ļ»æEpisode 150 - Considering homebirth?
Mel:
[0:00] Welcome to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Melanie Jackson. I'm a clinical and research midwife with my PhD, and each episode I cast a critical eye over current maternity care practice by grappling with research and historical knowledge to help you get the best out of your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey.
Mel:
[0:22] Welcome to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. Today, we're exploring the option of home birth. This is for you if you're thinking maybe you'd like to try a home birth, but still have some questions and concerns about whether or not it's practically possible for you. Maybe you don't feel safe having a home birth. Maybe you're trying to convince your partner to have a home birth. If that's you, today's story is for you. For long-term listeners of the Great Birth Rebellion podcast, you'll be very used to the style that I typically use through each podcast episode, where I have a look at some evidence, rifle through it and pull out little points and use that to formulate podcast episodes. That's still all going to be here. I'm just exploring some options to also share stories of women who have used the Great Birth Rebellion podcast as they make their decisions about their births. And through their stories, we can learn lessons. And as you'll hear,
Mel:
[1:22] this is not the regular birth story podcast format. There'll be periods of time through the stories that the women tell where you'll hear a nice little sound effect.
Mel:
[1:34] And that indicates to you that I'm about to chime in with some commentary. So on today's podcast, we're exploring home birth through a birth story told by our guest, Renee Bargh, who is a hardworking mom. She's a television host, David Jones ambassador, and long-term listener of the podcast. And as she tells her story, you'll hear commentary from me to help you fully understand the story and take home some little bite-sized lessons as we go. So today's episode is all about exploring the option of home birth through the birth story of Renee Bargh, mom of two. Welcome to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast, Renee.
Renee:
[2:15] Thank you so much for having me. This is like a full circle moment for me because I am such a huge fan of you and your work and this podcast. I think it became my Bible during both my pregnancies. So yeah, it's an honor.
Mel:
[2:27] Why don't you just tell us about that to start with, and then we can introduce you to everybody. Why did the Great Birth Rebellion become your Bible?
Renee:
[2:35] Well, it was actually I got on the group midwife practice with my first pregnancy and my midwife, she kind of gave me a few episodes to listen to when there was questions that I had come up around certain things. So I know it was the, sorry, what's it called? The gestational diabetes test, the glucose test. I had questions around that. I had questions around going too far in my pregnancy and over term and things. And so she would just send me a few episodes and then I just started listening to it for everything. And the main reason was because my partner is a doctor and he yeah uh actually an anaesthetist so that gets really interesting when we start talking about home birth but it was really good because he is so evidence-based you know like everything has to be evidence-based and he understands the data so well so the best way for me to get anything across the line was to uh have him listen to your podcast or be able to come back to him with things that I'd learned from listening to your podcast so So there was, yeah, there was a lot of episodes in the first pregnancy that were really helpful, but I'd say even more so with my second pregnancy.
Mel:
[3:37] Well, how about we let the listeners know who you are first before we proceed to too far. And of course, I'm happy to just listen to you tell me all amazing things about the podcast and affirm my life's purpose for me. That would be amazing. But can you give us a brief introduction about who you are and what you do with your days at this part of your life and even earlier before you had June?
Renee:
[4:00] Well, first and foremost, I'm a mum and that is my favourite role to date for sure. I now am a mother of two, under two and wow, nobody told me how hectic that was going to be. I feel like everyone who's done it before me lied or just didn't complain enough. So I am deep in the trenches. I have a three-month-old and a two-year-old. My days are spent very differently to how they were spent previously. I, you know, wake up and I feed one baby and then the next baby wakes up and I feed him. I'm still feeding my two-year-old as well. So I'm tandem feeding, which I also didn't expect to do. And my partner works really long days as a doctor. So, you know, the mornings and the nights, they're both pretty much me full-time at the moment while trying to also juggle work still, because in my profession, there is really no maternity leave. So I'm, you know, when they go down, when one baby goes to sleep, I'm trying to hustle to get the other one to sleep, or I've got her in the carrier while I'm trying to, you know, do things like this or work on social content stuff that I have to do, or my own podcast, mum era, um, hosting events tomorrow, I'm hosting a big event for David Jones. So I'm still trying to maintain all these work things, but I am, you know, it's so hard because I really am just so deep in the postpartum mother haze. My brain is not working. I'm exhausted. I forgot what it's like to be up four to six times in the night.
Renee:
[5:27] But I absolutely love it. It's what I always wanted. I always wanted to be a mom more than anything in the world. But that doesn't take away from how challenging it is. I think, you know, I realized when I went back to work after a year with my son, I went back to the Today Show. And that's my other life. My other part of me is that I am a television host. And for 10 years, I hosted a show called Extra in Hollywood alongside Mario Lopez. So I used to cover all the red carpets, like the Oscars and the Grammys and Emmys and all of that for 10 years. And then I moved back to host The Voice and that was during COVID so that kept me here and then I met my partner and you know the rest is kind of history and I've been working on the Today Show and doing things for Stan and other entertainment news outlets and everything but yeah most importantly my life and my role as a mum is kind of what's taken over. Yeah it's very I laugh all the time especially when I'm on you know all fours on the floor scrubbing food off the ground and I'm thinking like, I used to be on a carpet interviewing Brad Pitt and, now I'm just thinking, I'm literally getting food thrown at me from a crazy toddler. It's just, my life is just so different, but it is truly what I always hoped and dreamed of, but a hundred times harder and messier and more raw and more vulnerable and all of the things.
Mel:
[6:45] Well, and you've had a big life and career before having kids. Do you think it's been harder to be a parent or keep up with that life that you had before?
