0:00

Welcome to Australian

0:03

Birth Stories. Here's

0:05

your host, Sophie Walker. Hi

0:07

everyone and welcome to the Australian

0:10

Birth Stories podcast. Thanks

0:12

so much for joining me. Each week

0:14

I'll be bringing you mothers telling their

0:16

stories of childbirth.

0:18

Let's get into today's show. Australian

0:21

Birth Stories acknowledge that the practice,

0:23

ceremony and sharing of birth knowledge has

0:26

occurred across the lands and waterways of Australia

0:28

since time immemorial. We

0:31

acknowledge the First Nations and language groups

0:33

where these stories have occurred and pay

0:35

our respects to elders past and present.

0:39

As we continue to share stories together

0:41

on these unceded lands, we will try

0:43

to listen to the knowledge and practice that

0:45

has always existed here and consider

0:47

how we might tell our birth stories in response

0:50

to country, paying our deepest

0:52

respects to the traditional custodians

0:55

of many places across Australia that

0:57

our children will know as home.

0:59

Today's episode of the show is brought to you by

1:01

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1:59

Welcome back to the show in

2:01

today's episode I'm joined by Elise

2:03

Cook and Elise has been on the podcast

2:06

before you can hear her first birth

2:08

experience in episode 208 I'll

2:11

put a link in the show notes if you want to flick over

2:13

and listen to that one first you'll hear her first

2:16

pregnancy with her little girl Pip but

2:18

in today's episode she's sharing with us

2:20

her second pregnancy and birth of little

2:23

Bobby. Elise shares with us

2:25

that before she conceived Bobby she suddenly

2:28

out of the blue experienced a

2:29

third-degree prolapse which really

2:32

took her by surprise and she initially

2:34

went to a couple of health

2:36

providers that just really instilled a sense

2:38

of fear about whether she could conceive

2:40

and birth another child at all so

2:42

it was really devastating to be

2:45

misinformed in this way but she then went

2:47

and sought out a third opinion and

2:50

thankfully found an incredible women's health physio

2:52

who really supported her to understand

2:55

her pelvic floor and to engage

2:58

her pelvic floor correctly because

2:59

she felt like she'd been doing that incorrectly

3:02

most of her life but much like her

3:05

first pregnancy Elise intuitively

3:07

knew she was going to conceive and

3:10

although her pregnancy was challenging with

3:12

nausea vomiting and insomnia and

3:14

low immunity she really enjoyed

3:17

the final weeks of her third trimester

3:19

and decided at the very last minute to

3:21

change over to have a home water birth.

3:24

Elise is so generous in her sharing of her

3:26

vulnerable moments and she reiterates

3:29

the importance of having a trusted midwife

3:31

to encourage and support you every

3:33

step of the way. I hope you enjoy

3:35

Elise's episode today and I'll hand over

3:38

to her now.

3:39

Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast again

3:41

Elise it's lovely to have you back.

3:43

Thank you for having me back. We

3:45

were just saying before we hit record Bobby is nearly

3:48

six months can't believe it's gone so fast

3:51

it feels like it's gone fast for me is it gone fast for you?

3:53

It's gone so fast I can't believe

3:55

it and it has been an absolute whirlwind.

3:59

Everybody, everybody. everybody tells you going

4:01

from one to two is nuts

4:03

and I can confirm it is nuts.

4:06

Yeah. It has been amazing,

4:08

but yeah, time, I don't know what.

4:11

You do that when you have your first, you think, what

4:14

did I do with my time before? And then when you have to be

4:16

like, I had so much time when I

4:18

had one. I think how did

4:20

I find that difficult? Yeah, it's

4:23

all on reflection. It's so funny. And

4:26

I'll refer everyone back to your first episode

4:28

to hear Pip's birth story, but

4:30

we'll just focus on Bobby's today. But

4:33

had you always planned to kind of continue

4:35

your family? Were you trying to conceive Bobby when

4:37

you did? Yes, so

4:39

it was one of those birds that held me back. So

4:45

I was thinking about Bobby from

4:47

the moment Pip had joined us. I always knew that

4:49

Bobby would come next. That was how

4:52

I'd always imagined my family growing. And,

4:54

you know, when you've got your first, I can't wait

4:57

until Bobby's here too. I can't wait. And I have

4:59

actually imagined that I'd be ready a lot

5:01

sooner than I was. I think because

5:03

my mum had me and my brother so close together,

5:06

not by any choice of hers, but it just happened.

5:09

But I loved it growing up. I thought I wanted

5:11

the same for Pip. But then that

5:13

time came around when I thought I'd be ready to have

5:15

a baby. And I was not. And

5:19

I didn't even have my period back here. I think it didn't

5:21

come back until about 11 months.

5:23

And that was around the same time

5:26

that I finally felt like I had some energy to

5:28

give to anything other than my motherhood journey.

5:30

Felt creative again and ready

5:32

to jump back into work. And then because

5:35

of that, I also then kind of felt like, oh, I don't

5:37

really want to have a baby right now.

5:40

OK. And

5:43

yeah, I just was feeling a

5:45

bit confused when I might

5:48

feel ready for that. And then I had a prolapse

5:50

of other months postpartum. So just after my

5:53

period came back, I experienced quite

5:55

a severe prolapse,

5:56

which really shocked

5:58

me because I didn't see that coming. coming. I just was

6:01

doing work out feeling all excited

6:04

to get back into life again. And yeah,

6:06

had a prolapse that I

6:08

have tried to talk about it quite a lot, because

6:10

when it happened, I just knew nothing about

6:13

it. I found it quite terrifying. And even

6:16

a few of the different health professionals that I

6:18

saw instilled quite a lot of fear

6:20

into me about what it would

6:22

mean with future pregnancies and birth

6:24

and being able to hold my toddler

6:27

and yeah, there was just a lot but once I

6:29

saw a good Intel physio

6:31

and got my head around it all and I was

6:33

amazed at how quickly I regained strength

6:36

and my body was feeling good again. It didn't

6:38

take long at all. It was hard at first

6:41

because I had no idea I hadn't

6:43

been doing my pelvic floor right my whole

6:45

life. It was a really simple change

6:47

but those muscles was offline for me.

6:50

And then once I

6:52

did get my head around it,

6:54

I was amazed at how quickly my body regained

6:56

strength. So

6:57

yeah, that was just

7:00

kind of left field on his whole story. But it was

7:02

a part of it. Yeah, I feel

7:04

like it's a bit more unusual that you had experienced

7:06

that at that stage because I felt

7:09

like from my understanding when you sort of stopped

7:11

breastfeeding and got your cycles back, sometimes

7:13

things kind of lifted and because

7:15

you've got less of that sort of relax and hormone

7:18

was that women's health physio that you saw

7:20

towards the end, the one that you connected

7:22

well with? Was she surprised that it occurred

7:25

at that stage? Or is that just something that that

7:27

does happen sometimes?

7:28

She said, there's not really any

7:30

rhyme or reason and one in two women

7:33

in Australia have prolapsed at some point in their life.

7:35

Hmm.

7:37

I've got one too. Yeah. Yeah.

7:39

A lot of it happens around birth. And but for

7:41

a lot of women, it just happens randomly

7:43

at some stage in your life, sometimes when you're a bit

7:45

older.

7:47

Yeah, so it was a shock to the system for

7:49

me. But once I realized one in two

7:51

women in Australia, how is this

7:53

not

7:54

how is it not more important that this is spoken

7:56

about and especially maybe even at school that is

7:59

you would do everybody that sex ed, why

8:01

isn't, hey, this is really simple

8:03

information that's going to change your life. This is how you really

8:06

felt it for. I know. It's, yeah. And do

8:08

you know,

8:09

it's interesting. I was talking to a women's health

8:11

physio recently in one of the episodes,

8:14

and she was talking about how even when

8:16

we're toilet training our toddlers, you

8:19

should be discussing it and having an awareness and

8:21

not saying just go before we go to the shops or

8:23

go out of convenience, really listen to the

8:25

sensation of having a full bladder and going when

8:28

you need to and all that sort of stuff. And I was like, Oh,

8:30

I haven't really been doing that with my boys.

