In this emotional and heartfelt premiere episode of From Experience: The Grief Collection, host Bianca Welsh shares her deeply personal story of facing grief and loss with her husband James. Bianca recounts their journey through the traumatic experience of losing their son Herbert, at 36+6 days, due to a termination for medical reason (TFMR). She details their emotional struggles, the decisions they had to make, their healing process, and the unique ways they've navigated grief together. The episode includes sensitive discussions about baby loss, mental health struggles, and the couple's emotional and painful journey towards finding some semblance of peace. Bianca also offers words of comfort and solidarity to those experiencing or curious about grief, highlighting the importance of storytelling and open conversations in healing.

Music: “Denali” by Bryant Lowry.

Written by Bryant Richard Lowry (BMI).

Published by Boss Soundstripe Productions (BMI).

Licensed via Soundstripe Inc.

Cover Image: Eden Wilday (edenwilday.com)

Follow: @fromexperience_ or @biancaleewelsh

Resources

Through the Unexpected - information and a list of support options for parents faced with prenatal diagnosis.

Pink Elephants Support Network - offers online grief support and information for miscarriage.

Red Nose or SANDS offers 24/7 telephone grief support on 1300 308 307

Bears of Hope - offers grief support on 1300 11 HOPE or via email: support@bearsofhope.org.au

**All of the above have specific TFMR pages

PANDA - Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia - supports the mental health of parents and families during pregnancy and in their first year of parenthood - or 1300 726 306.

Lifeline - 13 11 14

Heartfelt - volunteer organisation providing professional photographers to families who have experienced the loss of a baby or child living with serious or life threatening illness.

Books

The 4 books I ordered after leaving hospital:

The Grief Companion by Ngaio Parr.

The Baby Loss Guide by Zoe Clark-Coates.

Life After Baby Loss: A Companion and Guide for Parents by Nicola Gaskin.

Miles Apart by Annabel Bower (Note this is Australian!).

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast

00:55 Why a Grief Podcast?

02:14 Acknowledging Sensitive Topics

03:18 Introducing the First Episode

04:02 Meet My Husband, James

05:14 Our Parenting Journey

05:59 Deciding to Have Another Child

08:36 The Pregnancy Journey

11:35 Discovering Complications

15:32 Facing the Diagnosis

19:48 Navigating the Unknown

24:45 The MRI and the Hard Decisions

54:25 The Final Decision

57:36 The Decision and Its Aftermath

58:51 Navigating the Psych Assessment

01:06:42 The Feticide Procedure

01:18:42 The Birth and Meeting Herb

01:34:33 Saying Goodbye and Returning Home

01:44:34 Reflections and Healing

01:48:19 Conclusion and Support

So why would I do a grief podcast? What might I add to the vast podcast world? [00:01:00] I'll provide you with stories that might help you feel seen, feel less alone in what you're experiencing or have experienced perhaps an idea on how to navigate the healing journey because there's no playbook for grief. There's no guide. We all grieve differently, thus we all heal differently. Perhaps you're helping support someone on their grief and loss journey. Maybe you are just curious about how some people overcome the worst time of their lives. The thing with grief is that this is the one given in life. It is the one thing we will all experience at some point, the loss of someone or something that we love. As the great wordsmith and musician that is Nick Cave quotes in a letter to a fellow Griever "if we love, we grieve. That's the deal. That's the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and like love grief is non-negotiable." End quote. Yet we rarely talk about it in the western world. We're never prepared for [00:02:00] it, but perhaps we can never be prepared for it. I wasn't, but I hope if we were more open to talking about it and aware of other people's journeys and stories we might feel less alone in the dark depths of grief, and perhaps the healing journey might not feel as daunting.

Just a heads up. In this episode, we talk about some sensitive topics, including baby loss, birth stillbirth, termination for medical reasons, feticide, suicidal thoughts and experiences of trauma. If you're not in the right head space for that today, maybe come back another time. If anything in this episode brings up difficult feelings, please reach out to someone you trust or one of the supports listed in the show notes.

I acknowledge the Tasmanian Aboriginal people as the original owners of this island, Trowunna Lutruwita Tasmania, I'm on the country where the Tyrrenoterpanner, Panninher and Leetermairreener clans of the Stony Creek Nation converged. I pay my respects to elders past and present and recognize the deep connection to the land and waterways.

We own a restaurant, and we used to have restaurants there, plural. We've had an amazing journey, learning how to work together, how to live together, how to parent together. But I guess the hardest thing we've been through is to grieve and how to grieve together.

[00:04:09] James: A little bit about me. Um, I am a sommelier by trade, so I enjoy evaluating wines. I'm a distance runner and a running coach and I'm pretty much an all around larrikin

I hope that you can take something away from that. We have an older son, Claude Giacomo Claude Francis Welsh. He is eight and a half now. He was five and a bit when all this happened. He is a absolute wrecking ball of a boy. He's a classic boy. He was very challenging in those first four years. Really. He's a firecracker. He has a lot of personality. Uh, and he really kept us on our toes. We've both found parenting very challenging as, as everyone does and we're very honest and open about how challenging that, has been and, and is continues to be.

