You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging, and feel privileged to continue the sharing of birth stories and knowledge that has been a fundamental part of Indigenous culture.
Hi.
I'm Cassania Lukich and this is diary of a birth. Sometimes the most powerful birth stories aren't just about bringing a baby into the world. They're about discovering strength you never knew you had. Today's guest had already proven her resilience after a spinal surgery complication left her unable to walk. She'd fought back to fitness and independence, but pregnancy tested her in unimaginable ways.
So round about the three four month mark, I could not sleep for the pain in my leg. Like I'm talking, I've been awake for twenty four hours. I'm so much discomfort, and I fell over and I went to the hospital because everything just got wrong.
By the time COVID hit, she was housebound on heavy medication, facing possible early delivery, but she was determined to give her daughter the best start, even if it meant months of pain. So let's meet today's mum.
Hi, this is Bria and this is my diary of a birth with Theodora.
So, Brian, I wanted to start off with a little bit about your history because you have had a number of health issues since you were what seventeen? Yeah, do you want to talk us through your health history so we can understand where you were before you got pregnant.
So I had a really bad back from puberty. I had sciatica down both of my legs that would come and go, and I would frequently have issues and that program all the way through my life, and I would manage it and I'd have some time in bed and it was all contained, I guess, until I was about twenty seven. I'd move from New Zealand to Australia. I was working in a professional job and I just had another flare and I couldn't manage it. I just could
not get on top of it. And it turned out that a couple of the disks of my lower spine had shifted and they were crushing my spinal cord, and so I had a spinal surgery, and in that spinal surgery, I lost the use and feeling of one of my legs. So if you put your finger in your belly button and just go straight down and across your hips like nothing,
couldn't feel it, couldn't move it, anything like that. So that was pretty jarring at twenty seven and I'm in a different country from my family and my friends, and everyone really rally around to support me. And over the course of a couple of years, I learned to walk again. I got off all the pain medicare that I was on. I still have disc issues and I still have what's called a foot drop, so I can't lift my toes as well as on one of my legs, so I do have a trip risk, and I've got pins and
needles in my leg permanently. But I got to the point where I was doing cross it five times a week I was traveling. I moved to England. I'm just doing life in pain and that progressed and I would manage that. And when I was planning to get pregnant, I knew I needed to make sure my body was really strong. I knew that I needed to be in the best possible condition because pregnancy is not great on
anyone's fine. Pregnancy is not easy on the body and some of the pain medications that I would utilize, like say Europine it's not safe for pregnancy, So I also needed to prepare for that.
The spinal surgery you had, was that just a complication of a surgery? Is that how you're expecting to come out of it?
Like?
Was it something that it was just a complication.
Yeah, it was a non complication that can happen. It doesn't happen too often, but just the state I was in, the disc matter was really messed up into the spinal cord when they were operating. So it was like a really rare complication in that case. But fast forward when we talk about the second spinal surgery, it was a much higher risk on that same thing happening. Yeah.
So you and your partner met in the UK. Yeah, and then you got pregnant at thirty five. So was that just one surgery between that twenty seven and thirty five?
Yeah, So I had just needed the one surgery and I think I was actually thirty four. It was not quite a geriatric pregnancy. I do remember that it was a disabled but not quite geriatric pregnancy. I had not needed any more surgical interventions. I still had you know, a pretty exciting bag of medications that I would use when I needed, but I wouldn't need them daily or even monthly, to be honest. But I hadn't don't had
to have any medical interventions after that first operation. It wasn't until I got pregnant that things started to unravel. And it was like it wasn't even a positive pregnancy test, it was conception onwards. It was instant. Yeah.
Yeah, the act of getting pregnant sort of undid all of this hard, you know, rehabilitation work that you had done.
I think without the rehabilitation work and the real I'd spend a good twelve months with personal trainer, like I want to get strong for pregnancy, so we'd be really deliberate about that. So I think without it, things potentially
would have gone much worse. But what happened was as soon as the relax and entered my system, I just seemed to relax all the structures that I had built up in my body to be strong, and so my leg would hurt more, or my pens and needles would be worse, or just bending on was like that shouldn't that shouldn't hurt that much? Because managing a spinal l injury.
