Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA 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.
Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Kassenya Lukitch, and this is diary of a birth.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the birth you plan and the birth you get
Speaker 1: a world's apart, but that doesn't mean it can't still
Speaker 1: be empowering. Today's guest wanted a calm home birth with
Speaker 1: her private midwife after feeling unsupported in the public system.
Speaker 1: She had her birth already, fairy lights set up, and
Speaker 1: her care team on standby, but when labor finally started
Speaker 1: forty one weeks, everything happened faster than anyone expected.
Speaker 3: So I called my husband just after midday. I was
Speaker 3: in the show at quarter past twelve. I crawled out
Speaker 3: of the shower at twelve thirty five, and my water
Speaker 3: broke just as I got out of the shower, all
Speaker 3: over the on sweet floor. And then straight after my
Speaker 3: water brokes, I felt the urged push.
Speaker 1: With her midwife stuck in traffic and her husband racing
Speaker 1: home from work. She found herself alone on her bathroom floor,
Speaker 1: hoping help would arrive in time. So let's meet today's mum.
Speaker 3: Hi, my name is Lauren and this is the diary
Speaker 3: of my birth with Finley.
Speaker 1: So, Lauren, Finley is your second child.
Speaker 3: He is, Yes.
Speaker 1: Can you just tell us a little bit about what
Speaker 1: life was like before you fell pregnant with Finley.
Speaker 3: So there's almost four years between Finley and his big
Speaker 3: sister Emerson. So before I fell pregnant with Finley, it
Speaker 3: was my husband, myself and our at the time three
Speaker 3: year old. She was a little bit of an unicornchild.
Speaker 3: I hate to put this into the universe, but she
Speaker 3: ate well, slept well, was fun to be around. So
Speaker 3: we decided it was time that we were ready to
Speaker 3: introduce a second child, a fourth member of the family.
Speaker 3: And of course, a month after I fell pregnant with
Speaker 3: Finley is when the three year old attitude kicked in.
Speaker 3: But we wouldn't have had it any other way.
Speaker 1: So can you tell me about what you wanted your
Speaker 1: experience to be like with Finley? What type of birth
Speaker 1: did you want to have?
Speaker 3: I guess that's informed a lot by the birth that
Speaker 3: I did have with Emerson. Going into my first pregnancy
Speaker 3: in birth, I was very open to, you know, let's
Speaker 3: see how things go. My birth plan was very don't
Speaker 3: offer me pain relief, don't offer me interventions. If I
Speaker 3: want them, I'll ask for them. I went through a
Speaker 3: private hospital and a private obstetrician with my first birth
Speaker 3: because in the circles I run in the area I
Speaker 3: live in, that's just what you did if you had
Speaker 3: private health insurance. And I was fairly lucky with my experience.
Speaker 3: I had a good relationship with my obstetricians right up
Speaker 3: until I think it was thirty seven and a half
Speaker 3: weeks of pregnancy, and then I should just preface this.
Speaker 3: My daughter was due the day after New Year's I
Speaker 3: started getting a lot of pressure from the private obstetric
Speaker 3: that I'd worked with to induce prior to Christmas and
Speaker 3: prior to the public holidays. I was quite resistant to that,
Speaker 3: but I did feel like I was pushed or coerced
Speaker 3: a little bit into an induction. It did work in
Speaker 3: my favor. When I went in to be induced, they
Speaker 3: found out I was already actually in labor, so they
Speaker 3: manually broke my waters. No other intervention, and two and
Speaker 3: a half hours later, my daughter was born. So when
Speaker 3: it came time to plan for our care with Finley,
Speaker 3: I knew I wanted to do it differently. I knew
Speaker 3: I wanted to be the expert on my body. I
Speaker 3: wanted to trust my body to birth, and I wanted
Speaker 3: to make sure that I had health support, obviously from
Speaker 3: an expert, but one little so trusted me to be
Speaker 3: an expert in what my body was experiencing and on
Speaker 3: how my baby and I were going to work together
Speaker 3: for him to be born. In my area as well,
Speaker 3: we do have a publicly funded home birth program which
Speaker 3: is very close to my house, and I was very
Speaker 3: very keen. I think even before I knew I was pregnant,
Speaker 3: I was like, right, next time around, this is what
Speaker 3: I'm meaning for. I'd started working with a prenatal and
Speaker 3: pregnancy birth dueler at this point.
Speaker 1: So basically the plan was you went into the public system.
Speaker 1: The plan was going to be that you were going
Speaker 1: to try and do a vaginal unmedicated birth in the hospital.
