Pregnancy Uncut Dr Alex Umbers and Dr Kara Thompson

Following the birth of her first child, Violet, Kirsty experienced a large post partum
haemorrhage, which required a hysterectomy to  save her life. This would seem to spell an end to her fertility journey and Kirsty, who had always imagined more children, began conversations around surrogacy.  However, she couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling that she desperately wanted to carry another child herself.

Still deep in postpartum, Kirsty began a journey of discovery about uterine transplant - a surgery not yet performed in Australia but gaining momentum elsewhere in the world. Stumbling across a website for a clinical trial in Australia, Kirsty fired off a chance email that would change her trajectory completely and see her become the first woman in Australia to undergo the surgery and successfully receive her mother's uterus. She subsequently became pregnant and her son Henry grew and flourished in the same womb in which she herself had developed years before. 

Kirsty speaks of the science which saved her childbearing dreams and has already been replicated for others in Australia as momentum continues to grow for women's fertility choices.

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. 

An accomplished writer, musician, journalist, broadcaster and climate activist, Sian Prior has led a fulfilling life.  However, she has always felt a chasm where her child should have been and it is only recently that she has given herself the space and compassion to acknowledge the grief that has been with her throughout much of her adult life as a result

The grief connected to Sian's journey of infertility and recurrent miscarriage carries its own weight, but has been further exacerbated by having to navigate her way in a society that places judgment and labels on those in her position without consideration for circumstance. 

Feeling that there is not enough open conversation and empathy around the complexities of being a woman without children, Sian has bravely bared her soul in her new book 'Childless' in the hope at going some way to breaking the silence.  We are so glad to have the opportunity to have this important conversation on Pregnancy Uncut.