July 8, 2025 • 31 mins
When Lauren planned her second birth, she envisioned a calm home birth with her private midwife—complete with a birth pool, fairy lights, and her trusted care team by her side. After feeling unsupported in the public system, she'd carefully crafted the perfect birth environment at 41 weeks.
But when labour finally began on a quiet Monday afternoon while her husband was at work, everything unfolded faster than anyone could have imagined. What started as a few bathroom trips quickly escalated into intense contractions just two minutes apart, leaving Lauren alone on her ensuite floor with her midwife stuck in traffic and her husband racing home.
In today's gripping episode, Lauren shares her remarkable 40-minute labour—from that first contraction to holding her son Finley, with paramedics arriving just in time to catch him. She reflects on the primal strength that emerged when birth didn't go to plan, and how she maintained control even when everything felt chaotic.
Diary Of A Birth features mums sharing their heartfelt stories of bringing life into the world. Share your birth story at podcast@mamamia.com.au or send a voice note here.
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CREDITS:
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our respects
to elders past, present and emerging, and feel privileged to
continue the sharing of birth stories and knowledge that has
been a fundamental part of indigenous culture.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Hi. I'm Kassenya Lukitch, and this is diary of a birth.
Sometimes the birth you plan and the birth you get
a world's apart, but that doesn't mean it can't still
be empowering. Today's guest wanted a calm home birth with
her private midwife after feeling unsupported in the public system.
(01:05):
She had her birth already, fairy lights set up, and
her care team on standby, but when labor finally started
forty one weeks, everything happened faster than anyone expected.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
So I called my husband just after midday. I was
in the show at quarter past twelve. I crawled out
of the shower at twelve thirty five, and my water
broke just as I got out of the shower, all
over the on sweet floor. And then straight after my
water brokes, I felt the urged push.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
With her midwife stuck in traffic and her husband racing
home from work. She found herself alone on her bathroom floor,
hoping help would arrive in time. So let's meet today's mum.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Hi, my name is Lauren and this is the diary
of my birth with Finley.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So, Lauren, Finley is your second child.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
He is, Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Can you just tell us a little bit about what
life was like before you fell pregnant with Finley.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
So there's almost four years between Finley and his big
sister Emerson. So before I fell pregnant with Finley, it
was my husband, myself and our at the time three
year old. She was a little bit of an unicornchild.
I hate to put this into the universe, but she
ate well, slept well, was fun to be around. So
(02:27):
we decided it was time that we were ready to
introduce a second child, a fourth member of the family.
And of course, a month after I fell pregnant with
Finley is when the three year old attitude kicked in.
But we wouldn't have had it any other way.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
So can you tell me about what you wanted your
experience to be like with Finley? What type of birth
did you want to have?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I guess that's informed a lot by the birth that
I did have with Emerson. Going into my first pregnancy
in birth, I was very open to, you know, let's
see how things go. My birth plan was very don't
offer me pain relief, don't offer me interventions. If I
want them, I'll ask for them. I went through a
(03:11):
private hospital and a private obstetrician with my first birth
because in the circles I run in the area I
live in, that's just what you did if you had
private health insurance. And I was fairly lucky with my experience.
I had a good relationship with my obstetricians right up
until I think it was thirty seven and a half
weeks of pregnancy, and then I should just preface this.
(03:33):
My daughter was due the day after New Year's I
started getting a lot of pressure from the private obstetric
that I'd worked with to induce prior to Christmas and
prior to the public holidays. I was quite resistant to that,
but I did feel like I was pushed or coerced
a little bit into an induction. It did work in
my favor. When I went in to be induced, they
(03:55):
found out I was already actually in labor, so they
manually broke my waters. No other intervention, and two and
a half hours later, my daughter was born. So when
it came time to plan for our care with Finley,
I knew I wanted to do it differently. I knew
I wanted to be the expert on my body. I
wanted to trust my body to birth, and I wanted
(04:16):
to make sure that I had health support, obviously from
an expert, but one little so trusted me to be
an expert in what my body was experiencing and on
how my baby and I were going to work together
for him to be born. In my area as well,
we do have a publicly funded home birth program which
is very close to my house, and I was very
(04:37):
very keen. I think even before I knew I was pregnant,
I was like, right, next time around, this is what
I'm meaning for. I'd started working with a prenatal and
pregnancy birth dueler at this point.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So basically the plan was you went into the public system.
The plan was going to be that you were going
to try and do a vaginal unmedicated birth in the hospital.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yes, originally in the hospital, but.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
With a duela supporting you throughout the process. Yes. Okay,
so you're at sixteen weeks. At this point, you and
your husband say we need to go and find a
private midwife. What was your next step?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Then? I was very lucky. I obviously had already linked
in with a Duela. I also have a friend I
went to your high school with who works as a
post part of Duela in the area that I live in.
So I reached out to her for recommendations and she
gave me a list of a few private practicing midwives
that service our area, and I reached out to I
think three or four of them and clicked with one
(05:34):
and engaged her to move forward. It was really comfortable.
All of the midwives were lovely. Obviously, most private practicing
midwives in our area at least tend to lean high
to homebirths because a lot of the reason that people
engage private midwives is because they want to go outside
of the hospital system or have the hospital system as
the escalation pathway if and when it's needed.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
What does a private midwife cost, Because obviously, even when
we talk about going through the private system and having
an obstetrition, there is still out of pocket expenses which
a lot of people don't realize. I think just because
you have health insurance.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Oh absolutely, health insurance covers the hospital birth. It does
not cover the obstetrician.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I remember doing the calculations and with all of the scans,
you know, to test all of that, plus the obstetrician,
plus the anethetist, it was about ten thousand dollars out
of pocket per birth.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Plus the private health insurance that you've had to pay
for for at least work twelve months before and then
actually being pregnant. So absolutely it's phenomenal. So in perspective,
the private practicing midwife for the whole pregnancy, birth, and
six weeks postpardon was six thousand dollars. And there are
Medicare rebates available for pre and postnatal care, so I
think I got about sixteen hundred dollars back from Medicare.
(06:51):
Birth is not covered by Medicare, but the pre and
post natal care that a privately practicing midwife provides is okay,
so you get a lot more. In my opinion, having
gone through the private system birth and then the private midwife,
I felt like I got much better value for money
with the care that I received with a private practicing midwife.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, it's interesting just to see the comparisons of costs,
because I think a lot of people would say, oh,
private midwife, that's going to be way outside my budget.