Speaker 3: Yes, originally in the hospital, but.
Speaker 1: With a duela supporting you throughout the process. Yes. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're at sixteen weeks. At this point, you and
Speaker 1: your husband say we need to go and find a
Speaker 1: private midwife. What was your next step?
Speaker 3: Then? I was very lucky. I obviously had already linked
Speaker 3: in with a Duela. I also have a friend I
Speaker 3: went to your high school with who works as a
Speaker 3: post part of Duela in the area that I live in.
Speaker 3: So I reached out to her for recommendations and she
Speaker 3: gave me a list of a few private practicing midwives
Speaker 3: that service our area, and I reached out to I
Speaker 3: think three or four of them and clicked with one
Speaker 3: and engaged her to move forward. It was really comfortable.
Speaker 3: All of the midwives were lovely. Obviously, most private practicing
Speaker 3: midwives in our area at least tend to lean high
Speaker 3: to homebirths because a lot of the reason that people
Speaker 3: engage private midwives is because they want to go outside
Speaker 3: of the hospital system or have the hospital system as
Speaker 3: the escalation pathway if and when it's needed.
Speaker 1: What does a private midwife cost, Because obviously, even when
Speaker 1: we talk about going through the private system and having
Speaker 1: an obstetrition, there is still out of pocket expenses which
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't realize. I think just because
Speaker 1: you have health insurance.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, health insurance covers the hospital birth. It does
Speaker 3: not cover the obstetrician.
Speaker 1: I remember doing the calculations and with all of the scans,
Speaker 1: you know, to test all of that, plus the obstetrician,
Speaker 1: plus the anethetist, it was about ten thousand dollars out
Speaker 1: of pocket per birth.
Speaker 3: Plus the private health insurance that you've had to pay
Speaker 3: for for at least work twelve months before and then
Speaker 3: actually being pregnant. So absolutely it's phenomenal. So in perspective,
Speaker 3: the private practicing midwife for the whole pregnancy, birth, and
Speaker 3: six weeks postpardon was six thousand dollars. And there are
Speaker 3: Medicare rebates available for pre and postnatal care, so I
Speaker 3: think I got about sixteen hundred dollars back from Medicare.
Speaker 3: Birth is not covered by Medicare, but the pre and
Speaker 3: post natal care that a privately practicing midwife provides is okay,
Speaker 3: so you get a lot more. In my opinion, having
Speaker 3: gone through the private system birth and then the private midwife,
Speaker 3: I felt like I got much better value for money
Speaker 3: with the care that I received with a private practicing midwife.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting just to see the comparisons of costs,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of people would say, oh,
Speaker 1: private midwife, that's going to be way outside my budget.
Speaker 1: But I suppose if you are in a lower risk category
Speaker 1: and you do want a low intervention or potentially want
Speaker 1: to go for a home birth, that could be a
Speaker 1: really good option for some women. Let's get to the
Speaker 1: birth itself. How far along were you when you started
Speaker 1: feeling labor.
Speaker 3: I think the first night I had contractions was at
Speaker 3: forty weeks and three days. Again for background, when I
Speaker 3: went to be induced and was in labor with my daughter,
Speaker 3: I was thirty seven and six, so myself, my husband,
Speaker 3: and my midwife were all quite surprised when forty weeks
Speaker 3: came and went with nothing. I had, I guess what
Speaker 3: they call prodromal or like early or false labor. I
Speaker 3: had it with both pregnancy, So essentially I had five
Speaker 3: hours of intense contractions at forty and three and they
Speaker 3: got down to I think about four and a half
Speaker 3: minutes apart and lasting for about forty five seconds. So
Speaker 3: we told my daughter we were having a practice from
Speaker 3: and maybe the baby would be here, and did she
Speaker 3: want to go to Nanna and Pops or did you
Speaker 3: want to stay here in case the baby came? She
Speaker 3: wanted to sleep over it and hand on pops. So
Speaker 3: my parents came and picked her up and took her
Speaker 3: for the ninth. The midwife was like, watch a movie
Speaker 3: something happy, you know, helped the oxytocin flow, So we
Speaker 3: did that and the contraction stopped.
Speaker 1: So I was.
Speaker 3: Like, that's fine, We've been here before. It's not labor,
Speaker 3: but it's helping get me ready. Those contractions continued on
Speaker 3: and off for the next five days and then sort
Speaker 3: of peed it out completely, and it wasn't all the time.
