JOANNE HYNES

Designer, four children We have three girls and one boy. My eldest is five now. I didn’t read any books, I just kind of said “well, whatever’s going to happen is going to happen”. I suppose I wasn’t really aware of what was ahead of me, and that’s the best way to be. I was having a bath when my waters broke, so I ended up in Holles Street at 35 weeks, and I stayed in for two weeks. I felt very safe. When your waters break, the doctors are nervous about infection, so they brought me back in shortly afterwards. The labour process was a completely bonding experience for John and I to go through together. I was hugely impressed with how great he was. Obviously he wasn’t going through it in the same way but he got into the zone with me. I said, “let’s see what happens”. And I kept going, kept saying “no no no”. I was 13 hours in, and then I panicked, because I was exhausted. They gave me an epidural. And she arrived 15 minutes later.

I had a still birth on my second baby, also a girl. We called her Etain. I don’t really talk about it too much, but I think it can help other people. It’s such a horrific thing to happen, and it does happen to people, unfortunately. I was 39 weeks. It kind of broke the magic, the bubble. I mean, it broke me, it broke us, it broke a lot of things. So my feeling now on pregnancy, it’s a very personal thing, is that it’s not as carefree as it was the first time. Etain is with me every single day, and we talk about her daily. She is buried in Killoughter, Co Wicklow, not far from where we live. It definitely does do something to you when you lose a baby. It does change your whole life. It was a huge thing to deal with. And I am still trying to deal with it. I dealt with Feileacain, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Association of Ireland. They are an absolutely incredible group of women who offer their time and services. Nobody asked me about it. It was like, I was pregnant, and then I wasn’t pregnant. I really needed to recognise it; I wanted to shout out “does anybody hear me?”. But it was difficult, because people are very uncomfortable. It’s still a very uncomfortable situation for people to even acknowledge it. So a lot of people didn’t say anything, which I understand. But it was very odd. That was October 2013, and I remember that winter, John and I just kind of staying in and it was very tough.

I’ve had three labours and two caesareans. I found my first caesarean hugely psychologically challenging, feeling quite robbed of the labour. But we had a healthy baby, it was great. I did have a panic attack, because I felt so out of control after the baby was born that night. Not being able to move — that was very daunting. I’m pregnant at the moment. I’m due now in 10 weeks but I will have a section at 37 weeks — please God. I could probably write a book on labour.