[00:06:34] James: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've experienced postnatal depression possibly three times now, but definitely two. It's something that you need to be in tip top shape to climb the mountain.

And I remember we were tossing up the, the idea of having another child. We'd probably had a little bit too much to drink. And James said, because I guess at the time, and we are still, but at the time, we were very much fate believers. James said, let's toss a coin and heads will be yes, we will try for another baby 'cause of course it's not a given that just because you try doesn't mean you'll get a child and tails no. And James flipped a coin and I remember. I remember I burst into tears when James [00:08:00] said, what do you think it is? And at this point, I'm not super maternal. I, um, yeah, I'm not a super maternal person.

And I was shocked at my response. I realized how much I wanted another child to add to our family. When James asked me, what do you think it is?

[00:08:26] Bianca: Tales did fail. And it was heads and we kept you, you kept that coin for quite, it was just a 50 cent coin. You kept that for quite some time, and we were very fortunate. We fell pregnant straight away. I'm very lucky we haven't experienced fertility issues. And my heart goes out to those that do, 'cause that's a whole nother level of grief and loss that I personally haven't had to experience. So I, I really feel for those that do.

[00:10:26] James: I guess that's also heavily laden with your birth story which is a whole different discussion, but the way gender is understood in certain countries.

James. Did you feel like you experienced that gender disappointment as well?

[00:11:19] Bianca: I do. Yeah, I do. You're quite, you're quite disappointed. You were having a lay down and I got the results.

[00:11:35] Bianca: So I had a very uncomplicated pregnancy. All fine, all normal. Went through a private obstetrician.

So we had, I think a dozen staff have to call in on that particular day that either the per person they were living with had tested positive or they were feeling unwell and they needed to go and get tested. So we were in a bit of crisis mode trying to figure out how we'd navigate work. I was [00:13:00] obviously heavily pregnant, so I couldn't do a huge amount, but I was trying to do what I could from, from a desk or from home, and we thought it was school holiday, so we thought we'd take Claude with us to start to bond and start to connect with the baby. He hadn't been to any appointments then.

And at that one, just before Christmas I very clearly remember Emily speaking about how much hair Herbert had, and you could see it waving in the amniotic fluid, and it was, it was quite remarkable when we'd told Claude about that and we wanted him to go and see that. So the 5th of January, we go in and Emily she's taking a little bit longer than usual with the routine checkup and said, have you been unwell?

You need to go to Hobart immediately for a second opinion. And a plan of what we're going to do. And it was a huge shock. My studies of psychology meant that I had an idea or I sort of had an awareness that the ventricles being enlarged was really bad, and I knew that it was irreversible. Um, but I do remember James asking, I remember you saying, can, can this be reversed?

[00:15:06] James: Yeah, it was a bombshell to to say the least. We got outta there and got Claude sorted and got the bloods done. And yeah, I remember vividly too that Emily was quite quite factual and certain, even though she sought a second opinion from a top obstetrician in Hobart, but she certainly didn't mince her words and she was convinced that what she was seeing on a scan was exactly what it was. To be told that in such a short period of time, from late December to early January, we didn't, didn't foresee a bump in the road or a shit storm that it was.

And I look back now, and I, and I do regret that. So I was really ready to [00:17:00] just embrace and enjoy this time. I had actually planned a proper maternity leave. I'd set up someone to be in my role for a few months, and that was really big for me and I was just so excited. So we left the clinic and made our way to organizing Claude to be cared for, organized work for that we would just be, we were gone, we would be absent. And that, that would have to figure out all this covid craziness sort of on their own and we have amazing business partners and an amazing team that, that picked up the pieces for us while we were absent. We were so confused as to why this had happened and what was happening.

They didn't make me wait in the waiting room. 'cause obviously there was tons of people there when I got there. And then we, we made our way to Hobart.

I think we, we went out for dinner to like a quite, I think we went to Peppina, we went to like a really good restaurant.

[00:20:39] Bianca: I remember feeling a little bit awkward about going to dinner at a good restaurant. Like when you're in a crisis, you should be, I don't know, battening.

So, go in the next day for the MRI and we were in the waiting area. It was quite tricky to get James to come through for everything with me because it was covid. All of the medical services anywhere you went, it was only allowed to be the patient. You weren't allowed to have a support person but fortunately they were somewhat briefed of what the situation was. And James was allowed to come along with [00:22:00] me. We were sitting there waiting and there was a briefing behind a curtain of another medical team that were about to get another patient in for an MRI and there was like a team of, what was it, like, six or seven people? Mm. And the, the lead doctor was like, right here's the plan.

They were obviously trying to help this boy. He clearly had some health issues and needed to assess. And James and I just sat there and overhearing this because I know that with ventricle enlargement it could result in a high level of disability, intellectual, physical. It could mean we would end up with a severely autistic son. And we both sat there in silence, but just looked at each other with tears in our eyes, just thinking. Perhaps that is what's in front of us. That is the life that we will be facing, and that is the challenges that our son might need to face.