Renee:
[6:56] I think it's the separation of the two because I really truly feel like there's these two parts of myself. There's a part of myself that just loves being barefoot on the beach with my kids and just, you know, immersed in their world for a day. But then there is that part of me that loves, you know being on camera and and interviewing people and being in the industry but I find it really hard and I'm still working that out and maybe it's just because it's so new to me to merge those two worlds and and to be the best and show up the best that I can in both those worlds because I constantly feel guilty and I know this is what every mother feels but I constantly feel guilty when I'm with my kids that I'm you know on my phone too much I'm trying I'm still in work mode at times and I can't be 100% present all of the time and then when I'm at work I'm missing them like crazy and I want to be with them so yeah I'm still figuring all of that out but I will say when I went back to work on the today show even though I had to be at work at four o'clock in the morning and you know it's live on television and everything that was so much easier than being at home with my toddler yeah so much easier.
Renee:
[8:00] And I just instantly just turned to my partner and I was like, I am so jealous that you get to do this every day. Not that his work is easy at all, but I just thought, wow, like, you know, paid work is so much easier than the unpaid work of being a mom, a stay at home mom, especially when you have toddlers and you think it's hard when you've got a baby, but then you have a toddler and a baby and you're like, whoa, the baby is a piece of work. It's like a piece of cake. The toddler is chaos and it never stops.
Mel:
[8:28] I have to agree with you. I had a whole new respect for mothers after becoming a mother myself. I thought I'd already done the hardest thing. You know, I had just nearly finished a PhD before my first baby. I thought, right, I've peaked. I've done the hardest thing anyone can ever do. And then I had a baby and I thought, cancel that. This is definitely the hardest thing.
Renee:
[8:49] Yeah. It's all the thankless work. Like it's everything that goes on, all the little things you do throughout your day that nobody sees and nobody knows about. And even your partner who's not there all day with you could ever really understand it because they never usually have to do it you know and they can't be feeding at the same time you know if you are breastfeeding it's just a whole other layer it's yeah it's amazing and I don't I don't like complaining about it because I genuinely love it and live for it but it is freaking hard and.
Mel:
[9:18] I just think it shows how incredible women are as well being able to juggle
Mel:
[9:24] so many things So fast forward. So you've had your first baby. I'm really keen. I'd love to hear the story of your first baby if you could briefly run through it. But I'm super keen to talk to you about your second birth. Let's start there. Let's go into birth stories.
Renee:
[9:41] So my first birth and second were polar opposites. And the first more so I think now in hindsight being that you don't know what you don't know. And I think I went into it being as prepared as I possibly thought I could be and I'm one of those people that when I'm doing something I do all the research so I listened to your podcast I read Ina May I did hypnobirthing I really felt like I had done all the work and so I deserved to have the birth that I wanted to have which was a water birth is what I wanted to have but I wanted to have that in the hospital we live quite a far ways from the hospital my partner's a doctor, all the risk everything that you know you hear about and think about we we had a lot of fear and there was no way home birth was ever on the table for the first birth so we you know I was on the midwife group midwife practice so I felt really comfortable with that I felt really safe and I felt like I was going to get the birth that I wanted.
Mel:
[10:36] What Renee's talking about here with the midwifery group practice programs, if you're new to understanding what kind of services there are available to you when you're pregnant, at your local hospital, they might have set up a midwifery group practice, which means that you will be allocated a midwife that looks after you through your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. And this is one of the most evidence-based ways, or I guess models of care that women can access. They've shown excellent outcomes for women women are very satisfied with the service when you compare it to a more fragmented model so what Renee is talking about here is for her first pregnancy she had chosen to go on the midwifery group practice program at her local hospital and that's certainly something that I would recommend if you're planning your first birth and you're not considering a home birth the next best thing is having continuity of midwifery care through one of the public programs. These are some of the best models of care that you can access if you haven't got access to a private midwife.
Renee:
[11:43] My waters broke first in the evening, like just as we were getting into bed and we were all excited and we're like, okay, it's happening. It's on. My contractions were, I think they were between, it's hard to remember now, but I feel like they were maybe five to six minutes apart when they started. And they started ramping up after a few hours. We called the hospital and they were like, oh, we think you should come in. Again hindsight definitely shouldn't have gone in had I had a doula and that was my other thing that I feel like I did wrong the first not that I did wrong but I wish that I'd had a doula the first time we probably would have stayed home a little longer but we went straight in and the other thing I did pretty much as soon as I got in and I was able to I was allowed to I got into the bath and everything well didn't slow down for me my contraction still ramped up and I was I was in quite a lot of pain. And again, I didn't realize that the baby had gone posterior and nobody else in the room seemed to have really realized that. We tried doing the sterile water injections. We got me in and out of the pool, everything we could. And anyway.
Mel:
[12:46] Renee described a few strategies to help your posterior baby turn. So if your baby's in a posterior position, that means the baby's head down in your pelvis and the baby's back is leaning on your back. And so if you were to look straight on at a woman whose baby is posterior, you'll see her belly. And if you imagine the baby inside her belly, the baby's looking outwards towards her pubes. That's a less ideal position for your baby to be in when you're in labor ideally the baby would be what we call anterior so the baby's back would be along where your belly button is and the baby is facing to your bottom we do have some episodes on managing posterior labor that might you might find helpful I'll list them in the show notes episode 115 118 and 120 and Renee also referred to sterile water injections, which are a pain management strategy for the back pain that sometimes comes with posterior labor. And you can hear all about that in episode 20. Again, I'll put these in the show notes for you to refer back to.
Renee:
[13:54] The long story short of that labor is that it was almost 18 hours of active labor.
Renee:
[14:02] And I got to the point where I hadn't slept or eaten for 24 hours. I was so exhausted, you know, beyond. And the doctors, because my waters had been broken for over 24 hours at that point, they wanted to do a C-SER. And in my head, the one thing I just really didn't want for myself was a C-section. I really wanted to push my baby out vaginally. and so my midwife knowing that was like look we're going to have to give you some Sinto and I think at this point the level of pain you're in you're going to need an epidural and to be honest I had screamed asking for an epidural for like the last six hours but everybody in my team knew not to give it to me even if I asked for it but by that point they were all like she's got to have it it's been 23 hours or something it's it's too much so I had an epidural rested for a little while and then.
