Birth Story ✨

Trigger warning - BIRTH TRAUMA + MEDICAL ABUSE

I have wanted to tell this story for so long but to be really honest, I havent been able to recount the situation without bringing up a cascading waterfall of emotions. If I hadn't been so vunerable, wounded and fragile following this awful ordeal, I would have pressed charges against Mackay Base Hospital. Even 6 years on, recalling this situation makes my throat seize up and my breathing becomes rapid. 

We opted for a hospital birth with my first child Peyton. I was extremely fit and healthy. I had been running 10kms most mornings and eating a wholefoods diet. I felt strong and capable of conquering anything. What could possibly go wrong? I had gone studiously to each of my hospital appointments and antenatal classes. I wanted a natural birth. No intervention. No epidural. No C-section. Just a beautiful birth the way nature intended. I honestly thought this whole labour thing was going to be a breeze. 

I went into labour 2 days before my due date. My (hero) mum had flown up to North Queensland where I was living to support me during labour. I called my husband as the contractions started to get stronger and he drove back from the mine site he was working at.

After hours of contractions at home we all travelled into the hospital where I made the BIG mistake of telling the obstetrician that I had had a hind leak 2 days prior. This essentially means that my waters only partially broke but not the whole lot. More like a trickle and less like a waterfall.

This little bit of info was all the hospital staff needed to start the momentum for the cascade of medical intervention.

Immediately the hospital were considering me a high risk birth telling me that there was a high chance that both myself and my newborn were going to have an infection due to my amniotic sack no longer being sterile. They tried to coax me into having preventative antibiotics through an IV which meant my baby would get them too. There was a lot of pressure, coercion and bullying to have those antibiotics which I strongly declined.

Now I'm definitely not 'anti-antibitoics'. I am so wildly grateful that we have them and they have saved my life more than once. What I am 'anti' is giving them as a precautionary. I'll take them if I actually have an infection, not if I 'could' get one. The strategy was to closely monitor both myself and bub and if we developed an infection I'd be grabbing those antibiotics quick smart.

I had vaginal inspections regularly (against my will) where they told my I wasn't at all dialated and that each minute I hadn't given birth I was putting my baby and myself at risk without antibiotics.

I saw so many hospital staff, none were familiar faces. I had obstetricians, midwives, nurses and doctors all poking and prodding me and guilt tripping me into procedures I wasn't comfortable with. There was supposedly a midwifery program at the Mackay Base Hospital where one midwife was supposed to see you through your prenatal journey and be there during birth. Somehow this service missed me (along with other services like mental health checks and being assigned to a mothers group). The only midwife I saw more than once was a lady called Ayleth (who was a god send).

A little old midwife that I had never seen in my life held my hand and barked orders at me 30cm from my face. When you are in labour, this is the last thing you want. After an hour of trying to be polite I ended up screaming at her during a contraction to get out of face. She left the room and never came back. We were left alone for a few moments between the next barrage of coercion to jump onto the medical systems birth bandwagon.

28 hours in and the contractions started to ease up and were less regular. I firmly believe that this was due to the high stress.The hospital staff kept on telling me how risky my situation was given that the baby wasn't in a sterile environment anymore. I had never been so belittled than by those obstetricians and midwives.

A random midwife told me to start pushing as things weren't speeding up. I have since learnt that this was a huge mistake because it flattens and inflames your cervix unless you are completely dialated. I did push and absolutely nothing happened except me squashing my cervix making it harder and more painful to give birth. Me and my now bruised cervix were completely defeated.

The obstetrician finally convinced me to let them break my waters and give me syntocinon. Things started happening quickly. Unnaturally quickly. The contractions were now coming hard and fast. My body couldn't keep up with the pain. The hospital staff constantly reminded me that I wasn't progressing or dialating. 

The hospital staff kept on asked if I wanted an epidural and I finally gave in. I was exhausted and deflated. The hospital staff put the needle in my back and it worked so well I stopped feeling pain...but then the epidural fell out. Suddenly I had these huge surges of pain with incredibly strong contractions due to the syntocoin and no pain relief. I was almost in shock. My body couldn't cope. I remember screaming for help, saying that I couldn't do this anymore. 