8:33

I mean, who obviously don't have a pelvic floor as

8:35

such, but it's interesting that it is

8:37

an opportunity then.

8:39

Men need to do their pelvic floor every day too. Oh, really?

8:41

It's a long long battle for me with Dom.

8:43

He doesn't understand what I'm talking about. But

8:46

oh, I should know that too then. Oh, well,

8:48

it's not all lost. It is important. Yeah.

8:51

It's really important for men as well.

8:54

The stats aren't as high as it is for women,

8:56

but men are also, well, a

8:58

lot later in life, they'll end up having to go to the toilet

9:00

through the night and just not able to hold their urine. But

9:03

if they start doing their pelvic floor exercises

9:05

from a younger age, they can avoid that completely.

9:07

And have

9:09

a better sex life. Oh, well,

9:11

that'll get them over the line doing the exercises.

9:14

Yeah. And

9:18

it's very upsetting to hear that those initial

9:20

consults were sort of scary. And were they

9:22

talking about that perhaps you couldn't have

9:24

a vaginal birth with a prolapse? Yeah.

9:27

So GP said that. Yeah, shocking. Well,

9:30

her words were, oh, were you hoping to have more

9:32

children? And I was laying on the table

9:34

with my knickers off and my legs open.

9:37

And she held my hand and she said, oh, you poor darling.

9:40

And oh,

9:41

it just put so much fear

9:43

into me. I was like, why? Why?

9:46

So grossly inaccurate

9:49

as well. It wasn't as terrifying

9:51

as it all felt when it first happened. And

9:54

now I actually feel really grateful because

9:57

I've had lower back pain my whole

9:59

life.

9:59

I can remember

10:02

and getting a strong pelvic

10:04

floor going has alleviated my lower back

10:06

pain just enormously.

10:08

It's amazing. And that small

10:10

tweak, was it sort of in the way you're engaging the

10:13

muscles or the way you were releasing

10:14

both? Okay. Yeah. You're

10:17

wrong. I was trying to, yeah, one

10:19

of the main things that

10:21

I know that I had wrong was

10:23

I don't think I was ever doing my pelvic floor without

10:26

using my core muscles and even

10:28

my butt and my leg muscles. Whereas she kind

10:30

of talked to me about like keep breathing,

10:32

keep everything really soft, keep your bottom

10:35

really soft and then engage your pelvic

10:37

floor

10:38

and just using your pelvic floor muscles

10:40

and there's a whole, I won't try and

10:42

educate people on. So

10:45

I was going to see somebody, is my

10:47

name. Yeah. I was told

10:49

after I gave birth to Pip to go and see his

10:51

pelvic floor, or

10:53

I wouldn't tell physio, and

10:55

I didn't do it.

10:57

I just too wrapped up in

10:59

everything. And it's also not covered

11:01

by Medicare, which isn't why I didn't do

11:03

it. But it's something that once I realized

11:06

that it's one in two women and then it's quite

11:08

expensive. There's a lot of women who

11:11

probably wouldn't do it out

11:13

of, you know, the financial

11:15

pressures. Yeah. That's another thing

11:17

that I've become quite passionate about is,

11:20

and there's a few

11:21

people who are really campaigning to try to

11:23

get that on the agenda for Medicare,

11:26

have it covered so that women are really encouraged

11:28

to actually go and see somebody such a high

11:30

stat.

11:31

Yeah. And in France you get 10 free

11:33

visits in your home as well. So

11:36

we're really missing out. That's amazing.

11:38

I know. Yeah. And I mean, from a

11:40

public health point of view, it just, it makes financial

11:43

sense to spend the money then rather than the rehab and

11:45

all the other things that come with neglecting

11:47

that. So

11:49

I've gone on a bit of a tangent here, but I

11:51

think on this whole

11:53

topic, it's just, yeah, kind of

11:55

blew my mind once I knew about it.

11:58

And when you've seen this, women, and self-pityo

12:00

who corrected perhaps just

12:02

how you were doing it and you felt more confident

12:05

in your body, did you then feel ready to try

12:07

again?

12:08

I didn't, but

12:11

then

12:12

this is, so I know that what I'm about to

12:14

share is kind of weird. I do know that it sounds

12:16

really strange, but this is

12:19

the experience that I had, so I'll tell

12:21

you.

12:22

My friend was running yoga here

12:25

over summer at Aseladore and

12:28

I did one of her yin-yo classes, Dom

12:30

did it with me too. I hadn't done

12:33

anything since my prolapse happened and

12:36

part of it was a meditation, which I

12:39

just hadn't done anything like that in a long time and I

12:41

had this really vivid dream

12:44

of this little boy and

12:45

afterwards I was sitting with them both and I just,

12:47

I actually felt really emotional. I was like, I've just

12:50

had this really amazing daydream of this

12:52

little boy and I think

12:54

I'm going to conceive him at the end of summer

12:57

at the start of March and

13:00

they both just kind of laughed at me. I

13:02

had a very similar experience when I conceived

13:04

people. It was a very, very intense,

13:07

strong sense of knowing that I was about to

13:09

conceive a baby and

13:11

I am not, I

13:14

don't have any psychic ability

13:16

to do that in any other part

13:18

of my life other than with my babies, which

13:21

has been

13:21

really bizarre and amazing for me and

13:25

I'm a bit of an open book with people in my life

13:27

so over the course of summer I did tell

13:29

a few people

13:30

that I was going to

13:33

conceive my little boy

13:35

at the end of summer

13:38

and Dom and I decided if

13:40

I was going to get pregnant again because I was still breastfeeding

13:42

that we would wean pepper off

13:45

of feeding to sleep at night,

13:47

which she loved to feed so

13:48

she was feeding

13:50

like 15 times a day right

13:53

until she was one and a half but we decided

13:55

I would have fun February is what we called

13:57

it and Dom started giving

13:59

her a bottle every night to put her to bed,

14:02

which just meant for the first time in so long,

14:04

I could go out with girlfriends and have

14:07

a wine or two without having to think about

14:09

it. I went on a little girl's trip away,

14:11

which was the first time I'd done anything like that.

14:14

And I had a really, really fun month and I

14:16

didn't want it to end. But I kind of

14:18

felt like I've yeah, I even had the

14:20

date in my head and I told people.

14:23

So when the 5th of March rolled around, I felt

14:26

like I had to give it a go.

14:29

Yeah, so 4th of March, I

14:32

went out with some girlfriends, we had a drink.

14:35

I went home, Dom had already gone to bed and I woke

14:37

him up. And he was like, but it's

14:39

not, it's the 4th. And I said, well, come sit outside

14:42

with me. And we pulled a couch out into the lawn. It was

14:44

this beautiful warm night, sat on the

14:46

lawn and had a drink together and waited until

14:48

the clock went over. And on the 5th of March,

14:51

we conceived. Amazing.

14:55

And I know that that is a very bizarre

14:59

conception story, but it, yeah, that's

15:02

your experience. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing.

15:06

Did you feel, I mean, I know

15:08

on a spiritual level, you felt like you were

15:10

going to conceive them, but from a physical

15:13

level, did you feel pregnant immediately? Because

15:15

I think from memory, you sort of knew straight away

15:17

with Pip, like, oh, I'm pregnant. That was it. It

15:19

was the same thing. I was, yeah, I would

15:21

have been really, really shocked if

15:23

I wasn't. I felt

15:25

immediately, I felt

15:27

pregnant within a few days. And then we had to wait.

15:29

I think we did one of those early

15:31

peaking on a stick, you know, when you get the early

15:33

ones. Yeah. And

15:36

yeah, we just got very

15:38

excited.