Renee:
[14:47] A couple hours later I spent about an hour and a half pushing to get my son out and one of the things that I was most proud of was that I was able to get up on all fours that was the hardest part I think of my labor because I had such a heavy block in my legs to get on all fours felt like I was pulling 200 kilos weights on each leg into that position and then I pushed him out and I had very minimal tearing but there was something that happened after where they basically took my catheter out straight away. And then I was in agony, like absolute agony. And my partner realized quickly that it was because, and he asked, you know, where's the catheter? And they said, oh, we took it out. It's like, she still has a block. She can't get up. So then they put it back in and drained two liters of, yeah, of urine from my bladder. So hence the extreme pain. And what that meant was that I had to have the catheter in for 72 hours.
Renee:
[15:38] And that combined with all of the drugs and everything, I just felt horrible. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. I couldn't get up and move for a while. It felt like days, maybe the next day I got up and had a shower, but for weeks I just felt just disgusting. And I think the hardest part for me after that birth was I definitely had a lot of birth trauma. I felt really disappointed in myself, which I, it makes me really sad now because I just think we should never feel that way after doing something so incredibly powerful. But I think it was just because I was, as much as I thought I knew I was naive about a lot of things and things could have definitely gone very differently.
Renee:
[16:18] I'm really glad my baby was safe and I was safe, but it wasn't the outcome that I hoped for. And it was more the feeling afterwards because I remember seeing him in the little bed next to me and just having no energy to pick him up and just looking at him and being like, oh my gosh, he's so gorgeous, but I just can't touch him right now. I'm so exhausted and I feel so sick. And that was just such a vast contrast contrast to my second. So I found out I was pregnant the second time. And I said, essentially, I found a doula that I really loved because I was like, you know what, that's what I did wrong the first time. I'm going to have a doula this time. And when I spoke to her, she said, you know, what kind of birth do you want? I told her and she said, you know, it's not impossible for that to happen in the hospital, but it's more possible that you'll get that outcome and you'll have that experience at home. And I just was like, look, there's no way my partner's going to say yes to this home birth is just off the table and she said look there's a great private midwife in your area janine o'brien who you know and everybody knows in this area and loves um just meet with her and see and so i took my partner along he asked her all the hardest hitting questions my goodness she said that she has never had questions like that from a husband or a partner ever before every possible risk everything that could happen and i mean she nailed it because we left the meeting with her and he was like she knows her shit she's really good I feel really safe I feel really comfortable with her and look he still took a while to get him entirely across the line.
Renee:
[17:44] But essentially I didn't get on the group midwife practice again in the same hospital, because they deemed me high risk because of the mistake that was made with the catheter I could not believe that that blew my mind and the fact that that made me not be low risk anymore and maybe not be able to get on the group midwife practice I just I just felt like all signs were pointing to doing it at home and I'd had a couple of girlfriends very recently had their first birth so you know which is not always the easiest at home with Janine and had beautiful experiences and so yeah all of that just made me go let's do it and it did take a while like it was step by step and even as we got closer I was still not a hundred percent sure but we felt confident that if we changed our mind last minute, last day, whatever, we would get in the car and we'd go to the hospital and it would be fine. But thankfully that never happened.
Mel:
[18:39] I'm curious to know what it was that
Mel:
[18:42] you wanted to do differently this time. So when you were talking to the doula and to your midwife, what was it that you said you wanted to do instead of what you did last time?
Renee:
[18:54] Well, I said I definitely wanted a water birth. I was like, I want to have my baby in the water. That was the main thing I'd said to the doula. I want to labor at home as long as possible. And I want to have a peaceful, hands-off labor. And that's when my doula said, you can have that labor in hospital there are many women who do but it's more likely that you will get that outcome at home and she was like you know and the outcomes are really good like the evidence is there it's all there and and I didn't believe her at first I didn't know that and then I listened to quite a few of your episodes on home birth and actually the one that I listened to that really got me across the line was the um I can't remember the title of it but it was about all the things that can go wrong all the emergencies and how you deal with them as midwives.
Mel:
[19:39] Yes, we did an episode on, yeah, how midwives managed emergencies at home. That's right. Yeah.
Renee:
[19:45] Yes. And that one was one of the episodes that got both my partner and I across the line. I sent it to him and I just said, like, here's all of the things and this is how they will deal with it. And it made us both feel really comfortable because, I mean, it seemed like it was all the same things that they would do in the hospital. And it just, as a multi, it just didn't feel like those risks that a lot of the risks would apply to me anyway and I felt yeah really reassured by that episode and there was another episode too that got me across the line which was, about bigger babies and the size of babies and because I again I did have a quite a big baby but all I got told both pregnancies was how big my babies were and how how I should be induced early and all of these things so and.
Mel:
[20:29] So how did how did your pregnancy go this time I assume the first was quite low risk considering you were still on the MGP program because those MGP programs are quite ruthless with their inclusion criteria. And as you said, just because you had urinary retention after the last birth because the catheter was removed, not by any fault of your own, that was enough to get you disqualified from the MGP program.
Renee:
[20:56] Yes. Yeah. So all low risk. I have horrific pregnancies in the sense that I have HG. Both, yeah, hell. So both pregnancies, I was throwing up. First one, I was throwing up to about 16 weeks every day, a hundred times a day. The second one was until about 20 weeks. So it was way worse. And then I don't, I am a little bit older. So I feel like my body just physically cannot take pregnancy very well. And I used to be quite a small framed person. And I say really big baby like not really big but bigger than you would probably expect so it put a lot of strain on me I had pelvic girdle pain and pubic symphysis and all the things that could happen so physically I had pretty horrid pregnancies but yes medically low risk and and all good in that sense the only things that came up was uh towards the end of the second pregnancy Janine my midwife when she was doing the the measuring um yeah yeah the what's it called the fun the simpsis.
