Swiss Birth Stories
Our mission is to share diverse birth stories from across Switzerland in a way that empowers the storyteller. We aim to create a supportive space where each person is in control of their own narrative. By recording and sharing birth stories in Switzerland, we hope to inspire those planning their own birth, offer insights for birth workers, or allow listeners to reflect on their own birth experiences. Tune in to hear real, personal, raw birth stories. Available on all major podcast platforms. This podcast is in seasons; during an active season, episodes will be released weekly.
Swiss Birth Stories
S02E04 Johanna: The Birth That Changed Everything- When Pain Transforms into Purpose
Johanna's resources (including her website and new podcast) are below this description
The journey to motherhood transforms us in ways we never expect. For Joanna, an Australian expat living in Switzerland, what began as a dream-come-true pregnancy turned into a birth story filled with unexpected twists – from her water breaking in the bath to a husband who wouldn't answer his phone (and was immediately presumed dead), a taxi driver who got lost en route to the hospital, and ultimately, a challenging posterior labor that demanded everything she had. She gave birth at Paracelsus, a unique hospital in Richterswil which unfortunately no longer exists. This is another example of smaller hospitals with birthing capabilities having to close their doors.
Though her birth experience was difficult, it was also profoundly empowering. Joanna vividly recalls the ethereal moment during transition when she felt connected to generations of women throughout history: "I had this awareness that I am this woman doing this thing that women have done for all eternity." With the encouragement of a compassionate Australian midwife who reminded her of her strength, she found the power to bring her baby into the world.
But the real challenges began after birth. Despite her lifelong dream of breastfeeding, Joanna encountered devastating difficulties that were met with insufficient support and harmful messaging about her anxiety being the cause. For six months, she never got more than 45 consecutive minutes of sleep while trapped in an exhausting cycle of feeding, pumping, and supplementing. Years later, she discovered the true cause wasn't her "personality flaws" but her babies' tongue restrictions – a revelation that completely transformed her understanding of her experience.
This discovery sparked Joanna's journey to become a lactation consultant, now dedicating her life to ensuring no mother endures what she went through. "It wasn't my fault at all," she shares, challenging the narrative that blames mothers for breastfeeding struggles. Her story reminds us that birth is just the beginning of a profound transformation, and that with proper support and understanding, we can rewrite the narrative of early motherhood for ourselves and others.
Have you faced similar challenges? Share your experience or reach out if you're struggling – support makes all the difference in this transformative journey.
Johanna's resources:
https://milkandmotherhood.com/
@milkandmotherhood
https://www.thelatchrevolution.com/
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Hi, welcome to Swiss Birth Stories. I'm Julia Neal, mother, perinatal educator, hypnobirthing coach and trainee doula.
Christine Bliven:And I'm Kristina Bliven. I'm a doula, baby-wearing consultant, childbirth educator and mother of three. Today's guest is Joanna, a lactation consultant and mom of two boys who were born at Paracelsus in Richterswil. Her story had us on the edge of our seats from water breaking in the tub, a husband who wouldn't pick up his phone in early labor and was immediately presumed dead, a taxi that got lost on the way to the hospital, and a long, grueling labor that demanded everything she had mentally and physically. Her breastfeeding journey was marked with sleeplessness, misinformation and well-meaning but insufficient help. That in turn, led to her current work as a lactation consultant, where she helps countless women overcome their own breastfeeding hurdles. Overcome their own breastfeeding hurdles. Hello, joanna.
Johanna Sargeant:Thank you so much for being on our show and telling your story. No problem, I'm super, super thrilled to be here with you guys and share what I can, so that's great.
Christine Bliven:Awesome. Before we get started, do you mind just introducing yourself a little bit about your family, where you're from?
Johanna Sargeant:Yeah, sure. So hi, I am Joanna. I am originally from Australia, from Perth, as is my husband. We have both been in Switzerland a long time now 14 and a half years, so a long time. My accent's a little bit all over the place now. I think I have two boys. I had both of them here and they are unbelievably 13 years old and 10 now. So my stories are from a while ago, but I think that all birth stories seem to be such a you know, a big moment in our life that they stick with everybody to a degree. So I feel like it could have been one year ago and I will still remember it the same.
Christine Bliven:That's so true. That really is something you remember forever. As soon as I tell people what I do and who I work with they, they can be 60, 60 years old and they'll say, oh, my birth exactly right back, so exactly you're right about that yeah could you tell us a little bit, then, about the journey to pregnancy?
Julia Neale:how did that go for you did? How was the decision to start a family for you guys?
Johanna Sargeant:um, and then a little bit about your pregnancy, yeah sure, um, I was very lucky with that whole aspect of this journey, um, very aware that I'm very lucky as well, because I think I've had many people around me that have had a really tough time getting pregnant. It was something that I feel like I really I absolutely vow to the fact that I feel like since I was about 10 years old, I've just been like waiting until I can grow a baby in my belly and birth them. This was like this thing that I was desperate to do, and I felt like I just spent my whole life from that point just waiting until the right point and until I had the person who would be like, yeah, okay, let's do that now. And I had to be like very, very calm about the waiting right, and don't get too excited with the man in your life and that kind of stuff.
Johanna Sargeant:And so I think my husband was aware of this about me, and when we first came to Switzerland, we had a plan, I think, like a lot of people here, we had a plan to be here for one year and then to move back to Australia and start our family and have babies in the logical way with family around and such, and instead we were here, I think for six months, and we kept checking in with each other Like, are you still happy? Should we go back? Should we start looking at what we're going to do when we get back to Australia? And we just continually kept saying, like, actually no, we are both good here, and decided after a year of being here that well, if we're not going to go back to Australia to have babies, let's just do it here then, if we're both really, really happy and we're not actually wanting to go back at the moment. So I was 29 at that point in time, which at the time felt like old, which is ridiculous to say now.
Christine Bliven:But if you've been waiting since you were 10, then exactly exactly.
