This story is part of The Wall of Wombs, our 2024 exhibition sharing honest, deeply personal journeys of motherhood.
What you’re reading is a direct transcription of a spoken story — shared bravely, in the speaker’s own words.
Listen to this story and explore others at wallofwombs.com.
My own journey to motherhood has been not probably conventional.
As in, in my thirties, I just wasn’t in a long-term steady relationship at that time. And motherhood was not something that I strived to be. I’ve got girlfriends who just knew they want to be a mum, whereas I was like, yeah, I’ll get to that when I get to that.
So when my husband and I met, he’d obviously had a child. Because we met in, I guess, later years, it was again not something we had planned to do as such. We certainly talked about it, and then I guess decided to just get a checkup and see if I was very conscious that I was getting later in years, by that point late 30s. And I had had problems with my menstrual cycle and things like that. So I kind of had an idea that this wasn’t going to be an easy road.
I just thought I’ll get checked up, and they found that I did have polycystic ovaries, PCOS. It wasn’t that I was told I couldn’t have children, but I was told that it probably would be very difficult.
At that point, my husband and I were happy in our life. We’d gotten engaged, and we just thought, you know what? If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. If it doesn’t, then we’re okay with that. So we went like that for years and years. I didn’t fall pregnant naturally. And I think I was just coming to terms with that.
Then surprisingly, out of nowhere, I fell pregnant. It was such a surreal experience. I think about six weeks at that point and everything was great. And then it just wasn’t.
I was about 19 and a half weeks. Just unexpected pain, and the pain just got greater and greater. I remember describing it to the doctor that someone was pulling on my stomach. I felt like I’d felt the baby at that point. Again, they did ultrasounds, everything was great, they’ve said it’s just stretching pain, and then it just got worse.
They then admitted me to the hospital and found I was actually starting to go through labour. They still didn’t know why. I was quite in not a huge amount of pain, but definitely the feeling of overwhelming sensation to push, which again didn’t make sense to me. I think the other thing I really struggled with being that it was so early—I actually knew nothing about giving birth. Absolutely nothing because I wasn’t at that stage yet.
I was petrified because I just had no idea what was happening. They then discovered I was quite dilated and that there was no stopping it at this point. So it wasn’t until after I gave birth that they did confirm what they thought it might have been. I had a ruptured placenta, which is very rare. It may happen with someone who’s been in a car accident or, you know, a woman who might fall, but it’s very rare for a woman just to have it for no apparent reason. And so, I was in the hospital for two days. It was a really horrible feeling that there was absolutely nothing many other doctors could do at this point.
So the actual moment of giving birth, it was again surreal and scary. My husband was an amazing support but also going through his own grief. And then when he was born, I just didn’t believe it was happening.
After I gave birth, they took him away. They asked me if I wanted to hold him, and I actually said no. I regret that, but I was in shock and in pain. I think I was actually quite scared of what I would see because at that early stage, I knew that a lot of things wouldn’t have been developed.
And I’m grateful for the doctor who, not that he pushed me, but he let me sleep on it. Then the next day, he’s like, “Would you like to see your boy?” And I was like, “Oh, I’m scared.” Like I was on a swing, I said, “I’m scared.” He said, “Look, he’s beautiful. There’s nothing to be scared about. A lot of his development was obviously, you know, things like lungs and not something you can see.”
So the next day, I did go to see him, and he was… he just looked like a really little baby sleeping. Afterwards is acknowledging that he was born. I think it was really hard for me because it’s a hard thing to talk to people about. It’s hard to explain that I did give birth and that he was born and not breathing.
But over the years, I like talking about him because I don’t have photos, I don’t have memories, I don’t have, you know, time on earth with him. I’ve only got the time he was growing inside of me and that brief moment after he was born. So, it was obviously one of the worst days of my life, but over the years, it’s become a symbol to me that it was also the day he was born.
I am still very grateful, which I know sounds crazy because it’s the worst thing that any woman should go through—having a child, walking out of a hospital without a baby.
However, he changed my life on that day.