'I had a traumatic birth - and to be honest, I'm grateful for it'

By any metric, my birth story isn’t a good one.

It was at about the moment I was being loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher at 32 weeks pregnant, preparing to travel from one hospital to another, that I realised it was time to throw my birth plan in the bin. 

It was just another in a laughably long line of things which went wrong with my first pregnancy, from being diagnosed with preeclampsia at 29 weeks, to a hospital admission at 31 weeks, to an episode of blood pressure so high that all the doctors and nurses on the ward converged on me at once.

I was told I needed an emergency caesar, then told that the hospital I was at didn’t have space in the NICU for my baby.  

I was told I might be transferred by plane to a hospital in Auckland (yes, the one in New Zealand).

I was then told that strings had been pulled to admit me to a hospital just down the road from my house.  

I didn’t have a perfect birth. But I’m not a perfect mum. Image: Supplied

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I wasn’t a model patient

In the ambulance, I was so out of it that I can’t remember if we had the sirens on.

I do remember arriving at the new hospital, ready to be wheeled into an emergency c-section, only to be told that I would, after all, be waiting until the next morning to give birth. 

By any metric, my birth story isn’t a good one. I was sick, confused and terrified. As my equally shell-shocked husband wheeled me on a tour around the NICU that night, I was shaking so much I could barely speak. 

I wasn’t a model patient, as anyone who heard me sobbing and screaming in the prenatal ward at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on the evening of 3 February 2022 can attest. I broke down in a way I never have before.  

But then I took a deep breath and did what I have always done when things get completely overwhelming.

I looked for a silver lining. The pickings were slim, but I got there: my c-section being pushed meant I had a one-hour window where I could eat before fasting again!

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It was a scary day. But each day that followed got less scary

I demanded that my husband order me a large Quarter Pounder meal. He chased down an Uber Eats driver like his wife’s life depended on it (and it sort of felt like it did).

We laughed, because the whole thing was absurd. He left me overnight attached to a magnesium drip, which was awful. I watched Pitch Perfect 2 because I couldn’t sleep, which was actually quite a good film. 

And then, the next morning, we met our baby. Well, to be precise, he met our baby, and I waited patiently in the recovery room, knowing that the news I got next would probably define the rest of my life. 

It was a scary day. But each day that followed got less scary, and then less scary still, until, five weeks later, we brought my son home. 

I wouldn’t change any of it, even if I had the choice. I’m incredibly proud of how I handled myself, breakdowns aside (or maybe included). And what it taught me about my own resilience is invaluable for my approach to parenting. 

I didn’t have a perfect birth. But I’m not a perfect mum. I don’t have a perfect kid. (Well, pretty close to perfect, but you know what I mean). 

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Births are messy and unexpected and terrifying, just like parenting is messy and unexpected and terrifying, just like life is messy and unexpected and terrifying. What I know now is that whatever gets thrown at me, I can size up to it. 

When I was pregnant with my second baby, I had to reckon with the possibility that he, too, would be born premature. That his outcomes might be worse than my healthy first baby, who bounced back miraculously from his rough start. 

Every time I worried about it, I looked at a note I kept on my phone with the heading “READ IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER NICU BABY”. 

It said, simply:

You’ve already done it. I know you can do it again. 

As it happened, I didn’t have to. I know I could, though. 

For my boys, I could honestly do anything.

Originally published as 'I had a traumatic birth - and to be honest, I'm grateful for it'