Johanna Sargeant:Thank you for understanding. And I don't know. I feel like in Australia as well, and in my group that I grew up with, I feel like people were having babies at like 25, 26 quite frequently, and it was very much like I was surrounded by people having babies and I wasn't yet, which felt really unfair at that point, but very much when we decided like, yes, I think that that's a good idea, let's just kind of stop the contraception and not actively try but just see what happens. And then we got pregnant, like I think, maybe not the first month, maybe the second, but very, very soon afterwards, without any issue whatsoever. So that whole process was actually incredibly straightforward and simple, and also the same with the second. It was mentally a very different situation, but as far as, like, the physical process of getting pregnant goes, again we decided like, okay, we might as well just go for it. If're in the thick of it, let's do it. Um, and I think within two or three months again just got pregnant without any kind of issue.
Julia Neale:So that was pretty lucky for us were you living in the Zurich area at that time?
Johanna Sargeant:yeah, we were. We started off living just outside of Bern in this really, really tiny town called Boll, and that was. We went on Homegate, went on like the real estate search and found the cheapest apartment in all of Switzerland and we moved there for six months before we managed to move into Zurich and we lived in Vidicon in Zurich for a while.
Julia Neale:So you decided to get pregnant with your first son, and then how was the pregnancy with him? How did that go? And then how would you compare your first pregnancy with your second pregnancy, when you had this toddler at the time?
Johanna Sargeant:Yeah, I was unsurprisingly thrilled to be pregnant. Yeah, I was unsurprisingly thrilled to be pregnant, and I feel like I could not get enough information about being pregnant and about what was happening with this baby that was growing inside of me. There was not like I was obsessed, obsessed about it. I needed like day by day updates was not enough. I needed hour by hour, like what is happening with what cell at what time. I wanted all of the information and I just felt like really, um, just desperate for more information all the time. I think a lot of people feel that way, right, right, and all of the kind of general like you know, this is when this develops and this is when this develops, like, no, I want to know what is going on with my baby in there at this moment in time. Right, and I really remember that kind of urgency that I had to try to find out all of this information, that I had to try to find out all of this information.
Johanna Sargeant:I was it wasn't easy. I'm tentative to say it wasn't easy because I'm also I hear so many stories and I work with so many people that have really tricky experiences and tricky pregnancies and so, in the grand scheme of things. It was a very healthy and easy pregnancy. I know that, like I had a lot of back pain, I had a lot of pelvic pain and my nausea was not too bad, but it was, you know, it was like low level there all the time. It just wasn't pleasant and all of the visions that, again, I think probably a lot of people have, of being like seven months pregnant and running along the edge of the lake and being like you know, like that was not happening at all. I was in like a decent amount of pain in my hips and stuff as well, but I was thrilled so it didn't really bother me. I tried very hard to be as healthy as I humanly could be.
Johanna Sargeant:The one thing this is the story that I tell to my boy all the time is that the only thing I wanted to eat in my pregnancy was a Big Mac and that was it. And I was so obsessed with being really fully organic, as close to perfect as possible, and I couldn't understand why my body just wanted this Big Mac, and so I spent months trying to make my own, like better version of a Big Mac and it did not like hit the spot at all, and so I remember this point. I thought I'll just go and get one and it's never going to be as good as what I think it's going to be, and it was like the best thing I've eaten in my entire life. So for some reason, like now, he's kind of a little bit of a McDonald's fan, you know. But we have a reason why.
Julia Neale:You guys can laugh about it together. Yeah, that's so funny.
Johanna Sargeant:So I think, like the pregnancy itself was good compared with my second when I had a toddler around, the main thing that I struggled with really was like mental health with that process and so much of what I discovered after the fact was like after I had my first, I recognised a lot of my behaviour in pregnancy the first time around was very obsessive and very anxious and on high alert all the time and there was a lot of red flags of not being quite okay in my first pregnancy.
Johanna Sargeant:But I wasn't really fully aware of that at the time. So then when I got pregnant the second time around, I had a really hard time mentally with that. But again the physical aspect of it was okay. I'd say it was probably pretty similar actually. So still really achy and bad back and such. But you know the standard difficulties of having to like bend over for a two-year-old and my two-year-old that wants to be carried still continually all the time, and you know I'm not alone in that kind of struggle, I'm sure, but I think when I was struggling mentally so much that time as well, then it was it felt particularly difficult and overwhelming at that point.
Christine Bliven:Did you have any sort of support for that bit for the mental portion?
Johanna Sargeant:Short answer no, I very much hunted hard for people to help me out. I was very aware with my second that I was not okay, but it was very much just the concept of like, you know it's going to be fine. Of course you're worried about it. Everyone that's got one toddler is going to be worried about how their life is going to impact with their second. Like, this is all very normal and the way you're feeling is normal. So try to take five minutes to yourself every day and have a nice shower and do some deep breathing and huzzah. Magically everything will be fine, you know. So, um, I did go to many, many people to try to get some help and um wasn't able to find anyone to help me properly.
Julia Neale:I think that that advice is is all very nice, but you knew in yourself that this was not just a little bit of jitters with the change like you knew that this was something that you wanted to work through and it's such a shame that you didn't get that support at the moment.
Johanna Sargeant:Right, right, and I think that there is like you're absolutely right. I think you know what they say is true, that yes, of course, I think that everybody does struggle the second time around with what is that going to mean? How is that going to change my family dynamic and all of that stuff. But for me particularly, there was like I had a lot of sort of OCD things that were going on and a lot of really severe compulsions that were happening that were taking up my entire day. I couldn't really function very much at all. So I think that that kind of like, when it became really obvious practically that my like day-to-day was not functioning the way that it could, that's where it was okay. Well, this is beyond the realm of just being a little bit worried about how things are going to change you know, so um, when we then think about preparing for birth, I wonder how that played out in birth preparation.
