The Birth That Changed Me

Sometimes it’s not until years later that you realise just how traumatic something truly was.

Sometimes it’s not until years later that you realise just how traumatic something truly was. In the moment, you survive it because you have to, because there is no other option. You don’t stop to process it. You just keep going.

But when you finally look back, when you allow yourself to feel it, really feel it, the weight of it all can be overwhelming.

This is the story of my second birth. It still takes my breath away.

Early pregnancy

I was finally pregnant with my second child after three miscarriages, one before my first child and two between my daughter and this pregnancy. The joy was there, but it never came on its own. It was wrapped tightly in fear.

Every time I went to the bathroom, every single time I wiped, I held my breath. Waiting. Bracing. Expecting to see blood.

12 weeks

And then, at 12 weeks, I did.

I haemorrhaged. There was blood, clots, more than I had ever seen. It felt like my worst fear was unfolding right in front of me. I remember the panic rising through my body, that familiar sinking, hollow feeling in my chest. I was certain I was losing my baby.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I was losing my son’s twin.

Just two weeks earlier, I had an ultrasound. Everything looked normal. A strong, healthy heartbeat. Reassurance. Hope.

So when this happened, it didn’t make sense.

I rushed to the hospital in a complete state. Shaking. Desperate. Barely holding myself together. And somehow, through it all, the ultrasound showed there was still a heartbeat.

Strong. Steady. Still there. But nothing made sense.

The doctor explained that what I had passed could be a miscarriage. He spoke about “products of conception,” about possible human tissue among the blood and clots. Pathology would later confirm this, but even then, it was never completely definitive.

I remember sitting there, trying to understand, trying to piece it together, but I couldn’t. How could I be losing a baby and still have one alive inside me?

I felt completely lost in it all. Confused. Overwhelmed. Caught between grief and hope, not fully able to hold onto either.

And yet, there it was.

A heartbeat. One baby had survived.

When I returned home, the reality of what had happened became clearer. I passed a small fetus, likely around 8 or 9 weeks. A textbook-perfect fetus. This baby had never been seen on either ultrasound. A life I didn’t even know I was carrying, gone a few weeks earlier.

A grief I hadn’t prepared for.

I buried this tiny life to honour this little soul. From that place, a plant now grows. It still thrives 25 years later. There is something deeply spiritual about it. Over the years, I have noticed that when my son is unsettled, struggling, or not quite himself, the plant seems to reflect that too. It dips, it weakens, as if it feels it with him.

It is hard to explain. But it feels connected.

Even as a young child, my son would sometimes say he felt like something was missing. He couldn’t explain it, just a quiet sense that something wasn’t there that should be.

As he grew older, he would often say how much he wanted a brother. Not just in passing, but with a depth that always made me pause. A longing that felt deeper than just a wish.

And I found myself wondering… Was his twin a boy?

It’s a question I will never have the answer to. But it is one I have never been able to let go of. Even now, I see it in him. I feel it with him.

The trauma I was to suffer was still to come.

22 weeks

At 22 weeks, when my jeans were tightening and my belly becoming more pronounced, I started feeling what I thought were Braxton Hicks contractions. But something didn’t sit right. There was a different kind of discomfort, a tension that didn’t feel normal.

I went to the doctor and quickly found myself admitted to hospital, terrified I was going into early labour. After everything I had already been through, the thought of losing this baby felt unbearable.

I was given Ventolin and told to take it whenever I felt contractions. Maybe it was just an irritable uterus, they said.

But something didn’t feel right.

I had no idea what was really happening inside my body. I was living in it, feeling everything, yet completely in the dark.

I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t have the words for it. It was just a feeling, a discomfort that didn’t sit the way I expected it to. Still, I trusted what I was being told. There was no reason not to.

At the time, all I knew was that I was in pain, I was anxious, and I was trying to hold onto this pregnancy with everything I had.

The contractions didn’t stop. The Ventolin became part of my daily life. I was told to rest completely. No housework. No exertion.

I felt useless. Frustrated. Anxious all the time.

Thank goodness for my husband and my mum, who stepped in without hesitation. They cared for my two-year-old. They held everything together when I couldn’t.

I lived in a constant state of anxiety and pain, waiting for something to go wrong. Somehow, I made it to September 14th.