We were thinking about selling our house. Our house is two stories, so we've got stairs. Uh, we were thinking about what we'd need to do with work. There were a lot of things that we were trying to consider, but the thing that we were potentially looking at was just a moderate level of disability, or there was also potential that there was gonna be no disability. The MRI was meant to help us make some decisions and understand. So once we got the results, a few hours later, we went to see the, the specialist; specialist obstetrician and the specialist, neonatal pediatrician. And they believed that what our son had was severe ventriculomegaly, which means that he had a block in a cerebral aqueduct, like a little part of the back of the brain that drains the fluid.

[00:25:57] James: Yeah, I guess the [00:26:00] measurements was something that we were pretty subscribed to and I remember thinking, oh, I hope they've got it wrong. When we left the first scan in Launceston to the MRI, I thought, oh, there's a chance that it's been incorrectly read. And to get some more accurate imaging and to know that it's twice as bad as it should be an certainly made the story more grim and it certainly, made us lose a bit of hope that this is not a furphy.

[00:27:34] James: And that's coming from someone that compartmentalizes very, very well.

And we were just in shock. We just were like, what do you talk about? We, it was, it was a really strange time. Like, I found those car rides really hard.

[00:29:36] Bianca: Mm. So go down for the amniocentesis and it, it's very uncomfortable. It's terrifying. I don't like needles as just as much as the next person, but, I just, I did it. Uh, it's over within, you know, a couple of minutes at, at most and you need to sit there and have a ECG on your belly just to check that the baby's okay for about 20 minutes, and then you can go off on your day. [00:30:00] So they just check their heart rate. Lindsay was our specialist obstetrician down at Hobart, and she said that she narrowly missed his sizable ballsack, which we, we needed those comical relief moments throughout this process.

And as James said at the start, he's quite the larrikin. He's quite the jokester. I guess I have become like him by proxy being with him for so long and we really needed that comical relief and, and lightheartedness to get through. And we sort of joked that well was at least he'll be well endowed. But I remember that Lindsay said, um, your blood's just came back and she said it looks like you've had toxoplasmosis recently. And she said, oh, but I think it's just a furphy. And it's so clear in my mind that she used those words. I think it's just a furphy, but I'll just do some more research.

And also if you get congenital toxoplasmosis, I've learned since, is that the organs will all enlarge. So liver, kidneys all their organs, major organs will enlarge. And she said there's nothing that would indicate that this is happening to him but I'll just do a bit more research.

So we go home and we go back to Launceston and try to live life as normal as possible. Trying to keep the stress from Claude. But we're, we're still being honest that there's something wrong with the baby and that's why we're going back to Hobart. We didn't sugarcoat it, but we certainly tried to shield him as much as we could.

[00:33:23] James: I remember digesting that information. We quite often talk to each other and go, do we understand that correctly? And when you're sort of heavily stressed, that front part of your brain just turns off. And we both sort of trying to make heads and tails of a lot of medical jargon. To unpack it and go, shit, is she saying what we think she's saying?

I asked Lindsay how I could have got it because I said, we don't have a cat. He said, you can get it from undercooked red meats, unwashed fruit and veg sometimes [00:35:00] contaminated water that's quite rare in Australia it can be transferred so much more easily than I had ever, ever understood. And I was really conscious and aware of listeria through pregnancy. I didn't eat any soft cheeses but otherwise I was really confident about my food because we have a restaurant, we know good suppliers, good producers. We have a lot of trusted suppliers and producers. I almost look back and think that I was cocky about the way I went around food and I, I, I am assuming that that is how I got it, but I'll never know, and that will always be a source of grief for me that I will never know how I got it. So what they had assumed then was that I'd got it later in pregnancy, so maybe 18, 22 [00:36:00] weeks thereabouts. And because it was later in pregnancy the placenta actually can't filter it out as well as it could have if I got it early in pregnancy.

[00:36:15] Bianca: No, that's right. And I share this not to instill fear of anyone who's pregnant out there listening to this or, or looking to be pregnant in the future. It's extremely rare in Australia. What happened to me, congenital toxoplasmosis, I found some studies and it, you know, it, it's super, super rare. My obstetrician and the neonatal pediatrician, they used to work at Royal Children's in Melbourne. They've been doctors and specialists for a very, very long time, and neither of them had ever seen a case like this ever. And they consulted with all of their colleagues on the big island. We call it the mainland. And no one had ever seen a case like this before either. So that statistical anomaly kind of gave me a little bit of comfort like [00:37:00] that I hadn't been reckless or something. The, the rarity of it did give me a little bit of comfort, but I still felt all the guilt and shame and to fast forward to now, I still, you know, I've had a lot of therapy.

I had no idea what to do and we just had to wait we were waiting almost another week by this point, to go and have the next MRI. And so I came home and laid on the bed and watched a movie, and I watched War of the Worlds because it had just been added to Netflix. I'd seen it a million times before.

I'm really into apocalyptic movies and thrillers and horrors and stuff, much to my husband's disgust. 'cause he can't handle those sorts of films. He'll leave the room or go to bed. I needed to see someone else's world worse than mine. I needed to see someone else's disastrous life. And I just mindlessly watched that as some sort of comfort.

