S03E01 Diana: 2 Births in Zurich- A Fast First Hospital Birth And A Taxi Delivery For Her Second Baby

Diana's resources are below this description: 

What happens when labour quickly goes from quiet to unstoppable and the only “birth room” around has four doors and a meter running? We sit down with Diana, a Brazilian living in Zurich, to relive two unforgettable births: a swift, positive first delivery at Spital Zollikerberg in Zurich and a second that arrives in a taxi during rush hour- no midwives, no doctors, no time, just instinct and inspirational courage.

We start with the ease of her first birth and the rare gift of a newborn who slept long stretches from night one. Then the scene changes: a surprise second pregnancy collides with early COVID restrictions, shifting hospital rules, and the logistics of caring for a toddler while working from a small apartment. Diana shares how she chose her care team and hospital based on continuity, NICU proximity, and realistic worst‑case planning- decisions that brought steadiness when everything else felt uncertain.

The heart of the story is the taxi birth itself: contractions that spike in minutes, a neighbour (in his late 40s and childless) turned improvised birth partner, a driver with his own special birth story, and Diana putting a hand down to catch her own baby and arriving back in her body and senses at the perfect time. 

Once home, relief meets a new challenge as her newborn is monitored for gastrointestinal issues and her toddler battles salmonella. We talk about the hidden demands of postpartum in a pandemic, how a strict feeding schedule surprisingly boosted milk supply, and the emotional work of integrating a fast, intense birth. 

With a trauma‑informed midwife, Diana reframes the experience: intensity can still be healthy, and instinct under pressure is real strength. Along the way, we celebrate the unlikely bond with the taxi driver, the family rituals that keep the amazing story alive, and the deep connection that grew between two closely spaced siblings.

If you love real birth stories, practical perinatal insights, and honest talk about resilience, you’ll feel right at home. Subscribe, leave a review to support the show, and share this episode with someone who needs a reminder that calm can live inside chaos.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet The Hosts And Diana
• 1:27 Diana’s Fast First Birth And Easy Postpartum
• 6:45 Surprise Second Pregnancy Meets Pandemic
• 12:05 Choosing Care And Hospital Under Restrictions
• 18:20 The Day Begins: Subtle Signs Of Labour
• 22:50 Sudden Active Labour At Home
• 26:30 Into The Taxi And The Birth
• 31:10 Arrival At Hospital And Aftercare
• 36:20 Postpartum Curveballs And NICU Stay
• 41:40 Processing A Fast Birth And Trauma Care
• 46:30 The Taxi Driver Connection And Media Buzz
• 50:45 Settling As A Family Of Four
• 56:00 Strength, Lessons, And Brilliant Moments
• 1:01:30 Closing Notes And Listener Invitation

Transcript

Julia: 0:08

Hi, and welcome to Swiss Birth Stories. I'm Julia Neal, mother, doula, hypnobirthing specialist and perinatal educator.

Christine: 0:17

And I'm Christina Bliven. I'm a doula, baby wearing consultant, childbirth educator, and mother of three. Okay, you're gonna want to sit down for today's episode and get ready to pick your jaw up from the floor like we did. Diana, originally from Brazil, married to a Swiss man and living downtown Zurich with her two daughters, tells us about her two incredible births. The first was very fast and positive, followed by a unicorn baby who slept through the night, ate without problems, and made for an easy transition to motherhood. Her second was an unexpected pregnancy just before the start of COVID with an incredible series of events that end in a taxi birth. She talks about the joys and difficulties of such a birth and how she managed to integrate her story in the midst of a very tough postpartum period.

Julia: 1:11

Welcome to Swiss Birth Stories. We are so happy that you're here today, and we really look forward to hearing your story. Could we start off with um you just introducing yourself and a little bit about you and your family?

