Jess Evans | Two physiological births, pregnancy after loss, rapid vaginal birth, amenorrhea

Jess had gone without a period for three years before her wedding and was misdiagnosed with PCOS. “The only markers I had was that I just didn’t have a period,” she recalls. After some research she discovered she likely had amenorrhoea caused by over exercising and under eating. “There were two rules: stop exercising and just start eating more. After probably about a three month period, my period returned. I just remember being so elated.” Jess and her husband Craig conceived not long after, though it came as a surprise. “I was five weeks when I found out. It was a beautiful surprise.”

Jess chose private obstetric care with Dr Jackie  and attended a two day antenatal course with her husband, run by a midwife named Norelle. “She just was the most nurturing person. I walked away feeling really ready to do it, however it unfolded.” Jess went into spontaneous labour at 37 weeks and one day, much earlier than expected. “My back’s really sore. I don’t know if this is anything or if I’m just being dramatic,” she remembers thinking at work, before losing her mucus plug that evening.

At home, Jess laboured with her mother and husband by her side, resisting the urge to use a TENS machine. “I really thought I would like the shower but I was like, get me out of here. I just needed to be within myself.” Her labour progressed quickly once she arrived at the birth suite. “It just kept on coming, right? It’s just like, why is there so much water,” she laughs, recalling her waters breaking. Hunter was born vaginally with no pain relief, weighing 2.7kg. “My body just did it. It was the most incredible, life changing thing I’ve ever done.” Jess went on to breastfeed Hunter until he was two years old, describing it as a “beautiful feeding journey.”

When Hunter was around two and a half, Craig had a bike accident which led to the discovery of testicular cancer. “During 2020 and the lockdowns, Craig had to go through all of that. We had to have the fertility chats again.” The couple stored sperm before Craig’s surgery, giving them peace of mind for the future. Once Craig was given the all clear and the family had settled into a new home, they decided to try for a second baby, conceiving within three months.

Sadly, at what should have been a routine twelve week scan, Jess and Craig received devastating news. “I remember her saying, how do you feel? I said, I actually still feel really, really sick, which makes it even harder. When she was scanning, when she was very silent, that silence is just so deafening. There was no heartbeat.” Jess underwent a D&C the following day, and later discovered she had a retained placenta, which was complicated further by a COVID diagnosis that delayed a second procedure. “The scars live with you forever,” she reflects.

Jess speaks openly about how isolating pregnancy loss can feel, particularly when working in the baby industry. “Not one of my girlfriends had been through it before. I found it so difficult just to have somebody understand, hang on a minute, I’m going through postpartum right now, I’ve gone through a significant loss.” She encourages more open conversations around miscarriage and secondary infertility for anyone navigating a similar path. “We just don’t talk about it enough. It is so hard because you plan a life.”

The couple conceived again within a couple of months, but the pregnancy with August was overshadowed by pregnancy after loss anxiety. “Every single time I went to the toilet I was checking for blood. I really did not want anyone to know that I was pregnant. It took me a very long time to tell people.” Jess also experienced significant scan anxiety throughout the pregnancy. “I couldn’t look at the screen with Augie until probably the 32 week scan.”

August was breech for a time but turned before birth, and Jess underwent two stretch and sweeps in an effort to bring on labour naturally ahead of a booked induction. “They are not a good time,” she says of the sweeps, with a laugh. Labour progressed astonishingly quickly once it began at 41 weeks, moving from four centimetres to fully dilated in around twenty five minutes. “From woe to go, it was under two hours. I turned over and burst him out on all fours.” August was born vaginally, weighing 4.2kg, considerably larger than his older brother. Jess went on to breastfeed August until he was three years old.

Reflecting on her two very different birth and pregnancy experiences, Jess is candid about the emotional toll of loss and secondary infertility, while also celebrating the physiological power of vaginal birth. “I would do it all over again. I just really love giving birth.” Her story is a generous, unfiltered account of the highs and lows so many women experience on the road to motherhood, and a reminder of how important it is for newly pregnant mothers, doulas and midwives alike to keep talking about pregnancy loss and the anxiety that so often follows it.