But I suppose if you are in a lower risk category
and you do want a low intervention or potentially want
to go for a home birth, that could be a
really good option for some women. Let's get to the
(07:32):
birth itself. How far along were you when you started
feeling labor.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
I think the first night I had contractions was at
forty weeks and three days. Again for background, when I
went to be induced and was in labor with my daughter,
I was thirty seven and six, so myself, my husband,
and my midwife were all quite surprised when forty weeks
came and went with nothing. I had, I guess what
they call prodromal or like early or false labor. I
(08:01):
had it with both pregnancy, So essentially I had five
hours of intense contractions at forty and three and they
got down to I think about four and a half
minutes apart and lasting for about forty five seconds. So
we told my daughter we were having a practice from
and maybe the baby would be here, and did she
want to go to Nanna and Pops or did you
want to stay here in case the baby came? She
(08:21):
wanted to sleep over it and hand on pops. So
my parents came and picked her up and took her
for the ninth. The midwife was like, watch a movie
something happy, you know, helped the oxytocin flow, So we
did that and the contraction stopped.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So I was.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Like, that's fine, We've been here before. It's not labor,
but it's helping get me ready. Those contractions continued on
and off for the next five days and then sort
of peed it out completely, and it wasn't all the time.
I'd sort of have patches of like an hour or
two a day, or a couple of times a day
where I'd be like, oh, here we go again. We
hit I think it was forty one weeks and one
(08:55):
day and one. Thing about privately practicing midwives, or at
least the one that I had who was phenomenal, they
are so across the evidence in terms of like post
dates care. So basically, as soon as you hit that
magic you know, forty week estimated due date and the
recommended care for after that. My midwife is very communicative,
I guess about the risks, and while she reiterated that
(09:18):
forty one weeks is still perfectly normal. Just station at
that point. The evidence is to get a scan at
the very least to check fluid levels so that if
I'd had a leak or anything, and make sure that
the baby was still happy and healthy in there. I
had no concerns. Baby was still moving. I could you
feel an elbow or a knee or a shoulder or whatever.
It was popping out at random hours. So we went
(09:39):
for a scan on the Monday morning forty one and
one and home. Remember we were sitting there and the
ultrasound technician was checking the fluid levels and checking the
placental blood flow and all those essential things, and he
actually made a comment. He said, how far along are you?
And I said forty one and one today. He said, right,
everything looks great. Baby's really comfortable in there. But hopefully
I don't have to see you next week for a
(10:00):
forty two week scan. I said, oh God, let's hope not.
So after that scan we went home and because as
luck would have it, my midwife had two clients that
were due in the month of October. I'd been due
at the very start. My due date was the first
of October and her other October client was due right
at the end. However, as luck would have it, client
(10:21):
needed to give birth at a hospital in Sydney on
this day that my scan was booked for, and the
midwife had called me the day before and said, look,
if you're feeling anything, if there's any sign baby's coming,
I won't go. I'll explain to the other client that
I just can't travel to Sydney when you're a week over.
And I sort of said, I feel okay, We've been
here a few days and nothing's changed. So I texted
(10:43):
her after the scan and said, hey, I'll just sound texted.
Everything looks good, no signs of moving. Hope your other
client goes well, And she texted back and she was like, thanks,
talk soon. So my husband decided, because we've been told
essentially that everything looked like the same, that he would
go into the office for the day on the twenty
minutes from home and just sort of wrap a few
(11:05):
things up and tell everybody at work that he was
going to work from home for the remainder of the
week because it had to be coming sooner or later.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
So you'll buy yourself at home.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
By myself at home, which is fine. You know, I
had a snack, I lead on the couch. I put
on a movie I sort of got I think I
was like two thirds of the way through the movie
and I was like, oh, I have to go to
the toilet. And so I did that and went back
and started the movie, and ten minutes later I felt
like I had to go to the toilet again, and
I was like, oh, this is weird. And I texted
my husband. I said I'm going to the toilet a bit,
(11:34):
like did we eat something weird? And he's like, oh, yeah,
I've been a few times as well. It must have
been whatever we had for dinner last time. I'm like, oh, okay,
no worries. I didn't think any more of it. And
then after I'd gone to the toilet like twice more
in like fifteen minutes, the first contraction hit.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Okay, So were you feeling cramping when you needed to
go to the toilet or was he like just weeing?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
No, it was like I needed to poop.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
So that's where I was like, did we eat something funny?
And again, cause my husband was like yeah, maybe, I
was like okay, cool, Probably not pregnancy because he's feeling
it too, must have been whatever. So the first contraction
hit and I started my app with the timing, and
then the next one hit two and a half minutes later.
So I called my husband and I said, hey, something's happening.
(12:19):
Can you pack up and work from home for the
rest of the afternoon? Interesting case and he was like, yep, sure,
I'll say goodbye to everyone and pack up and head home.
I said, cool. I texted my midwife, who I knew
was in Sydney, so minimum two hours drive from Newcastle.
I said, hey, things are kicking off. Just had a
couple of contractions a few minutes apart. Do you want
to start driving? Basically, because we knew that my first
(12:40):
birth was two and a half hours, we knew those
are possibility things. We've moved quickly. And my midwife texted
back she said, yep, jumping in the car now. I
texted my dooler and I said, hey, this is happening.
She's like cool, I'm just going to get my kids
off to care and then I'll start heading your way.
And by the time I'd made those calls, I was like, oh, okay,
these contractions are getting faster. I think maybe ten minutes
(13:01):
had passed and they were two minutes apart and lasting
fifty to fifty five seconds, and then they started getting
really intense, to the point where I was like, oh
my gosh, I can't even stand through these. And I
remembered either the doll or the midwife, one of them
saying that a birth planning appointment, because you've had a
fast way before. If you feel like things are getting
(13:22):
out of control, quickly get your tummy horizontal, like so
that you know your luterus is working against gravity. So
I was down on my on sweet floor in the bathroom,
so the tiniest room of my house, on all fours,
kind of just hoping that gravity had slow the berth down.
Disappointed to say that did not make a difference at all.
(13:42):
So I jumped into the shower, still on all faurs,
hoping that the water would ease some of the pain
I guess of the contractions. That was also a very
poor choice, because then it was extremely difficult to get
out of the shower. I did at one point manage.
I got out of the shower literally crawled across the
floor to get my phone so that I could call
(14:02):
my husband and be like you know, excuse me, where
the hell are you?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, So, just to clarify some of the timings, you
called your husband, you call your duola, your midwife, and
then you go into the shower. How much time has
passed between that first phone call and the time you
call your husband again to be like where are you?
Speaker 3 (14:20):
So I had to pull this all together from like
call logs basically. So I called my husband just after midday.
I was in the shower at quarter past twelve. I
crawled out of the shower at twelve thirty five and
my water broke just as I got out of the shower,
all over the on sweet floor, thankfully not on the carpet.
And then straight after my water broke at twelve forty
(14:41):
that was I felt the urge to push. So we're
forty minutes, forty minutes from first contraction coming up. So
my midwife, very calmly says to me a loud speaker, Lauren,
can you ask Matt to come back in please? So
I've yelled for him to come back in, and the
midwife says to Matt again, so calm, just Matt, don't
(15:03):
worry about the birthpool. You need to die. Triple zero.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I just want to also to say, you are by
yourself in your house right now?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
I am by myself.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, Are you scared?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I mean yes and no. It was yeah, yes, because
I was like, this isn't how we planned it the birth,
and we'd had the birth space set up for weeks
expecting that i'd go early, so we had, you know,
a pool inflated and the beautiful fairy lights and like
photos of my daughter and my husband and I all
together to help, you know, promote a positive and loving environment.