Speaker 3: I'd sort of have patches of like an hour or
Speaker 3: two a day, or a couple of times a day
Speaker 3: where I'd be like, oh, here we go again. We
Speaker 3: hit I think it was forty one weeks and one
Speaker 3: day and one. Thing about privately practicing midwives, or at
Speaker 3: least the one that I had who was phenomenal, they
Speaker 3: are so across the evidence in terms of like post
Speaker 3: dates care. So basically, as soon as you hit that
Speaker 3: magic you know, forty week estimated due date and the
Speaker 3: recommended care for after that. My midwife is very communicative,
Speaker 3: I guess about the risks, and while she reiterated that
Speaker 3: forty one weeks is still perfectly normal. Just station at
Speaker 3: that point. The evidence is to get a scan at
Speaker 3: the very least to check fluid levels so that if
Speaker 3: I'd had a leak or anything, and make sure that
Speaker 3: the baby was still happy and healthy in there. I
Speaker 3: had no concerns. Baby was still moving. I could you
Speaker 3: feel an elbow or a knee or a shoulder or whatever.
Speaker 3: It was popping out at random hours. So we went
Speaker 3: for a scan on the Monday morning forty one and
Speaker 3: one and home. Remember we were sitting there and the
Speaker 3: ultrasound technician was checking the fluid levels and checking the
Speaker 3: placental blood flow and all those essential things, and he
Speaker 3: actually made a comment. He said, how far along are you?
Speaker 3: And I said forty one and one today. He said, right,
Speaker 3: everything looks great. Baby's really comfortable in there. But hopefully
Speaker 3: I don't have to see you next week for a
Speaker 3: forty two week scan. I said, oh God, let's hope not.
Speaker 3: So after that scan we went home and because as
Speaker 3: luck would have it, my midwife had two clients that
Speaker 3: were due in the month of October. I'd been due
Speaker 3: at the very start. My due date was the first
Speaker 3: of October and her other October client was due right
Speaker 3: at the end. However, as luck would have it, client
Speaker 3: needed to give birth at a hospital in Sydney on
Speaker 3: this day that my scan was booked for, and the
Speaker 3: midwife had called me the day before and said, look,
Speaker 3: if you're feeling anything, if there's any sign baby's coming,
Speaker 3: I won't go. I'll explain to the other client that
Speaker 3: I just can't travel to Sydney when you're a week over.
Speaker 3: And I sort of said, I feel okay, We've been
Speaker 3: here a few days and nothing's changed. So I texted
Speaker 3: her after the scan and said, hey, I'll just sound texted.
Speaker 3: Everything looks good, no signs of moving. Hope your other
Speaker 3: client goes well, And she texted back and she was like, thanks,
Speaker 3: talk soon. So my husband decided, because we've been told
Speaker 3: essentially that everything looked like the same, that he would
Speaker 3: go into the office for the day on the twenty
Speaker 3: minutes from home and just sort of wrap a few
Speaker 3: things up and tell everybody at work that he was
Speaker 3: going to work from home for the remainder of the
Speaker 3: week because it had to be coming sooner or later.
Speaker 1: So you'll buy yourself at home.
Speaker 3: By myself at home, which is fine. You know, I
Speaker 3: had a snack, I lead on the couch. I put
Speaker 3: on a movie I sort of got I think I
Speaker 3: was like two thirds of the way through the movie
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, I have to go to
Speaker 3: the toilet. And so I did that and went back
Speaker 3: and started the movie, and ten minutes later I felt
Speaker 3: like I had to go to the toilet again, and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, this is weird. And I texted
Speaker 3: my husband. I said I'm going to the toilet a bit,
Speaker 3: like did we eat something weird? And he's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I've been a few times as well. It must have
Speaker 3: been whatever we had for dinner last time. I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: no worries. I didn't think any more of it. And
Speaker 3: then after I'd gone to the toilet like twice more
Speaker 3: in like fifteen minutes, the first contraction hit.
Speaker 1: Okay, So were you feeling cramping when you needed to
Speaker 1: go to the toilet or was he like just weeing?
Speaker 3: No, it was like I needed to poop.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So that's where I was like, did we eat something funny?
Speaker 3: And again, cause my husband was like yeah, maybe, I
Speaker 3: was like okay, cool, Probably not pregnancy because he's feeling
Speaker 3: it too, must have been whatever. So the first contraction
Speaker 3: hit and I started my app with the timing, and
Speaker 3: then the next one hit two and a half minutes later.
Speaker 3: So I called my husband and I said, hey, something's happening.
Speaker 3: Can you pack up and work from home for the
Speaker 3: rest of the afternoon? Interesting case and he was like, yep, sure,
Speaker 3: I'll say goodbye to everyone and pack up and head home.
