556 | Corinne, Four births, intuitive birthing, pregnancy termination, Dr Lionel Steinberg

Corinne’s journey to motherhood began unexpectedly during a seven-month overseas trip with her partner Jake when they were 22. “We popped down and got a pregnancy test, came back, we were both sure it would be negative. I took the test, I was in the toilet. He was just lying on the bed and it came out positive pretty quickly. And I think I had that moment of like, oh my gosh, my first positive pregnancy test.”

What followed was one of the most challenging experiences of her life. Despite her excitement about the pregnancy, Jake wasn’t ready for parenthood. “It just became obvious. Really. He just couldn’t do it. He wasn’t ready. And I know he would do anything in the world for me. And the fact that he was just like, I can’t do this. I knew he really couldn’t.”

The couple faced the difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy, a process that took them from Rome to London due to local restrictions. “I didn’t know what it was gonna look like. I didn’t know how you end pregnancy. Practically or emotionally. I was just in very uncharted waters and felt sick about the whole thing. I had so much judgment on myself and judgment on Jake, and I was just like, who ends pregnancy?”

Corinne’s raw honesty about this experience is both heartbreaking and important. She describes the medical process: “I was in agony and I was devastated. And it was just like this horrific, really medicalized, really confronting experience where I was just like, waiting for my body to, to pass this baby.”

The experience took years to process fully. “It took years for me to get over. I wrote a piece for the Motherhood space, which is this really beautiful book. That kind of allowed me the outlet to finally move through it all and to get past it and to acknowledge like, I’m allowed to grieve a loss even if it was chosen.”

Several years later, when the couple were engaged and ready, Corinne conceived her first daughter, Niah. Coming from a family where her mother had seven children and loved birth, Corinne had positive expectations. “She only had really wonderful things to say about birth. She had, given birth unmedicated, all vaginal births… so for me, I was just like, that was all I needed.”

However, Corinne experienced severe pregnancy sickness throughout. “I was really sick. Really, really sick. Like I vomited up basically everything… specifically the first like 14, 15 weeks, I couldn’t really keep anything down. And then up until 30 weeks I kept vomiting.”

Despite the sickness, she loved being pregnant: “I still loved it. Every second of it. I didn’t want it to end.”

Her first labour began at 42 weeks after a stretch and sweep. What started as mild cramping progressed to active labour, but when monitoring showed the baby’s heart rate dropping with contractions, concerns arose about potential complications. “Lionel had come in and he basically said. Potential. There’s a potential because you’re also so over that the baby’s pooed or something’s wrong.”

This uncertainty affected Corinne’s ability to relax in labour. “I couldn’t quite get back to myself. And so it got to about, I think it was about 11. And I, was just so, like, I couldn’t let go of this idea that I might need a cesarean, even though I didn’t.”

She ultimately chose to have an epidural: “I ended up getting an epidural. I was devastated. I was so upset… And I texted my mom and I was just like, I feel like I’ve failed. I’m so upset. Like I really feel like I’ve let myself down.”

Despite her initial disappointment, the birth progressed beautifully. She could still feel most sensations when it came time to push, and Niah was born weighing 4.4kg with no tears. “She was massive. She was so big and had so much hair… it was so, it’s like nothing in the world you can ever, and that like, just having one second, there’s no baby, and the next second it’s on your chest and you’re like, oh, I know you.”

Corinne’s period returned when Niah was 11 months old, and she conceived again two months later during COVID lockdowns. This pregnancy brought the same severe sickness, but she remained positive: “I was violently sick again… But I was violently sick again… But also again, I loved it. I just, I like didn’t have a single thing to complain about.”

Her second labour was dramatically different – fast and intense. After timing contractions that were coming every two and a half minutes, her obstetrician told them to come to hospital immediately. “We get to the hospital, they had come down with a wheelchair and they were like, do you want a wheelchair? I remember thinking like, I don’t. I’m not sitting down in a wheelchair.”

The birth happened quickly once they arrived: “She had a look and she’s like, oh, there’s a baby coming. Like, I need to run and get Lionel. So she ran to get Lionel and I said, can you just break my waters? Because they said, if we break your waters, we’ll get things happening faster. So they broke my waters and then within the next like 15 minutes, I had birthed her head in a few pushes.”

To hear Corinne’s story in more detail tune into episode 556.