(15:39):
And I couldn't even crawl from one end of the
house to the other where all of that was. So
I was scared in that it didn't look like it
was how it was planned. But I was also confident
because I remember being told or reading that if birth
happens quickly, it's generally because things are going well. So
if things are wrong, birth tends to slow down, not
(16:02):
the opposite. And I was like, okay, so that must
have popped into my head, which was great. It was
the reassurance I needed after my water broke that I
definitely panicked because I remembered the first time, like if
my water hadn't been broken manually, it probably would have
broken just before you're ready to push, So what generally
happens if your water breaks in labor? And because I
(16:24):
felt that intense pressure to push almost instantly, I was like,
oh God, where is everybody? And it wasn't a I
can't birth this child, it was a who's going to
catch the child? I am on a tiled floor if
I was like, physically, I can't do it. So I
called my midwife at that point and said, this has happened, obviously,
(16:44):
knowing she's coming from Sydney, she's at best still an
hour and a half away. I have to give her credit.
She was the calmest person I've ever spoken to ever
with She's driving down the freeway talking to a woman
who is, you know, giving birth imminently. She just sounded
so calm. It was very reassuring. And I remember her
very calmly saying, Lauren, where is Matt my husband? And
(17:09):
I said, I don't know. I called him forty minutes ago,
he's not here, and she said, right, can you hang
up on me and call him. Luckily, he walked through
the door really at that moment and calls out, where
are you? And I'm like, I'm in the en suite
and he comes running in and sees me on all
fours obviously my water broken all over the floor. The
(17:31):
midwife on loudspeaker on my phone. He goes, what do
you want me to do? And I said, can you
start filling the birth pool? Like baby's coming? So he
ran out to the kitchen and was fiddling with the
hose connections. I've had I don't know, two or three
contractions in the next couple of minutes, and my midwife,
very calmly says to me on loud speaker, Lauren, can
(17:52):
you ask Matt to come back in please? So I've
yelled for him to come back in, and the midwife
says to Matt again, so calm, just Matt, don't worry
about the birthpool. You need to die a triple zero.
This baby is coming soon.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I would love to know, because there's quite a primal
thing that takes over when you're in those last stages
of birth, particularly when you're in that pushing phase. It's
quite primal, becomes quite guttural. Yes, the midwife is being
very calm. Matt, your husband. Men are not usually known
for being very calm during these really stressful situations.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
What was his response with the midwife. He did what
she said, he died triple zero, and his phone straight away.
It was a very interesting situation. And it's funny that
you talk about the primal brain because the situation that
I found myself in, I very much felt like I
was in that, But it was also like a part
of my brain had split off and was still present
(18:46):
and almost like watching the primal part happening, because I
was still aware that my husband was talking to the
ambulance dispatches. So it's his phone on speaker talking to
the ambulance team and then my midwife on speaker trying
to coach me through contractions. And I remember one thing
vividly of the multiple phone calls and everything with contractions
going on, is the dispatcher saying does she need a
(19:08):
transfer to hospital or do you need somebody to deliver
the baby? And Matt's basically yelling at her, no, the
baby is coming now, how soon can someone be here?
And she was like the dispatcher heard me having a contraction.
She's like, oh, oh, I can set the closest one
is ten minutes away. Can you unlock the front door
and stay on the phone until they get there, so yeah,
(19:32):
I think the time the paramedics arrived was pretty much
one o'clock, so yeah, twenty ish minutes, fifteen ish minutes
of midwife, paramedic dispatcher, both on speakerphone. My husband we'd
spoken about what I wanted his role in birth to be.
He was very adamant. He was like, I don't want
to catch the baby. I think it's going to be
(19:53):
really slippery. I am worried about it, and I was like, look,
totally understand. That's fine. If we had a been in
the water, I would have loved to catch the baby myself,
but that was not where we found ourselves. And when
the paramedics arrived at one o'clock, Matt obviously brought them
straight in. We were very fortunate. We didn't realize how
fortunate at the time, but when there's an imminent birth,
(20:16):
they send two ambulances, so they send one in case
mom needs care and one in case Bob needs care.
And as luck would have it, the first ambulance on
the scene was two female paramedics, one of whom was
a very senior experience paramedic, but more than that, she
was a single mother by choice who had gone through
a publicly funded midwife program, so she had some idea
(20:36):
when you know, she came in and had heard that
we were planning a home birth with a private midwife.
She came in and she had some idea I guess
of the way we'd planned for birth to go, and
immediately picked up that things were not going away we'd hoped.
And I just remember her coming into this tiny little
space with me in the en suite, and she squeezed
down and all fours next to me, and she said,
(20:56):
I'm here, you're safe. What do you want me to do?
And I said, stand back, don't touch me, catch the
baby when it comes. And she goes, I've got you.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
And it was just this like, oh, that's amazing. First
of all, what wonderful luck. So she goes down, she's looking,
You're still on all fours. Can she see the head?
Can she see? Where were you at when the paramedics.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Are so pretty much she came in. She assessed me
and she said, I can't see the baby. Like she
was measuring my blood pressure. I think at some point
there was a puff like Mum seems healthy, Mum's aware,
mum's talking, there's no blood. Everything is looking good. I
think they were there for five ish minutes. Her partner
was getting all the stuff they might need out of
(21:41):
the truck and laying it on the bed. My husband
was sort of trying to keep me focused, and I'm
in some other part of my brain.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
You were having a baby exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
And I remember my midwife saying to the paramedic, because
she's still on speaker this whole time, can you see
the head, Like is the head coming? And she said no,
I can't see anything. And then I had a really
big contraction and I reached down and I remember reaching
down to feel and I was like, I can feel
the head, and she goes, okay, like you're almost there.
And so I think I had one more contraction, and
(22:13):
you know they talk about the ring of fire.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, I was about to ask you about the ring
of fire.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah. So my son got stuck at the ring of fire.
So basically his head was partially born. The way the
paramedic was explaining it to my midwife was his head
was out, but only to just below his nose, so
his nose was clear, but his mouth and chin mustn't
have been up promptly, so he was still stuck. So
(22:38):
the midwife sort of took a deep breath and I
could hear and speaking. She goes, okay, Lauren, like this
next contraction, you really have to push hard. You have
to deliver the rest of the head. We need to
make sure his airways sorry it was their airways clear.
