You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.

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.

Hello, it's Jesse Stevens here and we have curated you a very special playlist with even more birth stories you probably haven't heard.

With unmissible episodes from the Delivery Room podcast.

Your playlist will be filled with stories of women who had so many different experiences of birth.

If you love birth stories, this playlist.

Is for you.

And if you're looking for more to listen to, we are curating your summer listening across our network.

From pop culture to beauty to interviews.

There is something for everyone.

Find a link in the show notes.

Just a heads up.

This podcast retells personal experiences of birth.

Talk to your doctor to decide what birthing plan is right for you.

It's an ordinary Thursday night and Lee Campbell is sitting in her Randwick apartment blow drying her hair.

So that morning it was winter, so I just gradual hand, I just wanted a bit of a glow.

Yes, had a few little falsies on the ends, and I'd blow dried and curled my hair so that it looked quite nice.

You might assume that Lee was off to a fancy dinner with her husband Rich, or that she was going to a work event where she needed to look very glamorous, but it's quite the opposite.

You see, Lee was off to be induced for labor, and her husband Rich, well, he wasn't surprised.

Look, that's just another night in her household.

So no, I wasn't surprised at all.

When it comes to life, Lee is very prepared.

She has lists and schedules and even a multi step skincare routine, so it's no surprise that she was styling her hair right before she headed into the delivery room.

But all that preparation wasn't really going to prepare Lee and Rich for what happened next.

From Mamma Mia, you're listening to The Delivery Room, a podcast where we speak to eight different women on what actually happened during childbirth.

And my name is Jesse Stevens.

I haven't had a baby, but one day I think i'd like one.

There's just one problem.

I'm absolutely terrified of childbirth.

I'm scared of the pain, and I'm scared of the unknown and not being entirely in control.

Also, I'm scared of the word episiotomy.

And that's why I'm here hosting this podcast, speaking to eight women over eight weeks about eight very different types of births.

Twins are normally early.

The first C section was the only time I'd been under in any kind of way.

I went in there with the thought processes I wanted to have anybitual.

And today we are starting with mum and MEA's very own Lee Campbell and her husband Rich, who you'll be hearing from throughout the episode.

You see for three years Lee and Rich wanted to have a baby, but what started as an exciting, life changing decision soon became fraught with anxiety and distress.

There were miscarriages, unsuccessful rounds of IVF, bad news, over and over again, as the idea of becoming a mum seemed to slip further away.

By the end of twenty eighteen, Lee was ready to accept that her future wouldn't have a baby in it, and then she felt pregnant naturally.

So it's no sup that on that Thursday night two years ago, Lee was excited, and on the show today, she's going to walk us through exactly what happened during her thirty two hours of birth, starting at the induction.

So what were the expectations when you go in to be induced?

Is the idea that the contractions start and then boom, baby out, We're all done.

Sort of.

So I was induced at thirty nine one, so thirty nine weeks and one day.

Because I was advanced maternal age, or as they like to call geriatric pregnancy.

My baby was measuring big and I had a lot of anxiety around birth, so I wanted to just get him out.

So I was induced at eight o'clock on a Thursday night, so I roughly thought Friday morning i'd have a baby.

My whole family taken the Friday off to come see the baby.

Okay, what does being induced mean?

Induced means you haven't gone into labor naturally, so you're given a cocktail of drugs to essentially signal to your body to go into labor.

Induction can look really different for a lot of people.

I'm now, I thought it would just kick me into labor and I'd go through you know, a couple of hours or several hours, but for me, that's not how it worked.

How soon after being induced did it start to hurt.

Not until the Friday morning.

So they induced me and they said okay, good night, and Rich my husband, was sleeping next to me, and I was like, wait, what when does a baby come?

And they're like, oh no, this is going to take forever.

So they induced me by giving me a drug through the drip, if I remember correctly, There's a few different ways you can be induced, but mine was through the drip, and then I essentially just went to sleep all of Thursday night, which was such an anticlimax.