And if you've seen Midsummer, like it's pretty, it's pretty confronting and it's very violent and it, it doesn't shy away from some pretty fucked up things. And I was so comforted and I [00:40:00] felt so seen that what I had done, 'cause I thought it was really fucked up that I'd gone and watched a horror movie. And then I kept watching 'cause it was, I kept watching horror movies after that World War Z and and ones that I'd seen before ones that I knew where it was a disaster in the film, and I was so comforted that it was their escape and he said exactly why they went to see it, watch these movies was exactly why I wanted to see it, because I wanted to see someone else's world worse than mine.

[00:40:39] Bianca: and we were trying to keep life as normal as possible for Claude and trying to still have moments of joy and normalcy it was, it was really, really difficult.

[00:41:02] Bianca: That time of the year is still quite, and I don't like the word triggering, I prefer the word activated. 'Cause triggered's been overused and bastardized really. Summers now for me is quite triggering, even when, even the way the light shines through the house or work or the smell of summer the pool for us, because I was so uncomfortable and heavy, we spent so much time at the pool as a bit of relief, and our son loves water. They're all really challenging things to have to live through every summer because it reminds us of that really, really hard time.

And I hate that that's what media and movies and things have made us think of when we say the word abortion. But a termination for medical reason is a, it sits in under the Abortion Act and you can legally get that done until 36 and six days in Tasmania. So throughout all of this, we're not just up against our own morals and values and decisions, but we were faced with a, a time pressure.

[00:42:44] Bianca: Yeah. That we could get the results, make a decision. I had to have a psych assessment. 'cause the legislation is based on the mental health of the mother is why a termination for medical reason would be granted. South Australia is the only state in Australia that [00:43:00] has laws that acknowledge the outcome for the baby.

Something that I'd like to change in Tasmania one day to to be as forward focused and considerate like the South Australian laws, um, get that presented to a panel because it's, it can't just be decided on one doctor. It's actually minimum two but usually it goes to a panel of maybe three or four.

Particularly 'cause it was so late in pregnancy and then get that approved, get that back to us, and then actually have the procedure. So there was this horrendous time pressure and just shit we needed to get done. So I go down for the MRI the 18th of January 36th and four days.

And that a lot of the time when we talk to each other it's because we just want the other person to acknowledge something we're frustrated with at work or home and throughout this whole time we just talked so openly and we just voice what we were thinking all the time without us needing to think we needed to give an opinion or agree or disagree.

[00:45:05] Bianca: The process from here was we were going down for the MRI and there were a number of options we needed to consider. One was go down for the MRI stay down there and treat the toxoplasmosis in utero. It needed to be a compounded medication that was almost as strong as like chemo drugs and compounded in Hobart that I hadn't started it yet when I went to go have the MRI, we quickly picked up the meds 'cause they needed to order all the, all the ingredients and things from elsewhere. 'cause it was so rare that they don't have these things on hand.

So we drive down and I'm wondering, oh, do we need to take baby things? Like what if we have him. We start treating I didn't take any baby things. But also what if we are [00:47:00] terminating? I, I found it really confronting and confusing as to what to take. Do I take the baby stuff, assuming everything will be okay, or do I not take the baby stuff?

But is that me making a decision or us making a decision before we've made a decision? Am I bringing on a bad omen if I do or don't take things? I was, and I'm, I'm a very logistics person. I'm a very pragmatic person. I was thinking, right, we need to get the capsule installed. I said to James, we need to get the pram, we need to get the clothes, we need to get this and that nappy, da da da da.

But I also was confronted by, I don't wanna have to put those things in the car and then unpack it empty handed when we get home. Like how awfully confronting will that be as well? So we went down with nothing and the plan was if we were treating in utero, I was allowed to go home for a little bit and then go back down.

[00:47:57] Bianca: sick to death of driving to Hobart. But then I [00:48:00] realize, and I still have not so much now, it's taken me a long time it's taken me years but I used to have a visceral reaction at this particular point on the highway. For those that know the roads, just at the Ross turnoff, just as you go past somercoates cherries.

I remember having a visceral reaction to realizing that if we are terminating, I don't have anything to dress him in, and that I'm gonna need to go to a shop and buy him something to dress him in and thus bury or cremate whatever. We, we hadn't even discussed that yet to put him in. And that I probably need to go through the usual polite chit chat.

[00:49:31] James: Yeah. It's exactly what it felt like. And we weren't armed with any more information. I guess exhausted hope that the scans were gonna get better.

And I was like, oh God, I don't, I don't care, whatever. And they're like, oh, we'll just put on some easy [00:50:00] listening country or pop not country. Thank you. And I remember very well that the first song that came on, because I used to be quite a fan, it was Dido's White Flag. And I remember thinking, this has to be a sign that I've just got to surrender to what's about to come next.

Although James got to enjoy the drinks. I, I did not, I chose not to have anything out of respect of, of Herb. Um, and it was just a place of like nice people watching. It just always felt like a place that you could go and be whoever you wanted to be in whatever state you were in. Good, bad, happy, sad, you could just go there and be, it was just a really amazing place for the community and I think especially hospos in Tassie to go.

James and Robbie walked around the house, think you were trying to figure it out for like an hour, how to get the gas back on.

