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 was early twenty ten and Fran and her husband of three years, Tom, decided to take the next step in their relationship.

They bought a dog, but a month later they were pregnant and the level of responsibility that they'd wanted went up a lot.

And while Fran was excited to have a baby on the way, she was also a little scared of the idea of actually giving birth.

I did have some fears because I had heard a lot of horror labor stories from a lot of my girlfriends.

For some women, arming yourself with as much information about birth as possible makes you feel a little more at ease with the process.

But for Fran that absolutely was not the case.

You maybe twelve weeks and all of a sudden, you're in a birth in class and you've got this kind of full on woman that's showing you all kinds of things and using dolls, and this is going to come out of here, And I'm like, this is a lot.

Yes, as I'm learning, birth is a lot, but it was imminent.

For Fran, there was only one way that baby was going to come out, so she had to get ready.

So what type of birth was she going to have?

Well, she wasn't really sure.

I definitely probably never went I'm going to have a C section.

You did actively think that that, but we're.

Just going to take direction that's right from Mama 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'd like one.

There's just one problem.

Like Fran was, I'm absolutely terrified of childbirth, which is why I'm here hosting this podcast, speaking to eight women over eight weeks about eight very different types of birth.

In our first episode, we heard what it's like to undergo an emergency sea section, but today we're speaking to Fran Romano about her decision to have planned sea sections for both of her children and what she thinks of the saying too posh to push, and like always Fran will be fact checked by her birthing partner, and in this case it's her husband Tom.

It was almost that sort of burning rubber really.

So what was it about birth that you were particularly worried about?

Well, probably not having any control over anything that was happening to your body.

I think also the unknown, Like I had kept hearing really bad stories of women that definitely ended up in an emergency C section after hours and hours of laboring, and I never had any desire.

Like again, in these birthing classes, they would show us videos of people that had done at home water births.

I was like, why would you want to do that?

Because my mind would just go to all the things that could happen that if you were in a hospital surrounded by all the doctors, all the medical things, all the drugs, the chances of that are much less.

So I wanted to eradicate all that.

Kind of like potential.

Yes, I know that women have been doing this since the dawn of time, and that's obviously the thing that you told all the time, and that's totally true, but that didn't really provide me with much comfort.

I just wanted to go through whatever the safest passage was going to be.

How about pain, What was your relationship like with Did that scare you?

No?

Like, in general, I've got quite a high pain threshold, but I've had very minimal experiences with operations or like the first sea section was the only time I'd been under in any kind of way in a hospital situation.

And maybe because I haven't been through usually high painful experiences, Yeah I was.

I didn't scare Yeah, you know, and I have obviously many friends and you come across those women that are totally like, I want all the pain I want to experience at all.

I didn't have that desire, yeah, to do that.

And your doctor made the call that with your first baby it should be a sea section.

Why was that the advice.

Because on one of these many checkups that I had, it was apparent that she wasn't engaged.

She was just kind of well.

He would just described that she was really comfortable in there, so she wasn't moving like obviously, through the stages of her pregnancy, the baby will usually turn and you know, start to engage and look like it's getting ready to come out, whereas my daughter wasn't doing that, but still quite early on still like and that's obviously the joke, isn't it That a lot of obstricans just want to book in the C section so they can still go and play their round of golf for whatever it is that they're going to do.

Whether that was my obstrition's motive, I don't know.

Like I said, I really trusted him.

I was like, okay, well, if you think that's the best way to do it, he said, you know, look, the chances are that if we let you go.

I also, I think was pretty clear that I didn't want to go to you know, three weeks over due, and again I was like, no, I don't want to be you know, pregnancy's a really really long time.

And when I was thirty weeks thirty two weeks and he started talking about the end game, I was quite like, Okay, all right, let's get a plan.

I mean I like to plan, and my husband really liked to plan.

Like I used to do these prank calls to him and when he wouldn't answer, I'd be like, are you in the pub?

So how did Fran's husband Tom feel about those prank calls?

Sometimes I'm not great about picking up my phone during the day because I might have be in a meet or other things that are popping up.

So yeah, there was there was definitely some some test calls of Okay, this is the agreement we've got.

It's two months out.

It could happen, you know if it did come early.

You know, if if I call you do I have to be by phone?

So yeah, we we She would test that and yeah, I think I think I passed with okay, okay.

Test results on the on the actual phone side of things, because I think, you know, you just got to switch on and your life's about to change.

So for him, that was really stressful.

So he was like, okay, if we can eradicate that stress of like when is that call going to happen?