Julia Neale:but just in general, how did you approach your birth? If you're someone who loved to know all the facts and you were quite um, you know, into all the little details how did that impact your? Well, just in general, like, how was your? When you think back, how was your preparation for birth?
Johanna Sargeant:I think that I found it difficult at that point to not be in my native country because there was like not that much information available and there were things like you could do a hospital tour and you could do like talk to the midwives if you wanted to, things like that. But my German was not at that point at a level where I felt comfortable I'd only been here like a year at that point and I was, I did feel, really lucky that I was able to go to a birth prep class, which was just one weekend and that was all that was in English at a private hospital, at a private hospital, and that class, like I mentioned before, like I just want to read and research everything whatsoever, and that class, I really feel gave me absolutely no new information in any way whatsoever.
Johanna Sargeant:Oh no, but it was a nice way to actually just kind of be in this space, I think, with like other pregnant people and people that are English speaking in this place, and we're all like a bit nervous and new, and that in itself, I think, was really valuable.
Johanna Sargeant:And I think that one great thing about it was that my husband was there and so I know all of this stuff, but I feel like he didn't really know any of it, and there's very much, you know, that situation where I can describe it all to him, but if somebody external tells them, then it's a different scenario, right, and so I think that was super helpful for him and gave him like really clear ideas of things that he can do to help as well.
Johanna Sargeant:I did also do a hypnobirthing class online as well, but I wanted to do, in addition, I wanted to do this other kind of more standard birth prep, because I just kind of wanted the science of it as well, of actually what's going on at each stage, and hypnobirthing wasn't giving me that information and, of course, because it's me, if there was like 12 birth prep classes, I probably would have done all of them right. So that's just how I roll the hypnobirthing. I absolutely loved it. I felt really connected with that Um and I. I had like the CD that I would listen to in bed and I remember, um like I never one time managed to get to the end of the CD because I would always fall asleep halfway through and then I would dream about rainbows and flowers opening. We always say it works better.
Julia Neale:If you fall asleep, it works better. That's what we always tell people. I had never made it through a week Amazing.
Johanna Sargeant:But I felt really. I felt really positive about it and I very much believed, like, okay, this is what my body is built to do and I am so going to do this. It's going to be amazing. So I was very positive about the whole thing.
Christine Bliven:That's awesome. So then when it did start, how did you know things were were starting and and that things were going? And then how did the the labor go?
Johanna Sargeant:um, so with my first, I'll talk about my first first. Uh, that was we were at 40 weeks like bang on 40 weeks, and I was in the bath and I came out of the bath and was leaking what I thought was a little bit of bath water, as we women sometimes do, and what I noticed was like there was no kind of big gush of water that came out, but I just went and sat on the couch and then every time that I wiggled a tiny bit, then, like a little bit more water would come out and I'm like I don't think that that's no, that's like different, and I'm also not winging. So there is like I think that that's what I think my water broke, but not in the dramatic way that I had thought it would right.
Christine Bliven:As seen on TV.
Johanna Sargeant:Exactly right. And at that point in time I called the hospital where I was registered and explained the situation and they told me about I can't remember the specifics of it, but told me about like put a pad in and then if it gets wet in this amount of time, then you should come in and check it out. But otherwise just hang out, do your thing at home and give your hubby a call and have a nice time together, bake a cake together, play a board game, whatever you feel like doing. And I had like all of these board games that I was going to play together and we had this whole plan, but I didn't do any of it, which I don't want to say. I want to say that, yes, I did all of those lovely things, but I didn't. I just kind of sat there and was like, oh my God, I'm about to have a baby.
Christine Bliven:What time of day was this?
Johanna Sargeant:This was like 5 pm or so and I called my husband and he didn't answer. And I called him a total of 24 times and he didn't answer. He was on a bike ride which I didn't know, and I was very convinced that, of course, the only explanation for him not answering is that he is dead. Like that is the only possible explanation for this situation. So when he then walked in, like in my version of the story is like eight hours later, it's probably like 12 minutes later, right, but it felt like an eternity at that point in time and not to blame my lovely husband in any way, but I feel like that kind of set me on a little bit of a stressy beginning when I had all of this lovely plan of how things would go right playing board games together and having a nice date night, turned into he's dead somewhere.
Johanna Sargeant:He's dead exactly birth alone exactly in a country where I can't speak the language and all of this right, so, um, but then he came home and obviously was alive and we, uh, we're okay at that point in time. I'm sure that we had a conversation about it, I'm sure, um, but it was uh a while that I stayed at home, for sure, and I know that he was, as he does. Actually, the thing he does is that when I'm stressed, he tries to make me eat. He thinks that I'm stressed because I haven't eaten enough that day, so I'm like no, there's other things going on sometimes. So he was all about, you know, the sweet man was all about making me rice cakes with hummus on it and all this stuff that I just was not interested in having in any way whatsoever, and I wasn't feeling any contractions at all at that point in time. We're still just doing the like little leaks that I mentioned before. And then I noticed I would say it was like definitely a couple of hours it was now night, so I'd say like 9, 10 pm.
Johanna Sargeant:By that point I noticed that there was like that the waters had gone a bit green, and so obviously then there was some meconium going on in the water at that point and, with all of my research, this was like beep, beep, beep. There's something going on here. That's not great. So I called the hospital and they said that's also just fine, no problem, keep having a breath. But you know, you should maybe think about coming in. It would be good just to see how things are going. And they're very, very calm on the phone, which was very nice.
Johanna Sargeant:Um, we didn't have a car, so we took a hospital uh sorry, a taxi to the hospital. And, um, when I was in the taxi is when my waters, like, fully went. So I felt pretty bad about that and I feel like when I've heard like, if you call a taxi when you're in labour, you shouldn't tell them that you're in labour, probably exactly for that purpose. So sorry for everyone else in the future. I'm the reason for that. Oh man, how that happened. Um, I don't remember the question that you asked me. I don't know if I already answered your question but yeah, how things started, and that's quite a start.