[00:52:50] Bianca: because it, this was a very dear and generous friend who let us use their house while we were down there, back and forth and he confirmed that the gas bottles had just recently been [00:53:00] filled

[00:53:01] Bianca: Yeah. And then the next day we tested it and it worked. So it was like, it was serious trickery going on. And then subsequent to that, we've had, or James has particularly had many times where the gas has run out either on ordering a beer.

On significant things to do with Herb. We cooked again with Robbie and Anna at it was like the night after their wedding as a bit of a, a celebration and the gas went out at this Airbnb we were at, and both James and Anna just looked at each other and went, it's Herb. Um, we've just been a number of times where Herb likes to fuck with dad.

[00:54:03] Bianca: We go away for his birthday 'cause I just like to escape Tassie and Yeah. The, the times that's happened at crazy busy, like the Noosa surf club, their main pouring beer and it, it, it always seems to run out the moment James goes up

[00:54:23] Bianca: Yep. Anyway, we then get the results that night Lindsay calls, she had gotten the results and had gone through it with the neurosurgeon down there and his ventricles were now measuring at 29 and 34.

So they'd almost, not quite doubled in size again, but they had significantly increased. They were almost four times the size that they should be. His brain matter had changed, the brain tissue had thinned, there was calcification. All the ventricles, not just the frontal, the lateral ventricles were impacted also.

[00:55:28] James: Yeah. It didn't need negotiating and didn't need asking each other's opinion, and we just, yeah. It was almost nonverbal. We just looked at each other and just dropped our head and knew the awful thing that had to be done

He was very careful not to say days or hours. And we confirmed with them that we were going to be proceeding with a termination. And I still remember very, very vividly of them thanking us because, and we've talked about this a lot. I talk about on my socials that it is a choiceless choice. Termination for medical reasons is a choiceless choice.

The challenging thing is, is that this comes with so much judgment, you, you judge yourself, but also the societal values that we've kind of been raised on in the Western world would mean that this comes with judgment and it's really, really confronting. And both the doctors said thank you because we see the other side, we see the suffering, and we see the pain of those children.

And basically what you're doing is the right thing.

[00:58:29] Bianca: Mm-hmm. Yeah james mentioned they they found a doctor in Chicago because no one in Australia knew what to do.

And because the legislation is based on the mental health of the mother, and I'm going to summarize this, preface that this is really, really boiling it down to try and interpret it as best as possible. That basically the legislation exists so that they, the government don't have blood on their hands so that if they grant the termination or they don't grant the termination, basically, will you kill yourself?

[01:00:24] James: I guess the excruciating thing is we're already in the situation we're in, but then you need to participate in something. It's almost like a job interview and you are doing your hell best to do the right thing by our son to tick some legislative boxes.

And I guess the ultimate question really in the end was, will you kill yourself if you are not given the termination, nor you are given the termination? Which is the, I dunno if I'm explaining that very well.

[01:01:42] Bianca: and they don't give you a huge amount of their own thoughts or, or you don't really get a vibe as to whether 'cause I kept thinking, is this a pro-life thing?

[01:02:10] James: I just thought, fucking hell, this is another bar we've gotta jump over.

Yeah. And 48 hours from whoa to go.

But at least having a little bit of awareness that these things exist, that this structure exists, perhaps just would have, I don't know, softened the [01:03:00] blow somewhat.

[01:03:30] Bianca: This bit, this next bit is quite confronting. Um, so, uh, perhaps skip ahead if you don't wanna hear me talk about suicidal ideation, but I very clearly remembered and thought that if they do not allow for the termination that I was thinking of ways to not necessarily kill myself, but I knew that that was the, I guess the, the collateral damage I was [01:04:00] thinking I'd throw myself in front of a bus or throw myself down some stairs or do something to save his suffering

[01:04:50] Bianca: And I remember thinking, yeah, I don't wanna, I don't wanna leave you, I don't wanna leave Claude, but I, I cannot let our son come into this world and suffer in pain. [01:05:00] So we then go off to somehow again, live the day and wait for the results of the panel that the obstetrician would then present our case to. And I mean, what the hell do you then go and do? So we, we just drove and we ended up by the beach, Kingston Beach I think we got some lunch and just sat and cried and talked and waited and we, we got back to the house we were staying in, in Hobart and Lindsay called, I think it was about six o'clock, and said the panel has unanimously approved, which I guess gave us a little bit of comfort that we were doing the right thing, even though we knew we were doing the right thing. You still feel you need some other people to externally say, yep, yep, this is, this is the right choice, the choiceless choice.

Now open the next box. And. It was what the, the first scan, the first MRI. Right. Put that away. Then the amnio. Gotta get through that. Yep. Boxed off, put away. It's the next MRI. Yep. Get through that box to put away psych assessment, uh, panel approval. Now it's the feticide. And again, you might wanna tune out for a bit if this is too confronting, but I want to talk about it because I'd had no idea that this is how it is and how it goes.

And it is a process where, because he was so far along, I couldn't just take a tablet. Um, I had to have a needle sort of like the amniocentesis. So a huge needle goes in through my belly, and then the obstetrician has to very carefully get it into their heart. They then inject fentanyl. So that they don't feel anything.

