Our once family of three, became a family of four when we found out we were pregnant again in January of 2021. Pregnancy was grueling, long, hard, as well as beautiful, life altering and wonderful. It was both.

Disclaimer: Below is a short explanation of a living birth, and includes some traumatic experiences and emotions. If this hurts you to read, please don’t. Protect your heart and move onto another post.

I was given an induction date, finished working on the Friday and went into hospital on the Monday, ready to get this baby into my arms. Well, things don’t always go to plan, much like we have come to learn. My perfect 1 of 2 birth plans went entirely to shit, to put it lightly. The happy, calm and timely vaginal birth was a far cry from the experience I endured. The induction began with the option I specifically advocated against, which then 24 hours on, still hadn’t gotten me into active labour, but had started contractions that I had a nurse timing and counting. Because it had started contractions, but not active labour, they weren’t able to restart the next method of induction until those contractions stopped, or I went into a natural labour. There was nothing to be done, but I was exhausted, beyond done with this process of having my body controlled by other people, decisions controlled, my entire birth plan being throw out the window from the initial moment. When Michael joined me the next morning, being told that induction had not progressed and we would or could be now in hospital waiting days or weeks for this to progress, I broke. At this point, all I could think about was the fact that I just wanted this baby out of me. I wanted to meet my daughter, I wanted to hold her and spend time with her. I needed to know she was alive, and she would stay. I decided to take back the control I had and focus on what I could control. I decided to opt for a caesarean birth. Finally, I thought, finally I would be back to having control over my birth.

On September 8th 2021, we were wheeled to the same prep room I had been in when I was prepping to have my first child taken from my body. The anxiety came back, and a strong sense of devastation. The fact both my children have come into this world in the same room, and only one of them made it out alive, was a peaceful emptiness I experienced afterward, but initially I was faced with the possibility of both of my children being dead in the same room, a confronting thought. Michael waited outside the big doors while they made me as comfortable as possible, walking me through the steps quickly. They made me sit on the side of a bed and hold a position so they could numb my body, mostly everything under my arms down. I remember Michael coming back in, and my midwife getting the heat bed ready for the baby. I remember looking at it, knowing my baby would be here soon, living or not. 3 surgeons came in, and began the process. The curtain was pulled up so we wouldn’t see my insides being cut open, and the medicine began being pumped into my body. Ed Sheeran was playing and Michael and I held hands and tried to stay calm looking at one another.

The medicine began making me sick, very sick. They gave me as much as they could for the nausea, and I remember the surgeons had to stop cutting while I was ill. Once they began again, things happened very quickly. Blood splattered the drape curtain in front of my face. I could feel tugging and pulling sensations, odd feelings. And then, she was here. They pulled her from my body, looking lifeless, silent and white. Instead of a curtain coming down for me to see my baby, she was whisked away by my midwife yelling for them to hand her over. Michael and I looked over at where she was placed, where people surrounded her and helped her. Michael squeezed my hand, and we silently watched, questioning whether she would be okay. What felt like minutes, but was only moments later, she cried.

I think we breathed the first deep breathe we had in minutes, hours, years. We cried, Michael looked at me as if his whole world was okay again. She was here, she was alive, she was okay. We were told she was stunned, and later found out that she was in no way ready to come out. She was happy ‘cooking’ away in my tummy.

Michael went over once our daughter was in the clear, and he got to hold her, cut her cord, be with her. He bought her over to me, and I remember looking at her, saying “She’s so cute, I love her”, knowing I meant it. I touched her face, her cute little eyes staring back at me while she was wrapped in her dad’s arms.

I began feeling excruciating pain in my shoulder and neck, as the surgeons continued their work on me. I had hemorrhaged during the birth, and was needing attention now more so than my baby. Michael took our baby over to the side of the room, so that I could be given help. I remember hearing, “I’ve given her everything”, letting the team know I was maxed out on just about everything I could be and I was still yelling and crying for help with the pain. I remember a point where everyone took their hands off me, surgeons included, to see where the pain had stemmed from. The medicine once again began making me sick, and I don’t remember much after this point. I remember once it was over, once the pain started to fade, and I started to come to, I was shown my baby again, who Michael was holding so preciously in his arms. I was wheeled to a recovery area where I was finally given the chance to hold her, hours after she had been born into this world.

This wait seriously affected my postpartum emotions, as I knew it would. There was nothing I could have done, and I was just grateful she was alive, here. I held her and she latched well. Not 10 minutes later she was taken from me to go to special care nursery. I met her and Michael back into my room when I was cleared to return to them. Fortunately, my midwife had secured us an independent room in our public hospital, with a private bathroom, after our induction fiasco. I was mostly grateful for it now. The time we spent that afternoon with her was precious, some of the best moments of my life.

I was bed ridden, but I was able to hold and love on this little girl who I got to keep, who got to come home and stay. I remember asking Michael, “What time was she born?” and he looked at me with a smirk and said, “1:11pm”. I like to think Baby Chip had a hand in the fate of Ruby being born on the angel number that represents new beginnings, and what a beautiful new beginning she is.

We have faced many issues since her birth, many hospital trips, many surgeries for myself and a little procedure for her, feeding challenges and changes, new routines, postpartum anxiety and depression, uncertainty, and we have also faced such happiness, joy, laughter, play and challenge.

My birth plan didn’t go to plan, but my second birth plan didn’t need to be used- a plan for if my child was dead. Instead, although my birth was chaotic, harsh, traumatic and brutal, it was also beautiful, life changing and good, because she was here, alive. It was both.

The birth of my second daughter, in no way overrides my first daughter- her life, death or legacy, it enhances it. Two daughters, born in the same room, separated by a veil of life and death, a sky full of stars and earthly time. The death of my first daughter, and the birth of my second, rebirthed me into who I am now, sitting here writing this.

I do not write about trauma easily, even in this short form, but I do it knowing it allows me to breath the moments in and out of my body, providing reassurance to others that you are not alone in your grief, in your trauma, in your love and your heartbreak. I am both traumatized and blessed by experiences. I get to be both. Just like I get to be both a wife and a boss, happy and sad, angry and grateful, Chip’s mum and Ruby’s mum. Neither of which outweighs the other, because it just is. I am reborn into this version of myself, and I have my two girls to thank for it.

Candace

A universe believer because one of my babies lives up there