Christine Bliven:Yeah, I'm on the edge of my seat right now, oh my gosh yeah he also like another, like fun fact.
Johanna Sargeant:He also got lost on the way to the hospital and I'm like it's literally along the main street on the lake and then you do one turn. This is not hard, oh my god. Anyway, I would you know I had night at the birthing preparation so I was staying very calm the whole time.
Julia Neale:Absolutely, I'm sure, yes, exactly. Um. So then, when you did eventually make it to your hospital, um, what was, what was that process like? Do you remember? How do you remember how you were feeling and also, of course, the logistics of, like, what happened?
Johanna Sargeant:I think it was just kind of this surreal feeling of the fact that, like there's so much of my life that was leading up to that point in time and that this is it, now you know, and that there is, as everybody tells you, that that you know your life is going to change completely and that this is the moment and I can't kind of do hospital. I remember them like just being so calm all of the time and the hospital that I was at they were so wonderful at making sure that the like they knew very much about the hypnobirthing concept and they were so respectful of all of that about the hypnobirthing concept, and they were so respectful of all of that so they had like really beautiful lighting in their birthing room and when they checked me, like they put the monitor on the belly and checked the baby's heart rate. I don't know if I've got the right terms for that. Do they call it a monitor? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know if I've got the right terms for that.
Johanna Sargeant:Do they call it a monitor? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. Um, and even with all of that kind of stuff, I feel like they they kept every, every volume, really low, nice lighting. The photos that I've got, I think, are like really low lighting from that period of time as well. Um, and I had, you know, my lovely playlist that was on and it was all very calm and lovely and because I didn't have contractions still at that point in time, it was just like me hanging out just having a check-up and that was it, and having a nice chat with my husband and not wanting to eat and that was kind of it.
Christine Bliven:Hi, I'm Christina, a doula, baby-wearing consultant, childbirth educator and mother of three. I'm the owner of Lilybee, a family hub in Zurich where you can find resources, community and support in English as you begin your journey into parenthood. It takes a village.
Johanna Sargeant:Find yours here the contractions did eventually start to kick in, but it took quite a while and I have heard since that point. I have heard that if you have got like water's break and then you've got meconium, like they really want to get things going and they didn't. Where I was, they just I'm that like I don't know what was going in background. I'm sure that they are like very highly aware and very much checking everything that's going on, but in my perspective, I was just left to be with my husband in this nicely lit, lovely room with beautiful music and just hang out until things started to happen themselves, which was really lovely. And then they did, and they did start on their own.
Johanna Sargeant:They did, yes, so I didn't need anything to kick that off at all. I'm pretty sure that they did kind of encourage me to just like do some walking around, things like that. I did get in the bath and that was. I mean, I love being in the bath, and that was I mean I, I love being in the bath at all times, and that was. I can't remember if that was something that kicked it off or if I got in the bath after it had already started, but I sure spent a lot of time in the bath anyway. Um, but it did all just start to progress itself the way that they wanted it to go, so that was really good. And then I mean, how long have you got? I could talk for an eternity, right?
Julia Neale:It's so hard because I will sit here. We will sit here and we will listen until the cows come home. We know, yeah, I mean I never want to hurry anyone ever in their stories, because I just love listening to them.
Johanna Sargeant:Well, just edit out the boring bit if you need to. What boring bits? How are we going to?
Julia Neale:find a boring bit. I'm just like. This is my hobby as well as my job and it's so nice.
Johanna Sargeant:I'm talking to people that are actually interested to hear it's so good, oh, like non-stop.
Julia Neale:And then we can connect it. Like every birth story is always are also different. So then like we can connect it to other stories we've heard or we've experienced or we've um clients have, and like it's just so amazing. And this is really interesting about the timing, because with the meconium, I mean, they're checking with the monitor, so they're checking intermittently, they're seeing like how is baby reacting and if there's a range that they would expect a baby to fall in, and if baby is in that way and if mom is well and it's a certain amount of time, there really isn't a reason for them to do anything. But in another sort of context it would be much more high stress. They'd be much more sort of titchy and not um focused on your well-being and how important you. Remaining relaxed is really, really um vital to the whole process.
Johanna Sargeant:So this is just fascinating, right right and I do think, like, like absolutely in hindsight, I I see that if I had gone somewhere different and I came there with meconium and having contractions and I I can tell you that it got pretty intense, pretty quickly um, I was, like I said, in the in the bath for a lot of it. I remember doing like a lot of moving in the bath and I remember the midwife telling me how amazing that was and that, like, the way that I am moving is the perfect way for like birthing and it's so cool that I just naturally I'm doing this. I remember feeling like really proud that I'm doing like the right kind of movement, you know um, and that's probably something you didn't read about, that's something that I just it was the only way that I could feel okay, and it was yeah, it's interesting how our bodies do this stuff, right?
Johanna Sargeant:so um, it was I. I know now that it was a posterior and it was really painful, really really painful, and it stepped up to that pretty quickly and it very much. I remember that the like a lot of the hypnobirthing practice was about, like when you know you have the wave of a contraction and then in the little gap in the middle, this is kind of how you regather yourself in some way. And I remember that like, very quickly I had no gap in a very like it was a very long birth, um, and I remember that they they checked me at some point and I felt like I don't know how long it was, but I felt like it was a very long time of this, just like continual contraction, pain, and they checked me and I was like one centimetre and that was it, and it was heartbreaking, oh yeah. And I thought like for sure, I'm going to be like at least eight, right, like completely. But they talked all about like it's fine, you know, like the effacing and the whatever it is the other stuff that has to happen, like that's really hard work You've done amazing Like no, like this baby is not going anywhere at the moment, right. So I then remember like I just continued doing my thing, rolling around in the bath, doing what I need to do, turning on my front, going on my back, et cetera.