For that long, you kind of start to know like, ah, this symptom I can put up with that, this symptom, I need to triaute it this way, like it's for me. It's like a little bit like having a child already, like I had, I learned how to manage it. And so once I got pregnant, I was like, this is going in a direction that I am not used to. It's escalating faster, the symptoms don't move through the same process, and so pretty much straight away and we got pregnant
the first time we tried. So of all the things we're going to share today, fertility was not one of those issues for us. And I tested positive within a couple of weeks. Like I woke up on a Monday morning and said, I'm pregnant. My periods half now late. It was literally one of those people. And I tested the next day and that sort of explained it. And so began a journey of just trying to keep up with what was happening in my body. The pregnancy itself
was really easy. I think I was described as obstetrically boring. But the container that had the uterus and the baby was really complicated.
I know that you mentioned a lot one of your biggest issues was facing the medical system and trying to figure out a way to manage your care correctly.
Yeah.
Can you talk to us a little bit about how you entered the system and how you kind of were able to gather a team. Yeah.
So we made the very deliberate choice to go into the public system. The advice we received that I was so complicated, we were probably going to be punted back into the public system, so we started there. I shared all of my medical information, so by the time I was in that already put me into an obstetric stream. I was not under the care of like a midware free group practice or anything like that, primarily because they just didn't know how my body was going to react.
So that was really good in that I was already in that stream. What was really difficult was so round about the three four month mark, I could not sleep for the pain in my leg. Like I'm talking, I've been awake for twenty four hours. I'm in so much discomfort, and I fell over and I went to the hospital because everything just felt wrong, and they end up doing an MRI on my body because they wanted to see what was happening with the spine during the pregnancy, So
that's great. The maternity hospitals connected to a normal hospital, they do the MRI there. I come back to the practice and the neuro surgery team has said, ah, it's a minor dispulge, it'll be resolved in six to eight weeks. And the midwife who's the one meeting me through the obstetric stream, is like, but you'll be six to eight
weeks more pregnant by them. Then I have to go away and come back and nothing's progressed because the neurosurgeons don't know about babies and the obstetricians don't know about spines, and nobody wants to help me with this app debilitating pain where I'm not sleeping for days, like I'm not able to sleep.
Yeah, And I suppose in terms of pain management, what were you Because you can't take neurop and you can take pan at all. But I suppose at that level of pain, what were you able to take?
So of my own volition, I could take the pan at all, which is what's recommended, and you can't take neurophine, and some of it was inflammation related, so that was really frustrating, but anything stronger than that, like, I needed the obstetrician and the neurosurgeon to kind of prescribe it. So the issue we were having was no one would prescribe it because they didn't know about the other thing. And I turn up to one appointment and I'm just crying.
I'm in so much pain. I'm crying and midwives, bless them. I love them. My sister in law's a midwife. It is an amazing profession. She walks out and I can hear her yell something like, I get in here. This girl is suffering. You need to come in here and help her. And so she appears to wrangle an obstetrician in. I think there was a physician because I had gestational diabetes. They couldn't get the neurosurgery person in, but they got enough people in and she was like, what is the
pain management plan here? So eventually I got onto some pretty like heavy medications, usually ones that you get like after a C section, stuff like that that I could use for cut through pain. So actually one of the things that happened was they wanted to give me a nerve pain medication. I took every day that would cut down my nerve pain. I love life to the max, so if you dull my nerve pain, I'm just going to live there, right And I got my partner and my mum at the time to look up the symptoms
because I couldn't cope with seeing that. They looked up the symptoms and we've been given some of the information from the doctor and there was a risk of heart defect or the baby versus these other medications which are often associated with being highly addictive. So I actually as a patient went in and said, here are my patient files in these addictive medications on and off throughout my disability. I don't want to risk a heart issue with the baby if I could demonstrate to you that I can
safely take these other medications. And so they agreed, which was really great. They trusted me. I could give them evidence. They trusted me. But that was probably one of the first like really advocating for myself saying I want to be able to take this type of medication in this way under your care. And we also found one that helped me stay asleep through the pain.
It was like a like an antihistamine, an antihistamine one yep, that I ended up taking quite a lot of.
But it would if I could sleep through the pain.
I was okay, yeah, So we.
Had a cocktail that I could. Initially didn't need to take too much, but it got a lot more intense over the time.
This is only a four months mind you, So as the pregnancy progresses, the pain's getting worse, I'm assuming because you're getting bigger, obstetrically boring. So Bove is growing, She's.
