Australian Birth Stories

In this episode, we meet Monica, a registered nurse at the Children's Hospital of Westmead with a deep passion for paediatrics. She shares her journey through two very different births, highlighting how even the most carefully laid birth plans sometimes need to change. Her story beautifully illustrates the delicate balance between pursuing natural birth preferences and responding to medical necess...

Sam shares her journey through early pregnancy losses to becoming a mother of three beautiful children. Living in the Tweed region on the NSW/QLD border with her husband Scott, Sam opens up about navigating pregnancy after loss, birthing “big” babies, and finding her voice to advocate for her birth preferences. For more photos and birth stories, follow us on Instagram here . Hosted on...

In this episode, interior designer and mother of two Bec shares her contrasting birth experiences at Sandringham Hospital in Melbourne. Her journey to motherhood began after marriage, taking six to eight months to conceive Ava. "I was one of those people testing like five days before you can test and just thinking I was pregnant every time," Bec recalls of this period. They welcomed a puppy during...

In this weeks episode I speak with Sophie Delezio, whose story of survival and resilience has long captured Australian hearts. Now embarking on a new chapter as mother to 10-week-old Frankie, Sophie shares her journey through pregnancy and birth, offering insights into navigating motherhood with a disability while challenging common misconceptions. _____ Parenting is a journey full of challenges,...

In this episode, we meet Josie, a qualified teacher living in the Albury-Wodonga region who shares her journey to motherhood and her two unique birth experiences. Her story highlights the complexities of navigating healthcare across state borders and the resilience required through pregnancy loss, renovation chaos, and building a family. __________ It's no surprise that restful sleep is hard to co...

In this episode, we speak with Alysha, a psychologist and PhD candidate whose research into traumatic birth and mother-infant relationships stems from her own profound experiences. As both a mental health professional and mother of two boys, her story offers unique insights into the complexities of birth trauma and its lasting impact on early bonding. For more photos and birth stories, follow us o...

It’s such a pleasure to welcome Stacey back onto the show. You can listen to her first birth in episode 181 .  Today, she shares the journey to conceiving her second child. It is a story of profound resilience through multiple losses, IVF challenges, and eventually, a beautiful home birth. After experiencing a relatively straightforward path to conceiving her first son Bryn through IUI, Stacey ope...

In this beautiful episode, Chloe Grayling @lovechloejane shares her journey into motherhood, from an emotional year of trying to conceive to achieving a beautiful and empowering home water birth. Living in a 140-year-old cottage on South Australia's Fleurieu Peninsula with her husband Patrick and their menagerie of animals (including Highland cows!), Chloe opens up about how her experience with ea...

In today’s episode, Hashini takes us through her two very different births and the medical journey that followed with her second son. After experiencing a very straightforward first pregnancy, Hashini opens up about the emotional complexity of trying to conceive her second baby. Her second son’s pregnancy brought unexpected challenges when at his 20-week scan it was revealed that he had hydronephr...

Today I'm joined by Maddie who lives in Queensland with her husband Nicholas and their three beautiful boys - Oscar (who they affectionately call Ozzy) and five-month-old twins, Angus and Archie. In this episode, Maddie shares her remarkable journey from a traumatic emergency cesarean with her first son to achieving a successful twin VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean). She opens up about navigati...

It’s Perinatal Mental Health Week and in this episode, I chat with Julie Birkendorf, the CEO of PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia). One in five new mums, and one in 10 new dads will experience a mental health challenge in postpartum so conversations like this one are vital to raising awareness and minimising stigma. Julie nods to the importance of realistic expectations in parentho...

In today’s episode Sonja takes us through her two pregnancies and births but also talks at length about her pelvic pain. She’s been diagnosed with pelvic congestion syndrome which was exacerbated after birth and especially when her menstrual cycle returned. Her symptoms were very similar to a prolapse - a heaviness and dragging sensation in her rectum - but she also experiences sharp, debilitating...