At 37 weeks, just one week before my scheduled caesarean, I was admitted again with early contractions. I remember thinking, this is it… this is how I lose him.

But the doctors managed to settle things, and I was sent home to wait.

No one knew that my bladder had adhered to my previous caesarean scar. No one knew it was being stretched and pulled as my belly grew, right up to the top where I’d often rest my arms. That understanding would only come later, after everything had already unfolded.

Birth day

The 20th of September finally arrived.

My caesarean was booked for 2pm and, despite everything, I felt this overwhelming excitement. After all the fear, all the uncertainty, I was finally going to meet my son.

At 18 weeks, we had found out he was a boy. A name I had chosen as a teenager had been waiting for him all along.

My belly felt like all baby. I could feel his spine, his movements so strong. I knew he was going to be a big boy.

That day, though, nothing went the way I had imagined.

The nurse tried to insert the catheter. It wouldn’t go in. The doctor tried again. Still nothing. The pain was sharp and overwhelming.

I asked them to wait until after the spinal block. I couldn’t take any more. Just before the theatre doors opened, I felt it.

My waters broke.

And in that moment, something shifted. This didn’t feel like a scheduled procedure anymore. It felt like my body had decided. Like nature had stepped in.

He was coming that day, whether it was by emergency caesarean or a planned one.

Bent over the bed, I waited for the spinal block. The anaesthetist tried again and again, but the needle wouldn’t go in. Another doctor stepped in. Still nothing.

Then the words came.

“We may need to put you under.” Fear flooded through me.

I couldn’t miss this. I couldn’t not be there for my son’s birth. After everything, I needed to be present.

I pleaded for them to keep trying.

Eventually, they used a larger needle. And finally, it worked.

Once I was numb, the catheter was inserted, still with difficulty, but it was done. It was time.

And then, he was here.

My beautiful boy. Eight pounds fourteen ounces. A full head of blonde hair. Strong. So incredibly strong.

The baby who had survived everything.

After birth

For a moment, nothing else existed. Just him. But that surreal, after-baby feeling didn’t last.

About half an hour later, I heard quiet voices behind the curtain. A shift. A tension. My doctor came around and asked, “You only wanted two children, didn’t you?”

I smiled. “Of course. I have a boy and a girl now.” Oblivious to why he was asking me. In theatre, they had realised something was wrong.

When they began to close me, instead of two layers, there were four. Like slices of cheese.

After asking me about more children, my doctor explained. My bladder had adhered to my previous caesarean scar and had been cut into during surgery. There was a high chance it could happen again in any future pregnancy.

By pure chance, a urologist had been visiting the hospital that day. One of the doctors thought he might still be in the building.

They called. He had just pulled into his driveway an hour and a half away. He said he would turn around and drive back. I was told I was stable, but I was lying there with my abdomen open. I was alone.

I waited.

Two hours passed.

I was spoken to, reassured, monitored. Still floating in that space between joy and something I didn’t yet understand. I made small talk with the doctors, asking about their families, their kids I knew — the beauty of a large country community, where we all know each other.

My husband had taken our son to meet his sister and our families. They had no idea what was happening. And they couldn’t come back in. I felt disconnected from my baby, the one I had carried for nine months.

Then everything changed the moment the urologist walked through the theatre doors. Suddenly, the room shifted into urgency. “He’s here.”

I was put to sleep.

When I woke, I was in intensive care. Disoriented. Heavy. Not quite in my own body.

My husband was there. My daughter was there. And in his arms was my son. The baby I had only just met.

I looked at my daughter, wanting to reach for her, to comfort her. But she looked at me… and she didn’t recognise me.

She turned to my husband and said, “That isn’t my mum.”

My face was swollen. Puffy. Unrecognisable. I felt a shell of myself. And in that moment, something inside me broke.

I was there… but I wasn’t.

I had narrowly avoided being transferred to a larger hospital. Instead, I was told I would need to stay for two weeks, with a catheter in place so my bladder, now half its size, could heal and stretch again.

Two weeks without my family.

This was the beginning of a journey I never chose.

A journey I will tell another time. One filled with resilience I didn’t know I had, emotions that rose and fell like a rollercoaster, and a deep sense of gratitude that carried me through.

But in that moment, lying there, everything had changed. And this was only the beginning.

Of a journey that would change me, break me, and slowly teach me how to find myself again.