Australian Birth Stories 22 | Georgie Abay, Two Premature Births, Post-Partum Haemorrhage, Strict Bed rest
In today’s episode, I interview Georgie Abay the founder of The Grace Tales. Georgie takes us through her pregnancies and premature births of her little girl Arabella at 34 weeks and Lottie at 33 weeks. After trying to conceive for 6 months Georgie fell pregnant with her first daughter Arabella. Georgie experienced terrible morning sickness up until 19 weeks with Arabella. After completing her Calm Birth course at 34 weeks, Georgie went into labour the next day prematurely. After going in for a routine ultrasound the staff discovered that she was going into labour. Her doctor sent her straight to the hospital to have a steroid injection and sent her home on bed rest. Georgie was due to be a bridesmaid for her best friend later that week and had a nail appointment that day in preparation for the day. Her mum said she could take her to her nail appointment and as she would be laying down in the chair she would therefore be resting. Georgie’s waters went in the nail salon in a comical movie style fashion. She ended up borrowing a towel from the salon and put that under her dress and she and her mother made their way to the hospital, via the supermarket to pack a last minute supply bag of essentials for the very early birth.
Despite her waters going contractions didn’t start so, Georgie was induced to progress the labour. After labouring for 17 hours with the assistance of an epidural and forceps, Arabella was delivered 6 weeks early. Arabella was checked by a paediatrician and was then wheeled off to the special care nursery. Georgie explains that Arabella’s emotional birth and the separation she experienced was the hardest thing she had experienced. Arabella was formula fed in the special nursery and Georgie went home without her little girl. Georgie shares the heart ache she experienced in leaving the hospital without her baby. When home Georgie pumped tirelessly through the night to bring her milk supply in and was able to successfully bring in a great milk supply which enabled her to start breastfeeding Arabella when she was stronger. After two weeks of care in the special care nursery, Arabella was discharged and came home.
When Arabella was 10mths old Georgie fell pregnant again unexpectedly while they were renovating their house and living at her mum’s place. At 23 weeks into Georgie’s second pregnancy she had a scan and it was discovered she had a short cervix and she had started to dilate. She was put on strict bedrest as she was at risk of early labour again. This was incredibly challenging as she had a toddler to take care of. She was only allowed to get up to shower and eat. Georgie had to insert progesterone daily and shealso had steroid shots to help prepare her body and the baby for another early arrival. She moved back to her Mum’s house and hired a full-time nanny to care for Arabella. At 33 weeks Georgie felt she was about to go into labour so she quickly moved back into her family home and her the next morning her waters went. Georgie had the support of a lovely midwife and she felt this made a huge difference to her mental strength in this labour. As contractions didn’t immediately start, she had induction medication to progress things. To hear more about Georgie’s recovery and her 6-week postpartum haemorrhage, and Lottie’s birth journey tune into the podcast………
Topics covered: premature birth, special care nursery, epidural, forceps, breastfeeding, yoga, calm birth, blood clots, post-partum haemorrhage, bed rest, blood transfusions, retained placenta, Dilation (or dilatation) and curettage (D&C)
Today's episode is proudly sponsored by Pure Baby: Pure Baby is an Australian owned company who create premium, organic clothing for babies and children. The lovely people at Pure Baby are offering Australian Birth Stories listeners $20 of with the code ABS20. To check out the full range of Pure baby products head to
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