Speaker 3: I said, cool. I texted my midwife, who I knew
Speaker 3: was in Sydney, so minimum two hours drive from Newcastle.
Speaker 3: I said, hey, things are kicking off. Just had a
Speaker 3: couple of contractions a few minutes apart. Do you want
Speaker 3: to start driving? Basically, because we knew that my first
Speaker 3: birth was two and a half hours, we knew those
Speaker 3: are possibility things. We've moved quickly. And my midwife texted
Speaker 3: back she said, yep, jumping in the car now. I
Speaker 3: texted my dooler and I said, hey, this is happening.
Speaker 3: She's like cool, I'm just going to get my kids
Speaker 3: off to care and then I'll start heading your way.
Speaker 3: And by the time I'd made those calls, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: these contractions are getting faster. I think maybe ten minutes
Speaker 3: had passed and they were two minutes apart and lasting
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty five seconds, and then they started getting
Speaker 3: really intense, to the point where I was like, oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, I can't even stand through these. And I
Speaker 3: remembered either the doll or the midwife, one of them
Speaker 3: saying that a birth planning appointment, because you've had a
Speaker 3: fast way before. If you feel like things are getting
Speaker 3: out of control, quickly get your tummy horizontal, like so
Speaker 3: that you know your luterus is working against gravity. So
Speaker 3: I was down on my on sweet floor in the bathroom,
Speaker 3: so the tiniest room of my house, on all fours,
Speaker 3: kind of just hoping that gravity had slow the berth down.
Speaker 3: Disappointed to say that did not make a difference at all.
Speaker 3: So I jumped into the shower, still on all faurs,
Speaker 3: hoping that the water would ease some of the pain
Speaker 3: I guess of the contractions. That was also a very
Speaker 3: poor choice, because then it was extremely difficult to get
Speaker 3: out of the shower. I did at one point manage.
Speaker 3: I got out of the shower literally crawled across the
Speaker 3: floor to get my phone so that I could call
Speaker 3: my husband and be like you know, excuse me, where
Speaker 3: the hell are you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, just to clarify some of the timings, you
Speaker 1: called your husband, you call your duola, your midwife, and
Speaker 1: then you go into the shower. How much time has
Speaker 1: passed between that first phone call and the time you
Speaker 1: call your husband again to be like where are you?
Speaker 3: So I had to pull this all together from like
Speaker 3: call logs basically. So I called my husband just after midday.
Speaker 3: I was in the shower at quarter past twelve. I
Speaker 3: crawled out of the shower at twelve thirty five and
Speaker 3: my water broke just as I got out of the shower,
Speaker 3: all over the on sweet floor, thankfully not on the carpet.
Speaker 3: And then straight after my water broke at twelve forty
Speaker 3: that was I felt the urge to push. So we're
Speaker 3: forty minutes, forty minutes from first contraction coming up. So
Speaker 3: my midwife, very calmly says to me a loud speaker, Lauren,
Speaker 3: can you ask Matt to come back in please? So
Speaker 3: I've yelled for him to come back in, and the
Speaker 3: midwife says to Matt again, so calm, just Matt, don't
Speaker 3: worry about the birthpool. You need to die. Triple zero.
Speaker 1: I just want to also to say, you are by
Speaker 1: yourself in your house right now?
Speaker 3: I am by myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Are you scared?
Speaker 3: I mean yes and no. It was yeah, yes, because
Speaker 3: I was like, this isn't how we planned it the birth,
Speaker 3: and we'd had the birth space set up for weeks
Speaker 3: expecting that i'd go early, so we had, you know,
Speaker 3: a pool inflated and the beautiful fairy lights and like
Speaker 3: photos of my daughter and my husband and I all
Speaker 3: together to help, you know, promote a positive and loving environment.
Speaker 3: And I couldn't even crawl from one end of the
Speaker 3: house to the other where all of that was. So
Speaker 3: I was scared in that it didn't look like it
Speaker 3: was how it was planned. But I was also confident
Speaker 3: because I remember being told or reading that if birth
Speaker 3: happens quickly, it's generally because things are going well. So
Speaker 3: if things are wrong, birth tends to slow down, not
Speaker 3: the opposite. And I was like, okay, so that must
Speaker 3: have popped into my head, which was great. It was
Speaker 3: the reassurance I needed after my water broke that I
Speaker 3: definitely panicked because I remembered the first time, like if
Speaker 3: my water hadn't been broken manually, it probably would have
Speaker 3: broken just before you're ready to push, So what generally
Speaker 3: happens if your water breaks in labor? And because I
Speaker 3: felt that intense pressure to push almost instantly, I was like,
Speaker 3: oh God, where is everybody? And it wasn't a I
Speaker 3: can't birth this child, it was a who's going to
Speaker 3: catch the child? I am on a tiled floor if
Speaker 3: I was like, physically, I can't do it. So I
Speaker 3: called my midwife at that point and said, this has happened, obviously,
Speaker 3: knowing she's coming from Sydney, she's at best still an
Speaker 3: hour and a half away. I have to give her credit.
