Speaker 1: So much you're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land. We
Speaker 2: have recorded this podcast on the Gadigul people of the
Speaker 2: Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their elders past
Speaker 2: and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and
Speaker 2: Torres Strait Islander cultures.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm Georgie ep of Mamma MIA's brand new podcast,
Speaker 3: Diary of a Birth. I'm dropping into your feed today
Speaker 3: to share with you the very first episode. Childbirth is
Speaker 3: absolutely amazing and no two births are the same. Diary
Speaker 3: of a Birth is women sharing their incredible stories. You
Speaker 3: will not believe some of the tales we have for you.
Speaker 3: This first episode features entrepreneur and marketing guru Michelle Battersby.
Speaker 3: I'll give you one little clue, her baby gets stuck.
Speaker 3: We hope you enjoy this title. Make sure you follow
Speaker 3: along Diary of a Birth for more birth stories.
Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Kaseenya Lukisch and this is Diary of a Birth.
Speaker 1: I'm a mom to two kids and both my births
Speaker 1: were very different. Mimi, who is my first There was
Speaker 1: a lot of this fear of the unknown, and she
Speaker 1: ended up coming out with forceps and then with Max.
Speaker 1: I felt more prepared, but still the unexpected happened. He
Speaker 1: came out. Posterior birth is an experience shared by around
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty million women a year, yet this
Speaker 1: common practice can be completely unique and life transforming. This
Speaker 1: is diary of a birth. Today's story is one of
Speaker 1: a mum with a bit of a birth plan and
Speaker 1: a baby with a very different idea.
Speaker 4: I was like, break my waters, I'm not leaving without
Speaker 4: a baby. Like I came here to have a baby,
Speaker 4: I'm leaving with a baby.
Speaker 1: Her birth was long, her baby got stuck, and she
Speaker 1: tried all the options and pivoted to a birth that
Speaker 1: she'd never considered.
Speaker 4: Back when I was pregnant, if I was to write
Speaker 4: down on a piece of paper how I don't want
Speaker 4: it to go, I probably would have written, I don't
Speaker 4: want to go into labor and then have a C section. A.
Speaker 1: You won't believe where this story's going to take us.
Speaker 4: Mine just gushed and there was so much fluid, and
Speaker 4: the only thing I could compare it to is the
Speaker 4: only thing you felt come out of your vagina with
Speaker 4: a bit of force is your period And so you think,
Speaker 4: oh my god, am I head bleeding?
Speaker 5: Am I bleeding to death?
Speaker 4: Because it's just this gush of fluid coming out of there.
Speaker 4: Then you realize you're sitting in a pool.
Speaker 1: Plus we'll be getting expert input from one of Australia's
Speaker 1: most trusted pediatricians, doctor Gollie.
Speaker 6: You know, this is a dance. It's a balance that
Speaker 6: we strike between making sure that mummy is safe and
Speaker 6: then also at the same time balancing that with making
Speaker 6: sure the baby is safe. And when a baby does
Speaker 6: get stuck, we have options available to us to try
Speaker 6: to improve that delivery process.
Speaker 1: So let's meet the mom telling today's birth story.
Speaker 4: I'm Michelle Battersby and this is the diary of my
Speaker 4: birth with Alphie.
Speaker 1: Michelle Badtersby is one of Australia's most exciting entrepreneurs. She
Speaker 1: launched Bumble in this country and is founder of Sunroom,
Speaker 1: a company the champions female and non binary content creators.
Speaker 4: So I have been living in the US, living in
Speaker 4: LA for the past four years with my fiance Bill.
Speaker 4: Bill is a professional rugby player. So when we first met,
Speaker 4: he was actually living in the UK and he came
Speaker 4: over to Australia to sign a new rugby contract and
Speaker 4: I just happened to meet him and we hung out
Speaker 4: for probably four weeks.
Speaker 5: Went to lunch one day and.
Speaker 4: He said, so, I'm moving to Perth on Sunday, and
Speaker 4: I thought.
Speaker 5: Okay, guess that's the end of this. That was fun,
Speaker 5: see you later.