My whole family was messaging and I was like, guys, nothing's happening.

And it wasn't until Friday morning that I started to get kind of mild period pain and stuff slowly, slowly started.

And is that how you would describe it?

Because you have endos, so you know what period pain feels like.

Correct?

Would you describe it as kind of the pain that you get just when you're going to get your period, which is sort of I always think of it as it feels like someone's.

Like a Chinese blo.

I have a Chinese burn on your ovaries?

Is that what we're.

Feeling the very very very beginning.

Yes, but I was nowhere near active labor at this stage.

I was still only half a centimeter dilated, so I had so far to go, but I was like, oh, this is quite ouchy.

On the Friday morning, my mom and dad were staying down the road, and so they came and they just hung out all Friday, and I was like, oh, where's my baby.

I put my normal clothes back on.

I was walking around the grounds for the hospital.

I was really trying to get things moving.

My water hadn't even broken at this stage.

They gave me ended up giving me three rounds of the drip that's the most amount of the chemical they can give you, or the drug hormone, and then they broke my waters manually.

Okay, tell me what that involves, because I've heard it's like a hook.

Yeah, it's like a big knitting needle and like they tried to do it after the first and second round of drugs, but they just couldn't even get it up there.

So I was really nowhere near ready to give birth.

Does that hurt?

Are we talking perapsmear or more?

Painful than a perhaps smear.

Perhaps me not bad, I guess because I knew now I know what came after.

It was just uncomfortable.

It was just a midwife's hand and a kind of a knitting needle situation, and they just yeah, essentially prick the balloon and then all the water and gushes out.

But even then then I thought the baby would just come as well.

Yes, no, So my water was broken on the Friday mid morning, and then slowly the period pain type feeling got more intense on and off.

So I guess I was like at these contractions and they're like, no, you're still not in active labor.

I had a few showers, a few baths.

I'm also quite an impatient person, so I was just extremely bored.

What were you doing?

Like, can you go and just sit on Instagram watch a television series?

Is that the vibe?

I was just sitting on a bouncy ball on my phone, chatting to mom and dad.

They'd go get some food, come back.

Rich was hanging out.

It was just hanging out in like a really sterile hotel room.

Essentially.

I was boring, really boring.

And then it got to about six pm and I was like, okay, I'm in a fair bit of pain, and like you said, I've got endo and used to really bad period pains.

So I was like, oh, clearly, the baby's half an hour away, and they were like, you are two centimeters dilated.

But I always knew I wanted an EPI durol and I said, okay, I mean I'd been there for twenty four hours and I hadn't really slept essentially the night before from excitement.

So I was like, I want the EPI durle now, and they're like, it's best to wait, and I was like, I really want it now.

So they gave it to me at that stage, reluctantly, and then I guess that's where shit started to get real.

And when you got the epidural, when you are saying, no, I need it right right now out of ten pain level.

Of the epidural of before.

Like the contractions that you're going, okay, I need to have some pain.

Real, probably only a five now.

I know what I had to come to compare it to.

And you said period pain.

But when you're dilating, it's your cervix, right, yes, So can you feel that?

I couldn't know all I could feel was now I know my son was trying because the chemicals had said hey, so my son or my baby was trying to get down and get going.

So it just felt like pressure, like period pain pressure where I guess you're uterus is like convulsing to get the lining out, very similar to that, just that but starting to intensify.

Okay, so you get the EPI dural.

And I recently saw a photo of an EPI DURL and I panicked because it's as long as my arm.

It's too big.

It's like the end needle bit It's not like getting a vaccination.

No, did you panic when you saw it or were you just like no relief.

I didn't.

What they do is they lay you on your side and you're monitored obviously so that because you are having for me, mild contractions to that stage, so they have to do it in between contractions to make sure that you don't move or your spine doesn't move, and you're covered by like I guess like a surgical gown type thing, so you can't even see what they're doing behind you.