Speaker 3: She was the calmest person I've ever spoken to ever
Speaker 3: with She's driving down the freeway talking to a woman
Speaker 3: who is, you know, giving birth imminently. She just sounded
Speaker 3: so calm. It was very reassuring. And I remember her
Speaker 3: very calmly saying, Lauren, where is Matt my husband? And
Speaker 3: I said, I don't know. I called him forty minutes ago,
Speaker 3: he's not here, and she said, right, can you hang
Speaker 3: up on me and call him. Luckily, he walked through
Speaker 3: the door really at that moment and calls out, where
Speaker 3: are you? And I'm like, I'm in the en suite
Speaker 3: and he comes running in and sees me on all
Speaker 3: fours obviously my water broken all over the floor. The
Speaker 3: midwife on loudspeaker on my phone. He goes, what do
Speaker 3: you want me to do? And I said, can you
Speaker 3: start filling the birth pool? Like baby's coming? So he
Speaker 3: ran out to the kitchen and was fiddling with the
Speaker 3: hose connections. I've had I don't know, two or three
Speaker 3: contractions in the next couple of minutes, and my midwife,
Speaker 3: very calmly says to me on loud speaker, Lauren, can
Speaker 3: you ask Matt to come back in please? So I've
Speaker 3: yelled for him to come back in, and the midwife
Speaker 3: says to Matt again, so calm, just Matt, don't worry
Speaker 3: about the birthpool. You need to die a triple zero.
Speaker 3: This baby is coming soon.
Speaker 1: I would love to know, because there's quite a primal
Speaker 1: thing that takes over when you're in those last stages
Speaker 1: of birth, particularly when you're in that pushing phase. It's
Speaker 1: quite primal, becomes quite guttural. Yes, the midwife is being
Speaker 1: very calm. Matt, your husband. Men are not usually known
Speaker 1: for being very calm during these really stressful situations.
Speaker 3: What was his response with the midwife. He did what
Speaker 3: she said, he died triple zero, and his phone straight away.
Speaker 3: It was a very interesting situation. And it's funny that
Speaker 3: you talk about the primal brain because the situation that
Speaker 3: I found myself in, I very much felt like I
Speaker 3: was in that, But it was also like a part
Speaker 3: of my brain had split off and was still present
Speaker 3: and almost like watching the primal part happening, because I
Speaker 3: was still aware that my husband was talking to the
Speaker 3: ambulance dispatches. So it's his phone on speaker talking to
Speaker 3: the ambulance team and then my midwife on speaker trying
Speaker 3: to coach me through contractions. And I remember one thing
Speaker 3: vividly of the multiple phone calls and everything with contractions
Speaker 3: going on, is the dispatcher saying does she need a
Speaker 3: transfer to hospital or do you need somebody to deliver
Speaker 3: the baby? And Matt's basically yelling at her, no, the
Speaker 3: baby is coming now, how soon can someone be here?
Speaker 3: And she was like the dispatcher heard me having a contraction.
Speaker 3: She's like, oh, oh, I can set the closest one
Speaker 3: is ten minutes away. Can you unlock the front door
Speaker 3: and stay on the phone until they get there, so yeah,
Speaker 3: I think the time the paramedics arrived was pretty much
Speaker 3: one o'clock, so yeah, twenty ish minutes, fifteen ish minutes
Speaker 3: of midwife, paramedic dispatcher, both on speakerphone. My husband we'd
Speaker 3: spoken about what I wanted his role in birth to be.
Speaker 3: He was very adamant. He was like, I don't want
Speaker 3: to catch the baby. I think it's going to be
Speaker 3: really slippery. I am worried about it, and I was like, look,
Speaker 3: totally understand. That's fine. If we had a been in
Speaker 3: the water, I would have loved to catch the baby myself,
Speaker 3: but that was not where we found ourselves. And when
Speaker 3: the paramedics arrived at one o'clock, Matt obviously brought them
Speaker 3: straight in. We were very fortunate. We didn't realize how
Speaker 3: fortunate at the time, but when there's an imminent birth,
Speaker 3: they send two ambulances, so they send one in case
Speaker 3: mom needs care and one in case Bob needs care.