Johanna Sargeant:And I remember that I reached this point where I had heard about like the transition point, where you have like transition point where you have like this absolute wash of hopelessness and of like I think that that, oh, it sounds so traumatic and I feel really, really conflicted to say it, but I really felt at that point in time with the amount of pain I was in it. It was like really, like I am going to die. That is the only thing that is going to happen here. And I had that moment. I remember thinking like okay, that's it, this is my life now, like it's done. And then I got really excited that that must mean that I'm in transition, because that's a thing that I had read about. So then they checked me again and I was four centimeters and like I can't. I can't explain to you like what that did for me at that point in time, how I just felt. And I know like at that point that was we're getting kind of past 24 hours of like active contractions. At that point, and again, I know like that that is a long period of time when you've also had the water has already broken and you've already got meconium, and so my labour was very long considering that. So I don't know what kind of monitoring that they were doing, but I think that I mean he's healthy and it was all okay eventually. So I think that they were very on top of it. But I know again that if I was in a different hospital that would be a different scenario. So I was at four centimetres it was awful.
Johanna Sargeant:And then I had a change of shift of midwife and the midwife that came in is an Australian woman and she'd lived in Darwin for 20 years and it was like, oh my God, I can just like say anything and you will understand. Like I can speak in my 50% slang and you will get it. I can speak in my 50% slang and you will get it. And she is someone who I had met for like an ultrasound earlier and she had known that we my husband and I we did in the year before we moved to Switzerland we cycled around Europe for a year and we were camping and cycling and I found that really hard and I whinged to her at that time when she did my ultrasound about that and I told her that I feel like I spent a whole year cold as well and I was like cold and uncomfortable and it was not this romantic thing that I thought it was going to be.
Johanna Sargeant:So when she came in and I was having this really hard time, she kept telling me that I did this hard thing for a whole year and this is like one day and I can do hard things for a day, and she knows that I am a super tough human that can do super tough things and I feel like that so went deep into my heart. That was so amazing for her to have remembered this story from like quite a long while beforehand and then to use that for me. I feel like it was really powerful and I had at that point, I think, when they said like four centimetres, I was like, okay, I need an epidural, I need a C-section, I need like something has to change. I cannot continue the way that I am. And then she came on and she said this to me and I was like, yes, I can do hard things, I am going to do this. Yes, oh, wow, I love her. Yeah, I love her too. I actually had coffee with her last week, oh great, yeah, yeah.
Johanna Sargeant:And what she did was she? I'm sure you guys know about this. This is not something that I knew about at the time but she did these like saline injections in my well, the back of the pelvis right, which I feel like when that was going in was holy crap so painful and a totally different kind of pain to the pain that I was going through with the contractions. But wow, that really really hurt. But the aftermath of it really helped with the contraction pain quite a lot and I don't know what it was that helped. It might have just been her presence, I don't know. I also remember that I was in like a kind of a zombie bubble. You know, you get in the bubble right of like I'm not really aware of what's going on labor land, yeah is that, where you come, I love it.
Julia Neale:Yeah, yeah, it's a space yeah completely right.
Johanna Sargeant:Um, and I know that when I did eventually like hit this transition point eventually, like in eternity later, um, for me what happened? It wasn't this kind of dread, but there was this moment that was like I don't. I feel like it was this magical, ethereal moment that I had, where I had this awareness that I am this woman that is doing this thing that women have done for all eternity. And it felt like I had all of these past women that were in me in that moment in time that were like you're doing this amazing thing. Now I get all teary about it. It was so amazing. And then I could manage to kind of push out this posterior baby that really did not want to come out, and we spent then many hours doing the pushing but at least then it's, it's like productive and you feel like, okay, I'm doing something active. But I really remember like that shift for me was like such a intense, like womanhood moment for me at that point, so I told you that I'm gonna cry at some point.
Christine Bliven:I didn't think about that, but I love that description and I I know what you mean.
Johanna Sargeant:That's that is so powerful that you, that you know that in that moment you I managed to do it without medication, but I am really really happy that I didn't, because I got to have that moment and I feel like that's not anything that I would have experienced otherwise in my life and it was not like a conscious thing, that I thought it was this like full experience that I had, you know, and I think that that wouldn't have happened otherwise. So that was like this magical moment for me. Birth was cool, even when it's like super hard.
Christine Bliven:That was a really cool moment, right and that's the only way you get that. Like you said, you yeah, because it is hard, right exactly?
Johanna Sargeant:exactly yeah, and I think because I'm pretty much blacking out from the pain, but it still worked.
Julia Neale:So you really are on like another level of consciousness and it comes in and out in waves sort of, but you really are in labor land. You really are in sort of a different level that you could never access otherwise.
Johanna Sargeant:Absolutely yeah. Yeah, I remember there was a point where I kind of like came out of that, of that state for a moment, because I heard, like my husband and this midwife and somebody else who probably was the doctor, I'm not sure, but there's three of them all started laughing hysterically at some point and I came out of it to be like what is it? And apparently I was making some like really weird noise that they all started to laugh at and then they, like I came out of it and they managed to get me back and were very calm and then tried to like imitate my noise to get me back. But I remember like the hysterical laughter that appeared at some point and realizing that, wow, everybody else is actually just being a normal person and watching me in this state right.
Julia Neale:Yeah, there are people right now just living their lives.
Johanna Sargeant:I am like in another dimension it is wild, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's funny, yeah. Then it came out and then I pushed. I had to get out of the bath, um, to get I had to get like on all fours on the bed and um, I pushed him out and I remember her talking about his hair and how I've got like a little blondie, which I was like, oh my god, it's amazing. And she got me to feel, as he was coming out and, um, and that was it, and then I had my baby and I always wanted a baby, so it was amazing wow, yeah, um, that that was incredible.
Christine Bliven:I love that. Um, what was, what were those first few hours and days like still in the hospital?
