'I had no idea I was pregnant ... then my waters broke in a rice field'

“I’d sort of been in denial and one day before my water broke my friend argued the point with me and he just said ‘no, you’re pregnant’,” the new mum said. “My belly was pretty small. I didn't look nine months pregnant at all.”

Joel Erickson

4 min read

October 10, 2023 - 4:23PM

Family Life

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An Aussie woman is stuck in limbo in Asia after having a surprise baby during a backpacking trip.

India Hodgkins, 22, was on a camping trip in Nepal when she went into a surprise labour.

The Courier Mailreports the Brisbane woman’s partner, Jordan Austin, and her family quickly rushed to her side as she endured her 80-hour labour.

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India said she was camping in a rice field outside the village of Rokam with fifty other people when her waters broke during the night and she went into labour inside her tent.

“I’d sort of been in denial and one day before my water broke my friend argued the point with me and he just said ‘no, you’re pregnant’,” she said.

“My belly was pretty small. I didn't look nine months pregnant at all.”

India Hodgkins, her partner Jordan Austin and their baby boy Neo are stranded in Nepal. Picture: Supplied

"There were monkeys watching me"

India said she stayed in the rice field all night and for the next day, but eventually went into the forest to give birth once the temperature became too hot.

“There were monkeys watching me,” she told The Courier Mail. “That was the hardest day.”

Birth didn’t happen in the forest however, and she went back to the rice field the next night before walking “very slowly” to a nearby hotel.

“We then went straight to someone’s barn, and that would have been the third day,” she said.

“I was in the barn for the rest of the day because we thought it’d happen that night, but the next morning around sunrise I was like ‘okay, no’.”

India Hodgkins in Tasmania in July. She had no idea she was pregnant. Picture: Supplied

"The whole thing was intense"

She told The Courier Mail her whole birth experience felt “very watched”.

“While I was in the barn there was a hectic storm and the river was flooded so I had to get carried over it in a stretcher to get to the first medical facility,” she said.

She was soon taken to a bigger medical facility in Mangelsen where her son Neo was born.

“We didn’t really have access to proper medical facilities at the time, the whole thing was intense,” she said.

The new Aussie mum had only been in Nepal for a week before her labour, but said she’d been to an emergency department in Tasmania due to her pregnancy symptoms, but was turned away.

She said she didn’t realise the symptoms were pregnancy related because she’d gotten sick in Thailand about the time her son would have been conceived.

“That really threw us off,” she said. “I’d been bloated and vomiting for about eight months.

“Some friends suggested it (pregnancy) but I’d never had a regular period so that didn’t phase me.

“We thought it was some hard to diagnose exotic tropical disease and I guess I couldn’t really see it any other way.”

India Hodgkins, Jordan Austin and baby Neo. Picture: Supplied

"I was in full dad mode because India needed support"

The Courier Mail reports India’s partner Jordan Austin, 32, was in Far North Queensland when he received a text about the birth of his son. He headed straight to Brisbane to start a five-day journey to Kathmandu to meet up with India and her parents.

“That was a pretty wild message to wake up to, I was stunned,” he said.

“I was just thinking ‘how do I even pick this baby up?’. You normally have nine months to prepare, so psychologically I was nine months behind.

“I played catch-up pretty fast and I was in full dad mode because India needed the support.”

India’s dad Paul told The Courier Mail he and his wife Sharon were halfway through a trek in northern Spain when they found out about baby Neo.

“It took five. days of travelling to get to Achham, where she (India) was holed up in a small hotel and after a few days there, we have all made the two-day return journey by ‘road’ and air as far as Kathmandu,” he said.

The rural town in Nepal where India Hodgkins gave birth. Picture: Supplied.

Family told to "go away and apply for citizenship"

Now the family faces a fight to get baby Neo home, as the Australian embassy in Kathmandu said there wasn’t much help they could provide.

“We called into the Australian embassy in Kathmandu and it took us a fair amount of pleading to even get past the security gate,” Paul said.

“We just said ‘look, we are standing here with a little baby’.”

An embassy official told the family they should “go away and apply online for citizenship for the baby”, a process that can take up to three months.

“We were eventually allowed to use one of their computers to make the application, and we were advised that once we had all the supporting documentation it would be processed by the New Delhi office,” Paul said.

“The doctor’s recommendation is for a swift return to Australia so they can both have the attention and long term care they require in Brisbane.”

India Hodgkins discovered she was pregnant two days before going into labour in a rural town in Nepal. Picture: Supplied

"We feel a bit isolated"

Paul also told The Courier Mail the family had not contacted DFAT because they could not access forms or numbers in Nepal.

“We feel a bit isolated and let down by the local Australian authorities, and we don’t feel anybody has taken it seriously enough,” he said.

“We have the resources available to fly us all home but not the means by which to access the people in the Australian immigration department who could expedite the application.”

India said there was no reason her application for Neo’s citizenship should take three months.

“We are stuck behind a bureaucratic wall and we need that wall to move,” she said.