Speaker 3: And as luck would have it, the first ambulance on
Speaker 3: the scene was two female paramedics, one of whom was
Speaker 3: a very senior experience paramedic, but more than that, she
Speaker 3: was a single mother by choice who had gone through
Speaker 3: a publicly funded midwife program, so she had some idea
Speaker 3: when you know, she came in and had heard that
Speaker 3: we were planning a home birth with a private midwife.
Speaker 3: She came in and she had some idea I guess
Speaker 3: of the way we'd planned for birth to go, and
Speaker 3: immediately picked up that things were not going away we'd hoped.
Speaker 3: And I just remember her coming into this tiny little
Speaker 3: space with me in the en suite, and she squeezed
Speaker 3: down and all fours next to me, and she said,
Speaker 3: I'm here, you're safe. What do you want me to do?
Speaker 3: And I said, stand back, don't touch me, catch the
Speaker 3: baby when it comes. And she goes, I've got you.
Speaker 1: And it was just this like, oh, that's amazing. First
Speaker 1: of all, what wonderful luck. So she goes down, she's looking,
Speaker 1: You're still on all fours. Can she see the head?
Speaker 1: Can she see? Where were you at when the paramedics.
Speaker 3: Are so pretty much she came in. She assessed me
Speaker 3: and she said, I can't see the baby. Like she
Speaker 3: was measuring my blood pressure. I think at some point
Speaker 3: there was a puff like Mum seems healthy, Mum's aware,
Speaker 3: mum's talking, there's no blood. Everything is looking good. I
Speaker 3: think they were there for five ish minutes. Her partner
Speaker 3: was getting all the stuff they might need out of
Speaker 3: the truck and laying it on the bed. My husband
Speaker 3: was sort of trying to keep me focused, and I'm
Speaker 3: in some other part of my brain.
Speaker 1: You were having a baby exactly.
Speaker 3: And I remember my midwife saying to the paramedic, because
Speaker 3: she's still on speaker this whole time, can you see
Speaker 3: the head, Like is the head coming? And she said no,
Speaker 3: I can't see anything. And then I had a really
Speaker 3: big contraction and I reached down and I remember reaching
Speaker 3: down to feel and I was like, I can feel
Speaker 3: the head, and she goes, okay, like you're almost there.
Speaker 3: And so I think I had one more contraction, and
Speaker 3: you know they talk about the ring of fire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was about to ask you about the ring
Speaker 1: of fire.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So my son got stuck at the ring of fire.
Speaker 3: So basically his head was partially born. The way the
Speaker 3: paramedic was explaining it to my midwife was his head
Speaker 3: was out, but only to just below his nose, so
Speaker 3: his nose was clear, but his mouth and chin mustn't
Speaker 3: have been up promptly, so he was still stuck. So
Speaker 3: the midwife sort of took a deep breath and I
Speaker 3: could hear and speaking. She goes, okay, Lauren, like this
Speaker 3: next contraction, you really have to push hard. You have
Speaker 3: to deliver the rest of the head. We need to
Speaker 3: make sure his airways sorry it was their airways clear.
Speaker 3: At that point, we didn't know the sex, and I
Speaker 3: sort of like nodded and gritted my teeth. And then
Speaker 3: the next contraction came very quickly, and I you know,
Speaker 3: pushed for all hours were and the whole body came
Speaker 3: flying out, which was great because the paramedic caught the
Speaker 3: baby and I was like, great, you know baby hasn't
Speaker 3: hit the child floor.
Speaker 1: Well done, mum, you did it all in wine. That's
Speaker 1: so good.
Speaker 3: Eh. It was, And I'm in that relief when you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: the head is stuck to nothing is coming out of
Speaker 3: me anymore. It was just, honestly, there's no better, feeling
Speaker 3: like I can't there's nothing better. And I remember that
Speaker 3: the paramedic had caught the baby awkwardly while I was
Speaker 3: on all fours, and then she sort of looked at
Speaker 3: me holding the baby. She's like, what do I do?
Speaker 3: I said, pass it through my legs so that I
Speaker 3: can puddle it, and she did, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's great, so bub comes out. You're still on the floor.
Speaker 1: You've got bub on your chest. I'm assuming the cord
Speaker 1: is still a touched. You haven't delive at the placenter
Speaker 1: at this point.
Speaker 3: No, I hadn't. When the paramedic had arrived, at some
Speaker 3: point I'd said to her, we don't know the sex.