Just looking at my husband's face was probably not ideal because he was a bit like oh wow, and I was like, Okay, I don't really want to know.

Yeah, I just tried to remain calm and do what was necessary.

But yeah, I don't mind needles.

But having heard from other people the size of that needle, I thought it was best to look away.

But I did see the look on her face and it didn't look like anything that I would like to try soon.

That's Lee's husband, Rich, and he's going to be popping in throughout the episode to make sure that we're getting both sides of the story and to clarify a few things like the size of the needle.

So, Lee, does it hurt when the needle goes into your spine?

Yeah, it's not ideal.

It feels like a really bad like a wasp sting or something like, it's really stingy, but it's only short, short term pain and then everything is amazing.

How quickly until everything's amazing.

So they put in I guess kind of like a catheter type do vbacker and then you've got what's the cathic Sorry, no, not Catheter's not the right word.

Waited a calender catheters to do a wei.

But they put that in your fanny as well, because you did that hurt.

They do it after the epidurals kicked in, so you obviously are paralyzed from the waist down, so you can't get up and WII.

So at this stage you have to stop drinking water.

You're not eating anyway, you're not hungry.

I can't remember if well, no, I didn't eat anything after that, but they've turned on the epidural drug and you have a little button that you can top yourself up every so often.

But then they put the thing in, so you went into a bag.

But it's all just beautiful.

From there, you feel fuzzy and delightful.

I just felt so great, And this was probably eight or nine o'clock at night by the time the epidural man had come and done all that, and I was just so happy.

Did you then manage to get any sleep?

Because you would be I would think it almost feels like you're jet lagged because you have not slept in a very long time.

Are you able to just have a snooz yep?

So at that stage I was starting to feel really tired, and the epidural was making me feel tired, and Rich was just chilling with me and watching the contractions and my contractions were starting to like I was going into active labor, starting to rise and fall on the machine, but I couldn't feel a thing.

I could see if my tummy was contracting, and he was like, wow, this is crazy, and I was like, yeah, I can't feel anything.

So we both started to go to bed.

He again was in a bed next to me, and the nurses just they come in quite regularly and check on you, so you can't really have a big snooze.

But I was drifting for a couple of hours until about two in the morning.

And what did you feel at two in the morning that work you with?

So two in the morning, I just had this really weird sensation down one side of my body, like just a slither and I was like, oh, that didn't feel very nice.

And then a minute or two later it happened again, but it was down a bigger section of my body.

And essentially what was happening was the epidural was wearing off.

But this is your whole body, Like are you talking like your arm into your leg?

Yes, Why is that hurting?

Because for me, contractions hurt everywhere.

I'm I thought it was only his stomach.

No, and this is not to scare anyone.

I am just so pro drugs, and I was so pro I didn't want to be that warrior that felt everything.

I wanted to feel as less as possible.

And so essentially, you know, the nurses came and said, your epidurals wearing off, and I was like, that's cool.

I just keep pressing this button and they're like, no, no, it's not working on you anymore.

Like that's why chance and it happens.

Apparently it's not that common, but it happens.

And so essentially it was just wearing off across my body, and so I was feeling labor.

I was in labor.

But a lot of women that have been induced will know the contractions are more intense when you're having an induced labor because it's not real, it's synthetic.

Well, it's really happening, but it's not your body's time, so it can feel more intense.

So I went from being really drowsy in asleep to having full contractions quite quickly.

And did you panic?

I did panic a little bit because I'd prepared for birth in terms.

I've done the epino, which is the balloon that stretches your bits.

Does that hurt.

Yeah, that's kind of uncomfortable, but I prepare as you know, so I really wanted to have my bits prepped.

And that's too stretch your badge, but also your is it called a perineum.

Correct, So pre birth with my obstetrician, you also see a female physio and she checks that whole area out.

They put their hand in there and teach you how to push so that you make sure you're pushing on the right muscles.

You do a lot of practice, and she had identified that I had a really small peraneum, so I was terrified of tearing.