15:39

Oh, so nice. And you

15:41

had a very creative way of telling your friends and

15:44

family you're pregnant the first time. Did you

15:46

feel like you needed to do something elaborate? No,

15:48

I feel like I needed to go the opposite

15:49

direction this time. I'm really casual.

15:52

And this time, everybody, it was,

15:54

there was no surprise. The first time, no one

15:57

expected us to get pregnant at that stage

15:59

in our life.

15:59

There was a lot going on. Yeah. Whereas

16:02

this time, like our cell the door staff

16:05

were literally as I went up to the house, like,

16:08

good luck making Bobby tonight. Like

16:10

a community baby afterwards.

16:15

Like once we actually were pregnant, he said to me,

16:18

you don't know what kind of pressure that put on me. Like

16:20

you call that old team.

16:23

Anyway,

16:26

so, yeah, I didn't

16:28

feel any need to do anything elaborate

16:30

this time. I just kind of

16:32

told people very casually.

16:34

Yeah.

16:35

Yeah. And then this time around

16:37

you had a home birth. But were

16:39

you certain prior to conceiving

16:41

that you'd have a home birth this time or how did

16:44

you come to that decision? I actually didn't decide

16:46

until two weeks before.

16:48

Oh, OK. Yeah.

16:50

So the first time with Pippa, my

16:52

pregnancy was amazing. I loved

16:54

it.

16:56

This time it was so different. It was really

16:58

tough pregnancy. I got

17:00

progressively sicker and sicker and

17:02

sicker.

17:03

So I had nausea pretty much

17:06

the same as I did the first trimester with

17:08

Pippa. And I was

17:10

waiting for it to lift because it did the first time.

17:12

And then it actually just kept getting worse. So

17:15

I wasn't vomiting until after about 17

17:17

or 18 weeks, I think

17:20

is when my vomiting started. But I was

17:22

really nauseous before that.

17:24

And it seemed

17:27

to be worse, the tighter that I got.

17:29

And then I had really, really severe pregnancy

17:31

and insomnia.

17:33

So it just was a disaster.

17:36

And chasing a toddler and running a business. Yeah.

17:39

And I just felt like I had no reserves.

17:42

So I normally have a really good immune

17:44

system. And you know, when you kind of feel a bit, I

17:46

don't know, invincible. If somebody has a cold

17:49

around me, I'm like, oh, that's good. I'll give you

17:51

a hug. I'm good. Yeah. I feel

17:53

like I had no reserves at all. So I

17:55

caught everything, everything that

17:58

if somebody was within a few meters.

17:59

of me with something, I was going to catch it.

18:02

And I just kept getting really sick. I spent

18:04

so many weeks in bed.

18:07

I also had pregnancy rhinitis

18:10

for, I

18:11

think it ended up being about 17 weeks,

18:15

which I didn't know was a

18:17

thing. I feel like people don't talk

18:19

about that much, but you just, when you just feel like you

18:21

really would love to take a Sootafed and you can't. Yeah,

18:24

it's just having a blocked nose

18:26

all the time and you can't get rid of it with anything

18:29

you normally could because it's caused by hormones.

18:31

It's not

18:32

a viral thing. What

18:35

were you doing to help with that? Were you doing

18:37

sort of saltwater? Yeah,

18:40

I was doing saltwater. I was doing like

18:42

hot baths and eucalyptus

18:45

and just shoving tissues

18:47

up my nose. It

18:50

was horrible. I just had a blocked

18:52

nose for my entire pregnancy.

18:54

And then that affected me being

18:56

out of the sleep as well on top of the insomnia.

18:59

I was so sick, I ended up with a cracked

19:01

rib from coughing.

19:03

Having a cracked rib, I

19:06

think it was a start of my third trimester.

19:09

That was not fun.

19:14

And then vomiting with a cracked rib as well. The

19:16

worst was sneezing

19:19

with a cracked rib, but

19:21

if anyone's had a cracked rib, you're doing

19:23

anything with a cracked rib sucks. And

19:26

did you travel during his pregnancy as

19:28

well? Yeah, we went to Italy.

19:31

So yeah, we did do that.

19:33

And I vomited for the last

19:35

time my first night in Rome and

19:39

my vomiting stopped for the last few weeks of my

19:41

pregnancy. I still

19:42

was pretty nauseous, but the vomiting stopped,

19:44

which was nice. I had

19:46

a good time in Italy compared to the

19:48

health of the world because

19:51

we were in the middle of winter and it was a really

19:53

cold, long winter here in Adelaide.

19:56

And yeah, I just needed

19:58

to get into the sunshine.

19:59

Even though I was still pretty sick

20:02

and in a bit of pain, it was better

20:04

than being in the cold winter with everybody

20:06

being sick around me.

20:08

Yeah. Yeah. And

20:10

so what model of care were you going through initially

20:13

during his pregnancy? The midwifery

20:15

group practice. So I did that the first time with

20:18

Keith and as soon as I got pregnant with Bobby,

20:20

I

20:21

contacted them straight away and got

20:23

straight on with them.

20:25

And the midwife that I had the first time she'd

20:27

moved on, so I had a new midwife this time, but

20:29

she was lovely.

20:31

She was great. And did you need

20:33

to take fluids at any point with

20:35

the vomiting and the nausea? No,

20:38

I wasn't vomiting huge amounts, but

20:41

it was just a little vomit, like a

20:43

couple of times a day.

20:44

Probably a bit of actually, I think I was just

20:46

too sick to even go anywhere. Yeah.

20:49

And did you, into the third

20:51

trimester, you still felt quite sick? Sometimes

20:54

people turn a bit of a corner then. I

20:56

did turn a bit of a corner. I got better, but

20:58

I was still pretty sick. My second

21:00

trimester was the worst. Whereas in

21:02

my first pregnancy, my second trimester

21:04

was like

21:05

one of the best chapters of my life. So

21:07

it was really quite a big contrast.

21:10

And having a toddler

21:13

on top of that,

21:14

I started to really grieve not

21:16

being able to engage with her in the same way. Cause I just

21:18

didn't have the energy. I couldn't pick her up with

21:20

my cracked rib and I just didn't have

21:22

the energy that I wanted to be able to have

21:25

and then give her in this last chapter

21:27

before we had a new baby joining us, which

21:30

I found really hard.

21:31

And then with the pregnancy

21:33

insomnia, and I was

21:36

not, I was not sleeping at all. You

21:38

start to get a bit of social anxiety because

21:41

you don't know how to talk anymore.

21:45

It's like what happens after you have a baby,

21:47

but

21:47

the insomnia was far worse than the sleep deprivation

21:50

after having both

21:51

of them. And I just, I

21:53

did feel like I went into a bit

21:55

of a dark place that I'm not

21:58

somebody who normally experiences that. So it

22:00

was quite, it was hard.

22:02

I found it really hard to socialise. So

22:05

hard. And then you plan to still go

22:07

through the MGP. At what point

22:09

did you, you've mentioned that you did change

22:12

TAC in two weeks before. What

22:14

prompted that shift?

22:16

Well, I went and got

22:18

an iron transfusion.

22:20

So two things happened with this iron transfusion.

22:23

And the iron transfusion came about because I

22:25

got my bloods done and they

22:27

just said it's a bit unsafe for you to have a

22:29

baby because of how crazy

22:31

low my iron and my iron reserves were. And I've

22:33

done a lot of work before I conceived

22:36

Bobby to get my iron up because I knew

22:38

I always had low iron.

22:39

So I don't normally eat meat. And

22:41

I just I changed my diet

22:44

quite radically in the lead up to conceiving

22:46

Bobby,

22:47

knowing that I was planning to conceive him.

