passed away when I was pregnant with my first baby,
Speaker 3: and Spirit Bird was like his song, like embodies him.
Speaker 3: He was this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful human. So Spirit Bird
Speaker 3: is playing as I'm getting into the water and as
Speaker 3: I'm just really really sinking into into labor and breathing
Speaker 3: through everything. This is like the hardest part right now.
Speaker 3: It's a part where you're very internal, so I don't
Speaker 3: really know what's happening around me. I'm just concentrating on
Speaker 3: breathing and focusing on my body and trying to feel
Speaker 3: the baby moved down. I've got my eyes closed or
Speaker 3: I don't know whether it's hazy, just you feel like
Speaker 3: you're just internal. Nothing else matters. It's just you and
Speaker 3: your baby. So I get into the water and spirit
Speaker 3: birds playing and I'm focusing really hard, and then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, my body just goes bam, like you
Speaker 3: need to push, and it's not a conscious push, it's
Speaker 3: your body just bearing down and pushing for you. So
Speaker 3: for this birth, I really really really wanted to focus
Speaker 3: on letting my body do its thing. So I'm in
Speaker 3: the word water trying to breathe as much as I can,
Speaker 3: but your body just takes over and it pushes for you.
Speaker 3: There's nothing that you can do to stop it. Trying
Speaker 3: to look at my birth affirmations and make sure that
Speaker 3: I'm breathing. I've got up on the wall. Everything from
Speaker 3: inhale exhale, to every contraction brings me closer to you,
Speaker 3: or soft lips equals soft lips, and that is a
Speaker 3: little code for soft lips of your mouth equals a
Speaker 3: soft vagina, soft vagina lips. So I'm trying to focus
Speaker 3: on those things, and then all of a sudden, I
Speaker 3: can feel myself poohing, which was my biggest fear. I
Speaker 3: did not want to pooh in front of everybody. But
Speaker 3: it's just one of these things that happens. Is the
Speaker 3: baby's coming down, it pushes on your bow and it
Speaker 3: pushes pooh out. It's not you being like, oh, I
Speaker 3: need to pooh and you just squeeze what out. It
Speaker 3: just happens.
Speaker 2: Love PC's honesty. There happens to the best of us.
Speaker 3: I can feel the baby come down a little bit more,
Speaker 3: and I have to bring my focus back onto breathing.
Speaker 3: But instead of breathing like big deep breaths like it
Speaker 3: was more it's too hard to do that at the time,
Speaker 3: so I was trying to focus on not pushing and
Speaker 3: letting the baby come down by doing very shallow breasts.
Speaker 3: It's more like a.
Speaker 2: Here's Casey in the moment, just incredible.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 2: Casey worked hard to stay in tune with her body
Speaker 2: as much as she.
Speaker 3: Could all through this labor. I'm trying to focus on
Speaker 3: what I want to do, what my body wants to do,
Speaker 3: and I can feel the baby coming down further and further,
Speaker 3: and then it starts to really stretch and really burn.
Speaker 3: You get this burning sensation, and that's when you know
Speaker 3: that the baby is right there. It's coming out any second.
Speaker 3: And if you push too fast then I know that
Speaker 3: you can run the risk of tearing, which I tore
Speaker 3: with my first. I had little grazes with the second,
Speaker 3: and I was trying as hard as I could not
Speaker 3: to tear this time. So I knew that if I
Speaker 3: didn't push it out too quickly, that would reduce the
Speaker 3: risk of tears. So I'm trying to breathe and let
Speaker 3: the stretching happen and let him come out in their
Speaker 3: own time. So it's stretched, and it stretched, and it burnt,
Speaker 3: and it burnt, and I'm going and he came out.
Speaker 3: It came out in almost one push. I think my
Speaker 3: beautiful midwife Sarah pushed him through my legs and I
Speaker 3: was able to bring him up out of the water.
Speaker 3: And I remember when I reached down and saw his face,
Speaker 3: he was so stunned. He looked like a stunned mullet.
