My Story

My birth story

In 2016, after the birth of my daughter, I experienced a full Uterine Inversion* while delivering my placenta. I lost a total of 4 litre’s of blood and was separated from my daughter for many hours as I was rushed from the Primary Birthing Unit to the main hospital, over 90 minutes away, where I underwent life-saving surgery.

My first year of motherhood was incredibly tough. I struggled to bond with my baby and felt very unsupported as I navigated both the challenges of motherhood and the trauma of my birth experience. Ten weeks after her birth, I was back working on the farm full-time, not by choice. This was very difficult both physically and mentally, and at 17 months postpartum, I was also diagnosed with bladder and bowel prolapses.

My introduction to motherhood wasn’t easy or smooth sailing. I didn’t know how to use my voice, lacked a lot of support, and shut down.

In 2018, I became pregnant with my son. I still hadn’t processed my first birth, and by six months into my pregnancy, I started to panic about giving birth again. I couldn’t go through another uterine inversion again. How was I going to do this? How do I prevent this from happening again?

I was finally offered an appointment with Maternal Mental Health at the hospital, where I was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). While it was a relief to have a diagnosis, I still lacked real support on how to manage it and how to prepare for the birth of my next baby.

I had fire in my belly to fight for this next birth. I was not going to risk having another uterine inversion and being separated from my baby again. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any medical advice on whether or not a uterine inversion could happen again, and that’s when I realised I had to advocate for myself and fight to get the birth that I needed to feel safe. I got my healing birth in March 2019 via elective cesarean.

This birth and this postpartum looked so different from my first. It was much slower and calmer. I made sure I had better support around me, and this was also the beginning of my own healing journey.

My healing journey began in 2020 after finding the right support for me, a more holistic based support.

I learnt what happens in the body when trauma is present and understood the impacts of trauma in postpartum. I also received some amazing tools to begin my healing process.

Out of this came a very deep burning desire to find a way to support other women who had experienced their own birth trauma, and in 2022, I took the opportunity to complete my certification as a Healing Birth Practitioner.