Johanna Sargeant:so I, the first few hours with him, I I remember that I had like, when he came out, he came on my chest and he needed a little bit of oxygen, but they just did like like he didn't have a mask on. They just put like a little bit of open oxygen underneath his nose so that he had a little bit higher level and he wasn't crying at all at the start. They had a towel over the top of him but he was really pink looking, I remember. But I remember that he wasn't crying and they weren't super worried about that. But then I also feel like these people just seem to not get worried about anything that. But then I also feel like these people just seem to not get worried about anything. So, but again, at the time they were not causing anxiety for me, which is amazing, right, um, and I think it was.
Johanna Sargeant:It was a very short period of time, but I remember he was on my chest having this oxygen and this lovely midwife said like I think he's just a bit too cozy, and she took the towel off him, made him like, rubbed his back and then he started crying and then everyone was fine. And this again is like a story that I tell to my boy about like, like. He doesn't like uncomfortable, he just wants to be like cosy and snuggled up all the time and that he was like that from the very first moment, you know. But I think clearly there was. This was clearly a very hard labour for that little baby too, right.
Christine Bliven:I'm exhausted. I don't even have the strength to cry. I just want to Exactly, exactly, yeah even have the strength to cry.
Johanna Sargeant:I just want to exactly right. Yeah, um, but I was on such a high after the birth, um, he managed to breastfeed straight afterwards, like within the first half hour. Um, and I had always wanted to breastfeed. It was major priority for me. As much as I talk about how I had this vision of like being pregnant and growing a baby with my body, and that that was the thing that I had always wanted to do, part of that whole vision for me also was then I would be in this chair in the corner of the room breastfeeding a baby, and that was like these two things were completely interlocked for me.
Johanna Sargeant:Um, and he breastfed at the beginning. No problem, he latched on, fine, um, I remember that I then gave him to my husband, who did skin to skin as well, and they left us alone in the room for a long period of time afterwards and I just got up and then went to go to the toilet and went to the toilet and then came back to bed, and then the nurse or the midwife came in and was like what, what just happened?
Christine Bliven:what did you just do I?
Johanna Sargeant:was like I just needed to do a wee. She's like no, no, no, no, what no? And I mean everything actually worked fine, so, but I remember, like that was the only time that she was not super chilled out and relaxed was the fact that I got up and did a wee, like very soon after this massive post, right, but anyway, that also like that was fine still. Then the period of time after that like it was very nice that they gave us the time like a very long chunk of time after that, like it was very nice that they gave us the time like a very long chunk of time, to the point where I was a bit like you know what am I meant to be doing exactly? Hello, like you in there, take me somewhere now, or what's happening? Um, and then we went to the room and we had put in a request for, like, if they had a family room available, and they did so. We were super lucky for the first two nights that we had that as an option and I breastfed him.
Johanna Sargeant:I know that, like, like from the first moment, because I had done so much research about breastfeeding beforehand, because it was really high priority for me as well. Um, I knew that they are very sleepy and that there's colostrum and that it takes a long time and the best thing you can do is just have them on you and breastfeed as much as possible. Um, and I was tracking things with pen and paper and I know I still have it in his baby book. I nearly burnt it at some point, but I didn't, which you might find out why later later. But, um, I know that I was feeding like between 90 and 20 hours a day for the first four days after birth and clearly had, uh, not amazing nipples by the end of that process.
Johanna Sargeant:I think, even when babies have got a perfect suck and everything is going perfectly, that if you have got that kind of vacuum and compression on any part of your skin for that amount of time, that you're going to have some issues. I then got moved to a room with another woman and her baby was like the biggest gulper that you have ever heard in your life and was so loud feeding, and I again just had him on me 100% of the time and I could not hear a thing that was going on for him, and this is when I started to like, really flip out about there's something that's not quite right. So, and then there's that whole other journey, but at the moment that is where we're at.
Julia Neale:So Julia here. It's my mission over at happy day to mentor and support you in creating a pregnancy, birth and postpartum experience that is empowering, holistic and uniquely tailored to your needs empowering, holistic and uniquely tailored to your needs. Together, we'll uncover the tools and knowledge you need to thrive, with confidence, mindfulness and self-compassion at the core of your journey. That's the reason why I offer my three hallmark courses to parents in person in the Zurich area and online. They are Hypnobirthing Plus Mindful Postpartum Preparation and Hypnobirthing for Planned Caesarean Birth. Check out my website, happydayhypnobirthingch, or Instagram at happydaybumpsbabesbeyond, for more details, useful content and support. Now on to this week's Swiss birth story.
Christine Bliven:I'd love to see I want to hear about that too. So why don't you tell us about, like that's another session? Why don't you tell us about, like, coming home?
Johanna Sargeant:What kind of support did you have at home in those first weeks? Yeah, um, so we came home on the train, which I was super happy about. I was like, wow, I am such a like little European family that we take the train home. We put him in like a Moby Wrap and I had this thing where so he was born like middle of May and I remember that the lilacs were blossoming and, as an Australian, like my favourite poem is about lilacs and that was a big thing for me when I moved here was that there were lilacs around and they do exist and they smell amazing. And I had this thing that when we would walk home from the train station, that we walked past this big lilac bush and that he's going to smell it, and that was our like kind of big moment and I got to do that little dream, which I'm so happy about, wow, um, there's so many like little memories from this time that are so poignant in our lives, you know so, just like holding his tiny little face up into a lilac blossom. That's in my head, so it's really nice.
Johanna Sargeant:Um, I had, I'm gonna say, like zero support. So we did have the standard Swiss situation of midwives that were coming um, and I did have a very did have a very kind midwife that was like very much helped with making sure like I needed two stitches, which is not traumatic considering the, the posterior and such um, but she, so she was checking on my stitches, she um was, I think, doing like kind of just the very standard stuff but with the feeding, was absolutely lacking in the qualification necessary to be able to help our situation and she was absolutely trying stuff but it wasn't working. And, um, I didn't have. I was the first of my friends here to have had a baby and because we were so new here I didn't have a very big circle of friends at that point in time, um, so I didn't have like a group of women kind of to call on or people who could help in that way.
