Jessie: A Second Birth Story of Preparation and Healing

This episode is essential listening for anyone who has had a previous birth that felt challenging, even if it appeared “successful” from the outside. Jessie’s candid discussion about the shame she felt during transition, the impact of her doula being unavailable during her first labour, and how she worked through these feelings offers invaluable insights for expectant mothers preparing for subsequent births.

Jessie’s Conception Journey
After welcoming daughter Bronte two and a half years earlier, Jessie was eager to expand their family whilst her partner Steve needed more time to adjust to parenthood. “When she was less than one years old, I was trying to convince Steve to have another one, and he was just like, absolutely not. This is too crazy.” It wasn’t until Bronte was around 14-15 months old that they began trying to conceive.

What followed was six months of unsuccessful attempts, largely due to inaccurate ovulation tracking through an app. “I was getting it completely wrong with this app that I was using. And this app was giving me like five days out or something. So I was just missing it for half a year.” It was only after consulting her acupuncturist, Isabella at Essential Acupuncture in Bronte, that Jessie learned proper ovulation tracking techniques. Within a month of this guidance and starting ubiquinol supplements, she conceived.

Discovering the Pregnancy
“I got the faintest of faintest lines, so I’m like it’s happening. It’s happening. So yeah, we were pretty happy after that.” Jessie’s excitement was palpable as she discovered her second pregnancy, and by this time Steve was fully on board with expanding their family.

Pregnancy Symptoms and Care
Jessie’s second pregnancy brought more challenging first trimester symptoms than her first. “I had a bit of nausea. I didn’t have proper morning sickness, but I was definitely feeling really nauseous, like very, very uncomfortable, and I feel like it was worse than the first one.” She attributes this partly to the demands of caring for a toddler whilst pregnant. “I couldn’t sit down as much as I would’ve the first time because of running around with the toddler.”

The fatigue was particularly intense: “The fatigue was real. The fatigue was probably worse, but again, I dunno if it’s ’cause I had to get up in the morning and I had to do the bedtime, I had to do all these kind of things.”

Jessie returned to her trusted obstetrician Andrew Pickering in the Northern Beaches, requesting essentially the same care model as her first pregnancy. She also continued regular acupuncture sessions with Isabella throughout the pregnancy, seeing her weekly or monthly depending on the stage.

The Revelation About Birth Trauma
Despite having what appeared to be a successful first birth, Jessie’s doula Dene made a crucial observation during a consultation at around 20 weeks. “She told me, she’s like, Jessie, I think you need to talk to a birth trauma counsellor. And I’m like, really? And she’s like, yeah, ’cause you’re telling me things that are a little bit outta my scope to help you at the moment, and I think it would really, really benefit you because it sounds like you have a lot of anxiety going into this labour.”

This recommendation led Jessie to birth trauma counsellor Amy Garrett, where she began to unpack the reality of her first birth experience. “I had a really textbook birth. However, it was really traumatic and it was really, really, really painful, and it was really scary and really crazy.”

Jessie realised she had been suppressing the difficult aspects of her first birth because she felt pressure to advocate for unmedicated birth. “I was trying to let people know that giving birth unmedicated is possible… But for me, inside it was like it tore me apart, it was crazy and I feel like I couldn’t talk about that part of it, like the really stressful, the really painful part of it, because I wouldn’t be doing a disservice to the doula community.”

Processing Shame and Abandonment
Through counselling, Jessie identified two key trauma points from her first labour. The first was shame around saying “I can’t do this” during transition at 4am. “In that moment I felt a lot of shame, or maybe I did feel shame in the moment, but I felt shame after the fact that I said that… I felt like I let everyone around me down, even though I didn’t.”

The second trauma point was her original doula being unavailable due to attending four other births that night. “That really tapped into the part of me that felt abandoned. And that’s a childhood trauma of mine that I’ve had to deal with separately. But that really triggered something there that the person that I wanted and needed at that time couldn’t be there.”

Comprehensive Birth Preparation
Jessie approached her second birth preparation with remarkable dedication. “I almost made it my full-time job, Sophie, to prepare for labour this time around.” Her preparation included:

• Multiple sessions with the birth trauma counsellor
• Regular prenatal yoga sessions with her doula focusing on birth positions and breathing
• Positive birth affirmation cards placed throughout the house
• Cold water plunging during winter to practice being uncomfortable in safe situations
• Visualisation exercises, including imagining labouring alone to build self-reliance

The trauma counsellor’s key question proved transformative: “What is it going to take to have a calm birth this time? And I’m like, oh, do you know what it would be? My support people being around me. And she’s like, well, Jessie, what if they’re not there?… You gotta find a way to be okay with yourself.”

Labour and Birth
At 39 weeks and one day, following an acupuncture session, Jessie began experiencing period-like cramping and back pain. The labour progressed gradually through the evening, with contractions becoming more intense after her waters broke at the hospital around 10:30pm.

“I was laboring in the bath and I felt like this is not making me feel good… I felt like there wasn’t enough depth in the bath for me to be able to move as much as I would’ve liked to.” She moved to the shower where she found her rhythm with her doula’s support.

The pushing phase was remarkably efficient. When her obstetrician arrived and confirmed she could push, her doula’s encouragement proved pivotal: “Dene looks at me and she said, you know, the more effort you put into this push, the sooner your baby will be here. And I’m like, what that true? So I just gave it the biggest push and it was out three minutes to midnight.”

Son Leonis was born on October 21st, exactly the date Jessie had quietly hoped for that morning.

Reflection and Recovery
The contrast between her two birth experiences was profound. “The intensity was really only for an hour and a half I would say. And Andy, at the end of it, he said, you know, you only said you couldn’t do it once. That’s great.”

Jessie’s reflection on the birth was telling: “I think the realisation that I had done it was greater than the fact that I was holding a baby. Like I’d prepared so hard and so long for this event that the fact that it had just come and gone, I was in shock.”

Postpartum and Family Adjustment
With excellent family support providing meals and help, Jessie has been able to focus on rest and bonding. “I haven’t cooked anything. I don’t even think I’ve made a piece of toast in the last two weeks, and that has just made all the difference with this postpartum.”

Two-and-a-half-year-old Bronte has adapted beautifully to her new role as big sister. “Luckily we have a toddler girl that is very maternal. She loves to play with her babies… she’s loving having a little boy, little baby around.”

Key Takeaways
Jessie’s story powerfully demonstrates that even “successful” births can leave emotional residue that benefits from professional support. Her journey highlights the importance of:

• Recognising that birth trauma can exist even in seemingly positive experiences
• The value of processing previous births before subsequent pregnancies
• Building self-reliance alongside external support systems
• The transformative power of comprehensive mental and physical preparation
• How addressing trauma can lead to profoundly different subsequent birth experiences

This episode offers hope and practical guidance for anyone carrying unprocessed feelings about previous births, showing that with proper support and preparation, subsequent births can be healing and transformative experiences.