Mel:
[21:58] Fundal height yes
Renee:
[21:59] Yeah that went up by four centimeters in one week and so she was like huh and i hadn't done the the gestational diabetes test and everything so and i was like 37 or 36 or 7 weeks at that point and we were like oh and i was always measuring a couple of weeks ahead in every scan but this was a lot and she was like look we just have to test just to make sure the fluid wasn't out of range because if it is they don't want to risk a home birth a lot of the time I did go. And the funniest thing was, is she called ahead and spoke to them and said, now, don't you mention the size of this baby to her? She doesn't need to hear it. She doesn't want to hear it. Cause every scan I went to, they'd be like, Oh wow, you're going to have to be induced. This baby's huge, blah, blah, blah. Like measuring in this centile and that centile. And, you know, so anyway, that last one, I was like, I just don't want to hear it. And she was so great. She was such a boss. Um, and I could just see the lady's face. She was just, it was killing her not to tell me how ginormous my baby was. But that was the only kind of little thing that was in the back of my mind and that worried me a little bit was just the size and the fact that maybe I had more fluid than I should. But yeah, aside from that, I was really lucky from a medical perspective that it was all very low risk and all went smoothly.
Mel:
[23:11] I mean, it's a point as well when you have a private midwife, when you're planning a home birth, The midwives are very thorough because we don't want you to have any complications either. We're all invested in you having a really uneventful birth at home without any drama. And so, yeah, I think that really makes a point about how thorough and invested private midwives are as well in making sure nothing is missed.
Renee:
[23:37] Yes. And that was something I didn't realize either. I think maybe in my naivety, I thought private midwives were pretty rogue and against the system and would kind of, you know, like take these big risks and swings, but it's quite the opposite. And that's what I had to tell family and friends who were concerned and everything. I was like, you know, this is this person's livelihood and their career and they can lose it really easily and quickly by taking huge risks. So I felt like she was very cautious and careful and at no point did I feel like she wouldn't make the call for me to go to hospital or anything if we needed to. So yeah, I definitely felt safer in so many ways, actually.
Mel:
[24:19] Well, private midwives can give a lot of attention to our one single client when they're right in front of us. We have all this time. We're just fully invested in every single woman's experience. And not to say that other midwives aren't, but in a really different way because it's our business as well and we develop these relationships and we know if something if we miss something or something doesn't go well we've got a lot to answer for so we're just as invested in a great outcome for the parents but also for us yeah
Renee:
[24:54] Definitely and that's the thing you do it's amazing to me because as you would and a lot of private midwives you have so many people you're taking care of, but you feel like the only one. You genuinely do. And you do develop this relationship and this bond and this love for your midwife. And then you kind of forget like this is their job. And they're doing this for a whole bunch, you know, a whole community really.
Mel:
[25:14] Yeah, that's right. Okay, so talk us through the birth now because this is, you know, there's this beautiful image of you that you posted on Instagram to announce your birth and you just look like a woman who has achieved every goal she ever set out to achieve.
Renee:
[25:33] And that's really what it feels like, I think, and that's exactly what that moment felt like for me. Yeah, I feel so incredibly proud and this birth is so different. I'll show anyone the video that will even ask me a question about the birth because I'm just like, oh my gosh, look what I did.
Renee:
[25:50] Because it still blows me away that it was even possible after the experience I had the first time.
Renee:
[25:54] So this time my waters broke a little earlier, but same thing, my waters broke first. And that scared me because I was like, this is what happened last time. And then the contraction started straight away, which is what happened last
Renee:
[26:06] time and very close together. And I just felt like it was all the same. And so that part of me started kind of feeling scared. But the other part of me was like excited for the contractions because I didn't have fear around it in the way I did the first time the first time contractions feel like they might break you and you also feel like you might die because you don't know you've never experienced it before right whereas the second time you're like oh I can do this it won't kill me and it's one minute maybe more but then it goes and it's just like that wave and it's like this weird sick challenge that you kind of get way I don't know I see why people get addicted and obsessed with birth because I was just like oh bring on the next one rather than last time where I was like oh no not again here it comes again you know like I was resisting it so much the first time whereas the second I felt really like empowered by by it and um yeah it was amazing my son was at home it was wild the timing of everything because my son was still at home but my in-laws were coming to pick him up to so he could sleep over there because I just felt like he was a little bit too young to be home for the birth and I didn't want to be taken out of the experience and worrying about him so the timing worked out that they could come and get him after he had dinner he left contraction started ramping up a little bit.
Renee:
[27:21] You know, we'd called Janine, we'd called my doula, photographer friend who was coming. So everyone knew what was happening. Janine had said, you know, I want you to let me know when they're, what was it, two every five minutes? Is that right? Or two every 10? I don't know.
Mel:
[27:39] Well, I guess everybody's different. But sometimes we suggest, you know, if they're regularly every five minutes, lasting longer than a minute each for more than an hour, then probably you are in labour that's not going to stop or slow down.
Renee:
[27:54] Yes, yes. And I think she said for mole tips, she's even more conservative, but she lives really close. She lives five minutes away, so we weren't too stressed about that. So water's broke at 6.30, by around eight o'clock, the contractions were really starting to ramp up and get closer and closer together. I had, uh, the birth sling, which I absolutely love as a tool. Oh my goodness. And I'm so glad that Jess, um, who owns the birth sling had sent me a lot of information on how to use it. And I'd been doing all these, um, the daily moves classes with it for months beforehand. So I got straight into moving with that tens machine straight on and did not jump into the shower or the pool. We started filling it up, but my instructions from Janine were like, don't jump into the pool until I tell you. So that was hard for me because I love being in the water and I really thought I would want to get into the pool but I was quite scarred from my first experience so that wasn't what I wanted to do and I was kind of just going between sitting on the toilet and on all fours and in the birth sling and then I got to a point where I was on all fours and I could not get out of on all fours I just any when anyone tried to move me or anything I was like this is it and this is where I have to be and I remember I needed to have Andrew with me at all times too if he walked down the hall I was like, where is he? I need, I need him touching me. I need his pressure. He's the most incredible birth partner. And it's really, it's pretty amazing. I want to give a shout out to him because.