Speaker 4: But the thing with a long distance relationship is you
Speaker 4: really have to cut the shit and there's no game playing,
Speaker 4: and it just meant we both had to be quite
Speaker 4: upfront about the fact that we liked each other, and
Speaker 4: it was always long distance. At first it was Sydney
Speaker 4: to Perth, then it was Sydney to Melbourne for two years,
Speaker 4: then it was Melbourne to London. Then it was Sydney
Speaker 4: to LA and so he'd moved to LA and I thought, okay,
Speaker 4: this is just another couple of years we'll have to
Speaker 4: do long distance. But as things turned out, a job
Speaker 4: opportunity came up for me to start my own company,
Speaker 4: and the woman I was going to do it with
Speaker 4: was like, how would you feel about doing this in
Speaker 4: LA And I thought that's absolutely perfect.
Speaker 5: So it felt like for the.
Speaker 4: First time stars were aligning, and so Bill and I
Speaker 4: were then both living in LA. We've been together now
Speaker 4: for about eight years, but long distance came back to
Speaker 4: haunt us. Basically, at the moment I fell pregnant, Bill
Speaker 4: signed with the team in Chicago, we knew it would
Speaker 4: be difficult that I would be alone for the end
Speaker 4: of my pregnancy, that I would be alone for the
Speaker 4: first few months of motherhood.
Speaker 1: Michelle is a woman who gets shit done at the office,
Speaker 1: but going into her birth, she was determined to go
Speaker 1: with the flow.
Speaker 4: So going into this birth, I was feeling confident. I
Speaker 4: was thinking, I think I've got this. This is going
Speaker 4: to be a breeze. I was doing a lot of
Speaker 4: positive self talk, almost preparing like I'm going in for
Speaker 4: some big athletic event or race that, you know, telling
Speaker 4: myself I've done it before, I can do it again,
Speaker 4: to just really put my mind at ease. And I
Speaker 4: had been having regular checkups with my obstetrician and things
Speaker 4: were starting to move on their own. So I was thinking, good,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm not going to go over I think
Speaker 4: he's ready.
Speaker 5: I'm feeling ready.
Speaker 1: So while Michelle was happy for her baby to do
Speaker 1: his thing, she thought she had when he would grace
Speaker 1: them with his presence.
Speaker 4: Sorted from about halfway through my pregnancy, around twenty weeks
Speaker 4: I would have been My partner left the state and
Speaker 4: we were doing long distance for our careers, so I
Speaker 4: had always known that was going to happen, So I
Speaker 4: had been doing quite a lot of prep mentally, to
Speaker 4: be honest, and really focusing on how I was going
Speaker 4: to survive the tail end of my pregnancy without him,
Speaker 4: but also the first few months of becoming a mum
Speaker 4: without him, because he wasn't going to be returning to
Speaker 4: the same city as me until our soon to be
Speaker 4: son was three months old. So I had been doing
Speaker 4: a lot of focusing on accepting that being okay with
Speaker 4: whatever outcome might happen around the birth. Maybe he would
Speaker 4: make it, maybe he wouldn't. What members of my family
Speaker 4: were going to come and support me through those first
Speaker 4: few periods, so I'd probably had a lot of other
Speaker 4: little things on my mind than just the birth. But
Speaker 4: I was feeling really confident because I would have been
Speaker 4: around thirty six weeks when my obstetrician said she just
Speaker 4: didn't think I was going to make it to forty weeks.
Speaker 5: My cervix was.
Speaker 4: Already softening, so I was thinking, hell, yeah, that's good.
Speaker 4: That made things a little easier for my partner to
Speaker 4: get back to the same city as me. And as
Speaker 4: things kept getting closer to forty weeks, I was probably
Speaker 4: about thirty seven weeks, maybe thirty seven thirty eight, I
Speaker 4: was a centimeter dilated, and so that's when my confidence
Speaker 4: really started to kick up a notch. I was thinking, great,
Speaker 4: you know, this could happen any day. It's going to
Speaker 4: be smooth sailing. The baby's moving, I'm moving, It's all good.
Speaker 4: And my obstetrician said I was looking like a good
Speaker 4: candidate for induction. So I spoke to my partner and
Speaker 4: we decided that I would get induced because that would
Speaker 4: just mean and he could jump on a flight and
Speaker 4: be there for the birth.
Speaker 1: Michelle had researched inductions and thought she had a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea about what would happen once she was induced,
Speaker 1: but of course her body had a different plan.