At that point, we didn't know the sex, and I
sort of like nodded and gritted my teeth. And then
the next contraction came very quickly, and I you know,
pushed for all hours were and the whole body came
(22:59):
flying out, which was great because the paramedic caught the
baby and I was like, great, you know baby hasn't
hit the child floor.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Well done, mum, you did it all in wine. That's
so good.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Eh. It was, And I'm in that relief when you're like, okay,
the head is stuck to nothing is coming out of
me anymore. It was just, honestly, there's no better, feeling
like I can't there's nothing better. And I remember that
the paramedic had caught the baby awkwardly while I was
on all fours, and then she sort of looked at
me holding the baby. She's like, what do I do?
(23:31):
I said, pass it through my legs so that I
can puddle it, and she did, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
That's great, so bub comes out. You're still on the floor.
You've got bub on your chest. I'm assuming the cord
is still a touched. You haven't delive at the placenter
at this point.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
No, I hadn't. When the paramedic had arrived, at some
point I'd said to her, we don't know the sex.
When baby's born, nobody say the sex. I want to
find out for myself. So I'd probably just been holding
him to my chest, shell shocked for a couple of seconds,
and she was like, do you want to check if
it's a boy or a girl? And I checked and
it was a little boy. And I remember saying to that,
(24:05):
like making eye contact with him and saying, it's a
little boy. And he was like, you're right. Because the
whole pregnancy, I just had this sense. And then very
quickly after that, the paramedic said to my midwife, still
on speak of her, and she's like, there's blood. There's
a lot of blood. What do I do? The midwife said, well,
how much blood do you think it is? And she goes, well,
it's really hard to tell because her waters had already
(24:25):
broken in the same space and there's tows down and
I don't know how much is blood and how much
is other liquid. And a few seconds after that exchange,
I remember just feeling really dizzy and lightheaded, which I
lost basically no blood with my first berth. So I
was like, this isn't this doesn't feel normal. And I
remember the midwife on speakerphone saying to the paramedic, you
(24:48):
need to cut the cord. You need to cut the
cord now. And I said, no, I don't want to
cut the cord. We want to you know, we want
a delayed cord clamping and all of that. And she's like, Lauren,
you have to cut the cord. So the paramedic did,
and she said, Lauren, give the baby to Matt and
I did that, and then the paramedics helped me lay
down and I remember just, you know, being a little
(25:09):
bit out of it but still aware. And once they'd
ascertained that baby was perfectly healthy and perfect scores and
Dad had him, they sort of pushed out and baby
to the back of the bedroom so that they could
handle what was going on with me. So I remember
they put a canula in my arm and gave me,
I think a bag of fluids, and he's like, we
need to give you this in Tosin and like, the
(25:30):
placenta is coming, I can feel it. Can you give
me two minutes? And he looked at me and he
went do you want to die? And I looked at
him back and I just went no, no, and he's like,
you're still bleeding. There's blood coming out. And I remember
looking him dead in the face and I said, that's
not blood, that's the plus center. So anyways, I delivered
the placenta. They gave me a second bag of fluids.
(25:52):
My dueler arrived sometime in this chaos and just sort
of started snapping photos, which some of the photos are
just like they're just funny now to look back on.
But two bags are fluid, and I was right, like,
I was fine. I could sit back up again. The
dizziness and lightheadedness went away. And so that after I'd
sort of stabilized, the second pair of paramedics that were
(26:14):
there in catsbub needed help were like, Okay, well we
can go because the baby's absolutely fine and is now stabilized,
so we can leave it in the care of one
ambulance team. So then we kind of got the like
the gold and hour bubble that we'd wanted after the
the chaos of the birth and immediate aftermath. But the
dueler sort of like closed the curtains and the blinds
(26:35):
and you know, closed the door where I'm sure my
neighbors were listening out for my blood curdling screams and
the ambulance sirens and shut the door and shoot the
paramedics out and help me into bed, and you know,
put on some calm music and brought me some drinks
and like some snacks and obviously I had baby back
on my chest at this point, just snun got up
in bed. We had like almost an hour and a
(26:57):
half I think of uninterrupted time with just the doueler
going in and out to bring us things and the
lead paramedic going in and out to check I was
still okay. The second midwife so when primary practicing midwives
attended birth, they have to have a second midwife there,
again in case both patients mum and baby need care,
but also just in case they need an extra set
(27:17):
of hands. So my midwife's back up midwife had arrived
I think shortly after the second paramedic group left, so
she did a handover with the lead paramedic and you know,
checked checked my wound, checked, I was okay, did all
the immediate checks on the baby again and everything looked okay.
And then just as the paramedics were getting ready to leave,
(27:40):
my amazing primary midwife finally arrived. She made it safely
from Sydney, and then like again, we just got a
couple more hours of bubbling in between checks, but I
was in my own home and a bit delayed, but
eventually my care team were all there, and yeah, like
my son was a dream. He fed really easily. I
think he did poop on me before we'd left home,
(28:02):
so that was something I could have done without. But
if that's not new motherhood, I don't know what is.
We did actually eventually have to transfer to the hospital
that evening, a few hours after the paramedics had left,
because unfortunately with the blood that I had lost, even
though it was a relatively minor amount, I was still
unable to stand or walk without my blood pressure and
(28:22):
heart rate shooting right up, so they had to transfer
me to hospital for that and a tear repair because
of course, my son was chunky and got stuck on
the way out and came really fast, and apparently all
of those things are not great for the women's body.
But the birth itself, even though it didn't look like
the way I hoped, and it certainly wasn't one of
those you know, gold tinted beautifully set to music little
(28:44):
reels that you see on Instagram or TikTok, but it
was real and it was raw, and I still felt
like I really was in control the whole time. As
I said, like I could not thank the paramedic that
attended and took charge enough. She actually came to check
on us in hospital the day after because she'd seen
that we transferred in later that day, so she came
(29:07):
in to pop in and just check how we were
both doing. And she said it was the first time
she'd ever actually delivered a baby other than her own,
but the first time she'd ever caught a baby. And
she said, she was like, it's made my whole year.
It's the best year I've had of being a parent
in my entire career, which was just so special. And
then yeah, we came back home, I hope. We were
in the in hospital for two days and then came
(29:29):
home to my daughter beating her baby brother, which was
just so perfect.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Wow, what a wild story. I'm fascinated by the way
that you're instinct and I think there's so much about birth,
particularly that transition and birthing phase itself. There's so much
about that that becomes very instinctual. Like I find that
level of strength really admirable. So well done for like
(29:58):
still being able to trust yourself in something that was
actually quite a scary moment. But wow, what a story. Congratulations.
I'm so glad that you and Barb are both healthy.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Thank you. Yes, and look, he came in like a
train wreck and he has not stopped since he was born,
exactly the way he lives so far.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
So Finley is now eighteen months old and Emerson's fire
and a half now, so things are still busy in
your house.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Things don't stop around here. Yeah, Emerson's in kindergarten now
and Finley is almost two, so far, like he's my
daughter was just an easy child, so we needed we
needed the challenge. Apparently the universe thought with Finley starting
from the day he was born.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, well, thank you Lauren so much for telling your story.