Doing all the things she's supposed to do. There was nothing concerning, nothing to worry about. It was me that wasn't coping. And prior to getting pregnant, I spent like two to four days a fortnight in Sydney, like I was traveling up there. I live in Melbourne. I was traveling up there all the time. So at four months I have to go back to work and say, hey, I can't I'm to Sydney. I can't run these collaboration
workshops with loads of senior executives. I can't do my job and I'm definitely not gonna be able to do it for the rest of the duration of the pregnancy. And I'd say the most surprising thing of the whole pregnancy. I thought pregnancy was going to be hard because of my back, but I thought that my workplace was going to be somewhere I had to advocate for myself and the medical system would be supportive as a person with a disability who was pregnant. And it just was the
exact opposite. My workplace. I had a great boss and a great hr business partner. They just found every policy and every procedure and every available support to help me out. They changed the type of work I was doing with that impact in my income. They just did everything and I never had to stress about work. I never had to stress about needing to take a bit of time off. I never had to stress about what was going to happen when I came back. They went above and beyond.
I mean, that's how it should be. It's not. Unfortunately, it's not like that in every workplace, and I've experienced both sides the coin and to have that level of support, particularly with something chronic like what you have, yeah, and have people being able to be like, you know what, it's fine, We're going to make the accommodations because we value you as an employee. That is just I'm so glad that you at least had that, even though the medical system was harder to navigate for you.
I don't know how I would have been able to cope with us fighting fires on two fronts. And bear in mind, by the time I'm having this MRI and getting this medication and this midwife has sort of ranked the doctors. We're in January twenty twenty, we're it like COVID's happening over there. It's something that we're not too stressed about yet. So by the time I progressed through this pregnancy, like, bear in mind, I'm still going to the gym four or five times a week because I
have to keep moving. I've set this target for whatever reason, that I'm going to be able to continue to do overhead squats, Like if I can keep doing an overhead squat with thirty five kilos on the bar, my body's going to be doing okay. So say that it's hurting. But I'm also like I'm on that bike, like, oh my god, I got so circu the bike because it was the only way I could get any cardio in just doing everything sensible. So stopping the situps when you had to stop situps, and I never did a box
jump because my foot doesn't work. But like I was, I was going to the gym and working with people I've worked with before I acquired my disability, throughout my disability, throughout this pregnancy, to be like, how do I stay as strong as I can within the context of this unbearable pain.
Amazing. It's also a testament to your mental strength as well. Let's fast forward a little bit to March twenty twenty. How far along are you ated in March twenty twenty when COVID really hits.
So by round about March, I'm already not going into the city. Oh, because the other thing that happens at the end of that year is the bushfires in Melbourne, so pregnant people are not supposed to go outside. So like, I've been working from home a lot at this point, so I'm at home permanently. Like the idea of getting into the office is just not possible. I am taking these heavy medications like four times a day. I'm still working.
I'm lying in my bed. My partner stopped working because I couldn't even stand to make a piece of toast, so I could lie down in bed and do my job camera off, but I couldn't really do too much else. And so by this point I'm being treated by the neurosurgery department within their physio department to help me with anything particular that I need. I'm going in and out of the hospital three or four times a week at this point to be checked and make sure everything's fine.
But it was probably around that time that they said to me, like I was really maxing out the amount of pain meds we could take, and they said to me, if it wasn't covid would probably take her out. But we don't know the effect of COVID on baby's lungs, So as long as you can cope with the pain, would like to keep her inside.
How far along we at this point.
Thirty two thirty three weeks, You don't want to bring a baby out early if you don't need to. So it was round about Easter time, maybe April. I stopped work and the hospital said, if you lose control of your foot, your bladder, or your beoll, then irreparable damage is happening to your body and will take the baby out. But until then, can you take this medication? Can you
put up with the pain? And I was like, yep, we can do that because you're like, you're already a mother, right, You're already like, I will do anything for the health and safety of this baby. And it wasn't going to do a reprobable damage. And I probably spent half my life floating in the bath at that point because that was a nice feeling, like the temperature and it was
a good way to take the weight off. And we just waited, coming up, You're gonna have to take the baby else we can operate on her spine, no preamble, no nothing, just goes and dry with that, and the midwive's face drops.
When did Theodora come out? Tell me about her birthday?