Hence why I was so good with it.

You know, every night I was like pumping it up and it's not pleasant.

And I remember being really sick in late pregnancy and I coughed and the epino went flying across the room.

Anyway, my area was so ready to give birth.

But when the epidural wore off, I guess because I just knew I was getting an epidurl from early on.

I hadn't researched breathing or like any of that.

Really kind of coping, yes, And I just remember being the most primal version of myself.

I was holding onto the bed and it was all scrunched up, and I was like screaming, and Rich was.

Like, whoa, Yeah, let's let Rich confirm how bad that was for Lee.

Lee's got a very good pain threshold, so I know from her side when she was starting to indicate that she was in pain, that it must be really, really bad for her to be reacting in the way that she was.

I think she was pretty well within her rights to have those looks on her face.

And the nurses are like, you're only five centimeters, have got a fair way to go, and I was like, absolutely not.

I just can't do this.

But as soon as the contraction went away, you just feel completely normal.

It's almost better than normal because the.

Relief yeah, and the adrenaline yes.

And I would chat to Rich for a minute and then he'd look at the screen and go, Okay, get ready, and I was like, no, no, don't.

Stop it, because I imagine, you know when you're really sick with like food poisoning, and you're like, oh my god, I'm gonna throw up, and then after you throw up, you're like, this is the best feeling I've ever had because I'm not throwing up anymore.

That's exactly what it's It's like the worst minute of your life and then the best minute of your life.

So the worst minute of your life.

Are we getting pretty close to ten out of ten?

Pain?

Oh yeah?

I'd like take my hat off to women who do natural, drug free labor, because for me, it felt like their devil was inside me.

And I'm not trying to scare other people.

I would do it a thousand times over.

I'm so actually pleased that I did get to experience it and know what it's like.

But I'm just not good with pain.

I never wanted to feel the pain.

I was never curious, and so I was like, this is not what I signed up for.

But that's birth for you.

So what are your options at that stage?

Because you're someone who likes to be in control and likes to be organized, and I can't think of a situation where you are less in control than your body has gone n to the epidural.

Do you get presented with a number of options where you get to logically go through them and think I will do.

See not at that stage, And it's ironic, I guess, because that's just the preparation for motherhood, is that you can't plan really, So at that stage, I was just in labor, and I was going through contractions and feeling them like millions and billions of other women have.

So I'm making it sound really awful, but at that stage, I was just in labor for a couple of hours, and then it got till about four in the morning and all these bells and noises started to happen and a lot of midwives came in, and long story short, I had become feeble very quickly.

So my favorite shot up to over forty.

Does that just happen during childbirth?

Or was that unrelated?

No, it was related.

It was because my son was in distress.

He was stuck essentially, and again because I still wasn't dilated enough.

He'd been trying to get out for a while, so his heart rate skyrocketed, my fever skyrocketed, and that's when the midwives were like, Hey, we've really got to get this baby out.

We're gonna have to do an emergency cesarian.

Are you okay with that?

And sure, I mean, what are your options?

But also for me, very superficially, I was like, if that means the end of contraction, it's fantastic.

By this stage.

It's been thirty two hours.

I haven't slept.

I'm pretty delirious.

This is what you think about people who have to labor for all those hours and then have a C section, Like, why did I bother with the labor?

Yeah?

Were you annoyed that you'd wasted so much time?

I wasn't annoyed so much that if I was to have a second child, i'd have a plan.

Cesarean now, knowing what I've been through, but you know, that's life.

So I was amazed by how quickly everything happened from that stage.

My obstetrician, who wasn't there yet because I was nowhere near birth, just turned up.

She was there and obviously they'd called her and she lives close to the hospital, but I just remember her walking in.

She was in a pe Nation tracksuit for something in the morning, and I was like, I love your tracksuit and she was like, okay, yeah, cool.

So what time is this and a weekending towards the weekend.

Saturday morning?

It's four am Saturday morning, got it, and so she was very calm.