It is amazing and you should be very proud of yourself.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Thank you so much, and thank you for letting me
share this. It's yeah, certainly in the immediate aftermath of
it happening, it took me a little while to process,
but I'm so proud of how it went and yeah,
happy to share my story. Even if it's fast and
feels terrifying at the time, it can still be a
really positive experience.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Diary for Birth was hosted by me kauseny Lukitch. If
you like our show, don't forget to subscribe and rate.
It goes a long wait, allowing us to continue sharing
your stories. This episode was produced by Ella Maitland, with
audio production by Tina Matalov.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our respects
to elders past, present and emerging, and feel privileged to
continue the sharing of birth stories and knowledge that has
been a fundamental part of indigenous culture.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Hi. I'm Kassenya Lukitch, and this is diary of a birth.
Sometimes the birth you plan and the birth you get
a world's apart, but that doesn't mean it can't still
be empowering. Today's guest wanted a calm home birth with
her private midwife after feeling unsupported in the public system.
(01:05):
She had her birth already, fairy lights set up, and
her care team on standby, but when labor finally started
forty one weeks, everything happened faster than anyone expected.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
So I called my husband just after midday. I was
in the show at quarter past twelve. I crawled out
of the shower at twelve thirty five, and my water
broke just as I got out of the shower, all
over the on sweet floor. And then straight after my
water brokes, I felt the urged push.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
With her midwife stuck in traffic and her husband racing
home from work. She found herself alone on her bathroom floor,
hoping help would arrive in time. So let's meet today's mum.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Hi, my name is Lauren and this is the diary
of my birth with Finley.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So, Lauren, Finley is your second child.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
He is, Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Can you just tell us a little bit about what
life was like before you fell pregnant with Finley.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
So there's almost four years between Finley and his big
sister Emerson. So before I fell pregnant with Finley, it
was my husband, myself and our at the time three
year old. She was a little bit of an unicornchild.
I hate to put this into the universe, but she
ate well, slept well, was fun to be around. So
(02:27):
we decided it was time that we were ready to
introduce a second child, a fourth member of the family.
And of course, a month after I fell pregnant with
Finley is when the three year old attitude kicked in.
But we wouldn't have had it any other way.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
So can you tell me about what you wanted your
experience to be like with Finley? What type of birth
did you want to have?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I guess that's informed a lot by the birth that
I did have with Emerson. Going into my first pregnancy
in birth, I was very open to, you know, let's
see how things go. My birth plan was very don't
offer me pain relief, don't offer me interventions. If I
want them, I'll ask for them. I went through a
(03:11):
private hospital and a private obstetrician with my first birth
because in the circles I run in the area I
live in, that's just what you did if you had
private health insurance. And I was fairly lucky with my experience.
I had a good relationship with my obstetricians right up
until I think it was thirty seven and a half
weeks of pregnancy, and then I should just preface this.
(03:33):
My daughter was due the day after New Year's I
started getting a lot of pressure from the private obstetric
that I'd worked with to induce prior to Christmas and
prior to the public holidays. I was quite resistant to that,
but I did feel like I was pushed or coerced
a little bit into an induction. It did work in
my favor. When I went in to be induced, they
(03:55):
found out I was already actually in labor, so they
manually broke my waters. No other intervention, and two and
a half hours later, my daughter was born. So when
it came time to plan for our care with Finley,
I knew I wanted to do it differently. I knew
I wanted to be the expert on my body. I
wanted to trust my body to birth, and I wanted
(04:16):
to make sure that I had health support, obviously from
an expert, but one little so trusted me to be
an expert in what my body was experiencing and on
how my baby and I were going to work together
for him to be born. In my area as well,
we do have a publicly funded home birth program which
is very close to my house, and I was very
(04:37):
very keen. I think even before I knew I was pregnant,
I was like, right, next time around, this is what
I'm meaning for. I'd started working with a prenatal and
pregnancy birth dueler at this point.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So basically the plan was you went into the public system.
The plan was going to be that you were going
to try and do a vaginal unmedicated birth in the hospital.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yes, originally in the hospital, but.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
With a duela supporting you throughout the process. Yes. Okay,
so you're at sixteen weeks. At this point, you and
your husband say we need to go and find a
private midwife. What was your next step?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Then? I was very lucky. I obviously had already linked
in with a Duela. I also have a friend I
went to your high school with who works as a
post part of Duela in the area that I live in.
So I reached out to her for recommendations and she
gave me a list of a few private practicing midwives
that service our area, and I reached out to I
think three or four of them and clicked with one
(05:34):
and engaged her to move forward. It was really comfortable.
All of the midwives were lovely. Obviously, most private practicing
midwives in our area at least tend to lean high
to homebirths because a lot of the reason that people
engage private midwives is because they want to go outside
of the hospital system or have the hospital system as
the escalation pathway if and when it's needed.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
What does a private midwife cost, Because obviously, even when
we talk about going through the private system and having
an obstetrition, there is still out of pocket expenses which
a lot of people don't realize. I think just because
you have health insurance.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Oh absolutely, health insurance covers the hospital birth. It does
not cover the obstetrician.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I remember doing the calculations and with all of the scans,
you know, to test all of that, plus the obstetrician,
plus the anethetist, it was about ten thousand dollars out
of pocket per birth.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Plus the private health insurance that you've had to pay
for for at least work twelve months before and then
actually being pregnant. So absolutely it's phenomenal. So in perspective,
the private practicing midwife for the whole pregnancy, birth, and
six weeks postpardon was six thousand dollars. And there are
Medicare rebates available for pre and postnatal care, so I
think I got about sixteen hundred dollars back from Medicare.
(06:51):
Birth is not covered by Medicare, but the pre and
post natal care that a privately practicing midwife provides is okay,
so you get a lot more. In my opinion, having
gone through the private system birth and then the private midwife,
I felt like I got much better value for money
with the care that I received with a private practicing midwife.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, it's interesting just to see the comparisons of costs,
because I think a lot of people would say, oh,
private midwife, that's going to be way outside my budget.
But I suppose if you are in a lower risk category
and you do want a low intervention or potentially want
to go for a home birth, that could be a
really good option for some women. Let's get to the
(07:32):
birth itself. How far along were you when you started
feeling labor.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
I think the first night I had contractions was at
forty weeks and three days. Again for background, when I
went to be induced and was in labor with my daughter,
I was thirty seven and six, so myself, my husband,
and my midwife were all quite surprised when forty weeks
came and went with nothing. I had, I guess what
they call prodromal or like early or false labor. I
(08:01):
had it with both pregnancy, So essentially I had five
hours of intense contractions at forty and three and they
got down to I think about four and a half
minutes apart and lasting for about forty five seconds. So
we told my daughter we were having a practice from
and maybe the baby would be here, and did she
want to go to Nanna and Pops or did you
want to stay here in case the baby came? She
(08:21):
wanted to sleep over it and hand on pops. So
my parents came and picked her up and took her
for the ninth. The midwife was like, watch a movie
something happy, you know, helped the oxytocin flow, So we
did that and the contraction stopped.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So I was.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Like, that's fine, We've been here before. It's not labor,
but it's helping get me ready. Those contractions continued on
and off for the next five days and then sort
of peed it out completely, and it wasn't all the time.