Speaker 4: So what I thought would happen when I got induced
Speaker 4: was I expected I would arrive at the hospital a
Speaker 4: week or so later and they would say, your four
Speaker 4: centimeters dilated.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: I just thought things would have started to happen, and.
Speaker 4: I felt like it could be really fast because my
Speaker 4: obstetution was also saying like, I think this is going
Speaker 4: to be fast for you. Your baby's got a really
Speaker 4: big head. Once you get the big head out, they
Speaker 4: just slide on out. So I'm thinking, great, you know
Speaker 4: this is going to be good. But I arrived at
Speaker 4: the hospital and I was still a centimeter dilated, and
Speaker 4: I would say, in hindsight, even just that news was
Speaker 4: just the start of my confidence being a little bit
Speaker 4: rattled and me starting to get a little bit in
Speaker 4: my head around how it was going to play out.
Speaker 4: And I then got given the pill thattens your cervix,
Speaker 4: and from the moment I took the first dose, my
Speaker 4: baby just.
Speaker 5: Really wasn't agreeing with what was going on.
Speaker 4: So his heart rate started dipping quite a lot, and
Speaker 4: it just became a bit of a balancing act around
Speaker 4: how much they could push me and push him without
Speaker 4: becoming a bit more of an emergency situation. I was
Speaker 4: still pretty calm, to be honest, I felt like I
Speaker 4: was in really good hands. I had my mum and
Speaker 4: dad there for the first part. My partner actually flew
Speaker 4: in at like two am that night when I was
Speaker 4: being induced, so I had great people around me. Felt
Speaker 4: like I was in really good hands. I was sitting
Speaker 4: in the hospital playing Monopoly Deal with my parents. I
Speaker 4: also did manage to get through a whole series of
Speaker 4: selling OC. I was chill, I was doing a little
Speaker 4: bit of work, chatting to people. I was calm, like
Speaker 4: I was feeling good, and I felt like, even though
Speaker 4: things were maybe not totally going to plan with my baby,
Speaker 4: people were checking on us. Everything was being monitored, and
Speaker 4: I felt like it was kind of slow and steady. Physically,
Speaker 4: I wasn't feeling anything. I could see on the monitor
Speaker 4: that I was having contractions. They were telling me, you
Speaker 4: know those yellow lines and contractions, and I couldn't feel it.
Speaker 4: I think I'd been having mild contractions honestly for about
Speaker 4: a week, and so it just felt like this tensing
Speaker 4: of my uterus and my stomach would kind of cramp,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't painful at all.
Speaker 1: Michelle's partner, Bill's arrival meant she was keen to put
Speaker 1: down the Monopoly Deal cards and get this labor happening.
Speaker 4: Bill was playing a rugby game. They're not very lenient
Speaker 4: with professional athletes around taking time off, and I do
Speaker 4: get it, like they're paid to play, so he finished
Speaker 4: playing the game, got straight on a flight from Boston
Speaker 4: to LA and got to the hospital at about two
Speaker 4: am or my partner will in. I felt extremely relieved,
Speaker 4: like he's not going to miss the birth. He's here now,
Speaker 4: this is good, this baby can come. And perhaps there
Speaker 4: was a little bit of my body as well, not
Speaker 4: really wanting to relax and like let things happen straight away,
Speaker 4: waiting for my partner to get there. But once he
Speaker 4: walked in, I thought, yeah, let's get this moving. But
Speaker 4: it ended up being the next morning and they weren't
Speaker 4: able to give me any more doses because of what
Speaker 4: was happening with my baby's heart rates. We were just
Speaker 4: letting the clock tick by. It was probably twelve hours later.