The nurse went to find the anesthesiologist but they had gone. 
The obstetrician went to find the anesthesiologist but they were still MIA. 
When the anesthesiologist finally appeared over 2 hours later she put the needle in my back but accidentally gave me a double dose of epidural and paralysed me from just underneath my rib cage. I couldn't feel anything or move anything. I couldn't feel the contractions. I had no idea when to push or if I was even doing anything when I was trying to push. They had also accidentally given me a double dose of adrenelin which meant my heart was racing but I couldn't move. This chemical concoction created the wildest anxiety I have ever felt.

After the double dose of epidural the hospital staff feared they had potentially given me and the baby an overdose so couldn't continue with any medication or pain relief. 

I had level ten, unnaturally strong contractions, was paralyzed and had no pain relief. What an absolute clusterfuck. 

I remember laying on my back, feet hoisted into the stirrups (because I couldn't lift them) and I was told to push when the monitor that was now attached to my stomach, showed me I was having a contraction.

I still wasn't progressing according to the hospital staff. The obstetrician told me I was going to have to have a c-section as I had been in active labour for over 3 hours and the baby could become stressed. I declined.

I remember pushing as hard as I could as the muscle control started to come back inch by inch from my lower rib cage, to my belly button and my pelvis. 

Someone suddenly screamed they could see a head. It still took an episiotomy and forceps but I pushed my darling girl out into the world despite all odds. 

She came out not breathing and the midwife quickly rubbed her back vigorously. I watched helplessly as my little girl was limp. I stopped breathing. It felt like eternity as I watched her tiny frame not moving. Finally she screamed and flailed and screamed and screamed. 

My husband whisked her away to be measured (under strict instructions not to let her leave his sight).

My placenta took a while to birth. The head obstetrician had nearly finished her shift and impatiently yanked on the umbilical cord. She didn't look me in the eye or talk to me while she poked and prodded. She pulled so hard on the cord that the placenta came out and flung across the room onto the wall with an audible splat. Blood was dripping down the wall in what looked like the scene of a horror film. I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed.

Everyone swiftly left the room and I was left on my own. Suddenly I felt a gush of blood between my legs. I was bleeding out. I screamed for help as I became dizzy. A nurse ran into the room and used her full body weight to push down on my pelvis to stop the bleed. She urgently screamed out for more help until the room was full of hospital staff all pressing on my uterus. The bleeding stopped after I had lost in excess of 2 and a half litres of blood.

They stitched me up and made me take a shower. I remember being so weak that I couldn't stand by myself. I sat in the shower and sobbed.

That night I had to sleep alone in the birth ward with my new daughter next to me. It was policy for mothers to spend the night alone. I was so petrified and rattled by the circumstances that had made up the past 48 hours and was in intense pain. I should have been able to have a family member with me that evening. After everything that happened I was honestly petrified and intimidated by the hospital staff. 

That night I was woken so many times as nurses poked an prodded me. I asked one nurse to remove the needle in my arm as it kept on jabbing into me everytime I moved. She saw this as a personal attack and literally ripped it out of my arm, throwing the equipment onto the ground and storming off. 

As soon as my husband arrived the following morning I told him I wanted to leave. The nurses immediately told me that I wasn't able to leave. I told the hospital staff that unless they were going to arrest me, they would have to let me leave.

I finally got home and started the long road to recovery. Mackay Base Hospital has a lot to answer for when it came to my birth. I ended up with post natal depression, post traumatic stress syndrome and was extremely sick for a long time after the birth of Peyton due to detoxing both physically and mentally. 

Birth is natural part of life, not a medical emergency. I placed trust in a system that never had my best intentions at heart. My bodies capabilities were questioned and undermined at every turn during my labour. This seeded doubt even in my own mind in my most vunerable hours. Depspite my desire to have a natural birth, I was bullied, coerced and belittled into medical interventions.

I tell this story so that women can inform themselves of their rights within a hospital when giving birth. Despite what you are told, you are not required to do anything that medical staff demand you do. You have complete autonomy over yours and your babies body.

I strongly urge anyone who wants to have a natural birth to invest in either a hypnobirthing course, a doula or private midwife.


"Giving birth should be your greatest achievement, not your greatest fear."


- Jane Weideman