Yeah?

And am I going to pick it up?

Or am I going to miss it?

And then she's going to have to get it uber to hospital And that's not that.

Can be you know, almost two months, depending on if earlier.

If the baby's late, that's right, there's every minute of every day you're thinking.

That would be a baby.

This is it?

So I think with an elective c section, because they usually do it quite thirty eight weeks, it takes away a lot of that anxiety around when's it gonna happen.

And my husband was like, yeah, okay, yeah, that's good.

And how do you prepare for a c section when you know when it's gonna be?

Like you pack your bag, do you get a good night's sleep, do you wash your head, do you have a bath, Like what's your vibe?

Well, it's very calm compared to any kind of labor story I would imagine, and yet look to a degree, this is a little bit of a stretch, but it's a little bit like checking into a hotel when you get there, because you do pack your bag and everything's very much you know, I mean, with your first one, you've got truly no idea what's ahead, right, because you do feel like.

I'm going on a hold, yeah, and.

Everyone's really you know, everyone's guiding you through and this is what's going to happen, and everything's very you know, thought out, And that's my memory of the first one.

I think with the second, you kind of know what's down the track, so you have a different mindset, But an elective cesarean you know, you're obviously nervous because obviously there's still a lot of things that can go wrong.

But ultimately, for me, all I wanted to do was see that baby and hear that baby cry, and I could look beyond everything else, and all I wanted to do was say that baby.

And what drugs were you on?

Like how do they start?

So you go into a really like as a full scale operating theater and there's a lot of people happening.

And the ironic part is that I felt like my obstration was like a therapist to me through the pregnancy and would talk me through all the ups and downs and all the crazy things that you know go on anyway, and my pregnancy was a good one.

Let alone, if you had a really stressful one.

But in the actual operating theater, the person that's with you the most is the anethesist.

The anethesist is the one that's talking to you and kind of saying, right, okay, so now because they put like it's a spinal.

Tap, did that hurt going on?

Yeah, they're like, you're not going to feel pretty much anything for the next twenty four hours.

But they're obviously very calming, you know, you just find something.

My husband was in there too, to be honest, he was a bit kind of like overwhelmed.

Yeah, but if you ask Tom now, well he's pretty cool, calm and collected.

Whether or not you're wedded to the natural birth or or you want to go to the sea section way, you did have to take medical advice, and it's the babies, you know, life that needs to be taking into account in terms of entering the world in the most safest possible manner.

When the baby is coming out, the surgery is happening, do you have the thing up.

Do you know What I remember is the smell.

It's a burning smell, so it's your flesh.

You can smell it.

Now.

Whether that's kind of accentuated with what they're doing, you know, with the drugs that they give you otherwise, I don't know.

But I remember thinking God and they go, oh my God, because they're literally cutting through like all the layers and layers of sin.

It was almost that sort of burning, burning rubber.

Really, I remember, because you're not going through a labor which I would imagine feels like you're going through some you know, I can see the baby's head, you know, there's more kind of stage yes, whereas the C section it's kind of like, you know, you lie down and then there's not a lot of noise.

Can you hear the cutting?

There's just a lot of people around, And so I just remember having that feeling of really just waiting, going, oh God, someone talk to me and tell me that everything's all right.

And like the anethesis was good at you know, in that first stages, but there was definite gaps where you're just waiting for that baby.

Can you feel the tugging because I've heard that you can't feel pain, but you could feel to tugging.

Yes, that's the best word for it.

So, no, it's not pain, but it's tugging, I mean weird.

Yes, it feels quite alien like almost, you know, I mean that there's that really strange sensation.

But no, there's no pain.

It's not like anything you've ever experience.

So you don't really have a comparison.

And it's hard to describe too until you've gone through it.

Being cut open and had a pain taken out of me?

What's that feeling like?

Because you're on some heavy drugs and then your baby is born?

Can you fully comprehend it?

Because just a second ago they were in your stomach?

That's quick?

What's that first moment like?

Yeah, it's totally massive, out of body experience.

And again I think maybe even more so with a C section, because you don't have necessarily hours or I have along the lay.

I mean, the actual procedure is really quick, like how long I think it's maybe like half an hour forty minutes?

Wow, And that's it.

So there is also then a very quite significant separation because then they have to basically show you ll put you back together again.

So the baby kind of went away and tom My husband tells stories of how both times with both the kids, put into these kind of rooms where he's just like on his own with this little tiny thing, and I'm nowhere to be seen.

