Mel | elective caesarean birth, pregnancy loss, emetophobia – fear of vomiting in pregnancy,

“I had sort of come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t be able to be a mum, just with circumstances of relationships. During COVID a relationship ended and then it was four years of lockdown where you couldn’t meet anybody, and that happened right around my early thirties. I actually did a lot of work with a psychologist around grieving that I probably wouldn’t be a mum. And then I happened to meet Antonio, who spoke about being a parent in a way that other people hadn’t to me. He just loved it. So luckily for me, I met him when I was 35 and we started trying when I was 36.

“The fourth attempt, I got pregnant. We had the digital test and it said pregnant, and we were jumping up and down to have a video of it. We were so excited. And then a few days later I went to the bathroom and just blood everywhere. I was so shocked. We hadn’t told anyone, so we kept going. The seventh attempt we got pregnant again, around November, December, so we told lots of people. We got an ultrasound at five and a half weeks and the lady was like, maybe there’s a heartbeat there, it might be. A few days later I had some spotting, went back for another scan, and the first scan you could actually see something, and the second scan there was nothing there. I ended up having a D&C at about nine weeks, which was hard because I’d had all the pregnancy symptoms for that whole eight weeks. I felt like I’d got robbed in a way.

“I let myself sit in the sadness. I was like, this is really sad and I’m sad. My partner and I just sat on the couch and I cried. I think it probably was the best thing I could have done, to let yourself marinate in the grief. Once you have your second miscarriage you start to go, is this going to be something we have to deal with. But I think knowing I’d done a lot of research beforehand, I wasn’t a ‘why me’, it was more, this happens to people, it’s part of the process.

“We had a break for two months and then kept trying, and it was the ninth attempt that we eventually got pregnant. So it took us a year to get the successful pregnancy. It definitely sucks the joy out of it a bit, finding out after two losses. We waited to celebrate until the seven or eight week scan, when we saw the heartbeat. That was really the moment we got really excited, we basically danced out of there.

“I have had emetophobia, which is a fear of vomiting, and I’d actually already decided before even getting pregnant that I wanted an elective caesarean, because I thought they’d be able to control the vomiting. I did a lot of research as to whether you could have an elective caesarean in the public system and I couldn’t find an answer, so I saved up money to go private. I ended up going with Dr Jackie, and the thing I liked about her is she works in a team of five other female obstetricians. When I told her about the phobia and said I wanted an elective caesarean, her response was, excellent, let’s book it in. I experienced zero pushback, zero questioning about my choice.

“In the pregnancy that ended in miscarriage, I had this really awful experience of waking up and dry heaving for ages, and that traumatised me even more. So before I got pregnant again I worked with my psychologist on treating the emetophobia. We did a little bit of exposure therapy, activating my sympathetic nervous system, and a lot of cognitive work around why vomiting felt so distressing to me. I had worded up my obstetrician and took anti-nausea medication from the very start. I felt nauseous all the way up until 30 weeks, every single day, which for someone with emetophobia is just a level of anxiety that’s always there in the background.

“My digestion just went straight away. I was bloated, constipated, hungry all the time but felt sick at the same time, hot, cold, bad skin, sore boobs, heartburn, this awful metallic taste in my mouth that lasted for weeks. I’ll be honest, I hated being pregnant. The best part was when she was born and I wasn’t pregnant anymore. I kept doing Pilates right throughout, and after the birth a physio assessed me and there was minimal separation, so I think it paid off.

“We were really lucky and got the 8am time slot for the caesarean, which was great for fasting. Once we got there it was really quick, check in, get gowned up, and we were in the operating room right on the dot. The injections in my spine were fine, but as the anaesthetic was coming on the sensation of the sterilising solution on my stomach was really ticklish, and I thought, my god, if I’m ticklish this whole procedure it’s going to be horrific. Thankfully it went numb shortly after. I do remember shaking, that was the thing I most noticed. They dropped the curtain and said, have a look, and I watched them pull Mia out of my stomach, which I didn’t expect to see. One minute there’s not a baby there and the next there is.

“We were really lucky, Cabrini is five nights and it was lovely, we had a beautiful double bed so Antonio could stay the whole time. I did an online breastfeeding course beforehand, and luckily for me Mia read the breastfeeding manual, she latched straight away. The recovery was all right. As long as you take your medication regularly and on time I didn’t experience much pain from it. I reckon I’d rather have mad sleep deprivation over nausea, so even though I was sleep deprived I was just so happy I wasn’t nauseous anymore.

“If you had an emergency caesarean and you didn’t want it, I can absolutely understand why you’d be upset, because it’s a big scar that’s on you for the rest of your life. For me it was the opposite, it gave me control over the thing I feared most. You look in their eyes and go, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”