22:50

And I got my bloods done

22:52

early in my pregnancy and everything was above

22:54

average. It was really good. So

22:57

when I had them done later in my pregnancy and it was,

23:00

I think my ferritin was six

23:02

and something else was

23:04

zero. And so

23:07

I went and got an iron transfusion. And

23:10

after the iron transfusion, I posted something

23:12

on Instagram about sleep

23:14

and a whole bunch of people contacted

23:17

me saying, hey, if you've got really

23:19

bad pregnancy insomnia, have you thought about

23:21

getting an iron transfusion? And I said, oh, funnily enough,

23:23

I just did.

23:24

And

23:26

they all said about eight

23:29

or ten days after you have an iron transfusion,

23:31

you should start sleeping. And I had no

23:33

idea that it was connected, that low iron,

23:36

which makes you really tired, can also cause

23:38

insomnia. Which is counterintuitive,

23:41

isn't it? And I was really amazed

23:43

that nobody said that to me. My whole friend

23:46

had a iron transfusion earlier. So

23:48

I had before I had Bobby, I had

23:50

these two weeks of sleep. And

23:53

then I just was, I just want to stay pregnant now.

23:55

I don't want to have him.

23:56

And when I keep sleeping,

23:58

it was so good to find.

23:59

sleep.

24:00

And it did. It took 10 days after the iron transfusion

24:03

and my insomnia went away.

24:06

So I just wanted to say that in case anybody

24:08

else listening is struggling with sleep, maybe

24:11

go and get a blood test and just check. Because

24:13

they know that that could be connected.

24:16

And it can. So that helped. And

24:19

while I was in getting this iron transfusion

24:21

or sitting in the hospital, and

24:23

I had just been planning to, I

24:25

knew I always wanted to do a home birth one day, but I just

24:27

felt like this wasn't the time we still live

24:30

on site at our cellar door. So it's

24:32

quite a busy hub. And I thought if I happen

24:35

to get going to labour,

24:36

you know, on a Saturday or Sunday, and the place was

24:39

busy, there's just lots going on. And I didn't

24:41

know if I can go into the bubble that I wanted to,

24:43

and my labour and

24:46

but then sitting in the hospital, it just made me realize

24:50

it's so busy in a hospital. And there

24:52

was a nurse there who had been at my birth

24:55

with Pip. And she was relaying everything

24:58

back to me. And I had no idea how many

25:00

times people put their head in and out of their room. And

25:02

I thought, Oh, what am I so worried about?

25:06

Wherever I am, there's going to be people running

25:08

around. So yeah, I and

25:10

then the next day, I had a day at home on my

25:12

own. And it was a Wednesday and we're closed on Wednesdays.

25:15

And I just, oh, I know

25:17

what I did, I had this pregnancy

25:19

app. And I did a little

25:21

meditation and in

25:23

the meditate, another meditation was probably the only

25:25

other one I did. And

25:28

in it, they got you to walk

25:30

to this table with your eyes closed and write

25:33

down any fears

25:36

or concerns you had about your birth and any hope she

25:38

had and then tie it to a balloon

25:41

and let it just go.

25:43

And I think it was the first time I'd really articulated

25:46

for myself what I wanted

25:48

because I kind of just because with Pip,

25:52

I had really, a really clear

25:54

vision of how I wanted the birth to go. And then it all

25:56

kind of changed right at the end. I think I was

25:58

really surprised. scared

26:00

to actually get attached to anything. I just

26:03

I just wanted to this time I wanted to go with the flow

26:05

a bit more. And I

26:08

didn't want to get attached to something so that I

26:10

could avoid the disappointment of it not going that

26:12

way. But then when I actually

26:14

let myself think about what do I actually

26:16

really want, I realized I had a bit

26:18

of fear about losing.

26:21

Because we pip, it was the two hour

26:23

labor, I was scared to lose

26:27

that labor experience, having

26:29

to transfer because I live about 40 minutes

26:31

from the hospital. And then I was imagining

26:33

having to get into the room. And I just thought, by

26:36

the once my labor starts, by the time I get there,

26:38

I'll be pushing him out.

26:39

And I really wanted because it was so fast.

26:42

The first time, I

26:43

was hoping for a bit

26:45

of a slower birth this time, one where

26:47

I could actually drop in and

26:50

be a bit more, I don't know,

26:52

aware of what's going

26:54

on. So fast the first time. So

26:57

once I realized, I'm actually, I

27:00

have a bit of a fear around having to transfer.

27:03

I thought, well, what's

27:05

my biggest fear here? And I thought, you know, I think I'm just gonna

27:07

have him at home. And when Dom got home, I

27:09

told him, and he was a bit shocked

27:11

at first, but then he got on board really quickly.

27:14

And he thought, all right, that's what we're doing. We're doing it.

27:16

And yeah, had him two weeks later at

27:18

home. Wow.

27:20

Were you pregnant when you took the photos

27:22

for a friend of yours who lives nearby?

27:24

My first trimester. Okay. And

27:27

so when you were at that birth, we thinking,

27:29

Oh, this is beautiful. And I'll do it one day, but not

27:31

for this pregnancy. Yes, that's exactly

27:33

what I was thinking. I loved it. It was

27:36

just so beautiful

27:38

and really calm and

27:40

really hands off the midwife. I actually had

27:42

the same midwife that was there at her birth.

27:45

And they were just amazing. And how kind

27:47

of hands off they were and just let them go into their

27:49

bubble. And it was all just super

27:51

calm. And I loved the fact that

27:55

once their little girl was born, they just got to curl

27:57

up in bed with her and everyone left them to

27:59

her and you you know, not

28:01

in a hospital. I know that

28:04

the first time around it really appealed to me being in

28:06

a hospital, but I think with a bit more confidence

28:08

I felt like, oh, I actually think I'd really love to

28:10

experience that

28:12

one day, but probably not this time. But

28:14

maybe not.

28:17

And with a bit more sleep under your belt. Yeah,

28:19

maybe the sleep is why I changed my mind.

28:23

But yeah, it was once I

28:25

decided, I felt finally, I was like,

28:27

finally, I can start imagining this birth

28:29

because I hadn't let myself do that the whole

28:31

pregnancy. What was the

28:34

transition to home birth like for

28:36

you in, like, logistically? Did

28:38

you just let your current midwife through the

28:40

program know that you didn't want a birth in the hospital? You wanted

28:42

to birth at home and you had the same midwife? Yeah,

28:45

yeah. And she was stoked when I contacted

28:47

her and I said, we've decided we're going to have him at

28:49

home. She said, oh, I've been hoping you'd

28:51

say that. That's

28:54

so nice. And so that was that publicly funded

28:56

then you didn't have to pay? Yeah, it

28:58

was all publicly funded.

29:00

And did she organize a birth pool

29:02

for you? Were you hoping to have a water birth at home? They

29:04

don't do that anymore. That is the only thing that did

29:07

cost a little bit.

29:08

But also, I'm just going to throw

29:10

this out there for anyone's listening and is thinking of a

29:12

home birth. We looked into hiring

29:14

one or buying

29:15

one and then

29:17

discovered you can just buy an inflatable

29:20

spa tub on like one of those cheap

29:22

websites like catch.com or,

29:24

you know, those cheap websites deal

29:27

whatever. Yeah, they cost about $400. And

29:29

they are the exact same

29:31

measurements

29:33

as a birth pool. And they come with

29:36

a water filter and it keeps the

29:38

temperature of the water stable the entire

29:40

time. So you can get

29:42

the heating compartment is detached.

29:45

There's nothing electrical in the pool whatsoever.

29:47

So it was super safe. And yeah,

29:50

the midwife just said, this is the greatest

29:52

thing. I

29:53

don't know why nobody is doing this because

29:55

it actually meant that the water temperature

29:57

was stable the entire time and we could get

29:59

it to a

29:59

temperature that was perfect for birth.