Speaker 3: When baby's born, nobody say the sex. I want to
Speaker 3: find out for myself. So I'd probably just been holding
Speaker 3: him to my chest, shell shocked for a couple of seconds,
Speaker 3: and she was like, do you want to check if
Speaker 3: it's a boy or a girl? And I checked and
Speaker 3: it was a little boy. And I remember saying to that,
Speaker 3: like making eye contact with him and saying, it's a
Speaker 3: little boy. And he was like, you're right. Because the
Speaker 3: whole pregnancy, I just had this sense. And then very
Speaker 3: quickly after that, the paramedic said to my midwife, still
Speaker 3: on speak of her, and she's like, there's blood. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of blood. What do I do? The midwife said, well,
Speaker 3: how much blood do you think it is? And she goes, well,
Speaker 3: it's really hard to tell because her waters had already
Speaker 3: broken in the same space and there's tows down and
Speaker 3: I don't know how much is blood and how much
Speaker 3: is other liquid. And a few seconds after that exchange,
Speaker 3: I remember just feeling really dizzy and lightheaded, which I
Speaker 3: lost basically no blood with my first berth. So I
Speaker 3: was like, this isn't this doesn't feel normal. And I
Speaker 3: remember the midwife on speakerphone saying to the paramedic, you
Speaker 3: need to cut the cord. You need to cut the
Speaker 3: cord now. And I said, no, I don't want to
Speaker 3: cut the cord. We want to you know, we want
Speaker 3: a delayed cord clamping and all of that. And she's like, Lauren,
Speaker 3: you have to cut the cord. So the paramedic did,
Speaker 3: and she said, Lauren, give the baby to Matt and
Speaker 3: I did that, and then the paramedics helped me lay
Speaker 3: down and I remember just, you know, being a little
Speaker 3: bit out of it but still aware. And once they'd
Speaker 3: ascertained that baby was perfectly healthy and perfect scores and
Speaker 3: Dad had him, they sort of pushed out and baby
Speaker 3: to the back of the bedroom so that they could
Speaker 3: handle what was going on with me. So I remember
Speaker 3: they put a canula in my arm and gave me,
Speaker 3: I think a bag of fluids, and he's like, we
Speaker 3: need to give you this in Tosin and like, the
Speaker 3: placenta is coming, I can feel it. Can you give
Speaker 3: me two minutes? And he looked at me and he
Speaker 3: went do you want to die? And I looked at
Speaker 3: him back and I just went no, no, and he's like,
Speaker 3: you're still bleeding. There's blood coming out. And I remember
Speaker 3: looking him dead in the face and I said, that's
Speaker 3: not blood, that's the plus center. So anyways, I delivered
Speaker 3: the placenta. They gave me a second bag of fluids.
Speaker 3: My dueler arrived sometime in this chaos and just sort
Speaker 3: of started snapping photos, which some of the photos are
Speaker 3: just like they're just funny now to look back on.
Speaker 3: But two bags are fluid, and I was right, like,
Speaker 3: I was fine. I could sit back up again. The
Speaker 3: dizziness and lightheadedness went away. And so that after I'd
Speaker 3: sort of stabilized, the second pair of paramedics that were
Speaker 3: there in catsbub needed help were like, Okay, well we
Speaker 3: can go because the baby's absolutely fine and is now stabilized,
Speaker 3: so we can leave it in the care of one
Speaker 3: ambulance team. So then we kind of got the like
Speaker 3: the gold and hour bubble that we'd wanted after the
Speaker 3: the chaos of the birth and immediate aftermath. But the
Speaker 3: dueler sort of like closed the curtains and the blinds
Speaker 3: and you know, closed the door where I'm sure my
Speaker 3: neighbors were listening out for my blood curdling screams and
Speaker 3: the ambulance sirens and shut the door and shoot the
Speaker 3: paramedics out and help me into bed, and you know,
Speaker 3: put on some calm music and brought me some drinks
Speaker 3: and like some snacks and obviously I had baby back
Speaker 3: on my chest at this point, just snun got up
Speaker 3: in bed. We had like almost an hour and a
Speaker 3: half I think of uninterrupted time with just the doueler
Speaker 3: going in and out to bring us things and the
Speaker 3: lead paramedic going in and out to check I was
Speaker 3: still okay. The second midwife so when primary practicing midwives
Speaker 3: attended birth, they have to have a second midwife there,
Speaker 3: again in case both patients mum and baby need care,
Speaker 3: but also just in case they need an extra set
Speaker 3: of hands. So my midwife's back up midwife had arrived
Speaker 3: I think shortly after the second paramedic group left, so
Speaker 3: she did a handover with the lead paramedic and you know,
Speaker 3: checked checked my wound, checked, I was okay, did all
Speaker 3: the immediate checks on the baby again and everything looked okay.