Renee:
[29:21] For him doing what he does, the training, the study and everything that he's done. And at the time he was working at the Royal Women's. So he was really immersed in seizures, epidurals, all of that, and seeing all the high risk things that were happening. And he had a lot of fear and it was really hard for him to separate his medical brain and being like my partner and what I needed. And he just did the most amazing job at just being my anchor and being so calm and just handling it all with such ease and making me feel so, so confident.
Renee:
[29:54] And he would just say these things in my ear about like, you know, things like, you're so amazing. You're so strong. You can do this. And you've, you've only, and he'd count me down and you've only got 30 seconds left. You've only got 10 seconds left. And then he was wrong a couple of the times. Cause I had some contractions that went on for like seven minutes and he'd be like, you've got five more seconds. I'm like, no. And he's like, wait, is it still going? And I'm like, if I'm making this sound it's still going but but he was just the most amazing birth partner and it was all stuff that we'd learned the first time and he knew would work but this time was different I at the first time I liked a lot of head massage and a lot of massage in general this time I just wanted that that um counter pressure on my hips was kind of the only thing that really helped and he was doing a lot of that and I think it was around Janine says I think it was around 10 o'clock that she came in and I remember her walking in, I was on all fours and she just sat in front of me with this big smile on her face. And she was like, this is so exciting. And I was like, is it really? And I just remember her being like, this is so great. Oh my goodness. And then she just sat there and the room was lit with candles and we'd blown up the bath and it just felt so Zen. It was so quiet. We had some beautiful, calm music playing. It was raining outside.
Renee:
[31:07] And, you know, I just remember her sitting kind of a couple of meters away from me, just, you know, scribbling notes down and looking at me every once in a while. The Doppler went on maybe once or twice, but I don't remember really being touched or even anyone really being in my space other than Andrew. And then shortly after that, I think she'd only been there for about 45 minutes to an hour. And she said when she came, she knew I was in established labor. Like it was, it was on, I was on all fours. She said, I was doing all the things, making all the sounds. Um, and she knew, And then she turned to me and she said, I think it's time to get in the bath. And I just...
Renee:
[31:40] That's when the only moment I had a bit of panic and fear. And I just said, are you sure it's not too early? Because this kind of feels too easy. Like not that it felt easy, but compared to my first, it did. And I was like, are you sure? Because last time I got in the bath at Stord, she just said it so simply. She was like, you know what? You could get in and it may ease off and things might slow down a little bit, but I think you're just going to get in the bath and have a baby, love. And the way she said that so simply, like you're just going to get in the bath and have a baby. I was like, let's do this. And I got in and I remember being like, oh, oh my gosh, the release and the relief and just the feeling of the warm water. And I thought in my head that I had about five minutes of bliss of just going, wow, this is amazing. She said it was about 30 seconds. And then I was, it was on, like, it was like contractions every minute and, and really intense. But in my head, I remember just being like, oh, this is heaven. I'm in my bath. I'm going to enjoy myself.
Renee:
[32:35] And then, yeah, then it was, I think from the time I got in the bath. It was around 40, 45 minutes until she was born. And I had no instructions. I had no one touching me other than the counter pressure and Janine putting like a cold clot compress on my head, which also felt amazing by the way. And some, you know, my, my doula squeezing my hand during contractions. But I remember, uh, basically Janine got the mirror underneath and was like, okay um I think she said like you can see the head or I can you know you can touch the head but there was no instruction to push and the first time I had such heavy intense instruction to push and I couldn't feel any of it because of the epidural whereas this I just remember feeling like my whole pelvis opened up and I felt the baby drop down and I was like whoa this is insane like this is it did feel like my body was going to break open like my whole body was shaking and I was shuddering and I was just like.
Renee:
[33:34] But weirdly, I'd seen all these videos on home birth and most women, I had seen them say like, I can't do this. I can't do it anymore. And I went through that a million times in my first labor.
Renee:
[33:46] But not once did I say a lot of the things I was thinking because I didn't want them to be true.
Renee:
[33:51] I remember thinking maybe I'd pooed in the pool because I had that really intense feeling in my bum. And I thought, oh my gosh, I pooed everyone in the pool. But then I thought, who cares if I did like who cares I don't that's not important let it go it was like my meditation practice came into play because I just felt like these thoughts would come in and I'd let them go but there was a moment where it felt like my pelvis was going to break open and Janine was like the head's right there do you want to touch and I remember touching and going oh my goodness it is like this is wild and nobody has told me to push and I just all I remember thinking was just focusing on my breath and just keep focusing on baby moving down my body's opening up and the only thing that kind of felt a little bit difficult was Janine said that um she came out with one hand up by her hand um her head so Janine had to pull really quickly do a couple of maneuvers where she kind of pulled the arm out and then twisted her to to pull her shoulder out it wasn't a shoulder dystocia but just had to like wriggle her out and that was like a little bit like a bit hard and I remember saying to Janine is she out and she's like oh not quite and then it was just like and she just pulled her out really quickly and and then I was able to put her on my chest and I just honestly the first thing I thought was that can't be it like that that it can't have been that easy and again not easy but in the grand scheme of things in the comparison to my first experience I just it was so fast from start to finish from her being you know my labor beginning to her being out was five hours the first experience was over 24 hours yes.
Mel:
[35:21] And part of that is owing that it's your second baby but to comment on the you know the ease element that you spoke about it actually does feel a lot less complicated and more easy at home not that it's easier in a sense of less pain
Renee:
[35:38] But easier.
Mel:
[35:41] In a sense of less chaos less chatter less it's just not as busy it's a little bit of a non-event you kind of go yep your baby's coming and then the baby comes out and then there's no drama and chaos and it's just you had your baby Even in an emergency, actually, it feels that way at home. As a private midwife, I've had clients who didn't even realize there was an emergency happening because of how calm the room was kept. So I feel like that's what people mean when they say it was fairly easy and straightforward. It just was the baby came and yeah, I still gave birth. And I've heard husbands talk about it as being, oh, that was easy. And they feel bad for saying that.