30:02

Yeah, because that's one of the biggest challenges, I think, too,

30:04

of heating up the water and can your hot water service

30:07

manage and all that sort of stuff.

30:09

I thought that was great and it was beige.

30:11

God, that is my other picture.

30:14

I got it on my list of things one day when I have

30:16

the time. I'm going to make one that's not bright

30:19

blue for everyone's birth photos. So

30:21

I love that. Yeah, I thought it was

30:23

so good. And I've lent it to a few friends

30:25

to have their own babies. Oh,

30:28

amazing. I'm going to have to buy stocks before we

30:30

release this episode.

30:33

Oh, that's so lovely. And

30:35

then you can tape it and sit on it on your deck

30:37

over the next... Yeah, just give it a good

30:39

rinse. Yeah.

30:43

When you decided then to birth

30:45

at home, did you think you wanted

30:47

to have Pip present or what were your thoughts around evolving

30:49

her?

30:50

Why? I also didn't think

30:52

I wanted to have her present, so we had a plan and

30:56

my dad was going to come and

30:58

pick her up.

31:01

And whenever I went into labour, he was

31:03

going to come and take her. And then my and

31:05

the other reason I really loved the idea of the

31:07

home birth was there were still some restrictions around

31:09

the amount of people you could have in your labour

31:12

suite.

31:12

And I had just gone back to only being

31:15

one person again. Or maybe

31:17

they'd just gone to two, but I couldn't.

31:19

I wanted to have my sister and my mum there this

31:21

time. And Dom,

31:24

obviously.

31:25

So having doing it at home and

31:27

that I could have all three of them. So I was going to have my mum,

31:30

my sister, Dom,

31:31

and then my dad was going to come and take Pip.

31:34

But he booked a holiday. And when he told

31:36

me the day, my heart sank and I was like,

31:39

oh,

31:40

that's the day I'm going to go into labour, I think. And

31:42

I said, yeah, right. You're not due for

31:45

another three weeks. And yeah,

31:47

he didn't make it back in time. Oh,

31:49

no. He should have known to trust your intuition

31:51

at that stage. He's

31:54

not he doesn't believe in

31:56

any of that stuff. You're

31:58

one of how many children?

31:59

in your family? I'm one of four. Four,

32:02

yeah, okay. Okay,

32:04

so then you didn't, you sort of knew that that

32:07

he, well did you make a backup plan

32:09

for Pip then or were you just going to see what happened?

32:13

Well he would have made it if his flight didn't get

32:15

cancelled but he was at the airport when I went into

32:17

labour and his flight got cancelled because he

32:19

got stuck and he was in Canberra.

32:22

Oh okay. But he would have made

32:24

it if his flight actually

32:28

so I didn't have a backup plan and

32:30

she ended up being at the best.

32:32

Oh amazing, okay, well we'll hear all

32:34

about it. What was the first sign of your

32:37

labour beginning with Bobby?

32:39

Well, so yeah, I had

32:41

a strong feeling about the date and I told

32:44

my midwife like the first time I met

32:46

her and

32:47

I didn't know,

32:49

I actually did not know though

32:51

that that was going to be a lunar eclipse. So

32:53

the night before we sat out on

32:55

the lawn watching the lunar eclipse which

32:57

was really amazing got Pip up and it was so

33:00

bizarre because we hadn't done that since

33:02

that night we conceived Bobby and so we

33:04

pulled the couch out into the lawn we were sitting out

33:07

in our tanks under the stars

33:09

and this amazing blood moon lunar eclipse

33:11

at the start of November and

33:13

Don was looking at me

33:15

he's like I think it will be a miracle if you

33:18

don't give birth in the next 24 hours this

33:20

is so good and bizarre that

33:22

I didn't know that that would be happening on that night.

33:25

Yeah, so four o'clock in the morning

33:27

I think we went to bed about midnight four o'clock

33:29

I woke up and I had that same kind of buzzing

33:31

energy that I had when I went into labour

33:34

with Pip

33:35

where I just could not go back to sleep.

33:37

Nothing had started and then Don woke

33:39

up at 5 30 and I told him I

33:42

said I've been up for you know

33:44

the last hour and a half and can't go

33:46

back to sleep and I think I had

33:48

my first contraction at 6 30 and bizarrely

33:51

that

33:51

was

33:53

the exact same

33:56

timing as Pip when

33:58

I went into labour with her it was the same

33:59

time of day. Everything happened

34:02

at the same time of day except for the birth.

34:05

And yeah,

34:07

it was really light to start with and

34:09

I had really intense Braxton Hicks.

34:12

I think about eight weeks before

34:14

I started when I was about 27 weeks I think,

34:18

maybe 28 or 29 before

34:21

Bobby. So it felt the same as Braxton Hicks

34:23

but I did have

34:26

this weird buzzing energy. So I was like,

34:28

I think this is different. And then

34:30

about 9 o'clock, 9.30

34:33

is when it kind of ramped up a little bit

34:35

and I was like, oh no, I think these are actually the start of contractions.

34:38

And you're meant to wait until your

34:41

contractions are regularly two minutes

34:44

apart or something until you call him the

34:46

midwife. But because of how quick

34:48

things happened with Pip, I think Don freaked out a

34:50

bit and the fact that we were having him at home

34:53

the first time I had a contraction that was two minutes

34:55

apart, he called the midwife. And

34:58

did he get your sister and mother mum over

35:00

as well? Yeah, my sister had actually

35:02

rocked up to come and hang out with Pip for that day, which

35:04

was already planned for another reason. And

35:07

that she was going to go swimming with her and I said,

35:09

I don't need to go anywhere.

35:10

I think my life was about to start.

35:12

And

35:13

because of Don obviously did know

35:16

to trust my intuition. The day before

35:18

I'd gone out and when I got home, he had,

35:21

we hadn't done anything. He had set

35:24

everything up for the birth. He was like,

35:26

I'm not taking any risks. I know you're

35:28

not due for another three weeks, but

35:30

everything he'd hung the lights, he'd set the

35:32

pool up, he'd cleaned everything. It was

35:34

just all ready to go.

35:36

Their spare bed was made with all the sheets.

35:39

He was like, I

35:42

think you want to be going to

35:44

labour when you think you're going to go into labour.

35:47

Did they kind of come on in the same sort

35:49

of pace as Pip's? Like, because

35:51

hers was so fast, did you feel like the flow

35:53

was the same?

35:55

This was a bit slower. It felt slower

35:57

and I felt like I could talk. So

36:00

I didn't have that experience with Pippa. Once

36:03

the first contraction started, I was

36:05

just in another world and I couldn't,

36:08

and that was when I went to my friend's birth at home,

36:11

I was so amazed at how

36:13

different her labor was to what I'd experienced.

36:15

I've never watched anybody else's births

36:17

before, not even, like I haven't watched

36:20

anything, not on mine, not, haven't

36:22

seen another birth other than hers and mine

36:24

at that stage. And she would

36:26

have these contractions. And then after

36:29

having a really big contraction, she'd just

36:30

stand up and start talking again.

36:32

And I was so gobsmacked

36:35

because I

36:35

didn't have that, there was no breaks between

36:38

mine and Pippa. But with Bobby,

36:40

I did have that experience. So I

36:42

had these like breaks in between

36:44

and where I could actually talk,

36:46

which is what

36:48

I did want to experience that. So I

36:51

liked it, but then after a while,

36:53

I was like, I want this out. I really

36:55

love it.

36:58

He was posterior as well. He turned

37:00

right at the end. So I laid it in my back and

37:02

that was pretty intense.

37:05

Did you want to have any internal

37:07

checks with your midwife?

37:09

I didn't, I didn't. I was quite

37:11

vocal that I didn't want that, but that did end

37:14

up happening. So

37:16

I gave it on the ball with the tense

37:19

for the first half an hour or so.

37:21

And I really loved having the tense. That was

37:23

awesome, especially for after prayer.