I'd sort of have patches of like an hour or
two a day, or a couple of times a day
where I'd be like, oh, here we go again. We
hit I think it was forty one weeks and one
(08:55):
day and one. Thing about privately practicing midwives, or at
least the one that I had who was phenomenal, they
are so across the evidence in terms of like post
dates care. So basically, as soon as you hit that
magic you know, forty week estimated due date and the
recommended care for after that. My midwife is very communicative,
I guess about the risks, and while she reiterated that
(09:18):
forty one weeks is still perfectly normal. Just station at
that point. The evidence is to get a scan at
the very least to check fluid levels so that if
I'd had a leak or anything, and make sure that
the baby was still happy and healthy in there. I
had no concerns. Baby was still moving. I could you
feel an elbow or a knee or a shoulder or whatever.
It was popping out at random hours. So we went
(09:39):
for a scan on the Monday morning forty one and
one and home. Remember we were sitting there and the
ultrasound technician was checking the fluid levels and checking the
placental blood flow and all those essential things, and he
actually made a comment. He said, how far along are you?
And I said forty one and one today. He said, right,
everything looks great. Baby's really comfortable in there. But hopefully
I don't have to see you next week for a
(10:00):
forty two week scan. I said, oh God, let's hope not.
So after that scan we went home and because as
luck would have it, my midwife had two clients that
were due in the month of October. I'd been due
at the very start. My due date was the first
of October and her other October client was due right
at the end. However, as luck would have it, client
(10:21):
needed to give birth at a hospital in Sydney on
this day that my scan was booked for, and the
midwife had called me the day before and said, look,
if you're feeling anything, if there's any sign baby's coming,
I won't go. I'll explain to the other client that
I just can't travel to Sydney when you're a week over.
And I sort of said, I feel okay, We've been
here a few days and nothing's changed. So I texted
(10:43):
her after the scan and said, hey, I'll just sound texted.
Everything looks good, no signs of moving. Hope your other
client goes well, And she texted back and she was like, thanks,
talk soon. So my husband decided, because we've been told
essentially that everything looked like the same, that he would
go into the office for the day on the twenty
minutes from home and just sort of wrap a few
(11:05):
things up and tell everybody at work that he was
going to work from home for the remainder of the
week because it had to be coming sooner or later.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
So you'll buy yourself at home.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
By myself at home, which is fine. You know, I
had a snack, I lead on the couch. I put
on a movie I sort of got I think I
was like two thirds of the way through the movie
and I was like, oh, I have to go to
the toilet. And so I did that and went back
and started the movie, and ten minutes later I felt
like I had to go to the toilet again, and
I was like, oh, this is weird. And I texted
my husband. I said I'm going to the toilet a bit,
(11:34):
like did we eat something weird? And he's like, oh, yeah,
I've been a few times as well. It must have
been whatever we had for dinner last time. I'm like, oh, okay,
no worries. I didn't think any more of it. And
then after I'd gone to the toilet like twice more
in like fifteen minutes, the first contraction hit.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Okay, So were you feeling cramping when you needed to
go to the toilet or was he like just weeing?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
No, it was like I needed to poop.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
So that's where I was like, did we eat something funny?
And again, cause my husband was like yeah, maybe, I
was like okay, cool, Probably not pregnancy because he's feeling
it too, must have been whatever. So the first contraction
hit and I started my app with the timing, and
then the next one hit two and a half minutes later.
So I called my husband and I said, hey, something's happening.
(12:19):
Can you pack up and work from home for the
rest of the afternoon? Interesting case and he was like, yep, sure,
I'll say goodbye to everyone and pack up and head home.
I said, cool. I texted my midwife, who I knew
was in Sydney, so minimum two hours drive from Newcastle.
I said, hey, things are kicking off. Just had a
couple of contractions a few minutes apart. Do you want
to start driving? Basically, because we knew that my first
(12:40):
birth was two and a half hours, we knew those
are possibility things. We've moved quickly. And my midwife texted
back she said, yep, jumping in the car now. I
texted my dooler and I said, hey, this is happening.
She's like cool, I'm just going to get my kids
off to care and then I'll start heading your way.
And by the time I'd made those calls, I was like, oh, okay,
these contractions are getting faster. I think maybe ten minutes
(13:01):
had passed and they were two minutes apart and lasting
fifty to fifty five seconds, and then they started getting
really intense, to the point where I was like, oh
my gosh, I can't even stand through these. And I
remembered either the doll or the midwife, one of them
saying that a birth planning appointment, because you've had a
fast way before. If you feel like things are getting
(13:22):
out of control, quickly get your tummy horizontal, like so
that you know your luterus is working against gravity. So
I was down on my on sweet floor in the bathroom,
so the tiniest room of my house, on all fours,
kind of just hoping that gravity had slow the berth down.
Disappointed to say that did not make a difference at all.
(13:42):
So I jumped into the shower, still on all faurs,
hoping that the water would ease some of the pain
I guess of the contractions. That was also a very
poor choice, because then it was extremely difficult to get
out of the shower. I did at one point manage.
I got out of the shower literally crawled across the
floor to get my phone so that I could call
(14:02):
my husband and be like you know, excuse me, where
the hell are you?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, So, just to clarify some of the timings, you
called your husband, you call your duola, your midwife, and
then you go into the shower. How much time has
passed between that first phone call and the time you
call your husband again to be like where are you?
Speaker 3 (14:20):
So I had to pull this all together from like
call logs basically. So I called my husband just after midday.
I was in the shower at quarter past twelve. I
crawled out of the shower at twelve thirty five and
my water broke just as I got out of the shower,
all over the on sweet floor, thankfully not on the carpet.
And then straight after my water broke at twelve forty
(14:41):
that was I felt the urge to push. So we're
forty minutes, forty minutes from first contraction coming up. So
my midwife, very calmly says to me a loud speaker, Lauren,
can you ask Matt to come back in please? So
I've yelled for him to come back in, and the
midwife says to Matt again, so calm, just Matt, don't
(15:03):
worry about the birthpool. You need to die. Triple zero.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I just want to also to say, you are by
yourself in your house right now?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
I am by myself.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, Are you scared?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I mean yes and no. It was yeah, yes, because
I was like, this isn't how we planned it the birth,
and we'd had the birth space set up for weeks
expecting that i'd go early, so we had, you know,
a pool inflated and the beautiful fairy lights and like
photos of my daughter and my husband and I all
together to help, you know, promote a positive and loving environment.