SPEAKER_00: 1:27

Yes, thank you very much. Um good morning. Um I'm Diana, originally from Brazil. Um, have been in Switzerland now for 11 years. Um, I'm married to a fantastic um Swiss. Um, that's how cliche I ended up in Switzerland because of love. Um, we've been together now for almost 16 years, and we have two daughters. Um, Clara is seven and a half and Louisa is five years old. Both of them were born in Zurich with very different but very special um birth stories that I would like to talk about it a little bit more if possible. Um, yeah, I think um, in terms of um having kids, I never really had the feeling that it was the right moment or not. I think it came naturally with um our history in terms of being a couple, we had some long-distance relationship um while I was still living back in Brazil, and he was coming and going from Switzerland. Um, and after two, two and a half years of this coming back and forth, we decided that I would move to Switzerland. Um, so starting from scratch, um, trying to find a new job, uh, learn the language that I had no German whatsoever back then. Um it's quite a journey. It's um, although I'm quite international in the sense of a Brazilian standard person, um, I already had English, I was working with English back then. It was not that smooth and easy to settle in. So we were just living as a couple and not really planning still to have kids. Um, by the moment that I got pregnant with my first one, I was in between jobs, so it was quite an easy pregnancy. Um, I was able to take the time to really feel it, and I continued doing my dancing lessons because um, on the side, as a passion, I do um jazz and ballet classes. So I was um pregnant seven months doing pirouettes um with a big belly, so it was quite lovely. Um, I would say that dancing always helped me to be very self-conscious about my body and my feelings. Although I'm very risk-adverse and very non-tolerant to pain. Um, I delegate 100% to doctors and people that know about stuff about my body, but I think I know my limitations of how much I can handle or not. Um that being said, my first birth was quite uh quite a quick one for a first birth. I was very scared back then about the amount of pain and how it would take place, but um not to create expectations with myself. I never really had like a real birth plan and things I would do or not do. I just said, I don't want to have a long birth, and um if I start having complications, let's let's see what the doctors have to say. So I kind of let's say delegate very easily these decisions. Um, so I'm an easy uh pregnant, I would say, not really stubborn um in terms of the mindset. Um, so that was super nice, easy from the first contraction until she was born was like four hours, which is quite a fast birth for a first one. Um we managed to make it to the hospital. It was during the World Cup in 2018. And the interesting part is that we had um Brazil playing and Switzerland playing at the same time because we were in the same group uh during the World Cup. So I was wearing the Brazilian shirt, my husband the Swiss shirt. And when we were on the way to the hospital, my husband was like, let me change it. I'm like, no, you can go with your Swiss shirt, it's not a problem. Um, so I have a picture of her right after she's born wearing the Brazilian shirt. Um, and I still have it until today. So it's my like special Brazilian um tricot, as they say in Swiss German, and I'm gonna have it for my entire life. Um, so that's that's why it was like already a very special first one and very connected to our cultural um um diversity in the family. It was super nice. Um, and it was really an easy start being a mother, no complications with the breastfeeding. So it was a fantastic baby sleeping since the first night, eight to nine hours. So I was like, oh, this is easy. I can take this is like, what do they say about the newborn faith? Very, very nice, easy smooth. Um, when she was one year old, I found a job. So I returned to the market. Having a baby that sleeps, I'm saying, I'm ready. You know, the market is there. I found a job, it's time to go back. And um, as soon as I started, I got pregnant with my second one that was totally unplanned. Um, we wanted to have a second one, but because I had just started my job, I was still in the probation period. So I was not even with three months um within the company. I had to tell my boss back then, listen, something happened that was not planned on my side, but I'm telling you first, before even going to the doctor, before even telling my mother back in Brazil, um, just to be very clear that um I'm here committed to work, but hey, we have something in between that might take me off a few months. Um, so it was already a very different pregnancy in terms of how it started, because when you're not expecting and you're a bit unsure how it'll take place at work, um by the time I was hitting the 12 weeks mark, is was when we started the lockdown in Switzerland in March 2020. So that added a completely different perspective and complexity for my second pregnancy, which I also cannot complain. It went very smooth, I had no complications, everything went fine. It was really um easy in terms of a pregnancy, but just mentally very, very draining. I think how the whole world was taking it. We didn't know the extent of um what type of complications you can have during pregnancy, during the COVID situation. So we were really avoiding contact with anyone from family, um, friends. I was not getting the tram. I was only walking and doing things um by foot when necessary. Other than that, we kept my oldest at home. She was not going to the kita. So I had to continue working, being pregnant, having a toddler at home. My husband working from home, we have a small apartment, so we were just like doing what we could to make it happen. Um, so by the summer of 2020, things were a little bit easier in terms of lockdown in Switzerland. Things started to reopen. But back then, the hospitals were still having some restrictions in terms of having someone next to you during the birth. And I remember that that was my biggest fear, um, not knowing if my husband would be able to participate and enter the hospital or not. So every week we were getting different messages, um, people that had their babies. I said, My husband was not being able to join, mine was. He was able to join for half an hour and had to leave. So, all of these different messages, I said, you know what, I cannot control this. We go with what we can. Um, also, anyway, we had our toddler. Um, she turned two in June. Um, so she was already in that terrible two phase, which is uh once you look back, it's like it was not that difficult. But when you're going through it, you see that it's intense. Um, so we just had our options A, B, and C who could stay with her if he is able to stay with her, okay, not with me. So let's see, and and and play by the ear what is possible according to the situation.

Christine: 9:54

Did the did the restrictions influence your choice of hospital at all, or did you know you wanted to go back to the same one?

SPEAKER_00: 10:01

I wanted to go back to the same one because I had a very good um experience the first time around. It was 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes by car from um where we live. So that's something that is also um to take in consideration. Knowing that I had quite a relatively um fast birth the first time around, I said, okay, yeah, I had a very good experience. Um, because I have half private, I would also be able to have my own room in the hospital. And that's also something that for me was um important now, being a family with the kids, to be able to have my own separate room. I know that there um the hospital is um Zolikebad, they also have um the ICU for um prenatal babies. So I said that for me that was also an important choice. If something happens, you could do everything in the same uh hospital and not have to have the baby one place and the mother in another another one. And despite having an easy pregnancy and having a first easy birth, I always had in mind worst-case scenario um type of option when choosing a hospital. Um, so for me, that was something a no-brainer. I didn't even look into other options back then. The first time around, we did do some um night evenings at the hospital to see the possibilities. Um, and also I have a gynecologist that does participate in the birth, which is not so usual in Switzerland. At least in Brazil, you always have the same one until um the baby is born. But here in Switzerland, I know it's not the same. So I was happy that it was on the list of the places that she would participate, which is good as well. So everything was going smooth despite the COVID and the whole madness that um was in the entire world back then. Um I have to say, first birth, I think I had 40 weeks and two days or three days, something like this. So I was always there with the 40 weeks mark. Um, but the second one, I started having, I wouldn't really call like um um uh training contractions or um it was really not a contraction, but I like the Braxton Hicks. Do you mean like the tight more the tightening? Exactly, but it was not a full extent of it. Um my first pregnancy, I had nothing, I felt nothing until I had my first contraction. So um every time I would ask, but how do you know you're in labor? And everyone would say, You will know. I'm like, I don't understand this. What do you mean I will know until I had my first contraction? I was like, okay, this is it. I really know what it means now. Um, so the second time around, when I started having usually end of the day, the belly would be a little bit more tight. It was different from the first pregnancy, but I couldn't call it really a full contraction. Probably I was tired. You have a toddler, you're working, it was COVID, so it could be a lot of different things and not specifically uh a contraction, but I did feel more tired in the end of pregnancy, um, the second pregnancy. So I was taking it as is. I started reducing slowly my workload. Um, I think the last month before week um 40. So I reduced first to 80% and then to 60, um, depending on what I had in terms of workload. And then um two weeks before my due date, that's when I stopped working. So I said, okay, now I delivered everything I I had to, and I can have my two weeks for myself and really um start relaxing. So um the day that she was born, I work woke up in the morning and I went to the bathroom and I realized that I had some red blood coming out of my urine, and I said, Okay, this is something I have to tell my doctor. I called. Um, she was not in, it was a Wednesday, she doesn't work on Wednesdays, but they said, Come in, we have another doctor to have you checked. Um, you can come immediately, you don't have to wait. I was like, Okay, perfect. Went there, they checked the heartbeat, they did ultrasound. Um, they said everything is normal. Um, she's starting to really put her head down, and probably one of the veins um is um giving you this red blood, nothing for you to worry about. You can give birth today, or you can give birth in one week. There's nothing we can say about it.