37:26

But then when the midwife arrived,

37:28

because she knew how quick things happened last time too,

37:31

she said, oh, I think you can jump in the water now.

37:33

So I jumped in the water and I ended up in the water for

37:35

about five hours. I think I had six

37:37

hours of active labor with Bobby

37:40

and five hours

37:42

of it, I was in the water and maybe

37:45

it did slow things down because everybody

37:47

thought I was kind of going to be ready. And

37:50

I think I started to doubt things

37:52

a little bit towards him. She must've picked up on

37:54

that. His head was going up and down and

37:56

I could feel his head going up and down. And,

37:59

she said, do you want me to check

38:02

you just so you know, because I kind

38:04

of was thinking this is gonna be

38:06

a long time. And

38:09

at first I wasn't, I think it took me about half an hour before

38:12

I finally said, okay, you can check me and I let

38:14

her check. And when she checked me, she

38:16

said, oh, you're fully dilated, there is no service.

38:19

And I feel like that just gave me

38:21

this permission to drop into a different headspace

38:24

because I've kind of, so I'm really glad

38:27

that I did end up getting checked, even though it

38:29

wasn't what I wanted, it did end up serving

38:31

a really good purpose.

38:33

And I got back in the water.

38:35

Yeah, oh, so you hopped out to have that check, yeah.

38:39

Did you feel that sort of fetal ejection

38:41

reflex this time around? Did it feel

38:43

like he was just coming on his own? Yeah,

38:46

and I wanted to wait for that again, I didn't

38:48

wanna push and just,

38:50

what I found confusing this time

38:52

was, so with people, once

38:55

my body first did its own push, I

38:57

didn't

38:58

make any conscious decision to push, my

39:00

body just did it. It was

39:02

like a few minutes and she was out. So

39:05

this time I did, I had the same two playlist,

39:07

I don't know if you remember that part of my first.

39:09

No, I've forgotten what his song for. I

39:12

had a really like relaxed playlist that I

39:14

labored to, and then once my body started pushing,

39:16

I had this really fun upbeat playlist that

39:19

was more like, I don't know, let's get the party

39:21

started. And as soon as

39:23

my body started pushing with Bobby, I said, put

39:25

change the playlist. And

39:28

first song comes on, I'm like, it's happening.

39:31

So with Pippa, it was two songs and she was

39:33

out. With Bobby, the whole playlist

39:35

played through two times. Oh.

39:40

My body was

39:41

giving me one big push, and then the next

39:43

one would be a contraction.

39:45

And then I'd have to wait sometimes like 20 minutes before

39:47

it did its own push again.

39:50

And so part of me, I did, I think I did end up thinking

39:52

like, should I start pushing myself?

39:54

Or should I start getting involved with

39:56

this? I'm getting involved. But

39:59

then mid-way.

39:59

I just said, no, just trust it, just go

40:02

with it, just wait. And yeah,

40:04

it just took a lot longer.

40:06

Did it feel like once his head was born,

40:09

did his body follow quickly or were there

40:11

long breaks between that as well?

40:13

It was a long break there too. So

40:15

once

40:16

his head came out,

40:19

there was maybe about five minutes

40:21

that his head was out. And that

40:23

was when I kind of looked around the room and I realised my

40:25

mum wasn't in the room. She was with Pippa

40:28

because my dad hadn't rocked up. My mum ended up having to

40:30

look after Pippa the whole day and her and my sister would

40:32

kind of tag team and drop in on us in

40:34

the room. And

40:37

yeah, and I looked up and my mum wasn't there. I

40:39

said, can someone go get my mum? And they said, well,

40:41

that means Pippa's coming too. And I went,

40:44

okay, yeah, I want Pippa here. So

40:46

it was like his head was already out when I decided

40:48

Pippa was going to, she hadn't come into the room at

40:51

all

40:51

since my later started,

40:53

but she did know what was going on. And

40:56

so it was kind of a surprise to everyone that she

40:58

ended up being there when he was born. And

41:01

were you sort of lucid when she came in? Did you,

41:03

could you see her reaction and stuff?

41:05

Yeah, so I had his head had been out and

41:07

because he was underwater, it's kind of a strange

41:09

experience to have his head just underwater.

41:12

And I was looking at the back of his head

41:14

and I think I looked up and I said, is he okay?

41:16

But is this all right? And then midwife

41:19

said, no, it's all good. He's been in

41:21

the water this whole time.

41:23

So he's fine. So kind of

41:25

relaxed and my body didn't push for a while.

41:28

And then Pippa and my mum came in and she sat on the edge of the pool and

41:31

we all would kind of explain to her what's happening.

41:35

And

41:35

then, yeah, it wasn't long after that,

41:38

I just could feel him start wriggling. It wasn't

41:40

a push. He just started to wriggle his way

41:42

out.

41:43

And then my body gave me a push

41:46

and I caught him and brought him up to my chest.

41:48

And so Pippa got to watch all of that

41:50

happen. And then I think just heard

41:52

witnessing the euphoria in the room

41:55

and how like, it

41:56

was just, it was

41:58

so beautiful. that moment.

42:00

Everyone was just crying and laughing

42:03

and just it was so much joy. And

42:05

I feel like, because

42:07

I had really bad after birth

42:09

pains, if she had

42:11

gone with my dad and come back the next day, I

42:14

wouldn't have been in a very good state, which I

42:16

was and I was in a lot of pain in bed.

42:18

And it would have all felt, you know, like darkened

42:20

and this is baby and what, I don't

42:22

know, where did he come from? And I have

42:24

this feeling that because she actually ended up

42:26

being in the room and watched that he did come out

42:28

of me. She'd spent

42:30

nine months talking to a baby in my tummy. So

42:32

she understood he was inside of me. She

42:34

watched him come out

42:36

and actually really got to understand that he

42:39

exited my body

42:40

and to see just

42:42

that joy in the room. And

42:45

yeah, then she got to be a part of that

42:48

beautiful time straight after birth. And oh

42:50

my goodness, when she got to just cuddle him

42:53

for the first time, sitting on the bed

42:55

and he's all wrapped up. And the first thing she says

42:57

to him, which just for

42:59

both of us away, she just whispers to him, she goes,

43:02

it's OK, Bobby,

43:04

I'm going to look after you. And

43:06

it was so beautiful.

43:10

It was my favourite moment of my whole

43:12

life. It was just amazing. So having her

43:14

there was so special.

43:16

It was amazing. To have that bond.

43:18

Not something I thought I wanted, but it was amazing.

43:21

Yeah. And as you said, if she'd just

43:23

seen kind of the babies here and mum's in

43:25

terrible pain, it would have been a more

43:27

of a negative association, but lovely to have

43:30

that.

43:31

And you touched on before that you used the TENS

43:33

to help with those after birth contractions.

43:35

Did you know to do that?

43:39

I knew it from my friend who had also had a

43:41

home birth

43:42

and all the midwives also suggested

43:45

it straight after.

43:47

Did you move the pads to your front rather than

43:49

having them on your back? Yeah, I did.

43:52

The after birth pains were horrendous this time

43:54

round.

43:55

They were far worse than birth for

43:57

me. Some of the contractions went for 20 minutes.

44:00

and I didn't, it was

44:02

so bad. I

44:05

do labour 100 times over then the afterbirth,

44:07

it was really full run.

44:10

Yeah, my second, my afterbirths,

44:12

my second were terrible and then I didn't

44:15

get them with my third and I was so ready to like

44:17

be, to brace myself and I didn't have them

44:19

so it was weird. But I remember thinking like,

44:21

I think also if no one's really spoken

44:24

to you about it, I thought oh something terribly.

44:26

Like I almost got an ambulance for myself at home,

44:28

the pain was so intense. So I

44:31

think so good for people to know. Yeah, I

44:33

couldn't, if I didn't know that, that I needed

44:35

to.