It’s such a pleasure to welcome Heidi back onto the show. You can listen to Heidi’s first two births in episode 126 . Today, she shares the journey of her third pregnancy and birth, offering a unique perspective as a nutritionist and dietitian. Heidi opens up about the long road to conceiving her son, Philip, emphasising how important it was for her to feel both emotionally and physically prepared...

You can listen to Beth’s first birth story in episode 254 and today she shares her second pregnancy and birth story - from the perspective of a midwife and a mother. After moving interstate, Beth had two hospitals to choose from and halfway through her pregnancy, intuition dictated she change from one to the other. While she had beautiful care through the midwifery clinic, she talks about the cons...

Sometimes we hear so much about birth - all kinds of births - that we can forget it is a normal, biological process. In today’s episode, Emily’s experience reiterates the ease of physiological birth - both at home with a single baby, and in hospital with twins. She is honest from the get-go when she admits that she wasn’t even sure she wanted to be a parent but we follow her journey of acceptance,...

In today’s episode Maude takes us through her two pregnancies and births. She moved interstate in her first pregnancy, registered with her local public hospital and had a planned caesarean because her baby was breech. She talks at length about her positive birth experience and the challenges of breastfeeding and being a stay at home mum. When she fell pregnant with her second baby, she accessed ps...

In today's episode, Genevieve shares her first pregnancy and birth and details her postpartum joys and challenges. She embraced her ‘goddess energy’ in her second trimester but by the third trimester, she really felt the physical limitations of carrying a big baby and only being quite small herself. Her waters broke at home and once she arrived at hospital she was hooked up to syntocinon which is...

At her first dating scan, Bron found out she was pregnant with triplets; one singleton, and MCDA twins who shared a placenta. A few weeks later she attended her first appointment with the head doctor of the specialist multiple birth team, who outlined the risks and complications of her pregnancy and suggested selective reduction of the twins. Bron and her husband, Ryan, were completely blindsided...

This is a really lovely episode, where Agustina shares her two pregnancies and births, alongside her experiences as a Canadian living far away from her family. She opted for private obstetric care because she wanted extended follow-up care in the days after birth. She stayed really active in pregnancy, moved with the contractions and laboured relatively quickly, birthing both her babies with ease....

If you need to hear a positive NICU breastfeeding story, this is it! Sarah shares her experience with premature prelabour rupture of membranes (PPROM) and the NICU journey that followed the birth of her baby at 32 weeks. She started antenatal expressing in labour and continued hand-expressing in the days after before switching to a hospital-grade pump. She had plenty of milk, triple-fed and used a...

Welcome back to the show for Episode 500. This one's a little bit different. I'm not interviewing anyone today, I thought I would instead recap the last few years and share with you a little bit more about the journey. Whether you're here for the first time, or you've been here since the beginning over 7 years ago, thank you for listening. I look forward to continuing to bring you birth stories fo...

Today Roisin shares her journey of infertility, IVF experience and her two births - both emergency caesareans. When she fell pregnant with her son, she knew she wanted MGP care in the public system after hearing so many wonderful things about it on the podcast. She intended to have a low-intervention birth but as soon as she was diagnosed with gestational hypertension which escalated to preeclamps...

Katelyn’s first birth was relatively quick - a low-intervention vaginal birth in a private hospital. When she discovered she was pregnant again, she booked in with the same obstetrician but at her eight week scan, she found out she was pregnant with twins, and her obstetrician refused to support a vaginal birth. So began Katelyn’s informed pregnancy and birth journey, which led to changing care pr...

In today’s heartfelt episode, Erika shares her challenging and inspiring journey into motherhood with her two little boys. Erika opens up about conceiving after a short period of trying, only to face the heartbreaking loss of her first pregnancy due to a missed miscarriage at 10 weeks. She candidly shares her emotional and physical experiences of conceiving again after this loss. During her second...

In today’s episode, Tanya takes us through her four birth experiences. Her first two babies are now teenagers and her second two are very little, so she speaks from the perspective of a mother in her 20s and her 40s and comments on how the maternity system has changed over the years to ultimately become more risk-averse. She conceived via IVF for her third baby and after two previous vaginal birth...