Renee:
[36:29] The husband yeah.
Mel:
[36:31] But they feel bad for saying it because like that was easy I'm like what you're saying I get what you're saying it doesn't feels chaotic and out of control as at a hospital um so baby comes out you're in the pool straight on your test which is usually what we do and then what happens then
Renee:
[36:50] Oh it was so beautiful Soleil like pushed up against me and she just looked with these she's got these huge white eyes and she just looked between Andrew and I and Andrew and I, and she just went back and forth and she didn't make a sound, which both of us initially were a little bit scared. We were like, oh gosh, she's not saying anything, but she's looking at us both. And Janine was like, just keep kissing her and touching her and everything. And sure enough, it was a couple of minutes, I think. And then she screamed and she's not stopped screaming since, but she was just so alert and so calm. And it was just, it was wild. And I guess that was that experience for her of coming out into the water and in this beautiful environment.
Renee:
[37:29] And then, you know, the other crazy thing to me was that, you know, after a few minutes of that and everything, which I might have gone for longer than that, Janine was like, okay, we're going to walk over to the couch because I wasn't going to birth the placenta in the pool because on all my scans, it had shown that I had a bilobal placenta and Janine just wanted to make sure that we were going to get it all out. And I was fine with that.
Mel:
[37:51] A bilobed placenta is where instead of being in one single piece, the placenta being in one single piece, the placenta forms in two pieces, almost like two small half-sized placentas alongside each other. But they're usually separated by some membranes. And one of the concerns is potentially there's blood vessels that are crossing in between those two placentas or that one lobe of the placenta comes off and the other one has trouble detaching. And that's why they were keen to manage their placental birth efficiently.
Renee:
[38:24] That was crazy, the fact that she was just like, oh, and just step out of the pool and onto the couch. And I did. And I got up holding my baby. I mean, and I just walked. Like it wasn't a big deal to walk a few metres to my couch, whereas, you know, even days after my first labour, I could barely move. And I just felt fine. I felt completely fine. And so we walked over to the couch. The thing I will say is a cruel joke, and you might disagree with me here, but having to birth the placenta after you have just done a marathon labor is just like that's just God's cruel way.
Mel:
[38:59] Honestly, I tell clients, I think it's rude that we have to birth the placenta. It's because you're not finished yet. You've had the baby and what will happen to most women is they'll be given an injection and the placenta will be pulled out after they had their baby so they don't have to do any extra work. But if you're not going to go down that direction that's what we and at home we women birth their own placentas just like they birth their own babies most of the time but I do think it's very rude that we have to almost interrupt that that moment by having to concentrate on a placenta I'm I'm absolutely with you on that
Renee:
[39:36] So rude and it's also not as easy as birthing the baby in my experience because the placenta is just a passenger like it's not helping you I had a really hard time and I also just wanted to sit there with my baby on my tummy and we tried we tried for so long and then I got onto all fours and I had her laying underneath me and I tried and tried and I felt like I was pushing I was breathing I was doing all the things and it was my placenta had dropped right down it was sitting right at my cervix but it just wouldn't come out and it had been a really long time and because of the concern around the bilobe and all of that stuff Janine ended up just giving me a quick shot after I tried for ages it wasn't like that we hadn't tried and then it literally just came out so easily turned out it wasn't bi-lobal at all it was just like heart shaped I know I saw all this stress that was another stress through my entire pregnancy which again sometimes too much information is just not helpful I kept thinking that was going to I was going to have a retained placenta and that was another cause for concern with a home birth completely fine um and then yeah so that that came out and then we oh it's so amazing to think about this moment we.
Renee:
[40:42] Both midwives, my doula photographer, Andrew and I all sat around on our couches eating zucchini slice that my mother-in-law had made that my doula had put in the oven and drinking tea and cheersing tea. And this is at like one o'clock in the morning or something. And I've just never felt more energy in my life, like just buzzing and having this beautiful group of women around that were just, oh, so delicious. And Bree, who is a photographer who we absolutely adore, who was there for it she turned to me and she was like you know what you've just done for your daughter you've you've changed her narrative around birth because mine was always fear because I my mother had an emergency caesar with me and that was the story I heard my whole life was that my mom and myself almost died in in labor and I think that plays into your own story a lot and that played into my first birth I was terrified of that happening of the emergency caesar happening.
Renee:
[41:36] And so just you know to be able to when she said that you'll show her this video of her coming into the world in your home in this beautiful calm way and you've just changed the story for her and made her feel like so differently about birth and that just really hit hard for me and then yeah then we janine said i'm going to tuck you up into bed and they'd they'd cleaned everything that was the other thing you think about a lot too is the the mess of like what's your living room going to look like is it going to look like a scene from dexter you know like there's plastic everywhere there's blood there's placenta there's feces you know and you just think oh my gosh is your house going to be trash no my house has never been cleaner because you've got this incredible group of women who are fairies and they just magically get rid of everything while you're in your bliss zone and tuck you up into bed and you're not in a hospital and here's the other thing I just I just hate hospitals I don't like how they make me feel and we had to stay in the hospital for a couple of nights my first experience so this time being able to oh walk to my shower and have a shower Janine sat there and watched me just to make sure I was okay but I didn't need any assistance.
Renee:
[42:37] And Andrew got to have some beautiful skin to skin with Soleil while I was having a shower and then yeah we both got into bed we brought more tea Janine came in and we I still had the placenta attached to baby so then I think it had been over in almost two hours at that point so then Andrew cut the cord and they weighed her that was also a pretty wild experience because Janine had been like, everyone take a guess. And I was like, oh, I reckon 3.8 kilos or something. Janine was like 4.2. And I was like, absolutely not. There's no way. Anyway, she was 4.25, almost 4.3 kilos. And that was like, whoa. Cause she said, you just breathed out a 4.25 kilo baby. Like all that stress, everything that you'd heard.