Julia: 14:50

Hi, Julia here. If you're pregnant, preparing for birth, or navigating those intense early weeks with a newborn, I want you to know you can plan for this time with confidence and support. I'm a Zurich-based doula, and I support families through pregnancy, birth preparation, and postpartum with services like birth preparation workshops, hypnobirthing plus courses, postpartum massage, and personalized postpartum meal planning, designed to help you feel calmer, more confident, and truly cared for during this time. Supporting families in this way isn't just my work, it is truly my passion. I believe this kind of care is part of a quiet revolution, one where parents are supported, listened to, and valued. You can learn more or book with me at juliathedoula.ch, and you'll find me on Instagram at juliathedoula.ch. And now let's get back to this week's Swiss birth story.

SPEAKER_00: 15:58

And the doctor, she was quite funny, and she mentioned that usually when she takes in patients from the other doctor, then they have a birth during the night, and then the doctor has to go to the hospital in the middle of the night. So she's like, uh, it's a joke. I'll send her a message just so she knows that you were here. I was like, okay, it's all good. Um, I came back home, I had a burger in a nice restaurant close by. I did my nails, I had nothing else to do. I'm like, I'm just chilling and seeing what's what takes place. Um, I think I was with 39 weeks and five days. So I was again close to the 40 weeks. Interesting how back then, these days, you're counting by the minute, and now I'm like, was it 40 weeks? Was it 39? It's just all parking around the same um the same date. So I was at home, my husband was doing home office that day around 4:35. I started being very tired, physically just drained my energy total. And I'm like, okay, this is I'm gonna lie down and relax. Um, I was the one always picking up uh my toddler from the kita. My husband would take in the morning and I would pick her up. Um, and he was in a call when he finished the call. I said, Listen, can you pick her up today? Because I'm really tired and I have a feeling that she's gonna do a tantrum to leave the kita and I don't want to go through it. He's like, sure, yeah, I can do it. And then he looked at me and said, Are you feeling okay? I said, not really. I'm not, I'm very tired and I don't know. So he said, Um, he's usually not the very proactive in terms of um what we should do and with the kids and everything. But he said, Should I call our friend and ask her to pick her up from the kita and take her to her place? And I said, that would be a good idea if she sleeps there tonight because I have a feeling that it's gonna be a long night and I don't want her to, you know, experience and then we have to take her somewhere in the middle of the night. But no, pick her up and take her to our friend's house because it's gonna be the first time that she sleeps over somewhere at a friend's place. It was COVID time, so we were not having really interactions with other people. And I said, if she has to sleep over somewhere else and be picked up by someone else, uh, she might not be the easiest kid, although she was very close friends to this family. So he said, Okay, I'm gonna pick her up and take her there. But are you sure? Can I leave? I was like, Yeah, go. It's okay, just go. I'm gonna order a pizza because I don't want to cook tonight, and then it's easier, we have something to eat. I was like, okay, sure. But the moment he left the house, I couldn't get up anymore. And the contraction started fully from one second to the other. And I'm like, okay, this is not going as expected, it's going a little bit faster. So I immediately went to the bathroom, and then I was sitting there for a couple of minutes, and it was very, very intense and already painful as hell. Um, so I said, okay, let me enter the bathtub and try to put the water because they say if you put hot water, it either increases and you're really in labor or it will stop, and then you know, if you have to go immediately um to the hospital. But I couldn't even touch the water, it was like needles in my skin. I could not even really um listen to the shower. So I got out. Uh, I don't know how because it was already very painful to do any movement with the legs. So um I sent a message to my husband. I couldn't even call him because I was in so much pain. And I said, Listen, call me a taxi. I'll go and pick you up at our friend's place in Sefeld, and then we go to the hospital. So he called our first contact, uh, which was our neighbor that lives next to our. Building. Her house faces our terrace. So it's not the same household, but we all share more or less the same environment. Um she's an older lady in early 60s, so and she works, um, used to work in a pharmacy, so perfect contact for this type of stuff. Unfortunately, she was not at home. So he said, Okay, plan B, let me call my best friend that lives downstairs, which is our neighbor, which was in his late 40s, single guy, no experience with kids whatsoever. And he said, Yeah, please go upstairs and help Diana. Um, I'm calling a taxi. So he rings the doorbell and I'm like, Oh, the pizza is here because I had order a pizza. Um, and then he opens the door and he's like, Can I come in? I'm like, You're not gonna see anything. I'm just sitting in the toilet, I'm dressed, you can enter the house, no worries. Um, I have my suitcase ready, I have my bag ready. It's like, okay, I'll help you to go downstairs. The doorbell rang again, and he's like, Oh, the taxi is here. I'm like, Oh, maybe it's the pizza because I was worried about the pizza. Where is the pizza? Um, so he was laughing. He was like, You gotta be kidding me that you're expecting pizza as well. I'm like, just close the windows because there's a storm coming tonight. So I was still very sane and realizing everything that was happening despite the pain. Um, and then we live in a very, very charming old apartment in the old town of Zurich. So it's between the 12th and 13th century, but we do have a small lift in the building. So I managed to enter the lift. My friend went downstairs because he said, I'm not gonna enter the small um elevator with her, and he was carrying the bag, so he went with it. Funny story: my first birth, the lift was broken, so I had to go down the stairs. So I was like, I'm happy this time around, I can use the elevator with the contractions. I don't have to wait for each contraction to go down the stairs. So when I got downstairs, I could barely walk the corridor from the elevator to the main door, and it's really a small, I don't know, like 20 meters. It's really not a long one because I was in so much pain. Um then I could see that the taxi driver was a bit uncomfortable with the situation, and I would be as well as you know, it's not something you see every day. I was smart enough to follow my husband's cue to take a um a towel with me, was the only thing that I really could carry with me was the towel, and I put it in the taxi, but I couldn't enter the taxi. I really had no position, and I I didn't know how to do it because I was in so much pain. So I tried like entering with the head and sideways, backwards. I really had no position. And then my friend um said, Okay, I'll join you. I'll go in the taxi with you because he saw that the situation was really um a lot more severe than he thought. So he entered the taxi, sat in the front, and the taxi driver said, Where's your mask? Because it was COVID times. And he's like, You cannot sit here, you have to sit back there. And he's like, No, you're not understanding. I'm going, I don't have a mask, and just drive. We have to go. Um, we had a shield in between the front part of the taxi and the back because of COVID. So it was kind of separating us, you know, me in the back and um the driver and my friend in the front. And I managed to enter the taxi. I don't know how, but I was kind of putting my hands in the seat so I could not touch because just sitting was very painful.

