Amy | five births, life after divorce, blended family, assisted vaginal birth, induction

Amy is thirty eight, a birth photographer and former doula of eight years, and mum to five children. Her first four births, all inductions, got progressively faster, from a three hour labour down to just thirty five minutes for her fourth. After separating from her husband of thirteen years, Amy was adamant she was finished having children. “I was very done. I went on a period of self discovery, went travelling, spent some time on my own,” she recalls. Through dating with intention, she met her now husband. “I wasn’t on a venture to find another husband, but I really wanted to learn what I wanted in a partner,” she says. “My now husband is a reflection of exactly every dot point in that list.”

Deciding to grow their family together was a big decision, made even bigger by Amy’s oldest child living with profound autism and epilepsy. “It really was a really big decision for me, but it was honestly one of the most healing journeys I have been on with another person in my life,” she says, reflecting on how different this pregnancy felt compared to being pregnant and attending appointments alone the first time round.

Working as a doula herself, Amy knew exactly what care model she wanted. “I knew I wanted a doula straight away. I wanted to feel really supported at every chance and I wanted continuity of care,” she explains. She got into her local Midwifery Group Practice programme and hired her long time collaborator as her doula, alongside a birth photographer. She also spent months preparing her husband for the role of birth partner, sending him podcast episodes, research and the documentary Birth Time. “I needed him to understand the footprint of birth, the emotional impact on the way birth can turn,” she says. “I wanted him in it with me.”

Early in the pregnancy, a routine blood test revealed a heterotopic pregnancy, a rare complication where one embryo implants in the uterus and another implants elsewhere, in Amy’s case in her ovary. “My GP called me on a Sunday and said your HCG is very high, would you be able to go into your local ED,” Amy remembers. After an ultrasound confirmed a second sac had ruptured inside her ovary, she was hospitalised for four days of monitoring. “I remember laying in bed at the hospital that night thinking, what about my four kids,” she says. Thankfully the affected sac was left to be reabsorbed and her pregnancy in the uterus continued safely.

From around thirty four weeks, Amy experienced weeks of prodromal labour, with regular, timeable contractions that would build overnight and then stop. “I got to thirty eight weeks and I went into my appointment and I was exhausted,” she says. A vaginal examination and bedside scan revealed her baby was in a brow presentation, facing outward rather than tucking her chin in. Amy and her doula got to work with spinning babies techniques, forward leaning inversions and side lying releases to try to encourage a better position.

At thirty eight weeks and four days, while grocery shopping with her Spanish speaking mother in law, Amy’s waters broke in the frozen aisle at Coles. “I’ve turned to grab the chips out of the frozen section and I felt this too familiar pop and just gushed water,” she laughs. With no phone signal to translate, she mimed the news to her mother in law before finishing her shop and heading to hospital.

With no contractions established and the recommended forty eight hour window for waters being broken ticking down, Amy made an informed decision to start an induction using syntocinon. “Let’s just get the ball rolling. Let’s get the cinto on and let’s have a baby,” she told her midwife. Within an hour her contractions were regular enough that the drip was switched off and her labour continued on its own. “I really wanted my bath to be my epidural,” she explains, and for hours she laboured on the floor, in a birth sling and eventually in the birth pool, supported by her husband, her doula and a student midwife.

Despite active labour and strong pushing urges, Amy sensed something wasn’t quite right. “I don’t think I’ve transitioned yet. I feel like I need to push, but these pushes really hurt. Something doesn’t feel right,” she told her midwife. Her baby’s heart rate began to show decelerations and, with her baby still high and facing the wrong way, the team recommended an epidural in case she needed an assisted delivery or caesarean. Amy consented, and clearly stated she did not want an episiotomy. “I do consent to you giving me a cup,” she told her obstetrician.

The ventouse (vacuum cup) was used not to pull the baby out but simply to help tuck her chin in, and once repositioned, birth followed quickly with no episiotomy needed. Amy’s husband caught their daughter with his hands, guided by Amy’s own. “I put my hands on his hands. I said, are you ready? This is it. We can’t, this is going to be us forever,” she remembers. Their daughter was born crying and healthy, and unlike Amy’s previous birth she did not haemorrhage.

Reflecting with her doula afterwards, Amy realised how much this birth had allowed her to meet a completely different, more supported version of herself. “Maybe it was just that your body was safe, and you were with a whole circle that supported you,” her doula told her. “I knew even when things weren’t going the way that I wanted them to go, I knew that I was safe,” Amy says. “It didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, but it turned out the best way it could with all of the tools that I had.”

Her older children met their new sister the next day at the hospital, each taking a turn to hold her, a moment Amy hopes will show her daughters, and her son, that birth is not something to fear or hide away, but something to feel proud of, whatever shape it takes.