And cherries are like my favorite thing, which then the summer after I found almost a little bit triggering and confronting to then be back in cherry season because I ate so many over that time. And then it was, it was close to being the time that we needed to be at the clinic and we were like, oh, it was [01:09:00] too late to go back to to where we were staying.

So we just wandered. We just thought we would just wander around the city 'cause the clinic's right in the city and James said, oh, you know what? I feel like a boost juice probably haven't had one in 20 years and I said, well, I know that I know where the one is. 'cause I, I go down to Hobart a lot for work, so I, I knew exactly where the Boost was having walked past it.

So we went and got a boost juice and then sat in the mall, just people watching for a moment. And I said to James, I'm like, imagine when someone asks us, like, oh, what did you do before the, the procedure? You know, did you go and light a candle? Did you do this or that? You know, something really nice? I'm like, nah.

Um, so you know, anyone who might be going through things like this take all the photos. 'cause once it's gone, once the moment's gone, it's, it's gone. Like, take, take the pictures, take them all. Um, because I look back at those things and I just, I just find it helps me process, process what, what we went through.

And then we wander down to the clinic and had the procedure and.

[01:12:52] James: Yeah. Utterly brutal to watch, but even more brutal to experience it in your own, [01:13:00] your own body.

[01:13:36] James: Yeah. And there's no other alternative.

[01:14:02] James: may have come from Boost juice

And I found that when a lady bird lands on you when you are sick, it is meant to take away your sickness. And, um, ladybirds have been become very significant for us because it just felt like a sign from Herb that we had saved him.

[01:15:04] Bianca: Yeah, we were hoping before anything was going wrong, we were hoping he was actually gonna be born on the second of the second 22.

And James, James love's numbers and see unfortunately that didn't, that didn't happen 'cause I was actually scheduled for a cesarean, a planned Caesar. 'cause Claude was an emergency Caesar. And we'd had a planned, Caesar booked for the fourth of Feb. He would've been 39 weeks at that point. And we asked at the time when everything was fine and lighthearted, we said, oh, could we maybe book for the second of the second?

Our obstetrician, Emily sort of was like, let's just see how we go closer to the date. So 2, 2, 2 has been very significant and has come up many, many, many, many times in connection with Herb and many times where it just can't be a coincidence anymore. It, it has to be a sign from him.

But also, yeah, the 2, 2, 2 thing. It just can't be a coincidence anymore. It's remarkable how many times it comes up for us. So my compartmentalizing brain went right. The next thing is the birth. I have to get through the birth now. And then the final thing will be a final goodbye. And the birth was booked for then the next day, the cesarean was gonna be in the morning the next day.

I think we got really good takeaway from Susie Luck's. And I still felt like I still wanted to feed him really well, and I, I wasn't going to have a, you know, like I desperately wanted to have a drink, but I chose not to drink until he was born out of respect of him and his body. And

[01:17:40] Bianca: I forgot about that. When we had decided that we were going to go ahead with the TFMR, James had the idea to dress him in Claude's first suit, something of meaning, and I'm so grateful that you had that thought.

They weren't that bad. We got it courier down within the end of the day and

[01:18:39] Bianca: We got it. So we turn up to the hospital the next day and prepared to meet our son.

We had a beautiful midwife that wrapped him up and rocked him and brought him around for me to meet him. And certainly a a confusing part in your brain. 'cause it's certainly a thing that there's so much excitement to meet this guy but there's a certain sadness, that it's not like our experience with Claude but nonetheless as beautiful. And I'm certainly stressed about Bianca and about her having to go through a C-section and, and there's certain things go through my mind that there's a [01:20:00] chance of her having complications through the procedure.

And then when it happens, it's, it's heartbreaking and beautiful all at the same time. Like, it's so hard to describe because you're still so excited to meet them, to see them, to see what you made, what you created. And the joy of, of seeing that

Mm-hmm. And it's a, it's a slither of life.

We [01:21:00] had the most amazing team, but whereas we were about to go in I'd had this pregnancy cough, I'd had it for months, well before Covid had come back into the state and the the anesthetist,

[01:21:15] Bianca: tried to stop me going through to theater. I was all prepped, ready. I was on the bed.

We were in that airlock before the actual theater, theater room. And she said have you been well? And I said, yes. I do have to warn you 'cause I kept coughing. Um, I said, I do have to warn you I have a cough. I said, I've had it before the borders opened. It's not covid. And she, she was going to stop me and send me off for that.

What was that long P Yeah. Yep. The long test. The one that takes like 24, 48 hours to come back before I was allowed to go through to theater,

[01:22:30] Bianca: And as James mentioned, we had the most amazing midwife and it was the beginning of understanding, truly understanding what it means to be seen, heard, and acknowledged. And she took Herb off my chest while I was being stitched up. 'cause I, I get the epidural shakes and so I had the shakes and she just held him for a bit.

oh, Can you remember the, the anesthetic nurse that really made a point of taking me back to the room. 'cause normally the orderly comes and, and wheels you back. And the orderly had come and he's like, oh, I've been called to, to do this. And he's like, no, no, no. I've got it. I've got it, I've got it.