So as everyone who had a baby in COVID knows, like, you're in the hospital by yourself. So all my appointments, my partner hadn't been able to come with me. But I can't walk, like I'm on crutches. I can't walk. I need a wheelchair once I get into the into the hospital. So for thea's birth, it's Mother's Day twenty twenty, It's a Sunday, and I call out to my partner. I'm like, hey, so I can't move my foot and they're like, Okay, I guess we're having a baby today.
And do you know what's the most ridiculous thing. We hadn't packed a bag. Do you know how much like energy and like Instagram is actually dedicated to like what to put in your bag? We were so distracted with everything else, we were like surprised we were having a baby. Anyway. So we go into the hospital on the Mother's Day afternoon and I'm really adamant the whole way through, even though it's my spine that was not doing well. I
was not going into the main hospital. I was always coming into the maternity hospital and they can bring the specialist over. So they bring the specialist over. And it's Mother's Days to the really, you know, if one's with their families, and we get we're going to guess, like the more junior doctors. So we're in the room with my partner, a medwife, an obstetrician in the emergency room. The neurosurgery junior I'm going to guess, comes in and
touches my foot, doesn't move, goes away. It causes boss comes back and says, yeah, so you're gonna have to take the baby out so we can operate on her spine. No preamble, no, nothing, just goes and dry with that, and the midwives face drops, like midwives have seen everything, and your face drops, and that's the moment where we're like, oh, this doesn't happen very often. She composes herself, as does Osressia,
like no one's unprofessional in that in that moment. But they just sort of what felt like pushing up against the system and constantly advocating for myself. Once that happened, they just went, they launched, and they were like, right, this is what we're gonna do.
They finally became a team.
They became a team. So I actually have a sensitivity to some types of anesthetics. So I had to go speak to the anethetist in the maternity hospital, and it was a really interesting conversation because that trying to make sure that you have the most gauging birth right, that they want you to be there when the baby comes out rather than under general anesthetic, and also there's risks when you're under general anesthetic because it goes and it
gets into the baby pretty quick. But in my case, the anethetist, I think, first of all, said Oh, you're an exciting case today, so that was cool. I wasn't obstetrically boring in that moment. And then said, oh, well, because you've got scar tissue in your lower spine from your spinal surgery, if we put an epidural in here, you might feel some of the cuts. And I was like, absolutely not. I don't want that. I don't want that
at all. I know No. It was just this really bizarre like is that would that be okay by you? And I'm like, no, I don't want to feel any part of that sea section.
That's insane.
Look in the moment, I was just looking at them like is this a real question? Like how do I really have to respond and say no, thank you, I don't want to feel any incision of my sea section. But I mean, on the flip side, I end up under general anesthetic for the birth. My partner couldn't be in the room because it's really confronting to see your loved ones out under anesthetic, but they had. I think they took her out with them under a minute of.
Going under Oh wow.
Because they don't want any of the They don't want a baby to be born with the anesthetics.
How many weeks were you when you finally went in for that C section?
I was thirty seven plus six. I've managed to carry her to term, which will I think to this day be one of my greatest accomplishments because we grew her to a healthy size.
Oh, I'm so happy for you because that would have been so stressful and considering the amount of pain that you were under, it's amazing that you were able to do that. But you basically had to go straight to spinal surgery.
Yeah, so they actually didn't take us straight, and they sent my partner home and said, go have a good night's sleep. This is so complicated. All of our specialists will be here on Monday. We'll have everyone we need so that Bria's under anesthetic, the baby safe, like, we'll
have the full team. That was okay. We went to sleep that night, and so we had Theodora on Monday about eleven something like that, and I'm under general anesthetic and they take her out, give her to my partner like walk away, and so they're like, is she okay? Like everything fine? And they get given this like sticky baby to get dressed in some formula and stuff. So then later that day, they take me and get an MRI. But like I've just had a c section, So there's
like six or eight people. They have to wheel me between hospitals. There's all sorts of protocol because we're in COVID. They wheel me through, they lift me up and put me in the MRI, and like I was just lying, you have to say still in the MRI. And I'm just lying there with like tears like rolling down my face because I'm just trying to hold myself so still and I'm so terrified. Like last time this happened, I lost the use of the leg. So we go back
to the hospital. I have a night with my partner and my daughter, and then the next morning they wheeled me off to the other hospital. And in this whole process, the only time I saw my partner cry was when I left to go to the other hospital. Because it was COVID, they weren't allowed to come and see me after the operation.