So he was like, Okay, is someone going to come and get me?

Because it's a while before you and you kind of lose concept of time too.

I think you're kind of a bit, you know.

And I had two very different hospital experiences too.

So one was in a you know, really big public hospital, I mean midwives.

That's a whole other ballgame, and that year, whole experience there.

They're so different, like it was us your baby, good luck, whereas where I had my second, it was much more like there was a nursery and so the baby kind of went away and then came back again.

So there seems to be you know, different experiences that everyone has at different hospitals, different midwives.

But yeah, you're in shock.

You're in shock.

I mean it's shocking, really, and.

You've just had this incredible surgery.

I visited someone once after really hectic knee surgery and their body is recovering, their body is in they don't have a baby to look after.

It's all about the need.

But there's also that process of when you're on that heavy medication, the pain eventually starts to hit you at some point.

Did you feel the pain in hospital at all or were you're pretty well medicated for that.

My experience is they're pretty keen to keep you really dosed up.

So again, the first time, I just said yes every time they offered me yes and done or whatever it was.

Second time, I was much better at going no.

I don't you know.

I think they don't want you to feel anything because then you're just an easier patient, right Whereas the second time around it but it's like with everything, the second time around is you know what your boundaries are.

And I was surprised how long the recovery was again because I didn't anticipate.

No one really talks about that.

It's like no one really talks about breastfeeding, and there's such a focus on the pregnancy.

There's very little focus really put on the birth experience or the breastfeeding, Like what happens after.

What surprised you about the healing process, like the months afterwards.

What surprised you about how hard that was for your body to recover?

Well, I guess I really underestimated how major it is, like the obstricians, and they don't really describe it.

But I think medical people in general, right, they tend to downplay every medical procedure, right.

Because for them, it's every day that's try you it's the first time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I was lucky again, like you hear really horror stories of wounds getting infected again.

I was lucky because I was watched pretty closely and I was kind of able to go back on a regular basis to get check ups and stuff like that.

But I remember even a year on and I had all these like weird pains, like in my stomach, and I was like, what is that like?

And enough for me to go it's really bothering, you know, like obviously there are things that bother you than other things that don't, but enough for me to go back to my obstric and be like what is that is?

Everything?

O came in there and he you know, I did have an old sound and stuff, and he was like, yeah, look it's just still a scar tissue.

I'm like, what do you make He's like, oh, that could go on, like you know, so all your bits are intact, so that's good because there's just as many stories of life, yes, women that you know light bladder leakage or LBL as everyone seems to refer to it as like that's never been an issue for me.

For me, that was a good kind of outcome of it, because I know so many women that have had ongoing issues, hugely from having natural births.

So none of that just this kind of doesn't happen now, but that went on for quite a while where you just there are things that are moving around in there and it is all scar tissue apparently because of how deep they've had to go.

And how about your core, because your cause to do with everything is to do with standing up straight, walking down the street, turning.

Does your core ever recover?

I don't think so.

The thing is, and it's such a cliche, but once the babies do come along, you know, there's very few women that can just totally be concentrating on their core.

Yeah, moment and.

For the next eighteen to twenty five years.

Yeah, that's right.

I remember when you're picking them up and as they get heavier, Like my neck has never been the same since having babies, because you you know, and you neck, Yeah, And I remember getting to one point where my second was I don't know, he was probably ten months and it was a real like you know, lump and I couldn't move my neck and my husband was just like, you need to go and get that sorted out.

I was like, but I don't have time.

He's like, well you need to make I mean such a cliche, like you live a cliche so often where you're like, but no, look, your body's never quite the same.

But then I suppose you just kind of do go.

We'll have carried two humans.

So I think you can either choose to really beat yourself up about it or you can just kind of go, well, it was worth it.

Yeah, And I was obviously they liked being there and I got them here in one piece, and you feel guilty whatever way you.

Go, Yeah, exactly as we know.

And with the second you are then pregnant a second time.

Was it your call that you were like, I've done a C section, I know what to expect.

I'm going to do that again.

So I had a different obstraution for the second one.

He was like, look, to be honest, and there's a term for it, if you try to have a natural one after a C section, it's called a V back, which you know, that's a strange thing.

So I you know, of rarer for you to then do vaginal after seat.

Because it carries more risks.

You know you can do it, but because of all this scar tissue and it's riskier.

So I think again, my theory was, I know what the deal is with the C section, so you know what you know, and so I just was like, Okay, let's do that again because it just felt like a more straightforward option for me.