Speaker 4: I had my servix checked and I'd got to three
Speaker 4: centimeters dilated. I was hoping, you know, i'd be further
Speaker 4: along than that, and I am an aries. Patience is
Speaker 4: not something that I understand, and I think that's one
Speaker 4: thing I would have liked to bear in mind a
Speaker 4: little bit more going into it, is telling myself you
Speaker 4: might have to be patient here, like don't get worked
Speaker 4: up if things aren't happening quickly. I just hadn't had
Speaker 4: that converse with myself. So I was starting to get
Speaker 4: a bit frustrated with the pace at which things were
Speaker 4: going and just that I couldn't have more doses of
Speaker 4: anything to speed things up after nothing was really happening,
Speaker 4: and I couldn't have more doses. My obstetrician actually came
Speaker 4: in and said, you can either go home or I
Speaker 4: can break your waters. But from the moment I break
Speaker 4: your waters, there's no return. And I was like, break
Speaker 4: my waters. I'm not leaving without a baby, like I
Speaker 4: came here to have a baby. I'm leaving with a baby,
Speaker 4: So break them. And so she broke my waters, and
Speaker 4: that just was the strangest sensation on the planet. Mine
Speaker 4: just gushed and there was so much fluid, And the
Speaker 4: only thing I could compare it to is the only
Speaker 4: thing you felt come out of your vagina with a
Speaker 4: bit of force is your period. And so you think,
Speaker 4: oh my god, am I bleeding to death because it's
Speaker 4: just this gush of fluid coming out of there, and
Speaker 4: you realize you're sitting in a pool. But after she
Speaker 4: broke my waters, I got to five centimeters dilated within
Speaker 4: an hour, and I'm back on track, thinking, fuck, yeah,
Speaker 4: here we go. Now, it's going to be fast. And
Speaker 4: I did start feeling the contractions. Then I think four
Speaker 4: centimeters is you're in active labor. Yeah, So got to
Speaker 4: five centimeters and started thinking, Okay, if this continues at
Speaker 4: this pace, I don't really know how I'm going to
Speaker 4: go with this pain, and I think I just want
Speaker 4: to get an epidural. The pain wasn't excruciating. It wasn't
Speaker 4: like this, oh my god, I can't cope. It was okay,
Speaker 4: that feels different. It felt very different to the other
Speaker 4: contractions I was having, and I could understand how it
Speaker 4: may become quite unbearable. And they do tell you that
Speaker 4: maybe the anethetist isn't going to be available at the
Speaker 4: moment you want the epidural. Maybe it'll take an hour
Speaker 4: for the epidural to kick in. So I thought, I'm
Speaker 4: just going to call it now, and I want to
Speaker 4: get the epidural because if this can news to go
Speaker 4: this quickly, I might be in a bit of strife.
Speaker 5: And I hadn't done any.
Speaker 4: Of the birthing courses, so I hadn't practiced the breathing.
Speaker 4: I had gone in with not much preparation. I'd always
Speaker 4: felt like this isn't really in my control, Like, my
Speaker 4: baby is going to decide how they want to come
Speaker 4: and I just need to facilitate that and try to stay.
Speaker 5: As calm as possible.
Speaker 4: So I'd never gone in there with like and it
Speaker 4: must happen this way. And I think for me that
Speaker 4: was a really good way to go into it because
Speaker 4: I ended up having to really roll with the punches,
Speaker 4: and I wasn't upset or distressed by the way things
Speaker 4: ended up going for me. I was just open minded
Speaker 4: and it was whatever my baby needed. At that point,
Speaker 4: I've probably been in the hospital for like twenty hours
Speaker 4: coming up to a day. The decision to have an
Speaker 4: epidural was something that I had discussed with my partner
Speaker 4: in the sense that I'd told him I'll be having this,
Speaker 4: and Tea was like, and I had spoken to my
Speaker 4: obstetrition about it, just because you hear certain things like
Speaker 4: should you do it, should you not? And my obstetrician said,
Speaker 4: and epi dural is the second best thing about giving birth,
Speaker 4: the first being you get a baby, the second being
Speaker 4: you can get an epidurol. So that was endorsement for
Speaker 4: me and I thought, yeah, I'll be doing this, so
Speaker 4: I wasn't scared to get the epi durol because I've
Speaker 4: actually had lumber puncher in the past, so I've had
Speaker 4: the big needle into your back and I recalled it
Speaker 4: being okay. And I was much younger, so I wasn't
Speaker 4: scared of the needle injection side of things. And I
Speaker 4: honestly didn't feel a thing with the epidural.
Speaker 5: The only thing.
Speaker 4: I felt was a rush of cold come down my
Speaker 4: back and that was it. And I've got videos on
Speaker 4: my phone from the moment that I think kicked in,
Speaker 4: being like, yeah, I feel nothing.
