"Birthing with the lavender team"

I have recently had the most unbelievable home birth with Nadia, Petra and the support of the lavender midwife group as well as the supporting doctors I saw. Nadia has been a consistent care support throughout my pregnancy, birth and now during my post natal journey. She made me feel safe and confident and she allowed my body do what it is designed to do during birth.  

The story starts during pregnancy, I knew I was very lucky where I got to be a part of the highly sought after midwife group practice. Nadia followed my journey and knew that my desire as my pregnancy unfolded was to birth at home with minimal intervention and disturbance. While the policies at the Royal are quite specific in order to birth safely at home, I felt heard and I felt like my care team supported and explained my options each step of the journey to birth in the safest way for me and my baby.

There was one hurdle to climb where a fluctuation in my platelet levels meant I needed Dr Andrew to review my case prior to a sign off for a home birth. He and Grace saw me on a weekday morning to review my situation and give me the all clear and then the next night I went into labour!

I was so grateful for this sign off and Nadia’s speed in organising all the homebirth equipment to be sourced to my house that day. A home birth is such a popular mode of birth that the call out for more equipment had to be made to other teams, which thankfully was found with perfect timing! Nadia and Petra allowed me to labour and just observed my body do it’s thing and then when it was go time I stepped into the bath and had an incredible 30 minutes of birthing out my son. I actually couldn’t imagine getting in the car and driving to hospital mid labour now!

My support team were so gentle and caring and my son came into this world in the most peaceful and undisturbed way, which I think is why he is such an alert and happy baby and why the feeding journey has been easeful so far! Night one after birth my husband called the lavender team and spoke to Mel about concerns we had about a gene we both carry that could impact my son's feeding journey. Mel and Nadia organised for us to be seen by the paediatricians Candice and Jacob and the nurses in the in the Neonatal critical care unit in the late hours of one night. The team were so kind and easeful with us and with our son and offered us much needed reassurance and comfort.

After birth care, having Nadia and some of the other midwife’s in lavender come each day to check in on me and my son and take such care of us, has been so incredible and I feel so grateful to have these services come to my door!

I am so grateful I had the opportunity to birth my way in the public system. I wanted to share it here as I feel like the opportunity to have a home birth is such an incredible service that the royal hospital for women offers. I think it is a woman’s right to feel held and supported during pregnancy and birth and it really allows for an easeful post delivery journey and I believe a happier Bub!

Thank you thank you thank you for providing such an amazing service. I only hope this opinion allows for more more awareness, funding and opportunities for the hospital to offer more home births. I think consistent care can really change the face of the current birth trauma experience in NSW and help serve a generation of happier mums and bubs!