44:36

Yeah, it's really. But I also

44:38

heard from people that it gets worse every time,

44:41

so thank you for sharing that it was. Yeah,

44:43

well that's what I had thought as well and

44:45

it certainly wasn't, so I'm not sure why because

44:47

in theory, yeah, it should hurt more

44:50

each time because the uterus is more

44:52

tired, but for whatever reason mine didn't with

44:54

my third, I was all ready to move the tens to

44:56

my front and didn't end up doing it. So

44:59

yeah, it's interesting.

45:00

Can you recall how long you had those pains

45:02

for?

45:03

Yeah, two days, it was about 42 hours.

45:06

And did they intensify each time you fed?

45:09

It just was all bad. Yeah,

45:12

okay. Yeah, because

45:14

I think sometimes when you're feeding it's that cycle

45:17

of it helps you contract down. But yeah,

45:20

it was, but they were just, it was bad.

45:22

So I'm glad that

45:24

Pip, I'm really glad she got that calm with me

45:26

before they kicked into. Yeah.

45:29

It's a shame

45:30

that you also experienced that because

45:32

I felt like you lost some of that

45:35

beautiful postpartum bubble with

45:37

Pip because you ended up going into hospital

45:39

to check on a few concerns there.

45:41

But did you feel like, did

45:43

you still enjoy being nested at home

45:46

or was just so intense? No,

45:48

we did actually love that part of it because I did

45:50

have the after birth pains the first time too.

45:53

Yeah. We loved

45:56

just the fact that after it was all done.

45:58

And then the other thing I don't know if you remember

46:01

I the first time I

46:03

had a really bad experience

46:06

with my stitches. Oh, that's

46:08

right. And this time, so rather than

46:13

have been taken off to another room on my own

46:16

and getting stitched up,

46:17

the fact that that part of

46:20

I did need stitches

46:21

again, even though he pushed really

46:23

slowly, he still managed ripped

46:26

me.

46:28

I just got to lay on the spare bed.

46:30

Don was next to me. My mum was giving me a back

46:32

scratch while they were stitching me up. It was

46:34

just this really calm, no

46:37

big, it was just

46:39

it was nothing scary about it. It was just

46:42

this really nice calm experience,

46:44

not nice, but it was a much,

46:47

much nicer experience in the first

46:49

time. And just

46:51

being in my environment and the fact that I

46:53

could have my people around me while that was all

46:55

happening. And then

46:58

I got to just kind of stay snumbled up in bed

47:00

while Don went and cooked a big dinner up. And

47:03

there was this crazy lightning storm that

47:05

happened. So I'm holding Bobby, we've

47:07

got our first couple of hours together. And

47:09

there's just this wild

47:11

lightning storm happening outside, which

47:14

was so cool after having a blood moon that

47:16

morning that was setting as I went into labor.

47:18

And then this crazy lightning

47:21

storm, it just you know, when things just all feel so electric.

47:25

Beautiful little boy on my lap and just thinking,

47:27

wow, and people had

47:29

just

47:30

been with us the whole time in bed

47:32

and then everybody left and Dom

47:35

and I just got to go to bed together.

47:37

And it was really nice being at home. That

47:39

was it

47:41

was amazing. And they have everything

47:43

there. So for the stitches and they've got

47:46

they they bring everything to your house. I

47:48

think my parents were both a little bit fearful of the whole

47:50

home birth idea that after mum

47:53

witnessed it, she said oh, that's

47:55

actually just amazing. Did

47:58

you hear you guys? in hospital?

48:02

Yeah, yeah. Oh,

48:04

such a beautiful gift for

48:06

Will Pippa to see you birth in that way and your

48:08

mom to see you in such a relaxed

48:10

fashion as well and your sister if she wants

48:12

to have kids one day. Did she

48:15

manage to see him be born as

48:17

well? Yeah, everyone.

48:19

So nice. It was really

48:21

cool. It was very special. I loved

48:24

having him at home. I would never

48:26

do any other way again now. Yeah,

48:29

now you experienced it moving.

48:32

When the after birth pain subsided, how did

48:34

your feeding journey with Bobby go? Did it feel

48:37

easier this time around?

48:39

Yes, I'm trying

48:41

to remember. It was really easy to start

48:43

with. He actually grabbed my

48:46

boob with his hand right after he was born

48:48

and poured my nipple into his mouth himself. Oh wow.

48:50

Yeah, the middle I said I haven't

48:52

seen that before.

48:55

Amazing. Was he similar size

48:58

to Pippa and were they similar weights?

49:00

Oh, this is another interesting thing actually.

49:03

So I got threatened

49:05

with an induction with Pippa because

49:07

she was too small. So I was told that

49:10

she was looking, measuring really small and

49:13

they were worried that I had IUGR

49:16

and they wanted to induce me and I ended

49:18

up making myself going into labour but it was all

49:21

because they had put this deadline on it.

49:25

With Bobby, at my 20 week scan, they

49:28

told me that he was measuring big. He was in the

49:30

92nd percentile. I was told

49:32

she was in the 9th

49:34

and with Bobby he was in the 92nd percentile.

49:37

So I also thought that was contributing

49:39

to why I was so sick. Then

49:42

after that I just decided I didn't want to get any

49:44

more scans done because I just

49:46

found that experience the first time really, I

49:50

don't know, every time you go in for another scan you're

49:52

opening the door to somebody else's opinion

49:55

and I had so many different opinions thrown at

49:57

me

49:58

and it created a lot of stress.

49:59

for me. So I decided this time I wasn't

50:02

going to do that. And

50:04

that I did still have planted in my head that he

50:06

was going to be this giant baby. And

50:08

they were 100 grams apart. They were

50:10

the exact same length. He was 2.6

50:13

and he was 2.7. So interesting.

50:15

It is

50:15

so interesting. And

50:19

it can dictate so many things.

50:22

Yeah. Sometimes

50:24

you don't need to say anything. These sorts of

50:26

experiences speak for themselves.

50:28

Even while I was in labor and

50:30

pushing him out and he was taking so long

50:33

with pushing, I was just like, this is a

50:35

giant baby. So

50:37

big. And then when he came out,

50:40

he was just 2.7 kilos.

50:40

Funny.

50:44

Everybody was quite shocked. Just

50:46

beautiful.

50:49

So nice. And then were

50:51

you able to have some time off from work

50:54

or did Dom go back to work that

50:56

it's a bit different when you work for yourself and you live on

50:59

the property?

51:00

It is different. Yeah, this time

51:02

I think we talk about the same amount of time

51:05

off again. Dom took a few weeks off

51:07

and

51:08

we had just tried to gear ourselves up to have

51:10

a little bit more support in place in the way of like

51:13

sell the door managers and people so

51:15

that Dom didn't have to work as crazy

51:17

as he had the year before. But then,

51:20

yeah, our sell the door manager got sick

51:22

and like really she got sick

51:24

and so did her kids. Quite sick. They ended

51:26

up in hospital over Christmas. So he

51:29

ended up working a lot. It was

51:31

a really, really crazy time of year to have

51:33

a baby for us. And Dom

51:35

ended up working pretty crazy hours

51:37

and we just survived it. Kind

51:40

of got thrown in the detent with having to, but

51:42

it was good. And I got my swing

51:44

and

51:45

adjusted, had to adjust life quite

51:47

a lot. But yes, it's

51:49

been good. Was it hard to protect

51:52

your sort of postpartum space

51:54

being on the ground? Did people want

51:56

to just like stick their head in if they were coming for dinner

51:58

or things like that? Was that?