Johanna Sargeant:And my mum in Australia she I now know, had a very rough time herself after birth and as excited as she was for me and we have a really beautiful relationship as excited as she was for me to be having a baby, she made it really clear that she thinks that it would be best if she comes over when the baby is like about four months or so, and that was like she wanted to just kind of leave me with my husband and my new baby to find each other and learn about each other, and then she'll come over a little bit later, and I now know that actually I think that this would have been very emotionally complicated for her to be there at that point in time, um, which I can completely empathize with, but then also it would have been amazing to have my mum here at that point. So it's very, you know, it's it's tricky.
Julia Neale:These things were tricky, right yeah, it was also um a time, sort of, when the paternity leave was. I mean, it's abysmally short now, but like even shorter and zero home office. Right yeah, absolutely. This was yeah, yeah.
Johanna Sargeant:And we were doing the typical triple feeding scenario where it was like I would spend an hour breastfeeding and then I would pump for 45 minutes and then we would bottle feed and we got told that bottle feedings are meant to take as long as a breastfeed. So that meant that this is like two hours and 45 minutes to feed my baby, and then you start over right and you've got to clean pump parts um and you've got to maybe go to the bathroom um other luxuries right, do a week occasionally right.
Julia Neale:Well, then this is around the car to eat something.
Johanna Sargeant:So yeah, um, but of course you know this was the means to the end. For me, it was like, okay, well, if this is what I have to do to get to where I need to be, then this is what I'm gonna do. Right, and that's? That's how many women tend to go postpartum is that if they get told that this is a thing that they have to do, they do it right, yeah, ideally with a plan in place, though, right yeah, and ideally with an awareness that that mother is a human being and not just a machine
Julia Neale:you definitely didn't have that if you were doing this around the clock.
Johanna Sargeant:No, absolutely not, and I was getting like night time. I did not get a solid 45 minute chunk of sleep for about six months at all. And then I mean you you know he didn't sleep for a very long time, but I was like the dream for me would be 45 minutes. That's all I need like one 45 minute chunk, and then maybe I'm gonna be okay and like, oh my god. I look now and holy cow, like no wonder my mental health fell apart so horrifically, like this was just disaster waiting to happen right, yeah, yeah, literal torture, like that's what they absolutely right right um, yeah, I don't know how much you want me to go into that it was.
Johanna Sargeant:It was incredibly I, I am aware of the time.
Julia Neale:Yeah, you know what do we do? Um oh I think it's so important. Um, joanna, I'm wondering because I I want, um, I want people to know that your story isn't normal, right, and that it should never be normal. You did not receive the right support and that, if they're ever in that position, that they really should have a plan. Yeah, and then?
Johanna Sargeant:I can do, that I can like, why don't we?
Julia Neale:we should also ask like, where is the redemption here? Right, we need an arc, not like. And then shit went down. So then, um, I'll, I'll ask them like in this pit of I mean, you can't even describe it sleep deprivation at this moment, this is this. Is it as sleep deprivation at this moment? This is, this is another level Sleep deprivation is, is is too kind of a word to talk about what? What you injured during this time, for six months?
Johanna Sargeant:Yeah, it was. I, I don't even know Like, yeah, and like really, truly like my mental health was shit. I feel like only in the last two years have I managed to properly recover. And I really think, like truly like my mental health was shit. I feel like only in the last two years have I managed to properly recover. And I really think like okay, yeah, it was sleep, you know.
Julia Neale:It was sleep. I mean, you're here today, you do what you do. I'm really just really curious about what did that story look like afterwards? How did this go? What did that story look like afterwards?
Johanna Sargeant:How did this go? So I mean, we haven't actually mentioned that. Like, yes, I work as a lactation consultant now and my absolute goal is that nobody ends up in the situation that I was in, ends up in the situation that I was in. I wish I could tell you that with my second, things were better, but they weren't. And yes, we had a different story, but the same as far as information and support and kind of trying to find ways to move forward was also dramatically terrible, so much so that I very much is like I cannot imagine that there are so many women here that are in this situation. This is not okay.
Johanna Sargeant:And, like I said, like I research everything, and especially when I'm anxious and of course if I feel like my baby's not getting the best in quotation marks at that point in time then I am going to research the hell out of that and figure out what is going on, what is the best that I can do and how can I make that happen. And what that turned into was the fact that I now kind of like feel like I knew everything very quickly about all of the possible reasons for why people would end up in this kind of scenario, and that meant that any time that I came across someone online initially that had any version of something like that, firstly I had such massive empathy for it. I totally get how heartbreaking it can be to not have that dream fulfilled, and I know other people have other dreams, like, like you know, vaginal birth as a C-section, things like that. So, for whatever it is for somebody, I feel like I totally get it if it doesn't happen for them and for me it was the breastfeeding. So the fact that that didn't happen meant that I had so much fuel to learn and to try to fix it and then to try to fix it for everybody else.
Johanna Sargeant:And it was really only through that kind of obsessive research that I did that eventually, like four years after Ruben's birth my first and two years after Harvey my second that I actually figured out what was going on and that it was not because I have an anxious personality and my anxiety was stopping my letdown and it's just the kind of person that I was that was causing the problem. It wasn't that and it wasn't the fact that there was something wrong with my hormones and it wasn't the fact that I wasn't eating right and that everything else that I was doing was wrong. It was the fact that my baby's tongues were not working the way that they should and that it had nothing to do with everything that I was doing. And I feel like this this changed the world for me because it was not my fault at all and it was nothing that I could have done differently at that point, and particularly because so much of the support, I think at that point in time, when people are struggling, I hear so frequently that people are told that their anxiety is rubbing off on their baby and that their anxiety is making their baby stressed and maybe that's why feeding is going tricky.
Johanna Sargeant:That's maybe why sleep is going tricky. Anything like that and like this is not the case. This is like you can't tell someone. Like do you really think that telling someone that their anxiety is harming their baby is going to make them less anxious?