Speaker 5: This is gonna be great.
Speaker 1: My god, this is taking fucking forever.
Speaker 4: Got the epi durolo.
Speaker 3: It's pretty good knowing your body is absolutely throwing them
Speaker 3: back and you can't feel it.
Speaker 4: The every dural was good, and from the moment I
Speaker 4: had that, I thought, Okay, Yeah, these contractions can ramp
Speaker 4: up and I'm gonna be okay here. But I forgot
Speaker 4: that and every dural can slow things down, and so
Speaker 4: my contractions went nowhere and I didn't dilate any further
Speaker 4: for what would have been about ten hours, so it'd
Speaker 4: been over a day in hospital. Now again that frustration
Speaker 4: was coming back, and my lack of patience was.
Speaker 5: Really starting to kick in.
Speaker 4: There had also just been a couple of things said
Speaker 4: along the way which made me lose my confidence again
Speaker 4: and made me lose my head a little bit. So
Speaker 4: my obstecration was amazing. I had some great nurses and
Speaker 4: some great cares, but I had a nurse that was
Speaker 4: a little bit flappy, it is probably the best way
Speaker 4: to describe her. And she would say things like his
Speaker 4: umbilical cord might be tied in a not like as
Speaker 4: to why things weren't moving. She thought he was in
Speaker 4: a weird position in my stomach. So I started saying
Speaker 4: things like is he breach, and my obstetriction would phone
Speaker 4: up and be like, he's absolutely not breach, Like, don't
Speaker 4: say that, and my obstrition actually ended up asking her
Speaker 4: to not look after me anymore. But hearing those little
Speaker 4: things of his umbelic cord might be in a nod,
Speaker 4: he's stuck, he might be breach started making me a
Speaker 4: bit scared to actually give birth.
Speaker 1: Coming up.
Speaker 4: I just violently shook for about three hours, and so
Speaker 4: I couldn't hold him like, I felt a bit helpless.
Speaker 1: So after Michelle had been in hospital for over a day.
Speaker 1: It was time to turn to oxytocin, one of the
Speaker 1: happy hormones like orphins or serotonin. This is an option
Speaker 1: offered synthetically if your waters have broken but contractions don't start.
Speaker 4: So after she broke my waters, I got put on
Speaker 4: like a synthetic version of oxytocin, which brings on contractions,
Speaker 4: and the exact same thing started happening with my baby's
Speaker 4: heart rate, just constantly, his heart rate dropping and a
Speaker 4: lot of people would rush into the room and I
Speaker 4: would have to move positions and they were trying to
Speaker 4: work out why he wasn't comfortable. So again it was
Speaker 4: just this constant game of how far can we push
Speaker 4: this baby without him really becoming distressed. And so after
Speaker 4: about thirty hours of that whole game, and never really
Speaker 4: being able to get a solid dose of much and
Speaker 4: having had a NEPU dural and how being stuck at
Speaker 4: five centimeters for ten hours, I just asked, can I
Speaker 4: please have a C section? I just need this to
Speaker 4: end my obstetrition had been confident the whole way through
Speaker 4: that we could get him out, but I also felt
Speaker 4: like she was starting to think maybe we won't, and
Speaker 4: I just had a feeling that we would keep going
Speaker 4: and keep going. And maybe it was because of the
Speaker 4: things I'd heard along the way from nurses on my
Speaker 4: own doubts, but I just had this feeling. I felt
Speaker 4: like it would end up in a more of an
Speaker 4: emergency cesarean anyway, So I just almost wanted to call
Speaker 4: it on my own terms and like stop him being
Speaker 4: pushed so much in this constant fluctuating of his heart
Speaker 4: rate so called to sea section.
Speaker 5: And I felt.
Speaker 4: Immediate relief in that moment, cride of happiness, was like
Speaker 4: thank God, I just know he's going to get out.
Speaker 4: This is all about to end. I think I was
Speaker 4: feeling like, Yay, maybe this hard work is over. And
Speaker 4: then laying on the table for the sea section, I
Speaker 4: just was thinking, oh fuck, Like there, it really is
Speaker 4: no chill way to navigate this.