Speaker 3: I think babies always look really strange when they first
Speaker 3: come out. They're a little bit they're squished, and they're
Speaker 3: a bit blue grayish looking. They're a funny color they're
Speaker 3: not like you would expect. So I looked down and
Speaker 3: I could see his eyes they were open, looking at
Speaker 3: me through the water. And I brought him up and
Speaker 3: I expected him to cry, but he didn't. He just
Speaker 3: kind of looked at me, and I looked at him,
Speaker 3: and we kind of looked at each other and processed
Speaker 3: what had happened. And I brought him close to me,
Speaker 3: and he had the cord wrapped around his neck a
Speaker 3: couple of times, so my midwife helped it unravel through
Speaker 3: his neck, and he still didn't cry, and I'm going,
Speaker 3: You're a bit shocked, aren't you. He was still trying
Speaker 3: to adjust to everything, But he was so so calm.
Speaker 3: He was really calm. I don't know whether that was
Speaker 3: because he was born in the water or whether it
Speaker 3: was because maybe because of the cord it had stopped
Speaker 3: a bit of the blood flow, but for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: he was really calm, and nobody was worried. Everybody in
Speaker 3: the room was just so calm.
Speaker 2: So Casey got her wish a beautiful, serene homebirth.
Speaker 3: And I remember not being able to think of any
Speaker 3: words to say except for Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi Hi.
Speaker 3: I think I said hi like fifty times in the
Speaker 3: spaces of a minute, because I was so shocked that
Speaker 3: we had this baby and everything was amazing, and I
Speaker 3: felt so good afterwards. And I was looking at my
Speaker 3: daughter and I could see her her face, her face
Speaker 3: was priceless, like the look on her face was pure love,
Speaker 3: pure joy. She was just in awe and she's looking
Speaker 3: at me and looking at him and going, oh, my goodness,
Speaker 3: that's my baby. And I'm looking at my husband and
Speaker 3: he's looking at me like, look what you just did again,
Speaker 3: You're incredible. I felt like such a bad ass.
Speaker 6: When you push this baby out and you birth this
Speaker 6: whole entire being after you've just created it, that feeling,
Speaker 6: there is nothing else like it.
Speaker 3: It is so incredible. And to be able to do
Speaker 3: that in your own home by yourself, not that it
Speaker 3: was by myself, because I had my beautiful support system,
Speaker 3: which is so important. I had everyone that I wanted there.
Speaker 3: There is not one person that I didn't want there.
Speaker 3: When you have all those people supporting you and you
Speaker 3: push out this beautiful being and they're there and you're
Speaker 3: in this bubble of love, there is nothing else that
Speaker 3: I have experienced that compares to that feeling. It is
Speaker 3: absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2: Having her four and a half year old daughter involved
Speaker 2: in her birth may seem controversial to some, but her
Speaker 2: keenness made the decision an absolute no brainer for Casey.
Speaker 3: For me, having her there was the most beautiful thing,
Speaker 3: because my wish for her, and my wish for all
Speaker 3: children and for all people is for them to not
Speaker 3: be afraid of birth, for everybody to be excited, and
Speaker 3: for it to be normal. It's a normal life event.
Speaker 3: It's not a sickness or an illness, it's not a disability.
Speaker 3: It's a part of life, and it is so normal.
Speaker 3: And I needed her to know that women are so strong.
Speaker 3: We are so strong and what we can do is
Speaker 3: absolutely incredible. And for her to have the opportun unity
Speaker 3: to see that firsthand, and for me to be able
Speaker 3: to show her that, not just tell her, oh, women
Speaker 3: are so strong, Like birth is amazing. You go to hospital,
Speaker 3: you have a baby, it's fine. That's one thing. But
Speaker 3: for her to be able to experience it and feel
Speaker 3: it and see her baby brother come out, that to
Speaker 3: me is absolutely priceless. And I really really hope that
Speaker 3: that is something that she remembers and she carries with
Speaker 3: her through her life and when she goes to have
Speaker 3: her own babies, if that's what she chooses, I hope
Speaker 3: that she has that same positive outlook on birth.