Christine Bliven:Like no, there's a quick way to raise anxiety. That's how you do it.
Johanna Sargeant:Right. So for me to learn that actually it was not a personality flaw that was harming my children, and in my mind at that point in time, the fact that I wasn't able to breastfeed was harming my children, so it was like, okay, my personality is harming them. That was my logic that came from that. So when I realised that that wasn't the case and then I realised that there are all of these other women around that have the same kind of belief that has been put into them by well-meaning people and it has got nothing to do with that, then I had to change it. And so that's what I'm doing now is I'm trying to change it and I feel like it.
Johanna Sargeant:It is a very big goal to try to change the whole general concept, and I have gone through the period of trying to change the world and trying to change the whole system. I've done that for years and now I'm back to like you know what, I'm just going to work on this one mama who is in front of me with her baby and she is absolutely in the tunnel and can't see the light, and I can help her right now. And helping that one person right now and helping six people every Tuesday is amazing, and I don't have to push, push, push, push, push and work myself to the bone when I can make this massive difference to just one woman at a time as well.
Christine Bliven:And for that woman it will change her world.
Johanna Sargeant:And also for that woman I've since discovered because I've been doing this for a while now I've since discovered that that woman then goes and tells her friend and then that friend now knows that, oh, maybe it is because my baby's tongue doesn't lift the way that it should and not because I am the wrong kind of mother.
Julia Neale:We've had a guest on this podcast that you have done this to, you've done this for them, and she's come on here. It was Rosanna, if anyone wants to look back on the website and listen to her story, and you did that for her and she's come on this podcast to tell other people that this help is out there and actually, um, yeah, it's not just rosanna, but it's amazing that we we can say, yes, absolutely, joanna, you are, you are really, you are doing this.
Johanna Sargeant:Thank you and it is like I do feel like you know, we came here to talk about birth and I feel like I yes, I had a difficult birth, but it was also so empowering and wonderful to have been able to experience that whole process and I think that it's really tragic that then the period of time afterwards kind of completely undoes all of that, that like feminine power that I had in the birth process, you know, and I think it would be so nice to be able like how different my life would be and how different that story would have been if I was able to like continue to harness that throughout the motherhood journey from that point yeah, and it's such an important part of the story because it really doesn't end with birth and and many people you know, I just got to get this baby out and that's that, and that's a huge part of it, but there's so much more to it and I think it's really important to acknowledge that that yet parts of it can be really empowering and parts of it can be really difficult and yeah, but also that it doesn't it also doesn't just start with birth, too that we have these archetypes of who we are when we're entering into this, into this portal, into this transformation.
Julia Neale:So we've like often when we're interviewing and talking to people about birth, we spend a very short amount of time actually talking about the birth. Sometimes it is quite like a long time, but it is and it's wonderful and it makes it really interesting. Um, that, yeah, we're birth stories.
Johanna Sargeant:Podcast episodes are about an hour long, but, but most of most of the time when we talk about birth, it's about 25 minutes right right, yeah, right, well, because it is like, like you guys know, like it is, it is the transformation of of our entire being as well at that point in time, right, and everything that we had known beforehand will be different afterwards. So I'm sure that so much of this conversation is about that. Yeah, the before and after. Right, totally.
Julia Neale:Totally.
Johanna Sargeant:And then you walk around afterwards and you look around at all these women who have had children and you're like oh my God, you've done that too, I know, and then you want to hear like so what was it like for you? Was it the same for you? Like, did you have that moment? Like, did you shove your baby's face into a lilac blossom too, or am I kind of crazy, you know?
Julia Neale:did you cry when you, when your kid, first heard the tram ding ding? Because I did. Yeah, absolutely. Um, joanna, I'm only, I'm only um asking you our final question because I'm aware of the time. Sure, christina, as an aside, is that right? Yeah, right, okay. Our final question is and this is going to be a really hard one for you- oh great, Our final question is in this whole experience and this whole transformation, could you choose your most brilliant moment?
Johanna Sargeant:Whoa Like. That's the end of the question.
Julia Neale:That's it. Wow. I often like fluff it out a little bit and I kind of like will talk so that people get a chance to think, but I added out these pauses anyways, we'll talk so that people get a chance to think, but I added out these pauses anyways. It's just like that moment that when you're vacuuming and you're like whoa, you're just like off, and you're like, oh, wow, I did that. Or oh, my god, wasn't that amazing? Maybe it was the lilac, I don't know.
Johanna Sargeant:I I would say, for me it was the moment where I decided like very clearly had that moment where I decided that I totally can do this, where I had felt like it was absolutely hopeless and that I am not going to make it through this, and it was that massive flip that happened inside of me. That was like no, I am a super, super strong woman that has wanted this baby my whole life and I am going to freaking get this baby and this is going to happen. And I think that that for me was like, yeah, I totally will hold on to that and that kind of strength that I had to do that forever.
Christine Bliven:I'm not going to say anything else. I think that's a fantastic news. Also, I'm crying, you know usually it's me who cries.
Julia Neale:Oh, it was amazing. Thank um, joanna. Thank you, this was incredible you're so welcome.
Johanna Sargeant:Thank you so much for asking me to talk about this moment in my life. It's so nice to have the opportunity to get out.
Julia Neale:Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Swiss Birth Stories. If you enjoyed today's episode, we'd love for you to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an inspiring birth story or expert insight. Your support means the world to us and helps this community grow, so please also take a moment to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback helps us reach even more parents-to-be. Don't forget to share this episode with a friend or loved one who could benefit from it, and be sure to follow us on social media at Swiss Birth Stories for even more tips, resources and updates on upcoming podcast guests, courses and events. We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and birth stories too, so feel free to DM us, fill out the form on our website, swissbirthstoriescom, or tag us in your posts. Until next time, keep sharing, keep learning and keep connecting with each other.
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