Julia: 23:58

Um, do you have a sense of how much time has gone past, like between your husband leaving and you entering the taxi?

SPEAKER_00: 24:07

Um 20, 25 minutes, not even half an hour, I would say. What's going on in your mind at this moment? At this moment, I was totally out of myself. I was really in so much pain that I could not really think it through. I was just thinking, how do I sit in the taxi to make it to the hospital? Um, so I was literally just holding my entire body with my hands. Um, I was lucky enough that it was summer, so I was wearing a dress, which makes life much easier. Um, and the moment that the taxi started driving, I realized that it was a lot of traffic jam because it was um 6.20 p.m. So really brush hour, end of the day. Um, and then I thought to myself, I'm like, we never have traffic. This is Switzerland, it's like such a perfect country. Everything is always functioning. And we don't back then we didn't even have a car. We did everything with public transportation. So I had no idea about the rush hour. Um, how does it take place with the traffic, if it's gonna take half an hour or just five minutes traffic? So that was the only thing that I thought. I'm like, oh my god, traffic is not the best time for me. But immediately, as soon as we went a few blocks, then we were moving normally, and then I was totally out of myself. Um, the taxi driver says that I was screaming a lot, which probably is the case. I'm a very vocal person, so I can imagine that. Um, and then because my first birth was a natural birth and it was also very quick one, um, I didn't have anesthesia, although I did ask for it. It was just I dilated fully in like less than an hour in the hospital, so we didn't have the time to do anesthesia. I felt the entire birth this time around. Um, I felt a pressure as if you need to go to the bathroom, and I said, I know this pressure, this means something different. And um, I'm very, very scared about medical um situations. If I see blood, and this literally happened two weeks ago. I cut myself in the kitchen doing um freaking maroni to the kids, and I fainted and I was alone with the kids at home. So I'm a person that faints when I see my own blood. So I'm really very, very scared about these situations. But when I felt this push, I decided to put my hand down and I felt her head. And I said, okay, now it's the time. I cannot go back, there is nothing I can do about it. And um, I decided to do my best and I said, I have to push now, there's no other option, because I was afraid that she would get stuck in between. And back then I had no idea where we were in terms of location, how far we were from the hospital. Although I knew it was a maximum 15, 20 minute um ride to the hospital. I I lost track of where we were exactly. So when I felt her head, uh, the only thing I said in German was, is baby komt? The baby is coming. And I remember the taxi driver looking back, wearing the mask. It has very blue eyes and just bulging eyes, like, what is she saying? And then I just I don't know if I closed my eyes, I have no idea. I don't know if my water broke, this, these small details. I really have no um idea how it took place, but I just did one push, she immediately came out and I catched catched her, which I don't know how this happened either, because um during the moment it's so intense and everything, it's just a few seconds. Um I didn't participate in other births in my life, so I don't have the full experience what to do. I wouldn't be able to help someone else even after giving birth, but I literally catched her in my arms and then I was back into myself. I didn't feel the pain and I was totally normal. And the taxi driver stopped the car when I was saying that the baby's coming. So I don't know if we were still in the move or he had already parked because it was so quick. But I do recall clearly both of them getting out of the car and opening the door, and she was in my arms already. And I think the only thing I managed was like to put my underwear a little bit down, and she just slipped out. It was like, Hey, I'm ready. Can we can I come to the world? That's I always tell her the story that you're knocking and saying it's my time. So when they opened the door and she's in my arms, I looked at them and said, Can you please close the door and the window? Because you know, we're here in a naked baby. I have nothing. It was summer, it was a hot day, end of August. So thank God um it was good weather. And then they started reacting. So, which hospital do we take her now? We're very close to the Kinderspital and the Uni Spital. I'm like, no, we're going to Sorgebäg. They have my exams there. I went my first time there. I know where we're going. We're good, just close and let's get moving. Um, and funny enough, is that um our friend that was in the taxi, he's the one that called the birth because he looked into the clock what time it was. So it was 6:36. I always tell him that he's my Hibami, uh, although he didn't do anything, he was just there.

SPEAKER_01: 29:44

But um single single guy in his mid-40s who has no experience now has this because that's like off the deep end as far as exactly, a completely different level.