And he walked us back to the room. And then, 'cause he was the only male in the room,

[01:23:50] Bianca: And I remember him when we got back to the room and for those that know the medical process they avoided me going back to recovery. They allowed me to just go back to the room and they [01:24:00] would monitor me there so that we could have some privacy and I could, I could stay with Herb.

Yeah, Dustin, he just, he shook, he shook your hand and just,

[01:24:11] Bianca: He gave me a hug and just dearly said, mate, I'm so sorry.

[01:24:37] Bianca: Something that perhaps professionals might not realize is how meaningful it is for families like ours to see your emotion. I guess the, that professionalism needs to be you almost don't show how much it impacts you but the, the things that [01:25:00] stick in our mind and it's almost like a conduit to you being able to start to heal is by seeing that raw emotion from the professionals.

[01:25:13] Bianca: It means it made an impact on them, and uh, I know there's something so meaningful about it.

So we spend a couple of days with Herb in hospital. we decided on his name the day we knew we were going to do the TFMR, I think it was after the psych assessment, we got back that afternoon and decided on his name. And we'd had all these names tossed up in our minds for a while.

And Theodore means a gift. We were hoping, 'cause Claude is actually his, his middle name, we didn't intend for him to go by his middle name, but he just did. It just happened and we loved the name Ted and we were sort of hoping that Herb would've evolved into one of those three names.

And that did nothing. And I was in a lot of pain and so I was trying to consciously drink in and soak in as much of him as I possibly could. I barely slept. I didn't really sleep at night because I just didn't wanna miss him. I didn't wanna miss out on this time with him.

[01:28:01] Bianca: Yep. The cots are called a Cuddle Cot so that they kind of keeps them preserved for as long as possible, so you can spend as long as you want. Some people can take them home. There's sometimes a portable Cuddle cot because we were in Hobart, we, we just chose to stay in the hospital and we were given the option to have the birth up here but I felt that the delineation of location was going to be helpful for, for us and for me post, because we live quite close to the hospital here in Launceston. And I just felt that it would be a point of difference that perhaps it would be a little bit easier to be able to go past the hospital up here.

And I think I made the right choice because I have to go to Hobart a lot for work as mentioned. And when I go past the hospital, I, I do still have a visceral reaction. And particularly the exit or the entrance that we left via 'cause it was kind of like the back door it's not the main entrance that we left via, and that's right near a place where I need to go often for meetings.

And I, I wanted nothing more than to feed him. I was given medication so that my milk didn't come in. Crazily though, six weeks to his birthday post, I woke up in the middle of the night and I'd, I'd lactated. It was so weird 'cause I'd had a lot of problems with milk production for Claude.

Frank's not Frank's on the floor.

[01:30:23] Bianca: But yeah it was a really special time to spend that time in hospital with him. And I didn't wanna leave. I wanted to stay there forever. I would've happily stayed there forever. I thought, how could I make this work that I just stay here in hospital with him forever?

[01:30:49] Bianca: Yeah, the food was pretty bad. And I, I remember as well, thinking leading up to the birth, like how can I avoid giving birth? Which is [01:31:00] completely illogical, but I had thoughts of like, right, is there an option where I don't have to give birth?

Ridiculous, I'm almost 37 weeks, but I guess your mind goes to really fucked up places when you are that distressed. So we tried to do as me many memory making things as we could. The midwife very kindly organized for heartfelt to come and take photos. And that she mentioned before, she mentioned it before the birth.

It was a really special, a special time. And very fortunately, he'd just had a cancellation. So he was able to get to the hospital within a couple of hours of him being born. The midwife suggested for James to give Herb a bath and to wash his hair. Herb had so much hair, like so much hair, we can't believe how much hair he had. It was a really, really special for me to watch it you giving him bath.

The other memory making things we did were hand prints and footprints.

So I didn't have to hear living babies crying overnight or women giving birth, which I'm very fortunate 'cause that's not always the case in hospitals, particularly in the Launceston one. We just tried to, we tried to chat to him and talk to him and we tried to do as much as we could, as much as we had the capacity to, I know other families have read books to their babies and I I wish we had have done that. We didn't have any books with us, we didn't think to ask. we gave a toast to him james is a Sommelier by trade and we had a bottle of Pol Roger for Claudes wetting of his head once he was out. And I had a big feed of sushi once Claude was born and so James and went and got a bottle of that and we, we toasted [01:34:00] to Herb.

[01:34:20] Bianca: Because you were quite confronted. You've gotta sign a form and then I said to James how long do you, do you think we'll wanna spend in hospital with him? And you were quite confused.

[01:34:49] Bianca: Yeah, we kept pushing out the time by like an hour here and there for the undertaker to come and the midwife was really wise and she said, look you'll never feel [01:35:00] ready. You just have to pick a time. And she was right.

And we knew we needed to get back home to our son, Claude, because we had strict instructions for family not to tell him what had happened. We really wanted to be the ones that delivered that information in person. And so we knew we had to get home and, uh, to say goodbye to Herb will be the hardest thing of all of it.

I thought, what's, what's the mean? You're so long. And it means that I'll see him again,[01:36:00]

With James's sense of humor, he used to joke and teach Claude that he'd draw a dick and balls from the moment Claude could probably talk and say that it's a rocket ship. And so Claude would see them spray painted around the place and he'd be like, dad, look, it's a rocket ship. And James would also verse him up to say that mum loves rocket ships.