51:59

tricky or? Yeah and the first

52:02

time I had really

52:05

kind of wanted to lean towards you know the first

52:07

40 days and I didn't actually leave the property

52:10

I think after PIC for about a

52:12

month

52:13

but I had a lot of people coming to me

52:15

so this time I decided that's

52:18

it's not really realistic

52:20

for me to try to be alone because

52:23

of the life we live so I just embraced

52:26

it and I did actually decide to get out

52:28

and about a little bit more too because I actually thought I'll

52:30

get more privacy if I'm not here

52:32

than if I am here. Yeah. And

52:35

stop people from thinking that I'm just always

52:37

there so that people could always just put their

52:39

head in. Yeah.

52:41

Yeah I found that I've had to adjust

52:44

I'm quite a home buddy and I really love

52:46

time on my own and when you have

52:49

more than one child I'm sure that it only

52:52

gets worse but

52:55

having it just doesn't exist if I

52:57

find that the days that I spend at home with the two

52:59

of them and I'm on my own I feel so

53:01

exhausted and defeated by the end of it

53:04

and I have found that actually being

53:06

social and getting out more

53:08

is the only way to not feel that exhausted

53:11

by just doing you feel like you've done something

53:13

in your day so I'm not

53:15

normally someone who would go out all the

53:17

time but I found that with two I actually

53:21

kind of need to. Yeah with a talkative

53:23

toddler sometimes it's the answer. Talk

53:26

to somebody else for a while. And I've

53:29

just had to adjust and go okay this

53:31

is what we're in right now and go with

53:33

it.

53:34

Yeah yeah.

53:36

Oh it's so lovely that you had

53:38

such a positive experience I think

53:40

also a beautiful illustration of you can change

53:42

your mind at any time and you change your mind two

53:45

weeks before the end and it was the right

53:47

decision.

53:48

My midwife did like that seed

53:50

for me she kept saying and I think that's why she

53:53

was hoping I would cook she did keep saying to me

53:55

you can change your mind and I kept saying no no no what

53:57

I'm doing in hospital and she'd just say okay but

53:59

you can.

53:59

change your mind. And

54:02

that did help. And just quickly

54:05

before we do get to the end of the story, I

54:08

wanted to say I had a lot of fear with the prolapse

54:10

because when I was so sick, it

54:12

got a lot worse in my pregnancy.

54:14

Like I mean,

54:16

it got as bad as it got. It got better.

54:18

And then I got pregnant. And then I got really sick.

54:20

And then it got really bad. So

54:22

I didn't know what that was going to mean after

54:25

having my second baby,

54:27

but it got like 150%

54:31

better. Like I feel like I'm better than

54:33

I've ever been in my life

54:35

after having him. Amazing.

54:36

So

54:38

that was a really cool experience because

54:41

I wasn't expecting it. And I've actually been

54:43

really amazed at how

54:46

much strength has been regained. And

54:49

yeah, I haven't needed to use a pessary

54:52

since I gave birth. And

54:54

after my prolapse, right up until a

54:56

few weeks before I gave birth to him, I had to have one

54:58

every day.

55:00

What kind of pessary did you have? Did you

55:02

have a ring or a cube? I

55:05

use two different types of rings. But

55:10

I haven't had to use it since it's been nearly

55:12

six months now. And I haven't used it once. And

55:15

I haven't had any

55:17

issues, if you know what I mean. Yeah.

55:19

Yeah. That's so good. Did

55:22

you feel like you, and now with

55:24

that confidence of knowing how to engage

55:26

and release your pelvic floor, did you start

55:28

to do those straight away?

55:30

I did. Yes, I did. And

55:33

it kind of became a part of my daily

55:35

routine, doing the exercises once I

55:37

knew how to do them properly.

55:40

But

55:40

I just thought, I don't know if that's a little... I

55:42

have had a lot of people contact

55:45

me and say, I'm really scared. I've had

55:47

a prolapse and I'm pregnant with my second. Did it

55:49

get worse? And I

55:51

just feel like, well, I hope that that plants

55:53

a seed, I hope for some people because it actually

55:56

has gotten better for me. It's been a really positive

55:58

experience. So good.

55:59

Yeah, because I got mine from my first

56:02

birth and it definitely didn't get any

56:04

worse with subsequent births. And people

56:06

have reached out to me and said, I've been told I

56:08

definitely have to have a caesarean. I was

56:10

like, oh no, I think there's a lot of misinformation

56:13

out there. I always got told I was going

56:15

to need an operation one day, but if I had

56:17

the operation before I gave birth,

56:19

I would never be able to have another vaginal birth.

56:22

And it was like, yeah. And

56:25

I had all these different things going in my head.

56:27

And I wonder what it can feel like when you've got

56:29

things swimming around in your head and

56:31

a bit of fear, wondering if it's all going to get

56:34

worse and worse. And I'm very

56:36

happy to say it's done the opposite.

56:38

So wonderful. Yeah. And

56:40

you've alluded to the fact that you might have a home

56:43

birth the next time, so you're not quite feeling

56:45

complete at this stage.

56:47

Well, right now we are feeling

56:49

quite complete. Anytime

56:54

I say it out loud, I have like this little

56:56

voice at the back of my head that's like, no, you're not.

56:58

So who knows? Yeah. There's

57:01

so many different

57:03

ways to look at it for us. I think

57:05

life is really full and overwhelming right now. So

57:08

the thought of having a third makes

57:10

my husband want to cry. Oh,

57:12

that's interesting. Because I thought he was the driver of the

57:14

big family push. And

57:17

now he's like, okay, I think we're good. This is

57:19

good. We're done.

57:21

I don't really have those moments. I'm like, I miss

57:24

him so much. Like, I can't

57:26

have time with him again. And

57:28

I thought of having a third. I think that's what scares us

57:30

the most is just your sacrifice.

57:33

It's just so rare that you get to have

57:35

a conversation. Yeah, finish

57:38

your thought. And do you

57:40

feel like you guys used to travel so much

57:42

and I know you've got your business now and your

57:44

beautiful winery. Do you sort of

57:46

hope to travel with both the kids again

57:49

soon or what? Yeah, we're taking off

57:51

in a few weeks. Oh, cool.

57:53

Pray for us. Okay, I will. We

57:57

are heading to Spain for a month.

57:59

I feel like I'm attracted to a different kind

58:02

of travel now. I just want to just get to one

58:04

location and just

58:05

just submerge into it. Settle in.

58:08

Yeah and

58:09

especially with Bobby only being six months when

58:12

we go. But yeah

58:13

we really want

58:15

to start traveling more and we're in the middle of renovating

58:17

a caravan so that we can do some more road

58:19

trips in Australia with both the kids. Yeah

58:22

so nice. I know that people do travel with a whole

58:24

family in a tiny combi but I

58:26

just feel like having a caravan on the back will make

58:29

it a bit more doable for us. Yeah yeah

58:31

you can go a bit further. Amazing.

58:34

Oh so lovely to hear his birth story. Elise

58:37

thank you so much for making the time. I'm so

58:39

glad we got to do it. It's funny as we're talking

58:41

there's so many things I remember that I've forgotten.

58:43

Yeah

58:44

it's nice how they pop back into

58:46

your mind.

58:48

I hope you've enjoyed today's episode.

58:50

If you've listened to this episode but you want to now

58:52

go back and listen to her first birth experience

58:55

you can do so by heading over to episode 208.

58:59

If you'd like to see some more pictures of Elise and

59:01

her family you can do so by heading over

59:03

to Australianbirthstories.com forward

59:06

slash podcast forward slash episode

59:08

dash 389 and

59:10

you'll find all the information there. And

59:12

don't forget if you haven't already taken advantage

59:15

of my current sale for Mother's Day you

59:17

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59:20

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59:23

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59:25

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59:27

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59:30

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59:32

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59:36

in case you're listening to this miles

59:38

down the track. I hope you've

59:40

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59:43

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59:45

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review in the app that you're listening on really helps

59:58

me get more exposure and get more

59:59

listening and it's quick

1:00:02

and free for you to do and really helps me out.

1:00:05

So have a lovely week and I'll talk to you again

1:00:06

soon.