SPEAKER_00: 29:56

Um, he also called the hospital and say, We're arriving with the baby, so be ready for it. Um, and then he called my husband, and they always have a very ironic type of conversation. So he called and said, Hey, your daughter is here, and my husband, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, no, I'm I'm not joking. You really have to come, she's here. And my husband was, Oh my god, what is going on? Um, I think he was already dropping off my daughter at the friend's place, and then he got a taxi and went immediately to the hospital. By the time we were arriving in the hospital, I had a thought and I said, Hey Ben, do you mind taking a picture of me? And he's like, No, you gotta be kidding me. I'm like, What do you mean? When a baby's born, you always take a picture. It's like, why will it be different? Just because we're in the taxi, like, get it there, it's in my purse. You can get my phone and take a picture, and then that's the picture that I have. He took like four pictures in a row. Um, one of them you can see the umbilic and my underwear a little bit further down, but there's not much of a bloody image. It's actually quite a magical picture because we had the shield in between. So it even seems that it was like a filter to make it a little bit more blurry situation. But it's a beautiful picture. I think um I look very calm, as if it's nothing really outstanding had happened. Um, and then every year on her birthday, I wear the same dress. We go to the same spot where we stopped with the car, and I take a picture with her in my arms until I can hold her. Let's see, because she's getting heavier and heavier every year. But um, it became kind of our little ritual to use the dress and go there and everything, so yeah. Yeah, I get very emotional as well.

Christine: 31:55

That is incredible. I I mean don't even know what to say.

SPEAKER_00: 32:03

It's wow. Yeah, and it's um it's it's quite impressive because um I have a sister that has three daughters, and two of them have exactly the same age as my kids. Um, they're like three months apart, so we were pregnant at the same time, but she lives in the US, so she was all the way on the other side and three months in advance, so she would always give me the the cues. How does it feel when you're pregnant? But my sister is my opposite. She um she wanted to have a home birth and she wanted to do everything by herself. And I'm like, I delegate to the doctors, I'm very, very scared of how to do things. So her second kid was almost born, also in the taxi on the way to the midwife center, but she managed to enter the midwife center and then she gave birth. So I was like, This is impossible. You're just dramatic and making it up, Bianca. Things like this don't happen. And then there I am sending a message and I'm like, sorry that I ever said that to you.

SPEAKER_04: 33:11

But is she your older sister? She's my older sister. I know this dynamic so well.

SPEAKER_00: 33:19

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04: 33:19

Oh my god, 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_00: 33:22

But I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was in labor because it was literally half an hour, 45 minutes, and I had no time because I had everything ready to send it to my family and friends. I had like a message ready in the WhatsApp that you can send immediately, like a broadcast or whatever it's called. So I had already everything ready. And I said, when I start labor, I'll send it to people. But this time around was really um super, super quick, much more quicker than I imagined. And the funny thing is, when we arrived at the hospital, um, it was like a movie scene. There were like, I don't know, five, seven different people coming out, doctors and nurses and coming to help. And I'm like, you're over dramatic. Everything happened. I did everything. There's not much you need to help out now. Um, then they came and they said, How are you feeling? And I said, I have no idea. I was afraid that she was not breathing because I was holding her. And the the taxi driver was always asking us, like, is she breathing? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I was back then, I was like, now I have no idea what else to do. I just gave birth.

Julia: 34:29

Was she sleepy? Like, was she sleepy when she was born?

SPEAKER_00: 34:33

I don't know. I don't remember. I don't remember if she cried exactly that part. I was just happy that she was not stuck, let's say. Um I could see that the umbilicon cord was not around her. You can see in the picture, she seemed quite long, but um, she was like 51, 52 centimeters and 300, 300. So really average kid. Um, thank God, because I think it makes it easier as well when you're doing everything on your own. But when they when I arrived at the hospital and they were helping me out, so they said, We're gonna cut them billicon gourd now, we're gonna wrap her and then we're gonna help you get out of the taxi. Um, do you think you can walk? And I said, I don't know, I have no idea. I said, Okay, then sit here, we have a wheelchair for you. And then the moment I got up, they immediately cleaned up the towel that I was sitting. So I could not even see if it was really messy or not, because this is one of the questions that everyone asks me. How did you leave the taxi? What was the taxi driver's impression of the whole situation? I said, I have no idea. Um, then we entered the hospital, and then you had one nurse holding my bag, one nurse holding the suitcase, one holding the baby. So it was like one person for each object because there was not much um to be done. I was really feeling well, thank God. My husband arrived, I don't know, five, 10 minutes later. So he met the taxi driver. He took a picture of the taxi driver. Um, he, of course, paid for the ride and gave him a big, big tip also to clean um the whole taxi. Um, he met our friend and thanked him and said, Thank you very much. Get a taxi back home because he had an appointment with some friends that night. And I said, I bet you had quite an interesting night afterwards because you just came out of quite a situation.

Julia: 36:31

Um, he's got he's got like a story now for whenever he's you know out and having a cocktail or something like that.