There's definitely judgment around it, and did anyone say anything to you totally?

Some women are just totally like perplexed.

They're just like, oh, sea sections, And that's like with everything, right.

I think people will judge no matter what.

But for me, like I said, it was just about getting the baby here safely, and I didn't feel any pressure really the second time around from the arbstration or anything.

He was like, look, it's your choice.

And I think I did do a bit of reading up on the whole V back movement and it didn't look great statistically.

I was just like, what do you think about women?

And I suppose men do it too, but it's in women's circles that you hear it a bit, is that there's a myth that see sections are the easy way out, and they're like, well, too posh to push, Yes, too posh to push exactly what's your perspective on that.

I can see why there is that perception, because again, if you go back to the dawn of time, you know, women weren't having sea sections back in caves, were they so?

And yeah, like I think for me, it wasn't.

Like an emergency space section.

Yeah, it wasn't.

That.

I had my first baby when I was thirty two.

I guess I was more affected by then the judgment than I am now.

I think as you kind of get older, you just kind of don't really get phased by it.

I think again, as a first time mum, it's harder.

I'm a bit more vulnerable mane.

But it just.

Astounds me in general, how women can be just so vocal and opinionated about birthing another person's birth, Yeah, and just about anything about you know, fertility, about Like, it's astounding for me, and it's different personalities, right, but I just get really funny now, I would never question someone else's kind of choice, but it sometimes really stops you in your tracks when people will just go, oh, right, so why did you do that?

It's almost like, you know how some women from when they were five, they've planned their whole wedding day and they know what their dress is going to look like.

And I think a lot of women are like that for their birthing experience.

I just was never like that.

I was much more like, this is the moment that we're in and I'm not going to stick too far.

And the only bit of advice, if I'm asked to give it to other women when it comes to birthing plans, is to just have no plan, because if you have a plan, there's every chance it's not going to end up like that.

And then you start motherhood on the back foot when the whole thing, you're not really setting yourself up for any chance of success.

That's so true if you're already starting with, oh, I didn't give birth the way I planned to.

Day one won't go to plan.

That's my number one thing.

And I think that's what kind of got me through that I wasn't set on anything.

You know how they say, no two births are the same?

Are any two c sections the same?

Like?

Were there differences between your two c sections, from how they were done to the recovery.

I reckon a lot of it's got to do with age.

So for me, I'm sure it was a similar process, but because you're older the second time around than you are the first time around.

Like I remember again when I was having you know, blood tests and this tests and that test, and again saying to my obstration, I'm like, why all these tests is that?

Well, Fran, at the end of the day, biologically, you should have been having babies when you were like, you know, nineteen twenty.

But now society says that we all have babies in our thirties forties, and so statistically you're going against all the odds.

And I was like, what, No, I'm not.

But I think that when it comes to how you know, your body deals with it, it's about the age too, because you just can't recover and yeah, and totally the second time around you're trying to look after too.

Yeah, so you can't just have a little lie down or you don't have the same recovery time at all.

And in terms of the drugs that they give you, did you have any weird side effects?

Because I've read about itching or feeling really cold or whatever.

Totally all that all that, you do feel a bit like a drug addict, like when you're kind of particularly when you're first, you know, when you've just had the c sex and you're you know, in the early hours afterwards, it's like you're having some kind of crazy come down yet because shack, you're freezing, and it's all the drugs that are in your system.

Totally, So I don't really in my usual painkilling life, I've really never gone much beyond panadol.

So it was I think again, probably everyone reacts really differently.

If you're used to taking you know, lots of different painkillers, it's probably no bigger thing.

But yeah, like totally all the itchy cold, like just going oh God, and all the while you've got this little tiny person next to you in a capsule looking at you, going hi, and you can't physically, you know, you can't fisitly pick them up For the first day.

I had definitely with my first, not as much for my second, but it took a long time for my milk to come in.

And they say that that's another you don't have the same level of skin to skin kind of contact as you do if you do it.

I was going to say naturally, but you don't really do you say naturally anymore like when.

You've given birth, you can say what you yeah, but they say vaginally or they say, yeah, well it is.

A natural way to do it.

But I think I said that a couple of weeks ago and someone corrected me.

And it's hard to know these days, isn't it.

That's right?

What's wrong?

But yeah, you can't.

I think that skin to skin, you know, And that's again where you rely on your partner to do a lot of that.

And so my husband was the one that was getting his top off in those really early times to try it because you just want to be able to walk around and so when you can.

