Pregnancy Uncut

Amie Rohan is mum to three girls. Bella and Sadie are Earth side, and Amie’s second born daughter Willow, is her angel daughter. Following Willow’s short life in 2018, Amie has chosen to reach out to as many families as she can, to share her experience of carrying, birthing, and loving Willow, who was born with anencephaly, a severe and rare congenital abnormality. Amie’s story is made incredibly unique by the fact that Bella and Willow were identical twins. They shared everything; the same mother and father, the same placenta and even the same DNA. But in a tragic and unfair twist, Bella and Willow’s brains developed very differently during their first crucial weeks of development in the womb. When Amie was told at only 12 weeks of pregnancy that one of her twins had a severe birth defect that ‘was not compatible with life’ Amie could hardly comprehend what she was hearing. Whilst her other baby appeared to be developing normally, the situation was precarious. Any complication during the pregnancy from her identical twin had the capacity to cause tragedy for both sisters. In this special episode of Pregnancy Uncut, Amie shares with us the intricate details of the incredible highs, devastating lows, and ongoing impacts of the pregnancy and birth that made her a mother.

Alexandra had always imagined being a mum, but the onset of baby hunger in her late 30s, while a long term relationship with a man who didn’t share her dream, led to a change in direction. After moving back in with her parents, a series of bad dates, time began to outrun her reproductive age, so Alexandra made the pragmatic decision to go it alone using donor sperm.
What followed was a journey of discovery; leading her family through their unease and grief of an expected path, encountering strangers and health professionals quick to share opinions and assumptions. Alexandra surrounded herself with a community of people who understood and supported her, and in her memoir shares her experience of pregnancy, birth and parenting baby Quinn.
Alexandra's book, Inconceivable, is a beautiful, raw, honest, and at times hilarious journey into solo motherhood, one becoming ever more prevalent amongst Australian women.

Nine years on from a traumatic birth that led to a fourth degree tear, Verity still finds herself wondering if there is more she could have done; asked a different person, articulated herself differently, said the magic words that would have got her the help she so desperately needed.
The reality however, is that she pushed and pushed and pushed. Went down every avenue, was articulate in her concerns, her needs and her emotional vulnerability. Had it not been for her mother and a GP who finally listened, Verity believes her story could have had a disastrous ending.
In her conversation with us, Verity is open and honest about her birth, her fourth degree tear, subsequent surgery and the toll that took, and continues to take, on her physical and emotional health. She believes that this transparency is crucial, not just for her healing but for others in her position, and there are many. With so much secrecy and misunderstanding still surrounding severe tears, many woman still feel ashamed to talk openly about the reality of living a changed life as a result.
Verity speaks eloquently about this, her personal experience, her fear at falling pregnant a second time and her belief that the impact of her trauma will continue through the generations. Yet at the time, not one person even mentioned the phrase 'birth trauma'.

Married to a busy farmer and working as a midwife at their nearest hospital, Marnie’s dream was always to have her family born and bred close to home.
She was just 19 weeks pregnant with her second baby, when her rural GP obstetrician found that baby's heartbeat was around half what it should have been, and diagnosed fetal heart block - a rare condition that would shape the pregnancy, birth, and first months of baby Amelia's life.
What followed was the opposite of what Marnie had envisaged, with hours and hours of driving to multiple appointments, days of intense monitoring and months of uncertainty, all far from home. Impacting the whole family - Marnie is so proud of her partner Pete as he worked all hours of the day, every day, keeping the farm running; and her son Jack who quickly had to get used to spending a lot of time away from his home and his parents, something he had never done before.
Marnie shares with us her incredible story of a rural family under pressure, out of their environment, in a pandemic; and of the pacemaker that finally turned Amelia's life around.

Heidi is mother to three children but her firstborn, Harry, was stillborn at 38 weeks after a seemingly straightforward pregnancy. The delivery of that news, that no expectant parent should ever hear, was done in a way that lacked the care and compassion it warranted and that memory continues to loom large. Returning home, Heidi and her family were lucky to be surrounded by love and support but there were still moments where she felt isolated and alone.
That unique and difficult insight is one that guides her as she supports other families and educates health workers in her role as a Bereavement Support Worker for the Red Nose Foundation, a position that she was offered after sharing Harry's story in a campaign around Stillbirth Australia.
In this episode, Heidi shares her story of Harry - how he remains a large presence in her and her family's lives and how her work with Red Nose is such an important part of the slowly improving approach to supporting families through stillbirth and pregnancy loss.