Speaker 1: This was a big decision for Michelle, who until this
Speaker 1: point had gone into birth confident of a vaginal delivery.
Speaker 4: When I was lying on the table to have the
Speaker 4: CEA section, I did start to get a little bit scared.
Speaker 4: To be honest, it's a strange situation. I don't know
Speaker 4: if there would be any other surgeries like that that
Speaker 4: you would have and still be awake and conscious and
Speaker 4: hearing them speak and being spoken through it. And I
Speaker 4: could kind of feel my upper body moving around, like
Speaker 4: they tug on you quite a bit and you're like
Speaker 4: kind of jolting. Your upper half is jolting a little bit.
Speaker 4: And I could hear them actually saying pressure, pressure, and
Speaker 4: I'm thinking, oh my god, you know, is this happening?
Speaker 4: What's happening? But I couldn't feel any pain, couldn't see anything.
Speaker 4: I'm literally just looking at the ceiling. I think I
Speaker 4: was actually like counting the lines on the ceiling to
Speaker 4: try and just distract myself and just staring at my partner.
Speaker 4: I couldn't feel any pain, and I didn't feel anything
Speaker 4: relating to the cesarean for probably twenty four hours until
Speaker 4: those drugs started a wear off.
Speaker 1: Michelle's partner Bill proved invaluable at this point, coaching her
Speaker 1: and keeping her as calm as possible.
Speaker 4: My partner was up near me, like trying to keep
Speaker 4: me calm, getting me to breathe because I was also
Speaker 4: so drugged up at that point, just saying like you've
Speaker 4: got this, It's gonna be okay. Breathe, and that's all
Speaker 4: I really needed is to have someone do like he
Speaker 4: was taking deep breaths with me.
Speaker 5: That was the most helpful thing.
Speaker 1: Many women describe the process of a cesarean birth as
Speaker 1: a whirlwind of which they have very few memories, but
Speaker 1: there is one moment no new mum will ever forget.
Speaker 4: Like I can remember so vividly the sounds of Alfie,
Speaker 4: my son, coming out, and just the relief like it
Speaker 4: was over.
Speaker 5: We had both made.
Speaker 4: It, hearing him squeal and knowing that he was okay,
Speaker 4: because I just felt like it had been such a
Speaker 4: long time. I'm sure you could go for much longer,
Speaker 4: but it was thirty or so hours. It had been
Speaker 4: such a long time, us both trying to get through it.
Speaker 4: Those first wheels are something that I will never forget.
Speaker 4: It's bewilderment. I think when you see this little baby
Speaker 4: brought up to you and you're like kind of in shock.
Speaker 4: It didn't hit me through pregnancy. I don't think you
Speaker 4: know that I had this life inside of me that
Speaker 4: was mine to take care of forever. But I think
Speaker 4: the hardest part is I had really severe You can
Speaker 4: really get the shakes after all those drugs, and so
Speaker 4: I just violently shook for about three hours after the surgery,
Speaker 4: and so I couldn't hold him, and I was just
Speaker 4: laying in this recovery bay and they were just kind
Speaker 4: of waiting for me to stop shaking, and I would
Speaker 4: kind of go to hold him, but I wouldn't be
Speaker 4: able to hold him, so like I felt a bit helpless,
Speaker 4: like they were encouraging me to hold him, encouraging me
Speaker 4: to feed him. I also had, you know, women on
Speaker 4: my boobs, like squeezing colostrum out of them, and it's
Speaker 4: all a bit overwhelming and surreal, but I do try
Speaker 4: not to get too worked up in those situations. Like
Speaker 4: I was wanting to hold him, I was feeling a
Speaker 4: bit frustrated with the fact again that I couldn't.
Speaker 5: But then the first moments.
Speaker 4: With your baby, I feel like once you get back
Speaker 4: to your actual room and you have some privacy, it's
Speaker 4: just astoundman. I guess now I'm six months postpartum, and
Speaker 4: it's interesting to reflect on the birth now knowing him
Speaker 4: and knowing who he is becoming, and I feel like
Speaker 4: he is a stubborn little guy and he just didn't
Speaker 4: want to come in that way.
Speaker 1: So while Michelle went into her labor trying to trust
Speaker 1: the process and believe that her baby would come out
Speaker 1: however he wanted, she ended up giving birth in a
Speaker 1: manner that she never would have chosen for herself.