I loved her bedside manat which I think is really important in that moment, and she just said it's going to be great.

We're going to get your baby out.

It just needs you to sign these forms and understand the risks and blah blah blah.

And I was like, sure, just can we sign it before the next contractions?

And then I was in a private hospital where I didn't realize they don't operate, so you had to be wheeled from the private hospital to the public hospital into an operating theater instead of a birthing suite, which was all stuff I learned at the time.

So I'm going through elevators and up and down and riches coming with me, and he's got scrubs on, and.

Are you having contractions all through that time?

Yep, I'm having contractions all through that time.

And then when I got into theater, because I had an epidural port in my back, they could use that for the block.

So an epidural and a block is obviously quite different, but it was great that it could be so quick because they just used that port.

And then basically you're paralyzed from the shoulders down because they're operating some major surgery.

And I remember they use a bit of ice and they just wrap it up on unick feel it and then they rub it further down and you go, nut can't feel it anymore, so they know that you're ready to go for surgery.

What was that relief?

Like, oh great, because all the pain stopped.

I remember lying on my back and I was like, am I still even pregnant?

Because I was a bit delirious and I couldn't feel a thing, And it was incredibly quick.

I was so impressed.

But everyone was so calm and nice, and they're like, you're gonna have your baby now, and really excited and like, I'm sure their time was a veescence for them, but they didn't make me feel panicked in any way.

And then in you go, and.

They put a sheet up, don't they So you can't.

See they put a sheet up, So I guess when they're making the incisions because they again learned later that they cut through.

I think it's either seven or nine layers.

Some are horizontal but some are vertical, so it's not all just across.

And then what seems like two seconds later, my beautiful obstetrician dropped the sheet and she said, okay, I'm going to deliver your baby now.

She said, look up, look up, because I could use my neck, and I was like, no, no, no, no, she goes, no, I'm going come on, sit up.

You got to watch and out of my tummy or I guess like a vaginal birth.

They make it seem as natural, yeah, out of commas as possible.

And they lifted him out and then she held him up and she said, tell everyone what it is.

And I was like, that's a boy.

So how did Rich feel at this point?

Just complete euphoria to see a child come up and we didn't know the sex, of course, and to see that it was a boy.

Yeah, it was just the most beautiful and most amazing moment of our aunts.

And what's your first response seeing this thing that your body has created over nine months?

Is it absolute or do you freak?

Does it look like an alien?

Yeah?

He looked, Oh my god, I'll show you my photos after this if anyone.

He looked like a total alien.

And my husband has like a bum chin, yep, and this little tiny baby boy just had the biggest bum chin.

And the first thing I said.

Was his chin.

His chin.

And then they take them away and Rich left from up near my head and they go and cut the umbilical cord and then we got an extended amount of time with him on my chest.

I think they do that to distract you while you're being sewn up.

Were you distracted for a little bit?

And then the baby and Rich went up to recovery And then what I didn't realize was it takes about forty five minutes to stick you up.

So Alexander was born at five oh five and I didn't go back up to recovery to in the six of some stage, and Rich and the baby were doing skin on skin that whole time.

It was, again, just the most euphoric experience, you know, to all of a sudden have this incredible responsibility.

This child is relying on you for everything now, So yeah, quite incredible just to be one on one gazing into each other's eyes, and yeah, it's just a pinch me kind of moment where you've thought about this for a lot of your life and now it's real and just the most amazing feeling in the world.

So how was Lee going being sewn up?

Lying there at the end?

I was so delirious by this stage, but I was looking up at like the surgery lights stuff, and then I could see what they were doing.

Oh wait, they're stitching my whole body backup, and the assisting obstetrician his name was Alexander, because they said what's the baby's name?

And I was like Alexander and the guy was like, oh, that's my name, and I was like, oh, how original.

Yeah.

So by that stage I was just delirious and felt really dopey and like.

And you've gone through an ordeal over days at this point when you see that baby on your chest that looks a little bit like an alien Like they're very cute.