Renee:
[43:23] And, you know, you didn't, and I didn't, and she checked me over. I didn't even have a graze, like not even, no tearing, nothing. And that was different. My first experience, I had quite a lot of grazing and a tiny, small tear, but even that tiny, small tear made going to the bathroom feel excruciating. Whereas this time I went and peed, no pain, no discomfort. It was absolutely fine. So like just wild, that just goes to show that the size of the baby doesn't matter all the time. And then, yeah, we just, they all left us. they you know she did all her checks on baby and then it was like 2 or 3 a.m and they were all like good night have a great night we'll see you in the morning and everyone left and Andrew and I were like we could go to sleep right now we should be sleeping but we just sat up just like buzzing and just reliving the whole experience and we both felt like we were on the biggest high of our lives and it took weeks to come down from that by the way we just couldn't believe it and the coolest thing I think for me too was just the way Andrew looked at me and was like you are a superhero it It was literally like that was unbelievable. It blew his mind and I think for him experiencing what he's experienced in the hospital to then experience that and be able to take that as his new thought process around or his new experience around birth and how he could see birth I think was really special for him as well.
Mel:
[44:37] And that dramatic difference between your immediate postnatal experience after your first baby is so, it's owing, I just feel like it's a testament to the power of birth that you can't quite explain to somebody until they do it. And oxytocin, which is what governs this whole labor process, but then also at the end where you get this adrenaline that enables you to push your baby out and then parent your baby afterwards. And then afterwards, you've got all this energy and bliss because you're flooded with adrenaline and oxytocin. And everyone in the room is feeling it because it's transmitted. They now know that oxytocin is transmitted a little bit like a pheromone. So it's quite catching.
Mel:
[45:22] And the joy afterwards is part of the addiction where you think, oh my gosh, when do we get to do this again? Because you're all completely just living in this drugged up bliss bubble, a natural high that adds so much to the birth process. And then afterwards, how blissful it feels and how amazing it feels that you miss out when you don't fully feel labour and when it's a frightening experience or if your partner has to go home afterwards and maybe you're doing all that on your own. It's just a stark dramatic difference. And in both scenarios, you would be described as a low-risk, uncomplicated woman having a pregnancy and having a baby but two very dramatic different births.
Renee:
[46:17] Definitely. And that's what I said when, when this was all said and done after, after the birth, I said, I wish everyone could experience birth this way. I would give anything for everyone to just know what that feels like. And it's not unfortunately, you know, the case for everybody. And, and I, and I understand why some people can't have that experience or wouldn't want to. And I get that it's not for everyone. I do but it definitely wasn't for me before and having this experience completely changed my mind and I hate being pregnant but my goodness if I could have birth like that I would give birth, every day of the week I would do it again and again and again because of what you said the oxytocin and the high and everybody's high and I can see now why you guys do what you do because I see why Janine's so bloody busy because she gets that every single time yes crazy, I was like, sign me up except for all the no sleep that you guys get and, like, you know, being on the wall all the time.
Mel:
[47:18] There was a time when my husband was like, how long are you going to keep doing this private midwife thing? Like, he's always been supportive, but he's like, and I said, you know, it's been 16 years, nearly 17 years, and I still cry at every single birth. And he goes, oh, well, you can't stop then. If you feel that way about your job, I was like, there's no way. I mean, there's just no way you could stop after witnessing that incredible power. It's not always as beautiful as, you know, it doesn't always go to plan, but it's always meaningful. It's always powerful. And just so important for women to have that full birth experience.
Mel:
[48:03] I'm curious to know, and I don't know if you're having another baby, but if you were, would you do anything differently? Okay.
Renee:
[48:10] No, I would want it to be exactly the same. I feel so fulfilled from that experience. I feel like healed completely from my first experience. I feel so empowered. There is not one thing that I would change. Not one thing. I mean, I think if, to be honest, I really don't want to have any more babies. I mean, I do, I do want to have more babies, but I feel very complete and happy with two healthy babies and, you know, I'm not getting any younger. And it's just honestly, the real reason is that pregnancy is just not my friend and it's so hard for me. So that's my main reason. But if I was to, I guess the only difference would be that my son would maybe be a bit older and he could be home to experience it because I do think that it would be really beautiful also for, you know, young boys and men to grow up with that, you know, that impression of birth and to see a woman in all her power in that way as well because I think that's what was so cool for my partner to experience. But I think, you know, how incredible for these young boys. I have a woman in my mother's group who's got four sons and at her last birth she had three of her sons all at the birth and I just thought like, wow, what you're doing for them is, and, you know, for society moving forward is incredible. But, yeah, no, I wouldn't do anything differently. And I would hope to have the same experience but that's the thing, you just, I don't know if you can really, right? I don't know.
Mel:
[49:36] Well, you can do everything to prepare for that. So you could do similar things that are within your control planning the home birth, choosing your midwife, having a doula, you know, a supportive team and Andrew being there and as supportive as he was and, you know, setting up the pool and doing all those things. But you can't always control, okay, what position the baby's going to come down in or, you know, there's things that are out of our control. But there are so many things that are within women's control to impact how their birth will go. If you were talking directly to a woman who's saying to you, oh my gosh, I want to have what you had, what suggestions would you make for strategies that they could do or choices they could make that would help make their next birth better?
Renee:
[50:25] I would say, I mean, I think it would depend on if it was their first or second in a lot of ways. If it was their first, I would 100% be like have a doula. I wish that I had a doula the first time. I think that's the biggest mistake I made was thinking because I had Andrew who was so prepared and so involved in everything that I wouldn't need one but what I realized is that I would have really needed one to help him as well as me and to give him a little bit of a break and also it's so hard to advocate for yourself the first time around I think and for your partner to advocate when you really don't know what to expect and you don't know how far your body can go and your own limits and everything whereas someone who's been in that space a million times they have a better understanding and I think they can help. So I would say a really good doula. And I interviewed about four doulas, by the way. I was like ruthless in the sense that I just knew I wanted to feel so comfortable. It's like, I don't want to be worrying about anybody else in this space. I don't even want to be conscious of anyone in my space.