But like I remember, it still spins me out, probably more with the first than the second one that you know you've I mean, these women that are in hospital for like a couple of hours whatever and they go home, I'm like, what you know after five days or whatever, and they're like, okay, so it's time for you to go home.

And I'm like, oh my god, I can't believe that they just let me yes go.

So now we have to look after this and there's no button to push, and there's no like the concept is mental when you think about it, that you've just given this human being and then they just kind of go, cow a good luck.

Can I see you out there training?

Do you have a manual for that?

Why is it crying?

So I didn't want to leave the second time around two, I was very much like, I just stay one more nice?

Yeah?

Can you even walk out?

Okay?

Or are you like in terms.

Back then you're fine.

You can't drive and stuff for six weeks.

You can't pick up anything heavier than a baby for six weeks.

I mean a lot of women do.

But you know, again, you hear a lot of stories of how that can go really patient, but you're fine to like get around.

Finally, I wanted to ask other than the advice not to have a plan, even if she were getting a you know, ELECTIVEC section whatever it is, and they asked you for some advice, what would be your number one piece of advice for someone who's never done it before?

Do you know what I think about women that used to give me advice?

I don't think you really listen, Like you don't fully take it on until you're in it, right.

And then that other weird concept is you know this mother's group situation that for some women it becomes their lifeline.

But the mother's group thing just never worked for me because I just literally would look around at these women and just go, all we've got in common is that we all just happen to have a baby at the same time.

And I found it this really like everyone just sit around and go, oh, well, my baby did this, So my baby did that, and I had yeah from the very first kind of when they're tiny, tiny, And so for me that didn't really work.

Now again for other women, they might really need that.

I mean, it's just whatever the network is that you got around, like I mean, I think and I still probably do.

I took my advice more from you know, my mum and yeah, people you trust me, Yeah that reference point, And I suppose I kind of am mindful of that if people are asking me for advice too.

Everyone kind of finds their own path, I think.

And you know what the other thing for me is, I don't look at other babies.

I don't look at general babies and go, oh.

So you're not like one of those people that are obsessed with kind of cute babies that.

If I say, a baby walking along the street, I.

Have no A lot of women are like that, Oh, worried that they're not maternal.

That's right.

It's about having.

Totally different when you've got your own and you spend a lot of I did, anyways, spend a lot of my pregnancy going oh god, what if I just don't have any And you know, the internet is dangerous for a lot of things.

But you know, if you start googling that bond that is not necessarily there with a C section and all that, and then I'm you know, and you're pregnant, so your hormones are all over the place.

Anyway, I'm like, oh my god, maybe this isn't the right But I think that everyone's built differently, Like I just don't look at other people's babies and go I want or like you know, some of my friends even now, i'd be like, oh god, maybe I could happen.

Are you If I don't have any, I can't relate And luckily, I mean, it's also about finding a partner that happens to be on the same age two and then you know the other thing that I just think it's really ironic that we spend all these years trying not to feel pregnant.

Yeah, and then we think we can turn around and go okay, I'm ready.

Now and click your finger.

But I just don't think again, you'd probably never realized that, Like, I had a miscarriage between my two and it was just the one miscarriage, but it gave me this kind of more appreciation of this is actually.

Really goddamn miracle, Like.

It truly is.

So you know, I have other friends and things that have been through all kinds of different situations and the whole like that's why to me, the birthing part of it, I don't think it matters how they get here, just like it's just that whole thing of like the fact that you can even create a life.

Yes, you kind of go, wow, it's really Yeah.

It's so fascinating.

Thank you so much for sharing your story and really appreciating Thank you.

Thanks Jesse.

Next time on the delivery room, it wasn't like, you know, really tough, Like there was pressure, nothing that was excruciating, and yeah, pressed on my stomach and pressed lower down and I was like, oh my god.

And he was like what happened?

And I went I think I've just wet my pants, and he was like, oh, I just disappeared for a bit.

Was there any relief when you wet your pants?

Not really.

I was more like just going, oh god, how totally.

I was like, oh my god, embarrassing.

And then I was like, oh, that's not normal.

And then he rolled back in a heart monitor and put that over my stomach and we're like, so that wasn't you wet in your pants, that was your water breaking.

You're actually in labor.

That's Prue Thomas talking about having a surprise birth.

And yes, we're talking a birth that was completely a surprise.

She'll tell us all about it next week.

I want to miss an episode, make sure you're following the delivery room wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode was produced by gam Moylan and Our executive producer is Eliza Ratliffe.