Speaker 4: Back when I was pregnant, if I was to write
Speaker 4: down on a piece of paper how I don't want
Speaker 4: it to go, I probably would have written, I don't
Speaker 4: want to go into labor and then have a C
Speaker 4: section Like I guess, I don't want to expeperience both
Speaker 4: those things, and having experienced them now, I would not
Speaker 4: describe my experience as traumatic or bad.
Speaker 5: It was actually beautiful.
Speaker 4: And it was how it needed to be for both
Speaker 4: me and my son, and I honestly wouldn't change I
Speaker 4: think about it.
Speaker 1: Michelle's experience of having her baby be stuck is one
Speaker 1: that you made dread when you're pregnant. I know I did.
Speaker 1: So what does a stuck baby actually feel like?
Speaker 5: In my body?
Speaker 4: I didn't feel like he was stuck necessarily. I didn't
Speaker 4: feel like things weren't moving. Every time they would come
Speaker 4: and check on me, I was expecting them to say
Speaker 4: I was much further along than I was. I think
Speaker 4: that was the hard part for me is just so
Speaker 4: many hours passing and you feeling like you're getting somewhere,
Speaker 4: but you're actually not there.
Speaker 5: Actually was no part of my experience where I was
Speaker 5: in any pain truly.
Speaker 1: On Diary of for Birth, we're going to share the
Speaker 1: most incredible, beautiful, and frankly bizarre births for your education
Speaker 1: and entertainment. But it's important that we get input from
Speaker 1: the expert. Doctor Gollie is Mama Maya's in house expert,
Speaker 1: our go to doctor for everything to do with our babies.
Speaker 1: He's a pediatrician and father of three and there's nothing
Speaker 1: he doesn't know about kids. So while doctor Gollie thinks
Speaker 1: it's important to consider some key elements of the process
Speaker 1: before you go into labor, he believes there has to
Speaker 1: be a degree of flexibility in your birth plan.
Speaker 6: Well, look, I'm enormously supportive of birth plans, but the
Speaker 6: intention should not be to exert control over the process
Speaker 6: because you can't control the birth process. There are just
Speaker 6: too many variables, too many things out of your control,
Speaker 6: out of our control. A birth plan is not about
Speaker 6: trying to decide what you want and then rigidly stick
Speaker 6: to it. It's about being informed It's about being aware
Speaker 6: of all the possible ways this could go. It's also
Speaker 6: about being empowered to ask questions, to ask why certain
Speaker 6: decisions are being made, because the reality is you don't
Speaker 6: want to hear these terms for the first time. When
Speaker 6: you're exhausted, or when you're in that state, when you're
Speaker 6: sleep deprived, when you're stressed, you can't process them. So
Speaker 6: the more you know beforehand, the better. We have a
Speaker 6: birth plan, an ideal way that we would like things
Speaker 6: to go, but at the same time, you have to
Speaker 6: have flexibility and you have to understand that certain things
Speaker 6: may not be possible at the time when you thought
Speaker 6: that you wanted it. How do you start writing a
Speaker 6: birth plan? You just start finding out what things are possible,
Speaker 6: what terms mean. Keep reading, keep listening us, friends, family,
Speaker 6: listen to more podcasts. Speak with your GP, your obstetrician,
Speaker 6: your sister, your mother. Don't use that information to script
Speaker 6: your birthing process. It's just not possible. Use that information
Speaker 6: as your power, but not as your curse.
Speaker 1: We've now heard Michelle's story about what it's like when
Speaker 1: your baby gets stuck. But what does this medically mean?
Speaker 6: Well, there are many different medical forms of getting stuck.
Speaker 6: But essentially it's a failure to progress in the delivery process.
Speaker 6: I don't like the term failure because it implies that
Speaker 6: someone has done wrong. It's not that at all. We
Speaker 6: need to protect the mum, We need to protect the baby.
Speaker 6: You know, this is a dance. It's a balance that
Speaker 6: we strike between making sure that mummy is safe and
Speaker 6: then also at the same time balancing that with making
Speaker 6: sure the baby is safe. And when a baby does
Speaker 6: get stuck, we have options available to us to try
Speaker 6: to improve that delivery process, whether we're talking about the
Speaker 6: contraction of the uterus or we're talking about the dilation
Speaker 6: of the cervix, And sometimes getting stuck means that we
Speaker 6: don't have an option but to change our plans entirely.