Speaker 2: And here is Casey's birth in her own words.
Speaker 4: I would describe my birth as healing, as magical, calm,
Speaker 4: and absolutely perfect. It was everything that I had hoped
Speaker 4: that it would be and more. I always feel like
Speaker 4: I should hold back when I'm talking about my birth
Speaker 4: if people ask, I never feel like I really want
Speaker 4: to say how much I loved it or how well
Speaker 4: everything went, because I would never want to make someone
Speaker 4: feel inadequate or inferior if their birth didn't go how
Speaker 4: they planned, or how they'd imagined, or how they'd wanted.
Speaker 3: I would never want to make someone feel like they
Speaker 3: weren't enough based on their birth. So it is really
Speaker 3: hard to say exactly how I feel about my birth.
Speaker 3: But hand on heart, I loved it so much. And
Speaker 3: if I had one hundred babies, I would have one
Speaker 3: hundred home births. I just don't know that I would
Speaker 3: be able to raise one hundred kids. That's all.
Speaker 2: While we love learning about women's birth stories, we recognize
Speaker 2: that it's also important to hear from the experts, and
Speaker 2: we're lucky enough to have one of the best. Doctor
Speaker 2: Gollie is one of the country's favorite pediatricians. He's a
Speaker 2: father of three and knows everything there is to know
Speaker 2: about bubbs. If Casey's story has made a home birth
Speaker 2: sound attractive to you, you're not alone. Here's doctor Golly
Speaker 2: on how you could qualify to have your own.
Speaker 1: Every hospital runs things a little bit differently. I can
Speaker 1: talk about the Royal Women's Hospital in Victoria. There are
Speaker 1: certain criteria you have to meet in terms of your
Speaker 1: home and the birth environment, and then there are other
Speaker 1: criteria that reference the mother. So when it comes to
Speaker 1: your home, the Royal Women's Hospital criteria that you have
Speaker 1: to live within or plant to birth within twenty minutes
Speaker 1: of the hospital. The home has got to have clean
Speaker 1: running water, electricity, it's got to be a comfortable temperature.
Speaker 1: It has to have telephone access or mobile phone reception.
Speaker 1: And you have to have support for at least twenty
Speaker 1: four hours after birth. Now that doesn't have to be partner,
Speaker 1: It can be neighbor, it can be friend, grandparent, whoever
Speaker 1: it may be. You can't be by yourself. Then, when
Speaker 1: it comes to the mother and the mother's health, the
Speaker 1: mother has to be aged forty or under. It has
Speaker 1: to be a singleton pregnancy, so not twins, triplets, etc.
Speaker 1: And it can't be your fifth baby, so you can't
Speaker 1: have that if you've already had four babies. You also
Speaker 1: have to be of a healthy weight during pregnancy, not
Speaker 1: have a history of a previous caesar or some kind
Speaker 1: of complicated vaginal birth, and ultimately there has to be
Speaker 1: no medical concerns for the mother or the baby that
Speaker 1: have come out of that antienador care. Plus the labor
Speaker 1: has to be between thirty seven weeks and forty two
Speaker 1: or forty one plus six, as well as of course
Speaker 1: the baby being head down, so they won't allow a
Speaker 1: breach home birth, so legs first. So you really have
Speaker 1: to satisfy all these criteria before that is condoned, supported
Speaker 1: and put into effect. But as I said, every place
Speaker 1: is slightly different, so you need to do a little
Speaker 1: bit of research to make sure that it's okay for you.
Speaker 2: And the question about who you should have in the
Speaker 2: room with you when your birth is a good one
Speaker 2: regardless of where you give birth. I wondered if doctor
Speaker 2: Gollie has any advice of what support partners can do
Speaker 2: to be most helpful.