SPEAKER_00: 36:38

He's got a story. And then um my husband was all happy saying, Okay, now we finally have a Zurich kid because my husband was born and raised in the city of Zurich, um, which is usually not the case. He usually move out to somewhere else outside. And he's like, Yeah, finally, it's not, you know, from Solicon, she's really a Zurich kid. And then someone in the hospital said, Listen, place of birth is where you give birth to the placenta. And we're like, oh really? That's how it takes place. We had no idea about it. Um, then my doctor arrived and she said, I should have known that when your husband called me and not you, is that you were already in active labor. Um, she said that she was in her son's soccer practice watching. And then my husband called, saying, Listen, we're on our way to the hospital. And she said, Okay, once you get there and it's active labor, tell them to call me so I can be part of it. And then she said, a few minutes afterwards, she's I have a feeling that things are not going that well. So she called my husband and he said, It's born already. And then she was just rushing to the hospital. So she was very, very kind and nice to drop off everything and immediately go. And when she arrived, um, she's a very Swiss doctor, but um immediately gave me a super hug and she said, If you have a third kid, week 37, you're gonna be in the hospital, so we can be part of it and help you out. And she was very, very understanding, and I think that was the moment that I started crying nonstop, and I'm like, I just realized what I just experienced, which is something I would have never thought. Um, in my mind, it would never be so fast, and I would never tolerate so much pain on my own, and somehow I managed. And then she was really taking the time and hugging me and said, It's totally normal what you've been through. It's uh very intense. Although we didn't have a traumatic um negative birth, it is a trauma in the sense of for your body, for your mental health, it's something really, really um outstanding. And then the hospital was also very understanding and said that my husband would be able to sleep there for the night, considering the whole birth situation, because back then, because of COVID, nobody could sleep um with the patient. So I also had that extra um comfort from the hospital, which was um very, very nice.

Christine: 39:21

Hi, I'm Christina, Adula, baby wearing consultant, childbirth educator, and mother of three. I'm the owner of Lily Bee, 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. Find yours here.

SPEAKER_00: 39:43

And then I spent a couple of weeks that I couldn't really talk about the birth, just because there was so much that had happened. Um, the entire pregnancy and the birth itself. Um side story. We also had some hiccups when I came back. From the hospital, my toddler back then started with a fever and diarrhea. She was with 40 degrees fever in less than one hour. And then three hours later, my newborn child um started with she had like, I don't know, in half an hour, four full diapers of poop. And I said, My milk just hasn't even come for her to have this amount of um of diapers. So we called the Kinderspital and we said, Listen, this is happening. Um, I'm not worried with my toddler because it just started, but I have a newborn and the situation seems a bit fishy. So there we go, back to the hospital. Three days later, we go to the Kinderspital with a newborn and a toddler. And they said, okay, we have to admit her. She has to stay here. And because she's a newborn, she has to go to the ICU. And then I'm like, no, no, this is not happening. Everything was just so perfect. You know, we had a great birth and everything. They said we have to rule out if there's any type of um rotavirus and so on. We're gonna test her feces and see how it's happening. So there I was, you know, really post-umpartum with a newborn and um having to stay in the kind of spital in the ICU so she was isolated so she wouldn't contaminate any other kids and babies, and um having to breastfeed every three hours to make sure that she is getting her weight increase little by little. So it was just a lot. And I remember arriving in the kinder spital at midnight and saying, okay, she's three days old. And they're like, Okay, how did you give birth? And I said, in the taxi. And they're like, What? And I said, No, yeah, sorry, um, it was an actual birth, yes, but it was not in the hospital. So uh it was still like the big topic and the whole situation. So once I came back home from the second time in the hospital, I just really couldn't resonate back with the whole experience. My back then, unfortunately, what happened was my toddler was with Salmonella, and that's why she immediately had fever and was having diarrhea. So my husband was the one taking care of my toddler, and I was the one with the newborn. So we had like two diaper stations, we could not touch the other kid exactly to um have no risk of contamination. So the first two weeks were very, very intense with the toddler being ultra sick and being afraid that the newborn would catch something. So breastfeed was going well, she was gaining weight, but the whole situation was very heavy.

Julia: 42:49

It's really um so incredible that breastfeeding was going okay under such circumstances. Like you, you, I mean, for some people, they think our precipitous labor is the dream birth because it's fast. And in a lot of ways, there's uh of course we don't, you know, we want that in some ways, but there's the there's still an intensity and there's still a full experience that it needs to be processed, but yet you can't process it in real time. You have to process it looking back. And how and and you you in those first three days postpartum, they're a haze, regardless of what the experience is, right? And so this time to process your birth story, it takes it takes time, but you didn't have that because you went straight back to the ICU, which is a very stressful environment. And the fact that you could produce milk um three days postpartum after this is is is amazing. That like that must have been so hard.

SPEAKER_00: 43:47

Um But also, um, Julia, I think it helped being in the hospital environment because I had to breastfeed her every three hours. Besides being stressful, that I had to undress her, weigh her, breastfeed her, and weigh her again. So you would see how many grams. And so mentally, that it's like a nice. You need feed for every feed? For every feed, because they wanted to make sure that she's gaining weight and then how things are going smooth. Um, it helped the production because I had to be a clock. And you you guys know because you have more than one kid, feeding a second kid, you feed on the go, you feed when and how it happens, and things just take place, life is going on, you don't have the nice I'll sit and feed. You just have to get going. So, in a way, it was good because I had two full days that I was every three hours on the clock making it happen. So that helped speed up the process, um, which we all know it's not this usual easy just latch and it happens and it takes place. So I had a little bit of more support after coming back from birth, going back to the hospital. So, in a sense, I can't complain. It was helpful. Um, it's easy to say now, but back then, of course, you're like the worst thing happened, and going back to a hospital and the worst situation. So, but yeah, I agree with you. It's it's not an easy journey. Um, and then I think the the last thing that I think it's important to say is that um my hibami was coming and seeing that everything is normal, the breastfeeding, she's gaining weight. Um, I also had some stitches um despite uh being a natural birth that also took place in my first birth. So everything was normal, but mentally I said, I'm I'm not ready to talk about the birth. So she recommended me to um postpartum um trauma birth hibami. So she transferred her sessions to let's say a therapy session, um, which was very interesting because um she said, despite you not having that's that's when I realized that a trauma can also come from something positive, not just a negative. So a trauma birth doesn't mean that something negative took place. And she said, Yeah, I would be happy to take you, but um, I don't have good English. So if you don't mind me speaking in German and you speaking in English, I'm like, okay, yeah, good. So I had a few sessions with a mixed language. Um, I do speak German, but for certain situations and circumstances, I don't feel 100% comfortable. Um, and I think therapy was one of them. So I did some sessions postpartum to connect a little bit to the feelings of how it was with the birth. And one of the things that she told me that I still bring it to my daily life is that people react differently in extreme situations. And there's no right or wrong, but I remember saying everyone would do the same because if you're in the situation, you would just push because that's the natural thing to do. And she said, No, some people just freeze, others would start screaming and ask for help, and you took this view and you did that. So don't take for granted um how you reacted. It's something very important for you to realize that you did a lot, it was not a natural thing. And I'm like, okay, I never thought about it in that way because for me it was a natural movement. Um, although I'm not a medical person at all, it was a natural movement for me. So um, yeah, it's a very different mindset that I had after the birth. And then I always tell to myself, okay, if I did this, there's a lot more that I can handle. My body is really, really powerful, and I had no idea about it. So yeah, I think it's an interesting story to talk about.