So the undertaker comes and

[01:37:15] Bianca: I can't recall that. But a poor guy. He was working on a Sunday Ill fitting He was a big guy Ill fitting Yeah. Um, and zips him up. I can't remember what I said to him. It was like, it's just, I think I was, I'd left my body already.

They were desperately trying for a boy. And she kept my pregnancy because she was told I was a boy. And then when I was born my paternal grandmother was at the birth and my father was away working. And my paternal grandmother just said, you can't keep her. You have to get rid of her and you can't afford to keep her. In East Asian culture the grandmother is often the matriarch of the family, and you do as they say. So she did and left the hospital and told everyone I was a boy and I died at birth. And there's, there's other bits to it. That's the very abridged version.

And then when I found out the truth, it was it was quite confronting that they're actually married and I'm the youngest of three. It was very confusing. And then we went and met them. Uh, Claude was almost one for the first time we went to Korea as a family to meet them. And my mother all she could say to me, the first thing she said to me was, sorry. That was pretty much the only thing she could say to me for the few days that we spent together in a very limited English. And that was all she could say to me was, I'm sorry. And then when Herb was born and they put him on me for the first time, and I gotta see him for the first time, all I could say was, I'm sorry.

Um, and then I, I hadn't thought of that for, oh, it was probably a few weeks we'd been home and James said to me, you do realize that what you said to Herb is exactly what your mum said to you, when she first met you. And then it was in that moment that I realized that I sadly know exactly what my mother felt.

And I, I almost think though that it's worse for her because when the undertaker took Herb, we were even more unregulated. We were so stressed because he wasn't with us. And like we didn't know where he was. I mean, we knew where he was, he was at the undertakers.

But was it, we were like, is he in the morgue? Is he, is he like, where exactly, what room is he in? Is he with other people? Like what? Where is he?

[01:41:01] Bianca: Yeah. And it wasn't until we got him back. Did we feel? Yeah. Slightly more comforted.

But my mother spent, it was 20, I was 24 when I made contact with them for the first time. She had no idea where in the world I was. She didn't know, they didn't get any information. They just give them up for adoption and walk away and that's it. Um, so that's that part of the story. So we left the hospital and we went back to the accommodation.

I woke up having had forgotten about it just for a few seconds, and then it just all came flooding in. That that was, that was it. That our son was gone. I just remember sobbing, and I remember you coming in and you just held me silently.

We hadn't seen Claude for a week, just over a week. We were desperate to see him. We'd missed him so much, and, and that was a, a another big struggle. Like we really struggled being away from him. He's a great source of your children are, you know, they're driving insane and they're hard and, but they're a great source of comfort.

And the thought of telling him that in the lead up would make me almost physically want to vomit. It would almost make me wretch thinking about doing it. And I mean, we did it and it was awful. It was emotional. I think at his age he had a level of comprehension but he was probably more mirroring what we were doing, which was bawling our eyes out.

I just find that just such a beautiful question and thinking, it's always stuck in my mind.

[01:44:34] Bianca: I was really confronted with how to tell people, to begin with, I told people that he was born sleeping. I really struggled with the fact of saying that he had died. It was just too hard for me to say because I felt like I'd forced that death. It was my fault that he had died. And I didn't wanna say we'd lost him because we didn't lose him. I knew exactly where he was. I had to feel him die so I found it somewhat comfortable to say that he was [01:45:00] born sleeping. And it wasn't until it was quite some time later that I was able to be really open. I didn't mind who knew I just, I couldn't publicly put it out there for quite some time that he died from a TFMR. And we just, we need to talk about it more.

TFMR is, is a choiceless choice. We did it out of love and compassion for our, for our son. I've fortunately only experienced a couple of times on socials those sort of comments that we made the wrong decision or that's not the will of God and stuff, and I'm the biggest atheist out. If anything, most people have said, if, if it was us, if it was me, we would've done exactly what you did

[01:46:25] Bianca: That's right. The story that we're sold is that bad things only happen to bad people and good things happen to good people, but bad things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. It just is, and there's been a, a lot of work and healing around understanding that and knowing we didn't do anything wrong. We're not being punished for something we've done in some part of our life.

And I just wanted to try and understand because I wanted to escape how I was feeling so bad. And the process of healing and understanding grief will. We'll forever be trying to understand it. I don't think you'll ever get to a point going, oh yeah, I get it all. But there's certainly been many things along the way that have worked and have not worked, and the process of healing has been so very different for James and I or have been on a completely different trajectory and I think that's really interesting as a couple to observe because of both of our experiences in mental health and illness and, and education to go, okay this is quite interesting of how we've navigated it. And we hope to share those [01:48:00] insights with you.

So next episode we'll just be talking more about what healing modalities have and haven't worked as just some suggestions for people as to things that they might want to explore that they might not have thought of already.

Before we wrap up, I'd just like to mention that whilst I do have a degree in behavioral science and have spent years educating myself and researching the topics of trauma and mental health, I'm not a licensed therapist, counselor, or psychologist. Everything I share here is based on personal experience and things I've learnt through education.