(15:39):
And I couldn't even crawl from one end of the
house to the other where all of that was. So
I was scared in that it didn't look like it
was how it was planned. But I was also confident
because I remember being told or reading that if birth
happens quickly, it's generally because things are going well. So
if things are wrong, birth tends to slow down, not
(16:02):
the opposite. And I was like, okay, so that must
have popped into my head, which was great. It was
the reassurance I needed after my water broke that I
definitely panicked because I remembered the first time, like if
my water hadn't been broken manually, it probably would have
broken just before you're ready to push, So what generally
happens if your water breaks in labor? And because I
(16:24):
felt that intense pressure to push almost instantly, I was like,
oh God, where is everybody? And it wasn't a I
can't birth this child, it was a who's going to
catch the child? I am on a tiled floor if
I was like, physically, I can't do it. So I
called my midwife at that point and said, this has happened, obviously,
(16:44):
knowing she's coming from Sydney, she's at best still an
hour and a half away. I have to give her credit.
She was the calmest person I've ever spoken to ever
with She's driving down the freeway talking to a woman
who is, you know, giving birth imminently. She just sounded
so calm. It was very reassuring. And I remember her
very calmly saying, Lauren, where is Matt my husband? And
(17:09):
I said, I don't know. I called him forty minutes ago,
he's not here, and she said, right, can you hang
up on me and call him. Luckily, he walked through
the door really at that moment and calls out, where
are you? And I'm like, I'm in the en suite
and he comes running in and sees me on all
fours obviously my water broken all over the floor. The
(17:31):
midwife on loudspeaker on my phone. He goes, what do
you want me to do? And I said, can you
start filling the birth pool? Like baby's coming? So he
ran out to the kitchen and was fiddling with the
hose connections. I've had I don't know, two or three
contractions in the next couple of minutes, and my midwife,
very calmly says to me on loud speaker, Lauren, can
(17:52):
you ask Matt to come back in please? So I've
yelled for him to come back in, and the midwife
says to Matt again, so calm, just Matt, don't worry
about the birthpool. You need to die a triple zero.
This baby is coming soon.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I would love to know, because there's quite a primal
thing that takes over when you're in those last stages
of birth, particularly when you're in that pushing phase. It's
quite primal, becomes quite guttural. Yes, the midwife is being
very calm. Matt, your husband. Men are not usually known
for being very calm during these really stressful situations.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
What was his response with the midwife. He did what
she said, he died triple zero, and his phone straight away.
It was a very interesting situation. And it's funny that
you talk about the primal brain because the situation that
I found myself in, I very much felt like I
was in that, But it was also like a part
of my brain had split off and was still present
(18:46):
and almost like watching the primal part happening, because I
was still aware that my husband was talking to the
ambulance dispatches. So it's his phone on speaker talking to
the ambulance team and then my midwife on speaker trying
to coach me through contractions. And I remember one thing
vividly of the multiple phone calls and everything with contractions
going on, is the dispatcher saying does she need a
(19:08):
transfer to hospital or do you need somebody to deliver
the baby? And Matt's basically yelling at her, no, the
baby is coming now, how soon can someone be here?
And she was like the dispatcher heard me having a contraction.
She's like, oh, oh, I can set the closest one
is ten minutes away. Can you unlock the front door
and stay on the phone until they get there, so yeah,
(19:32):
I think the time the paramedics arrived was pretty much
one o'clock, so yeah, twenty ish minutes, fifteen ish minutes
of midwife, paramedic dispatcher, both on speakerphone. My husband we'd
spoken about what I wanted his role in birth to be.
He was very adamant. He was like, I don't want
to catch the baby. I think it's going to be
(19:53):
really slippery. I am worried about it, and I was like, look,
totally understand. That's fine. If we had a been in
the water, I would have loved to catch the baby myself,
but that was not where we found ourselves. And when
the paramedics arrived at one o'clock, Matt obviously brought them
straight in. We were very fortunate. We didn't realize how
fortunate at the time, but when there's an imminent birth,
(20:16):
they send two ambulances, so they send one in case
mom needs care and one in case Bob needs care.
And as luck would have it, the first ambulance on
the scene was two female paramedics, one of whom was
a very senior experience paramedic, but more than that, she
was a single mother by choice who had gone through
a publicly funded midwife program, so she had some idea
(20:36):
when you know, she came in and had heard that
we were planning a home birth with a private midwife.
She came in and she had some idea I guess
of the way we'd planned for birth to go, and
immediately picked up that things were not going away we'd hoped.
And I just remember her coming into this tiny little
space with me in the en suite, and she squeezed
down and all fours next to me, and she said,
(20:56):
I'm here, you're safe. What do you want me to do?
And I said, stand back, don't touch me, catch the
baby when it comes. And she goes, I've got you.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
And it was just this like, oh, that's amazing. First
of all, what wonderful luck. So she goes down, she's looking,
You're still on all fours. Can she see the head?
Can she see? Where were you at when the paramedics.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Are so pretty much she came in. She assessed me
and she said, I can't see the baby. Like she
was measuring my blood pressure. I think at some point
there was a puff like Mum seems healthy, Mum's aware,
mum's talking, there's no blood. Everything is looking good. I
think they were there for five ish minutes. Her partner
was getting all the stuff they might need out of
(21:41):
the truck and laying it on the bed. My husband
was sort of trying to keep me focused, and I'm
in some other part of my brain.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
You were having a baby exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
And I remember my midwife saying to the paramedic, because
she's still on speaker this whole time, can you see
the head, Like is the head coming? And she said no,
I can't see anything. And then I had a really
big contraction and I reached down and I remember reaching
down to feel and I was like, I can feel
the head, and she goes, okay, like you're almost there.
And so I think I had one more contraction, and
(22:13):
you know they talk about the ring of fire.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, I was about to ask you about the ring
of fire.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah. So my son got stuck at the ring of fire.
So basically his head was partially born. The way the
paramedic was explaining it to my midwife was his head
was out, but only to just below his nose, so
his nose was clear, but his mouth and chin mustn't
have been up promptly, so he was still stuck. So
(22:38):
the midwife sort of took a deep breath and I
could hear and speaking. She goes, okay, Lauren, like this
next contraction, you really have to push hard. You have
to deliver the rest of the head. We need to
make sure his airways sorry it was their airways clear.
At that point, we didn't know the sex, and I
sort of like nodded and gritted my teeth. And then
the next contraction came very quickly, and I you know,
pushed for all hours were and the whole body came
(22:59):
flying out, which was great because the paramedic caught the
baby and I was like, great, you know baby hasn't
hit the child floor.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Well done, mum, you did it all in wine. That's
so good.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Eh. It was, And I'm in that relief when you're like, okay,
the head is stuck to nothing is coming out of
me anymore. It was just, honestly, there's no better, feeling
like I can't there's nothing better. And I remember that
the paramedic had caught the baby awkwardly while I was
on all fours, and then she sort of looked at
me holding the baby. She's like, what do I do?
(23:31):
I said, pass it through my legs so that I
can puddle it, and she did, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
That's great, so bub comes out. You're still on the floor.