And you weren't allowed to be with your baby either.
I wasn't allowed to be with my baby, and initially the hospital protocol said you need to go home with the baby, and like hands washed done, right, because that's what the protocol said, and to the hospital's credit, like once we were having a baby. They were so good. They were like, h this does not make sense. So they called the head of the hospital on Mother's Day and say, hey, we've got the situation within the other
parents should be staying in the hospital. We know that that's not protocol, but this is a situation like I couldn't get myself to the toilet, I couldn't do anything, so my partner got to stay in the maternity hospital. I went next door. I had a spinal surgery on the Tuesday, and I like hyperventilated on the table before they could knock me out because they said to me, it's like a forty percent chance we're going to net your spinal cord. And I'm like, wait, this isn't this
is like that's a lot. That's a really high and then you have to lie perfectly flat or they have to glo it back together, and I'm just like, I'm a mess.
And you've just had a C section.
Yeah, so your hormones are absolutely like you're going to You're going to cry and everything. Right. Everyone was just so nice because this was just such a messed up situation, and they calmed me down and I had the operation and I woke up after the anesthetic and a friend came and was my person there to help me through and that was really great. And the hospital said, okay, well, when you can get up, go to the toilet, not passed out, come back to bed, you can go back
to your baby. So it's like eleven o'clock at night, and like, I'm nothing if not stubborn, and I'm like chop front to back trying to get out of bed to go to the toilet, and the nurse is like, nobody's letting you out of here tonight, No one is. This is not happening till tomorrow morning. Lie down and go to sleep. Absolutely adamant. I just needed to get
back there. The maternity hospital is so good, Like the medwives were coming over and helping me get the colostrum out so that they could take it back for Saya. Everyone just was like, this is messed up. This would be messed up with that COVID, and so they just
did everything that they could. And I had to have two blood transfusions because you know, there's a lot of blood coming out at this point, and the hospitals coordinated for me so like, if the neurosurgery department had done whatever blood test it was to see if I needed
another transfusion, they were responsible for administering it. So they worked with the maternity hospital to like get the right people to check me off so I could go back to the maternity hospital and matternity hospital could be responsible for any iron or blood transfusions that I needed, so I could get back to my baby and stay there with my partner, and they didn't have to leave because I was back, because I wasn't doing anything other than
lying there. Like, it was an absolute mess in so many ways, but people really rallied around to help us make the best of it and to do the right thing for us in those moments. And so what could have been it's objectively quite traumatic, was less traumatic than it needed to be because people just did the best they could in that moment.
Yeah, and your partner is, you know, obviously terrified for you. Thankfully they're able to stay in the ward with the baby. Yeah, but well, okay, now I'm a parent, what do I do now?
Like, so one of the real positives is my partner's sister is a midlife and she was in the UK at the time, so the night times and Australia were like her daytime, so so like my partner could call their sister and asked about So that was quite good. The maternity hospital and the midwives were all standing outside trying to help, and we stay for another like two or three days. I say, there were two wounds to check and all of that, but again, like it was
COVID time we went home. We have no family here.
Yeah, and you're recovering from multiple surgeries.
Yes, And the reason I went in was because my foot wasn't working, so I'm learning to walk again. One of the things that worked really well was that their midwives would come to the house and check on you and the baby and check on the c section, and they also checked on the surgical scar that was my back, rather than a second nurse happened to come in and one checks the front, one checks the back, So like they just coordinated on some really basic stuff that maybe
COVID prompted them to do. The neurosurgery department had hydrotherapy recovery for their surgical patients. Yes, it was for my back, but actually I'd also had this baby come out, and so it was also so so good for my core recovery.
Yeah, so now that these five how is your movement now? How is your recovery being over the last five years.
Look, I'm able to walk. I use a walking stick. Today things are just deteriorating a little bit. But immediately after her birth, my mum was actually able to come from New Zealand and she happens to be a physical therapist, so she really focused on how for me learn to walk again?
Oh that's amazing.
And she stayed with us for six weeks, and so I was able to walk much faster than she hadn't have been there if I relied on all those other services. Twelve months after I'd had there, I did a competition at a CrossFit gym. I can last, like, don't get me wrong, but I did it.
Oh my god, you're amazing, Brier.