But they're also like the terrifying.

Is it instant love or is it like what is that thing?

For me?

It was just shock, I think from everything I'd been through.

I mean, obviously I loved him, but I didn't like have this rush and gush of.

Like I think it's important to normalize that because a lot of women are made to expect that it's going to be this, oh my god, I die for you, which of course that's an element of it, but you've also never seen anything.

It's like a wtf just happened?

Because it's interesting.

We I host a podcast called This Glorious Miss Little Kids for parents that have young children, and then we had an expert on who said childbirth and having a newborn is like having a major car accident and then starting a new job as a brain surgeon the next day.

And it's like, it's so true true.

When you wheeled up to recovery, I guess I thought you would order to have this time with your baby, and you do.

But within the first fifteen minutes I had a midwife coming in milking my breasts for colostrum.

So it's not like you have this really beautiful moment alone.

I guess maybe you do with a natural birth, but with emergency cesarium.

I had already been away from him for an hour or so, so I guess they needed the colostrum quickly.

I'm not sure that you just want to go to sleep.

Yeah, yeah, oh.

I was pretty high on everything that morning, but by lunchtime I just crashed and they were like, you need to keep trying to feed, and I was like, take him away.

I want to everyone leave me alone.

Importantly, how were the photos, Because you'd blow dried your hair, but you'd been through an ordeal.

When the photo gets taken and you like take it again from a different angle, No, God.

No, you don't care by that stage.

I mean again, I take my hat off to all the nurses and midwives because they take your phone and I have the most incredible photos of him being pulled out and Rich and I from in the suite.

They use portrait mode.

They did set look like I had a professional photographer.

I mean, They're gruesome and horrific, and I've got nipples the size of dinner plates.

And it's all not social media, you know, appropriate, But it's such incredible stuff to have.

But no, I don't even know why I did my hair in Fate ten because I'd had that many bars and showers the day before to help with the pain.

And obviously none of that matters.

But when you've never had a baby before, you think it does and then it's a big old mess.

And I think with sea sections, people can imagine that.

Okay, so they do a little, this tiny little incision and then the baby comes out and then you're just like, good to go.

I've heard that's not the case that the recovery is.

I think I've heard you say we're talking twelve months to be back to what you were.

Yes, what do people not prepare you for when it comes to sea section recovery look.

For me, I just hadn't even considered it as an option because I thought I was being induced for a vaginal birth.

I didn't even look into it, to be honest.

So, and there's a big difference between a plant cesarian and an emergency cesarian, because emergency they're just getting in there and getting the baby out to save people's lives.

So the first day for me, anyway, you can't walk, so you have a machine, like a compression machine on your legs to keep your blood flowing so that you don't get any blood clots or anything.

So you still have the catheter thing in right.

You still have the catheter, so you can eat and drink as normal, although you don't do a poof for of quite a few days, and that in itself is its own event.

And how about because aren't you bleeding?

What do they do about the bleeding?

You just don't have anything on down the bottom, and your midwife comes and changes your pad slash nappy because interestingly, I didn't think you'd bleed much having a caesarean, because I thought they took it all out the sun roof.

But you still have quite a lot of gunk and blood that comes out of your vagina obviously, so they just rip the blanket back and change your pad, and you've got several maternity pads on.

But by then you don't care.

You've got people milking your boobs.

You're basically displayed in a like.

On a bed, just going what touch what you want to?

Just take it?

Just help me?

How are you like abdominal's feeling, because if you're trying to sit up, you're trying to get out of bed, Like is the wound hurting or is it also the muscles underneath it?

All of it for me so I could get up the next day.

So Sunday morning, I got up to have my first shower and midwife helps you.

You've had major, major surgery.

They've cut through your whole course, so you can't sit up the way you think you can.

You have to use that pully hand thing because you have to use your hands and your legs because your care is just not intact.

It's all stitched together.

They're so used to it they help you.

I guess it's they have skills to help someone that's had surgeries as well as childbirth.