You've got bub on your chest. I'm assuming the cord
is still a touched. You haven't delive at the placenter
at this point.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
No, I hadn't. When the paramedic had arrived, at some
point I'd said to her, we don't know the sex.
When baby's born, nobody say the sex. I want to
find out for myself. So I'd probably just been holding
him to my chest, shell shocked for a couple of seconds,
and she was like, do you want to check if
it's a boy or a girl? And I checked and
it was a little boy. And I remember saying to that,
(24:05):
like making eye contact with him and saying, it's a
little boy. And he was like, you're right. Because the
whole pregnancy, I just had this sense. And then very
quickly after that, the paramedic said to my midwife, still
on speak of her, and she's like, there's blood. There's
a lot of blood. What do I do? The midwife said, well,
how much blood do you think it is? And she goes, well,
it's really hard to tell because her waters had already
(24:25):
broken in the same space and there's tows down and
I don't know how much is blood and how much
is other liquid. And a few seconds after that exchange,
I remember just feeling really dizzy and lightheaded, which I
lost basically no blood with my first berth. So I
was like, this isn't this doesn't feel normal. And I
remember the midwife on speakerphone saying to the paramedic, you
(24:48):
need to cut the cord. You need to cut the
cord now. And I said, no, I don't want to
cut the cord. We want to you know, we want
a delayed cord clamping and all of that. And she's like, Lauren,
you have to cut the cord. So the paramedic did,
and she said, Lauren, give the baby to Matt and
I did that, and then the paramedics helped me lay
down and I remember just, you know, being a little
(25:09):
bit out of it but still aware. And once they'd
ascertained that baby was perfectly healthy and perfect scores and
Dad had him, they sort of pushed out and baby
to the back of the bedroom so that they could
handle what was going on with me. So I remember
they put a canula in my arm and gave me,
I think a bag of fluids, and he's like, we
need to give you this in Tosin and like, the
(25:30):
placenta is coming, I can feel it. Can you give
me two minutes? And he looked at me and he
went do you want to die? And I looked at
him back and I just went no, no, and he's like,
you're still bleeding. There's blood coming out. And I remember
looking him dead in the face and I said, that's
not blood, that's the plus center. So anyways, I delivered
the placenta. They gave me a second bag of fluids.
(25:52):
My dueler arrived sometime in this chaos and just sort
of started snapping photos, which some of the photos are
just like they're just funny now to look back on.
But two bags are fluid, and I was right, like,
I was fine. I could sit back up again. The
dizziness and lightheadedness went away. And so that after I'd
sort of stabilized, the second pair of paramedics that were
(26:14):
there in catsbub needed help were like, Okay, well we
can go because the baby's absolutely fine and is now stabilized,
so we can leave it in the care of one
ambulance team. So then we kind of got the like
the gold and hour bubble that we'd wanted after the
the chaos of the birth and immediate aftermath. But the
dueler sort of like closed the curtains and the blinds
(26:35):
and you know, closed the door where I'm sure my
neighbors were listening out for my blood curdling screams and
the ambulance sirens and shut the door and shoot the
paramedics out and help me into bed, and you know,
put on some calm music and brought me some drinks
and like some snacks and obviously I had baby back
on my chest at this point, just snun got up
in bed. We had like almost an hour and a
(26:57):
half I think of uninterrupted time with just the doueler
going in and out to bring us things and the
lead paramedic going in and out to check I was
still okay. The second midwife so when primary practicing midwives
attended birth, they have to have a second midwife there,
again in case both patients mum and baby need care,
but also just in case they need an extra set
(27:17):
of hands. So my midwife's back up midwife had arrived
I think shortly after the second paramedic group left, so
she did a handover with the lead paramedic and you know,
checked checked my wound, checked, I was okay, did all
the immediate checks on the baby again and everything looked okay.
And then just as the paramedics were getting ready to leave,
(27:40):
my amazing primary midwife finally arrived. She made it safely
from Sydney, and then like again, we just got a
couple more hours of bubbling in between checks, but I
was in my own home and a bit delayed, but
eventually my care team were all there, and yeah, like
my son was a dream. He fed really easily. I
think he did poop on me before we'd left home,
(28:02):
so that was something I could have done without. But
if that's not new motherhood, I don't know what is.
We did actually eventually have to transfer to the hospital
that evening, a few hours after the paramedics had left,
because unfortunately with the blood that I had lost, even
though it was a relatively minor amount, I was still
unable to stand or walk without my blood pressure and
(28:22):
heart rate shooting right up, so they had to transfer
me to hospital for that and a tear repair because
of course, my son was chunky and got stuck on
the way out and came really fast, and apparently all
of those things are not great for the women's body.
But the birth itself, even though it didn't look like
the way I hoped, and it certainly wasn't one of
those you know, gold tinted beautifully set to music little
(28:44):
reels that you see on Instagram or TikTok, but it
was real and it was raw, and I still felt
like I really was in control the whole time. As
I said, like I could not thank the paramedic that
attended and took charge enough. She actually came to check
on us in hospital the day after because she'd seen
that we transferred in later that day, so she came
(29:07):
in to pop in and just check how we were
both doing. And she said it was the first time
she'd ever actually delivered a baby other than her own,
but the first time she'd ever caught a baby. And
she said, she was like, it's made my whole year.
It's the best year I've had of being a parent
in my entire career, which was just so special. And
then yeah, we came back home, I hope. We were
in the in hospital for two days and then came
(29:29):
home to my daughter beating her baby brother, which was
just so perfect.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Wow, what a wild story. I'm fascinated by the way
that you're instinct and I think there's so much about birth,
particularly that transition and birthing phase itself. There's so much
about that that becomes very instinctual. Like I find that
level of strength really admirable. So well done for like
(29:58):
still being able to trust yourself in something that was
actually quite a scary moment. But wow, what a story. Congratulations.
I'm so glad that you and Barb are both healthy.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Thank you. Yes, and look, he came in like a
train wreck and he has not stopped since he was born,
exactly the way he lives so far.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
So Finley is now eighteen months old and Emerson's fire
and a half now, so things are still busy in
your house.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Things don't stop around here. Yeah, Emerson's in kindergarten now
and Finley is almost two, so far, like he's my
daughter was just an easy child, so we needed we
needed the challenge. Apparently the universe thought with Finley starting
from the day he was born.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, well, thank you Lauren so much for telling your story.
It is amazing and you should be very proud of yourself.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Thank you so much, and thank you for letting me
share this. It's yeah, certainly in the immediate aftermath of
it happening, it took me a little while to process,
but I'm so proud of how it went and yeah,
happy to share my story. Even if it's fast and
feels terrifying at the time, it can still be a
really positive experience.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Diary for Birth was hosted by me kauseny Lukitch. If
you like our show, don't forget to subscribe and rate.
It goes a long wait, allowing us to continue sharing
your stories. This episode was produced by Ella Maitland, with
audio production by Tina Matalov.
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