Christine: 47:58

I think that's incredible, especially considering you said, you know, you're not you're not good around medical stuff, not brook blood, not I mean, that's the ultimate kind of nightmare for for somebody. For it's hard for anybody, but somebody who is so sensitive to that kind of thing could have easily been that you freeze or you know, don't know what to do. Or and the fact that you stayed so calm and your your friend too, you know, okay, I'll call the hospital, I'll call your husband, and you're like, okay, let's get to the hospital. We're not going to that one. I want to go to the one that I want to go to. Let's go close the door. We don't want to breeze.

SPEAKER_00: 48:33

Exactly. Sometimes you don't even realize what goes in your head, uh, and you just kind of go a little bit automatic um feeling how things are happening.

Julia: 48:42

So and it's it is amazing how you how you kept going and how you kept making these decisions in the moment. Like again, it is not necessarily automatic. What this midwife said is totally true and completely right. Like, there are people who you can't hold the baby in until you get to the hospital. Like there are and you know, for better or for worse, this this can happen. And feeling uh you you describe this moment of after you have her, that you just felt yourself again. You immediately felt capable. You immediately felt, okay, I have this. And I just think that I mean that image is really stuck in my mind of you doing this. And I just think like the power that you possess is is really otherworldly. Like this is this is really such a privileged, such a privilege to hear this story. Like I said, like there's all these gates or these different moments that you need to pass through in your in your birth experience, but you didn't have any time to pass through any of these, right? And so it's all has to come out.

SPEAKER_00: 49:45

I think the only phase I passed was the crowning where I could feel.

Julia: 49:49

Uh true. And you could feel her head. That's true.

SPEAKER_00: 49:52

That is really I think that's the only one, but other than that, it was just one after the other.

Julia: 49:58

So this is so amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 50:01

Are you still in touch with the taxi driver? Um, yes, we are every year on her birthday. I do send an invitation for him to come for the first birthday. He did participate. We did like a small little cake at home, and also um, I think less than a month after she was born, we invited him over to meet in different circumstances, and we gave him a little gift. He also gave a gift um to us, which is a very nice um blanket with some balloons, so it's kind of like a journey type of ride. And of course, we kept it. It's very beautiful, we we love it very much. Um, and then coincidence of life. Um, when he came, I could not really look into his eyes. I was like very embarrassed. So it's something for me, still very emotional, and I have this strange feeling that I cannot really talk to him, although I want to. He said that when he was born, um, his mother didn't make it to the hospital and they had to stop at his aunt's house. Um, he's from one of the Balkan countries, so it was not in Switzerland back then. And he was born at his aunt's house. So I said, okay, you had to be my taxi driver. It couldn't be anyone else, it had to be you because you also experienced that when you were born somehow. So it was quite emotional when he said that. I'm like, what are the odds? It's really certain things in in life are just are meant to be. It's really and the second thing is um his wife and his daughter come to the hairdresser, which is right down my building. So he's like, they always come in this street. I was like, what are the odds? There's so many hairdressers in Zurich. So once I was passing by, she was still a very two, three months-old baby. They were inside the hairdresser. There, the hairdresser comes out and says, Diana, can you come inside? I'm like, sure. And then I entered and she's like, This is the wife of the taxi driver. I'm like, hello. So this is Louisa, and then I met the family. So um, yeah, let's say that we have a connection. Um, we still exchange messages on her birthday. And once my mother came to visit, he took my mother to the airport, um, which was the most strange taxi rides that my mother ever had because he doesn't speak English, my mother doesn't speak German. And they were somehow communicating, and she was so happy to have met the taxi driver. So, and he was happy to take her. Um, he didn't allow my mother to pay for the ride. He's like, no, no, no, this is on me. So he's a very, very nice person, very hard, uh welcoming person as well. So it had to be him.

Julia: 52:48

That's amazing. I wonder, I wonder what his experience of it, like seeing someone who was a similar situation to his mother, right? Like how he's taken that forward obviously is quite special if he if he still keeps this relationship with you. And I can totally understand your feeling of not being able to really be like look at him or be close to him. It was a very intimate experience that you had with a total stranger, right? Um, but it sounds like it was the right stranger to have it with.

SPEAKER_00: 53:17

Exactly, exactly. I do have pictures. Um, I do have also an audio from a radio station because my husband was working back then at a radio station. So they did in the morning show an interview with my husband. Um, he immediately called work saying, Okay, I'm off work as of tomorrow. And um, they also called the taxi driver. So I have some short 30-second audios that I can send you guys to to listen in Swiss German, which is also very nice. So we we made the news in a different way.

Christine: 53:52

Famous.

SPEAKER_01: 53:53

Yeah.

Christine: 53:55

Um, I want to know what happened to the pizza.