Speaker 6: An example of which is, as we've heard, moving to
Speaker 6: an unplanned we call it an emergency caesar. But emergency
Speaker 6: doesn't necessarily mean lights and sirens and running down the corridor.
Speaker 6: Sometimes an emergency caesar can just mean that it wasn't elective,
Speaker 6: it wasn't planned, but we've had to change our approach
Speaker 6: and deliver this way in order to maximize the baby's outcome.
Speaker 1: While Diary of a birth is here to hold your
Speaker 1: hand as you grow your baby. We want to help you.
Speaker 1: Take one key piece of advice from all our new
Speaker 1: mums about how best to survive the fourth trimester.
Speaker 4: I think one amazing thing I did do for myself
Speaker 4: for that fourth trimester that I would really recommend to
Speaker 4: anyone about to enter it is I knew there would
Speaker 4: be again very limited things that I could control, but
Speaker 4: one thing I would be able to control is what
Speaker 4: I consume. And I've never been someone to really focus
Speaker 4: on nutrition and nourishing my body, but once your body
Speaker 4: becomes the sole source of food for your baby, it
Speaker 4: actually does motivate you to really look after yourself in
Speaker 4: a way I'd never been motivated to before. And so
Speaker 4: I actually started researching the first forty days just as
Speaker 4: I was coming up to my birth, and I would
Speaker 4: really recommend this. In Chinese culture, they spend the first
Speaker 4: forty days locked in their houses basically, and they are
Speaker 4: cared for solely by their families, and they don't consume
Speaker 4: any cold food, not even cold water. They drink teas. Specifically,
Speaker 4: this red date tea, which is really good for replenishing
Speaker 4: your blood supply, has all these antioxidants and so I
Speaker 4: just started looking into the first forty days and passed
Speaker 4: the cookbook onto my mum, who was going to be
Speaker 4: staying with me and looking after me, and I just said,
Speaker 4: you know, if you could make things from this recipe book,
Speaker 4: I think it would be really great for me. And
Speaker 4: so she was just making batches of red date tea,
Speaker 4: cooking congies. And that was something that whilst my mind
Speaker 4: was honestly in a whirlwind and I was in such
Speaker 4: a haze, it felt so good knowing that I had
Speaker 4: kind of committed myself to just nourishing my body for
Speaker 4: my baby. I didn't pressure myself to see anyone. There's
Speaker 4: a Western take on the first forty days, which is
Speaker 4: called the five five five, which is five days in
Speaker 4: the bed, five days on the bed, five days around
Speaker 4: the bed, And if you do end up having a
Speaker 4: c section, it's very easy to do that because you
Speaker 4: can't really go anywhere. So I did just stay indoors
Speaker 4: and I didn't put pressure on myself, and I just
Speaker 4: only saw my family, and I only consumed things from
Speaker 4: this cookbook, and I found that really helpful. So I
Speaker 4: think again, it can be overwhelming to think about this
Speaker 4: fourth trimester but one pretty simple, easy thing.
Speaker 5: You could do is look at this cookbook.
Speaker 4: And potentially do that one thing for yourself, and it
Speaker 4: made a difference for me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on the first episode of
Speaker 1: Diary of a Birth, where we celebrate all the amazing
Speaker 1: ways that we as women bring life into the world.
Speaker 1: Join me next week for the most incredible story from Casey,
Speaker 1: who home birthed with Brodie in the most beautiful way.
Speaker 2: I would describe my birth as healing, magical. It was
Speaker 2: everything that I had hoped that it would be and more.
Speaker 1: If you're interested in sharing your birth story with us
Speaker 1: on Diary of a Birth, we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Details are in the show notes. Diary of a Birth
Speaker 1: was hosted by me Kasanu Lukitch with expert input from
Speaker 1: doctor Golly, Audio production by Scott Stronik, and our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Georgie Page.
Speaker 3: We hope you enjoyed the very first episode of Diary
Speaker 3: of a Birth. If you'd like to follow along, there
Speaker 3: is a link in the show notes.