I was back at the gym as much as I can. My body is not the same as pre pregnancy, and I don't have the same strength. My back is not quite so good. But it's really hard to go to the gym five days a week when you have a baby and a kid, Like, it's just as different hard. So I go. I do different things like I go to acquicise classes, I ride a bike to work, I do yoga stuff like that. But yeah, I got my body back to being still disabled, but not it wasn't debilitating, it wasn't forever.
So that was really good from your story me hearing it, You're saying you're stubborn, but I think it's it's to your benefit in this stage because you were like, I'm going to walk again. I really applaud you for that. It's incredible.
I like to take got really difficult jobs. And by that I mean like I do a lot of disability advocacy stuff, right, And I joke I've learned to walk three times in my life, Like how hard can this be? One of the benefits of acquiring disability in my twenties is so much eager you have to let go. I've walked with a limp since I was twenty seven. I don't get to wear high heels, and some days the medication makes my skin hurt. I don't wear make out
something like that. You get to figure out what really matters. And I wanted to be a mom that was rolling around in the garden with my kid, and so that was the most important thing so why am I going to the gym? Why am I doing this activity? Because I want to be active in her life. And for example, we made the choice not to have any more kids because the surgeon's like, oh, you can have another one. You might need a spinal fusion, And I was like,
a spinal fusion, a toddler and a newborn. Count me out. I've got one kid. She's hilarious, she's such fun. I get to be an active part of her life. That's like the anchor point that's the most important in it. My backslides to her, It's like, Hey, what do I need to do to be the type of mum that I want to be?
What would you say that this whole experience has taught you?
So I think I never really talked about having a disability at work, and it impacted me hugely in my career like it does because if you don't ask for what you need, then it can really inhibit your ability
to do your job. And after I experienperience pregnancy and the difficulties in the medical system and all the support that I got at work, it actually encouraged me to start speaking about this at work and I shared my story once and then someone's like, hey, would you mind telling a group of people, and I told my story again and someone would message and say, hey, I'm now
asking for that because I knew this policy existed. And then I got asked to lead our employee resource group at my previous organization, and I got to bring together people with disabilities and cares at work, and I got to run an annual event for the whole company, and then that snowboard in too, do you want to write an accessibility action plan for the business, And then that snowboarden to like winning awards and getting all of this traction, and so I found that by last year I won
the Disability Inclusion Change Maker of the Year with the Australian Disability Network simply off the back of I told my story and it helps someone, And then it just I just saw the power of your voice and sharing your story and what you can do for someone and how you can help them. And that was probably one of the most beautiful things other than I don't know to come out of this, was the confidence to share it and how I've been able to help others.
With such a complex medical case. I wanted to find out from our resident obstrician and gynecologist doctor Bronwin and Devine. What do you do if your patient has a complex medical history and requires not just obstetric support but also additional specialists.
So this is probably done par excellence in the public hospital system. It's certainly possible in the private sector. But when you work in a big public hospital, you've got access to what we call a multidisciplinary team. So if someone had history spinal surgery or a spinal injury and was pregnant, we would manage them in conjunction with the spinal team, often the neuros surgents and the neurologists and the very specialized nursing staff who deal with spinal patients.
We would liaise very carefully with the anthetists because they're obviously very much involved with particularly if someone's having acessarean section with analgesias going to be or anesthesia is going to be conducted during that procedure. So it's one of the good things about working in a big public hospital is you get this lovely interaction between all the medical teams coming and talking together and planning things in a
very methodical way for patients. One of the things I noted in this particular case was that it occurred during COVID and that was really must have been really rough because COVID was such a I think we're realizing now the far reaching impacts on pretty much all of society
by the COVID pandemic. People coming through the healthcare system who may not have been affected by COVID, but people whose health care was limited or compromised because there was so much of healthcare resources that were being sequestered into caring for critically sick people with COVID, and so it meant that people's experiences in the healthcare system were certainly limited.
In this particular case, it would have been very tricky for her to go through with all the limitations that we had because of the compromise to the healthcare system.
Diary of a Birth was hosted by me Caseni Lukitch with expert input from doctor Bronwin Devine. If you like our show, don't forget to subscribe and rate. It goes a long way to allowing us to continue sharing your stories. This episode was produced by Ella Maitland and myself Cassemu Lukitch, with audio production by Tina Mattalov.