Speaker 1: The best people are the people who are going to
Speaker 1: have your back, advocate for you, do what you want
Speaker 1: in that moment, no matter what. Most commonly it is
Speaker 1: your partner. And you know, I've been that support person
Speaker 1: for my wife three times and I got better and
Speaker 1: better each time, but I was definitely not fantastic the
Speaker 1: first time. You know, it's a difficult job, but it's
Speaker 1: nowhere near as difficult as it is to push a
Speaker 1: baby out or even to have a caesar. I think
Speaker 1: the most important thing for expectant mothers to do is
Speaker 1: to have conversations about all the possibilities that can happen
Speaker 1: in a birth. I want you to be o fay
Speaker 1: with the language. I want you to know what an
Speaker 1: epiduel is. I want you to know what you can
Speaker 1: and can't have. I want you to know the reasons
Speaker 1: why an episiotomy might be required or an emergency cazar.
Speaker 1: I don't want these terms to be thrown at you
Speaker 1: and you're hearing them for the very first time because
Speaker 1: you're not in the right headspace to make such an
Speaker 1: important decisions. It's just not fair. And one of the
Speaker 1: key roles of your support person is to help you
Speaker 1: in that moment when it's really hard to concentrate, it's
Speaker 1: really hard to hear. You've got a lot of mixed emotions.
Speaker 1: You've got exhaustion, you've got pain, you've got excitement, you've
Speaker 1: got wonder there are so many things happening. You need
Speaker 1: an advocate, you need a bodyguard, you need so much
Speaker 1: support and protection. And you know what, you also want
Speaker 1: to share. I don't want to only talk about the
Speaker 1: challenges and how painful and stressful birth is. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: all of those things, But my god, is it beautiful.
Speaker 1: And to be able to share this, I don't know
Speaker 1: what were to you, this incredibly miraculous, phenomenal, jaw dropping moment.
Speaker 1: To be able to share it with someone you love,
Speaker 1: it's just special in the most indescribable way. And you
Speaker 1: have that forever. So if it's not your partner, choose
Speaker 1: that person carefully. It might be your mum, it might
Speaker 1: be your neighbor, it might be your sister. It's got
Speaker 1: to be someone who you want to have that experience with,
Speaker 1: who you know is going to have your back no
Speaker 1: matter what and support you and advocate you and fight
Speaker 1: for you and really just enjoy the moment with.
Speaker 2: You, and here at Diary of a Birth, we want
Speaker 2: to hold your hand not just through your nine months
Speaker 2: of pregnancy, but the terrifying and wondrous days when you
Speaker 2: get the baby home. His case's advice to new mums
Speaker 2: in the fourth trimester.
Speaker 3: So the most useful thing that anybody ever said to
Speaker 3: me before I had a baby was if nothing else
Speaker 3: is working, get them wet or take them outside. And
Speaker 3: what that means is, if you've got a baby who
Speaker 3: just won't stop crying and you're like, what is wrong
Speaker 3: with you? Try get them wet. So take them and
Speaker 3: put them in the bath, nice and deep, get their
Speaker 3: ears in, get them floating around. Has to be deep
Speaker 3: enough for them to float. Get them wet, or put
Speaker 3: them in the shower.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us on Diary of a Birth,
Speaker 2: where we celebrate all the amazing ways that we as
Speaker 2: women bring life into the world. Join me next week
Speaker 2: as Taylor chewed Hope Glacken tells her utterly incredible story
Speaker 2: of birthing quads yep. Four of them.
Speaker 7: She's put the wand on my belly and I've seen
Speaker 7: like multiple like black circles, and then she's ripped it away.
Speaker 7: And I see like the color drop from her face
Speaker 7: and I've instantly gone, and she's gone. She goes, this
Speaker 7: isn't twins, this is She's What even is is quads quadruplets.
Speaker 2: Diary of a Birth was hosted by me Cassana lu
Speaker 2: Kitch with expert input from doctor Gollie, Audio production by
Speaker 2: Scott Stronach, and our executive producer is Georgie Page