Renee:
[51:25] So I went through that. And when I found my doula, I just was like, oh, I want to be best friends with her. She's divine. So I would say that a good course. I think we did a hypnobirthing course the first time around. And again, more so for the partner, than for you, because I think giving them tools and an understanding of the right verbiage and how to touch you and all of those things and giving them a role, because I think a lot of the time they can feel quite helpless and they don't know what to do. So that I would say is really important. Obviously the private midwife. And again, you can interview as many as you want. You can meet as many as you want. I was lucky that the first person I met had come so highly recommended and she's just a legend and she was amazing. But I think it's just so about that gut feeling as women that we ignore so much and.
Renee:
[52:10] I felt it when I went to the hospital for the second time around and I found out I wasn't on the MGP program and that I wasn't going to have that continuity of care. And I felt it when I stepped into the hospital that I was just like, I don't want to birth here. And I'm not saying that everybody feels that way because I have a lot of friends who feel a lot more safe and comfortable in a hospital. It's just my experience and how I feel.
Renee:
[52:32] And so I think it's just listening to your gut of what feels good and where you feel, wherever you feel safest is where you should birth. And if you want that experience of a home birth, knowing that there is so much research and there's podcasts like your podcast that you can listen to and understand what the risks are, understand what the strategies are for those risks and just weighing up what feels right for you, I think is the most important thing. But the other thing I will say, and it's something that I had to be really, really conscious of is blocking out the noise. And the best advice I got was stop telling people that you're having a home birth because every time I did, and I mean, And every time I did, I would be hit with a barrage of, you're an idiot, you're so crazy, you're putting your baby at risk and all the things that could have gone wrong. And this happened to my friend and Joe Blow this and all these comments. And they came at me left, right and center. And I just, because I have a real problem with not being able to, I'm very open. If anyone asks me a question, I tell them everything. And it was something that I had to kind of close off and just be like, oh, you know, and it's funny because people ask, oh, what hospital are you going to? Such a weird question to ask people, but they do. and like I don't know anyway I just felt like I had to stop it oh I might be going to this hospital but we might I don't know I'm just going to see how I feel and then people would feel like that was a really weird vague answer and they don't want to ask anymore so it's just kind of stopped.
Renee:
[53:50] But yeah I think I think just like kind of I think Janine might have said it just protect your little bubble and just keep yourself in your your little bubble and and if you have any questions come to me and go to Andrew and stuff but just you know don't talk to people about it that are going to give you that energy and just, you know, protect your space.
Mel:
[54:08] Well, it's kind of like how you had to take Andrew on the journey of acceptance to kind of convince him that home birth was a good idea. It's hard to drop that on someone who's not on the journey at all and has just the usual social expectation that everyone's going to go to hospital. So then, yeah, you get all of their baggage dumped on you in that moment without a thought. People don't really think I wonder how this is going to be received they just want to tell you what they think it's it's unfortunate so I think you're on the money you've got to be careful with who you tell because not everybody has been on that discovery journey and been able to convince themselves that this is okay and an okay thing to do you have to you have to work through
Renee:
[54:56] That yeah and just do your own research too I think it's so easy to because of the internet and social media and everything, we think everybody's an expert, but like listen to the actual experts and look at the outcomes. I mean, Andrew was pretty amazing in the sense when we had our last meeting at the hospital, he said to the midwives, he said, look, we're thinking of meeting with a private midwife and we're thinking of doing a home birth. Like, what do you guys think of that? Because he always wants to ask people like in the hospital and they both were like, do it, like do it, do a home birth. They were like, they have the best outcomes. And he was like okay that's all
Renee:
[55:29] I needed to hear you know yeah.
Mel:
[55:31] Oh so amazing thank you so much for telling your story because I just think it it highlights so many important elements for what's happening in the birth world amazing I feel like you just told that so well oh I don't have any any more questions to ask
Renee:
[55:51] It's so hard to remember because you're like I mean it's not hard to remember but this one was so quick that I'm like well then this and I didn't think it would be that quick because they say the second is quicker but I thought my sister had like her first was like 36 hours second was like 24 and then her third was like nine hours so I was thinking oh okay maybe my second will be like 12 or 13 hours but still like five hours and in birth time five hours is like five minutes I remember just thinking that it's just like if you just leave a woman and you just leave them to do what they're intended to do it can be so beautiful and that's exactly how I I felt like everybody just kept this beautiful space except for Andrew, who I really needed as my birth partner, and it just happened. I just had a baby, as Janine said I would. It wasn't that complicated.
Mel:
[56:38] No, and this is it. I think that's the truth. It's not that complicated. Sometimes it is. There'll be some women listening going, oh, that's great. You know, you had an uncomplicated birth. Sometimes it is, and we're not denying that. But the vast majority of women can have these relatively uncomplicated, uneventful births. And I think you highlighted that today as well. Thank you so much for telling your story.
Renee:
[57:02] Thanks, Mel. Thanks for having me.
Mel:
[57:05] Oh, it's a pleasure. And I'm just so glad that the Great Birth Rebellion resource is, you know, being used in such a beautiful way.
Renee:
[57:13] Oh, my goodness. It is for, I mean, so many people, what you guys are doing. It's honestly, it's groundbreaking, but it's also just so informative and so entertaining and you make it so digestible and easy to understand. And I just, yeah, I think I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have done what I did, I think, without having that as a resource. So yeah, super grateful.
Mel:
[57:35] To get access to the resources for each podcast episode, join the mailing list at melaniethemidwife.com. And to support the work of this podcast, wear the rebellion in the form of clothing and other merch at thegreatbirthrebellion.com. Follow me, Mel, at MelodyTheMidwife on socials and the show at The Great Birth Rebellion. All the details are in the show notes.
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