And you're on great drugs, really good drugs in the hospital, so it wasn't as bad when I got home and I was so you know, preoccupied with keeping this baby alive and you forget to take your drugs.

That's when you're like, oh, wow, I've had major surgery.

But the physio comes around at the hospital and teaches you how to pivot and sit because you can't use your care.

So it's all very well managed for me.

Probably the worst part was getting my stitches out the day I left, because I had a new nurse and it was her first turn to remove my stitution.

How did she tell you that?

That's not a detail yet it was pretty horrific, as in, it really hurt because wouldn't they do it's some kind of anesthetic.

No, no, no, no, no, they just pluck them out.

I don't like that.

Yeah, And also I'm surprised how low you're Cesaian.

It's like right in your vaginal like crease, like, yeah, you know where you fold when you sit, Yes, it's right in my fold.

So it's really nice.

Little like if I were a bikini, you can't see anything.

So I'm really pleased with that.

And how did the healing go?

Like, how are you feeling two weeks, after four weeks, after eight weeks.

Off, our apartment didn't have a lift of heaps of flights of stairs.

I really struggled with that because stepping up and down again, you use a lot of your care for so much that you don't realize.

So the first few weeks were pretty bad.

It's a common misconception that you can't drive for six weeks.

As long as you can turn to check your blind spot, which my obstrition checked.

I could drive after like ten days, which was fine, and then recovery was pretty slow.

I must say I didn't help myself.

I didn't do all the things they told me to because I just was thinking about the baby.

What do they tell you to do like exercises?

No, they tell you to not do things, But of course I was doing everything.

It's so hard to rest.

People tell you to rest, but new mums are often martyrs, and you know, people come over to see the baby, but you're making tea and cutting up cake and don't do that new mums.

And picking up Can you pick up the baby?

You can pick up the baby, they're so little.

Yeah, you've got to be really careful and if you do have help.

It's important to call on that help.

And I've never had a baby, but I would like to one day for someone like me, What would be your one piece of advice or the one thing that you could tell me to prepare for this thing that sounds bloody, terrifying and also beautiful, but so many women have been through it, and I'm just like.

Such a rite of passage, isn't it?

But it's so terrifying.

I would just explore all options because, as we said before, I'm such a planner.

I was like, I'm being induced toff a vaginal birth, and every step of that process I had explored mentally and emotionally, but I hadn't thought what if it happens to cinesaia.

You know what if this happens because I was so sure that I knew what was happening, So just consider all options.

It might end up like this, It might end up like that.

I don't regret anything.

A lot of people say, oh, you know what a traumatic birth, and I'm like, no way.

I got my son and it's such a cool story.

And I got to feel labor and then I got to have a cesarean Like I basically had a bit of everything in one go, and I don't regret any of it.

It's really cool and like it's really special.

It's a great story too.

I think the nurses there are like, Wow, who's this chick that came on with blow dried hair?

Surely I'm not the first one, but then the way I left, they were like, there she is.

The Kardashians did it like I'm.

A beautiaitors my job, But yeah, I left looking very disheveled and have been that way since.

That's motherhood.

Next time on the delivery room.

So I definitely was just patient with myself.

I just went home, went to bed.

Like I knew from the hypnobirthing course that I did that I really just needed to cultivate a space of calm, relaxed.

I'm a mammal evolutionarily speaking, it most complete sense that I would need to be in a private space secluded.

I'm about to become very very vulnerable.

My body's not going to put me in that vulnerable position unless I'm safe.

So I knew that going to bed and just getting some sleep and following a familiar routine would cultivate that.

That Samantha Oliver, Who's gonna tell us all about hypnobirthing.

Speaking to Samantha completely changed my perspective on birth, and I cannot wait for you to hear it.

If you're enjoying the show so far, we'd love for you to share it with your friends or give it a rating in your favorite podcast app.

This episode of the Delivery Room was produced by Gamiln and our executive producer is Eliza Ratlib