Australian Birth Stories

In this episode Erin Holland takes us from the very beginning, when a routine AMH blood test sent her and her husband Ben looking for answers, through four egg retrieval cycles, two spontaneous pregnancies that ended in loss, an ectopic pregnancy treated in Melbourne while she was away for work, a stage two Asherman syndrome diagnosis and twenty rounds of IVF. She then walks us through a pregnancy that looked straightforward until the 28 week scan, when her daughter dropped from the 17th centile to between the second and third. What follows is weekly monitoring, a breech baby, a caesarean booked for the exact day her fertility specialist had predicted months earlier, and a four hour birth that did not go to plan.
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Jo Hunter has been at the heart of the home birth movement in Australia for almost thirty years. She birthed three of her four babies at home, became the National Convener of Home Birth Australia, worked as a doula and childbirth educator, and then studied midwifery and went straight into private practice. In this episode she unpacks an urgent and very current problem: from December, an insurance requirement means the second midwife at every home birth must be endorsed, and the flow on effect could see more than half of Australia's privately practising midwives close their books. She explains how we got here, what the rallies on 21 November are asking for, and why this is a choice issue that matters even if you never plan to birth at home.
To find out how you can support head to Home Birth Australia
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In this episode I chat with Laura, a midwife and first time mother from Melbourne who birthed her daughter Ariella in the very hospital where she works. Laura takes us through an unexpected pregnancy discovery during a fertility ultrasound, a frightening early bleed on the same day, a week of frustrating prodromal labour, and a swift, mostly physiological birth that shifted to continuous monitoring in its final stage. She also speaks candidly about a painful and little known breastfeeding complication called nipple vasospasm, something she had never come across in five years of midwifery practice. This episode is a wonderful listen for newly pregnant mothers, doulas and midwives alike, offering an honest look at how even those who work in maternity care can be surprised by pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding.
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Whether you’re pregnant or trying to conceive, Mother Dose takes the overwhelm out of choosing a prenatal.
And this time, Australian Birth Stories listeners can also save $15 on Mother Dose with the code: ABS. Just head to land-lab.co to redeem the offer.
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Today I chat to Mel about her path into motherhood. Mel met her partner Antonio later in life, after having come to terms with the idea that she might never become a mother. Living with emetophobia, a fear of vomiting, shaped nearly every decision Mel made in pregnancy, from her choice of care provider to her decision to have an elective caesarean. This is a candid conversation about recurrent miscarriage, navigating severe nausea and a genuine phobia throughout pregnancy, and finding calm through a planned caesarean birth.
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Today I chat to Kate Jones about becoming a mum for the first time to her daughter Lila. Kate takes us through months of frustrating fertility tracking, a tricky local hospital landscape after her area's only private birthing suite closed, and the vaginal water birth she had hoped for from the very beginning. She's honest and funny throughout, especially when describing labouring at home, the mental shift of transitioning to hospital, and the moment her umbilical cord snapped after her daughter was born.
To see Kate's birth video head to @australianbirthstories on Instagram.
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