My pregnancy, birth and musings on growing our family

Pregnancy was rough. 
If you followed our socials while I was pregnant with Elsie, you’ll know how sick I was. What I thought would be a beautiful nine months of nesting, preparing for baby, and setting the business up so I could take 6-8 weeks ‘off’ (as off as a business owner can be) turned into survival mode.

It was nine months of nausea, blown veins, endless hospital visits, an emotional support vomit bowl I didn’t leave the house without, and multiple central lines. I was getting fluids and IV antiemetics six hours a week just to get through the days.

If it weren’t for my midwife, my best friend (who was going through it at the same time), and my family, I honestly don’t think I’d still be here.

At 17 weeks, I sat in hospital asking for a termination. A termination of a very wanted baby. A $27k IVF pregnancy. That’s the kind of place Hyperemesis Gravidarum can take you.

I’m so grateful to the doctors who took me seriously - who helped get me on fluids 2-3 times a week, started me on steroids, and found a better antiemetic system that gave me a fighting chance.

HG is not just “bad morning sickness.”
It’s not just vomiting once and carrying on with your day. It’s relentless. It seeps into every single aspect of your life.

For me, it was:

• Burnt veins from IV cyclizine
• Issuing IVs while severely dehydrated
• Two PICC lines, both infected from an allergy I didn’t know I had
• Two CICC lines
• Hundreds of dollars in medication
• Considering four McDonald's fries a full meal if I managed to keep them down

All while trying to run a business and parent three other kids.

HG is not something to glamorise.
It’s serious. It’s life-threatening. It takes babies and it takes mums. And it’s still so misunderstood.

By 38 weeks, I was done.
I was ready to meet her, ready to not be pregnant, ready to begin healing.

I went in for an induction following a few stretch and sweeps, trying all the old wives' tales to no avail. We did the full two rounds of Misoprostol, tried to break my waters three times, and used a Foley catheter for 24 hours. She was COSY in there - but I was ready, so I made the call to have a caesarean.

Met with pushback from my OB - who knew how much I wanted a vaginal birth - but after four days of trying, it no longer felt important. I was also offered the option to go home and try again a few days later. No way was I going home without my baby.

I knew the option to start Pitocin (synthetic oxytocin) meant the possibility of a very long labour trying to birth a babe who just wasn’t ready to come. I didn’t want an epidural, I didn’t want any possibility of stressing Elsie out - which I knew was a possibility if we tried to force her and my body. I was able to advocate for myself because I had done the research while pregnant and I highly recommend it.

One more check of my cervix confirmed it wasn’t shortening, so my c-section was confirmed.

To this day - the best decision I have made, and I would make the same decision if I was back there tomorrow.

Kerryn, the OB, was one of the kindest people I have met. She let me watch Els be born and passed her straight up to me so I was the first person to hold her. My birth may not have been the fairytale vaginal birth that social media and society tells us is what we need - but it was everything I could have asked for.

My recovery was textbook.
The worst part was the rash from the allergic reaction I had to the plaster on my thigh holding the Foley catheter in place. Otherwise, I felt more myself in the days post-birth than I had in over a year.

Elsie is now 16 months old. Will’s children are getting older too - our eldest is 12 - and sometimes I catch myself having the strangest parallel-universe moments. I’ll be deep in a conversation about sports and friendships with the tween, while telling Elsie not to eat something out of the rubbish bin. This season of life is wild.

Lately, we’ve been in that familiar space again - wondering whether our family is complete.
And honestly, I don’t think it is.

In a different world, we might wait until Elsie was four or five to grow our family again. But by then, our oldest would be 17, and that gap feels too wide for us. We also have the external pressure of people thinking we ‘should’ be done - because we have four children, because my pregnancy was rough, and because we should just be grateful with what we have.

Doing IVF is both a blessing and a curse.
It’s a strange thing to say, but it’s true. The mental load of having to choose when to try again, rather than just “not, not trying”, is something I sit with every day. Knowing there’s a high chance I’ll be that sick again… it’s a lot to weigh up.

It’s not just a matter of if we try again - it’s the how and the when.
Can the business and our team manage while I’m out of action?
Do we have the right support in place for Will, Elsie, and our older kids?
Do I have a plan to get a central line early so my veins aren’t wrecked again?

Then there’s the financial side.
We still have three embryos frozen - but what happens if none of them take?
Do we do a full IVF cycle again? Probably not. But I also know how quickly logic disappears when you’re in the thick of it. You’d throw everything you had at it.

We haven’t sold a single thing of Elsie’s baby gear. It’s all still sitting there, just in case.

So here we are, on the edge of another decision.
I don’t have all the answers yet - we’re still figuring it out. But I wanted to share this part of our story because I know I’m not the only one walking this road.

If you’re in this space too, deciding, hoping, grieving, preparing - you’re not alone.

Kaz x