Speaker 3: And then just as the paramedics were getting ready to leave,
Speaker 3: my amazing primary midwife finally arrived. She made it safely
Speaker 3: from Sydney, and then like again, we just got a
Speaker 3: couple more hours of bubbling in between checks, but I
Speaker 3: was in my own home and a bit delayed, but
Speaker 3: eventually my care team were all there, and yeah, like
Speaker 3: my son was a dream. He fed really easily. I
Speaker 3: think he did poop on me before we'd left home,
Speaker 3: so that was something I could have done without. But
Speaker 3: if that's not new motherhood, I don't know what is.
Speaker 3: We did actually eventually have to transfer to the hospital
Speaker 3: that evening, a few hours after the paramedics had left,
Speaker 3: because unfortunately with the blood that I had lost, even
Speaker 3: though it was a relatively minor amount, I was still
Speaker 3: unable to stand or walk without my blood pressure and
Speaker 3: heart rate shooting right up, so they had to transfer
Speaker 3: me to hospital for that and a tear repair because
Speaker 3: of course, my son was chunky and got stuck on
Speaker 3: the way out and came really fast, and apparently all
Speaker 3: of those things are not great for the women's body.
Speaker 3: But the birth itself, even though it didn't look like
Speaker 3: the way I hoped, and it certainly wasn't one of
Speaker 3: those you know, gold tinted beautifully set to music little
Speaker 3: reels that you see on Instagram or TikTok, but it
Speaker 3: was real and it was raw, and I still felt
Speaker 3: like I really was in control the whole time. As
Speaker 3: I said, like I could not thank the paramedic that
Speaker 3: attended and took charge enough. She actually came to check
Speaker 3: on us in hospital the day after because she'd seen
Speaker 3: that we transferred in later that day, so she came
Speaker 3: in to pop in and just check how we were
Speaker 3: both doing. And she said it was the first time
Speaker 3: she'd ever actually delivered a baby other than her own,
Speaker 3: but the first time she'd ever caught a baby. And
Speaker 3: she said, she was like, it's made my whole year.
Speaker 3: It's the best year I've had of being a parent
Speaker 3: in my entire career, which was just so special. And
Speaker 3: then yeah, we came back home, I hope. We were
Speaker 3: in the in hospital for two days and then came
Speaker 3: home to my daughter beating her baby brother, which was
Speaker 3: just so perfect.
Speaker 1: Wow, what a wild story. I'm fascinated by the way
Speaker 1: that you're instinct and I think there's so much about birth,
Speaker 1: particularly that transition and birthing phase itself. There's so much
Speaker 1: about that that becomes very instinctual. Like I find that
Speaker 1: level of strength really admirable. So well done for like
Speaker 1: still being able to trust yourself in something that was
Speaker 1: actually quite a scary moment. But wow, what a story. Congratulations.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you and Barb are both healthy.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Yes, and look, he came in like a
Speaker 3: train wreck and he has not stopped since he was born,
Speaker 3: exactly the way he lives so far.
Speaker 1: So Finley is now eighteen months old and Emerson's fire
Speaker 1: and a half now, so things are still busy in
Speaker 1: your house.
Speaker 3: Things don't stop around here. Yeah, Emerson's in kindergarten now
Speaker 3: and Finley is almost two, so far, like he's my
Speaker 3: daughter was just an easy child, so we needed we
Speaker 3: needed the challenge. Apparently the universe thought with Finley starting
Speaker 3: from the day he was born.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank you Lauren so much for telling your story.
Speaker 1: It is amazing and you should be very proud of yourself.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, and thank you for letting me
Speaker 3: share this. It's yeah, certainly in the immediate aftermath of
Speaker 3: it happening, it took me a little while to process,
Speaker 3: but I'm so proud of how it went and yeah,
Speaker 3: happy to share my story. Even if it's fast and
Speaker 3: feels terrifying at the time, it can still be a
Speaker 3: really positive experience.
Speaker 1: Diary for Birth was hosted by me kauseny Lukitch. If
Speaker 1: you like our show, don't forget to subscribe and rate.
Speaker 1: It goes a long wait, allowing us to continue sharing
Speaker 1: your stories. This episode was produced by Ella Maitland, with
Speaker 1: audio production by Tina Matalov.