First-time mum drives 560km in labour to give birth at top private hospital The Mater
AS if being in labour with your first baby isn’t terrifying enough — try adding a 560km road trip to get to your preferred hospital. That’s exactly the predicament mum Eloise Harris found herself in when baby Jimmy decided to arrive three weeks early.
NSW
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IN labour with her first child, Eloise Harris was determined to give birth at the hospital down the road — 560 kilometres down the road.
The cotton farmer was “committed” to having son, Jimmy, at The Mater in North Sydney, but when her waters broke three and a half weeks before her due date, Mrs Hall was half the state away at her Wee Waa property, in north west NSW.
The 24-year-old and her husband, Ed, then made an extraordinary — and “excruciating” — baby dash.
With her parents and obstetrician in Sydney, Mrs Harris said not giving birth at The Mater “wasn’t an option”.
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“I don’t think I fully realised what we were getting ourselves in to,” she told The Sunday Telegraph.
“It was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever been in my life but I just had to keep going.
“I was a bit scared but I honestly think my mind was just focused on getting here, that I put the pain in the back of my head.”
Before deciding to run the baby gauntlet and make the trip to The Mater, the couple made a brief stop at their closet public hospital at Narrabri.
“They said, ‘you’re definitely going to have your baby’, so then we got in the car and drove to Sydney,” Mrs Harris said.
“I could have had the baby in Narrabri — I didn’t really want to.
“There’s a lot of people from our area that either go to the Mater or North Shore Private.”
When they left Narrabri Hospital about mid-morning, Mrs Harris said she couldn’t feel the contractions but “apparently they were happening”.
“When we got about three hours into the trip I definitely knew it was happening,” she said.
In between telling his wife of nearly two years to “breathe, just breathe”, Mr Harris was aware he may have to deliver his first child on the side of the New England Highway.
“The pain levels were obviously pretty high, especially by about Singleton and then by Newcastle, they (contractions) got down to about two minutes,” the 29-year-old said.
Along the way, they made regular phone calls to their obstetrician and the midwives at The Mater with Mrs Harris “talking down” her pain.
At 3.30pm, they arrived at The Mater and 67 minutes later, Jimmy was born.
“The relief that I felt when I pulled up at the hospital was like nothing else,” Mrs Harris said.
“I made it just in the nick of time.”
The Mater’s obstetrics manager Geraldine Cole advised against a similar baby dash.
“While we appreciate the determination and dedication in this instance to deliver Jimmy at the Mater, our advice in this type of situation would be to go to the nearest health facility to deliver,” Ms Cole said.
Now adjusting to life as new, sleep-deprived parents, Mrs Harris said her husband was relieved Jimmy wasn’t born on the side of the road.
“After the fact, he said ‘geez I’m glad I didn’t have to do that — I’ve delivered a lot of lambs and calves but I don’t think I could have delivered my own son’,” she said.
Mr Harris added: “We’ll probably come down a bit earlier next time.”