SPEAKER_00: 53:59

So the pizza, that's uh another part that is funny about this story. Um, the pizza arrived after the birth, so I had like 10 missed calls in my um phone. I have a screenshot of that showing like message after message, and they were calling and they were super mad. It's like, what? No one is answering and picking up. I think I paid online, so at least the pizza was paid, but yeah. Oh my god. The p so my friends keep making fun that um delivery service in Switzerland is not very good. You give birth first and then the food arrives, and uh that's my joke until today, five years later.

Julia: 54:41

That is such a Swiss joke.

SPEAKER_01: 54:44

You know, everyone who lives here gets it.

SPEAKER_04: 54:47

Yeah, of course you give birth before the delivery gives birth before the pizza arrives.

SPEAKER_01: 54:52

Oh man. Exactly, exactly.

Christine: 54:55

I'm I'm curious when things kind of settle down um with your second. Like you had the the hospital and the sickness, and you mentioned briefly your mom came. So where in that was and when did you have a feeling like, okay, now we can kind of get used to what normal life with two kids is like and not in and out of hospital?

SPEAKER_00: 55:14

And um, yeah, that's a very good question. I think it was very, very blurry. Um, my mother didn't come because it was um in Brazil we had very um strict restrictions during COVID. So the first time she actually met uh my daughter, she was over one year old. That's when we flew to Brazil, so that was like September 21. Um, back then, unfortunately, my father-in-law had some health complications, so he was also not doing very well. It was a very, very bumpy first six months. Um, she was the regular newborn that would wake up every two, three hours at night. So I was like, oh, this is how it goes. It's just like uh I had a unicorn at a first, and I had no idea how it's really um heavy. So I had a newborn that was waking up every two hours. I had a toddler that was not sleeping at all. So it took really quite some time for us to settle as a family of four. Um, no help because of the whole COVID situation. My family couldn't come. Um, my husband's family also had their own health situation happening. So I think it was December. So she was born in August. In December, my husband took three weeks of vacation, and then we rented a small little house up in the mountains just to get out and breathe a little bit. Um, everything was closed, it was really lockdown, so we had to fully cook and all the time with two kids not sleeping. So mentally we were very, very drained and exhausted. But once she restarted sleeping, then things started being smoother. I would say that she was around five months old, my second one. So it really took long for us to organize ourselves as a family. Um, it's it's it's not an easy ride, and we only had complications, so it made it even more complicated. But I would have not done anything differently. It was the perfect unplanned pregnancy that um I could think of because if I would wait to be pregnant, I would wait the entire COVID situation to calm down. And then I would not have a toddler, I would have a four-year-old kid, which is a very different setting. Um, there's no right or wrong in how you create your own family, but nowadays I see that it was really the perfect timing. I have kids that do not fight, they're best friends. They I couldn't ask for anything better in terms of friendship between siblings. They count on each other. We actually have to detach each other from responsibilities and dependency because they have such a beautiful bond and connection. Um, and since the beginning, we never gave the responsibility for the toddler to you're the older sister, you have to take care of your kid because she was also going through a lot when the sister came. We were trying to understand who we are as a family. Um, because it was an unplanned uh pregnancy, we were also not ready to be a family of four. So it took us a while to understand what was happening. And they just have really the best bond as siblings. So I'm like, I'm really glad we went um with this unexpected out of the blue and COVID situation um type of birth. So it's it can take a while and it doesn't take the magic out of it. It can be bumpy, but you do get your way around it and realize that um things do settle as a family. So exactly.

Julia: 58:54

And families aren't just made on the good days, families are made through the challenges. That's that's what really is the glue of a family. And for the little for your little daughters, they obviously didn't register those things as being challenges, right? That was just life, you know, but they cemented their bond so early, and that's so beautiful and so wonderful for you as a family. That's gorgeous. The story is so amazing.

Christine: 59:24

This is gonna be a difficult question, Diana. Um, because there are so many, but we would love to know in all of this, what was your most brilliant moment?

SPEAKER_00: 59:41

I have to think about it.

Julia: 59:43

Um in terms of the birth itself, uh your whole sort of motherhood journey, like what what is something that right now sticks out for you as this most this most brilliant moment, something that catches you off guard. Hard when you think about it, like, oh yeah. Um, and it's intentionally vague.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:05

I think there are a few things. Um one of the first ones was um discovering that I was pregnant when I was not planning and um giving myself a little bit of grace to acknowledge it because it doesn't mean that you're pregnant, that you're gonna be glooming of happiness, and I felt that I was being a terrible mother already to my baby because I was not, you know, fireworks all over the place with the pregnancy, and then I felt terrible, and I'm like, what am I doing? That's not nice. Um but I think overcoming the fear of giving birth for me is something I still don't know how I did it, honestly. It's um I just fainted two weeks ago. I'm really not the person to give birth alone in the taxi. I still don't know how this happened. So that is really something that um it's not the cliche, our body is amazing, you can do it. Things do happen. Um, sometimes you're not prepared, but things do work out well in the end. And you just have to have the positive mindset uh of going through it. Maybe because I'm a person that tries not to create a lot of expectations so I don't get frustrated, that helps. Because if I had a super planned birth in my mind and how things would have taken place, maybe it wouldn't have been like this. Maybe I would have stayed at home and then I would be home alone giving birth. Would that have been better? I have no idea, but just being active and saying, okay, I'll go now made it happen in the taxi. So I think that's uh that shows that somehow I'm much stronger than I thought I was, and that's something that I tapped myself in the back and said, Well done. You can tell this story. And that's my go-to story every time someone says something about yourself that is. If you enjoyed today's aggressive and amazing, I tell this in the corporate world. So you never miss an inspiring birth story or agreement.

Julia: 1:02:23

This is my story. So please also take a moment to rate and review wherever you get your podcast. And you should be on thank you so much. This has been gorgeous. Don't forget to share this episode with a friend. Thank you, guys. And I hope this inspires other people 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, SwissBirthstories.com, or tag us in your posts. Until next time, keep sharing, keep learning, and keep connecting with each other.