17/07/2026
The Birth of our first child, Xander Lucas Farquhar 💙
For some of you, this post may come as a complete surprise.
Many people didn't even know I was pregnant.
Jesse and I deliberately chose to keep the pregnancy largely private and never made a public announcement. It was a really special chapter of our lives that we wanted to experience quietly, away from social media.
But now that our little man is safely here, I'd love to share the story of how he entered the world.
Unfortunately, it looked nothing like the birth we had imagined.
Xander Lucas Farquhar
🩵 Born: 15 July 2026
🩵 Weight: 3.5 kg
🩵 Length: 54 cm (AKA: "Wow that's long")
🩵 Gestation: 40+1
At 2:00 am on the 14th of July, my waters broke. At 5:00 am, contractions started.
They gradually intensified... And everything looked normal at this point. Albeit pretty painful.
We had planned everything meticulously. The lighting. The colours. The scenery. The atmosphere. It was the dream home water birth... on paper.
But reality had other ideas.
I'm someone who has been kicked in the *insert various body parts here* by horses, battled through Stage 3 Endometriosis monthly, endured constant, lifelong chronic body pain from "Fibromyalgia", walked out of two knee surgeries, refused pain killers at every turn, I previously even cut my own implanon out with blunt scissors. (Yes, but that's a different story)
Most recently, I also struggled through 5 pregnancy induced Rhabdomyolysis episodes, with the last one being literally 2 days before labour starting. I had been in bed for 26 hours straight, too sick to get up. Pain is no stranger to me.
But this... This hit differently.
I'm sure every woman experiences intense pain during labour, and I don't want to diminish what anyone else goes through. But intuitively, I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right.
I felt like I was being harassed by a demon while my hands were bound behind me and eyes closed. It was absolutely terrifying. I couldn't run, hide. No control. And the pain was not something that felt liberating. Strength inducing. Productive. It felt like pressure and force whose only purpose was to hurt me. I was a helpless puppy locked in a glass box that was on fire, begging everyone to get me out, scratching at the corners. But no one could. But this was likely because the pain I was feeling was not normal labour.
Things actually progressed quickly, to the point where it really looked like I might have a baby in just 14 hours. But something felt so incredibly wrong. This was a foreshadowing of what was to come.
There were breaks between contractions, but they weren't really restful. They simply gave me enough time to realise another one was coming. It felt like hiding from something that always found you again.
Every contraction I just hid, burying myself into Jesse, praying for it to stop. My body feeling distended and disemboweled, end from end.
Then, unfortunately, at around the 19-hour mark, after four hours of being fully dilated and pushing with brutally intense contractions and no progress, everything just stopped.
No warning.
No explanation.
Just gone.
Contractions that were once 2 minutes apart became more like 30 minutes apart, and the "Build up----Sneeze coming, so get ready----SNEEZE" sensation that was a contraction became
"build up.....build up ..... Nothing."
The pain was still there.
But the momentum was gone.
Everything had simply stalled.
Then meconium appeared.
That changed everything.
At 11:30 pm, we made the incredibly difficult decision to transfer to hospital.
Our private midwives knew how committed we were to an unmedicated home birth, so when they quietly said,
"I think something is wrong... you need to go in."
There wasn't even a discussion. We left immediately.
I sat crookedly and extremely uncomfortably in the back of the car while Jesse navigated a GTA style entrance to the hospital. Waiting for us was a beautifully skilled team of about 12 genius level specialists, and more on their way, getting out of bed just for me (sorry guys) and offered what felt like an entire floor of the hospital devoted just to me, who already knew exactly who we were, and me by name.
They guided me across the hospital in a wheelchair, and I had my head down and eyes closed, buried into my jacket, my body still fighting with me every second, and such insane pelvic pain that is simply incomprehensible.
By the time I got to being assessed, I was so crumpled and destroyed. 4 failed cannulas due to severely collapsed veins. The occasional half hearted contraction attempted to burden me, then disappeared again without being fully committed. Every movement was painful, whether I moved or not. Laid still, turned.
Nowhere was safe to be.
Nowhere.
Torture.
Again, we had a plan about how we wanted birth to look like for us. But at this point, whatever birth safely brought our son into the world was the birth we were going to have.
I accepted the nitrous oxide. (This was a good moment in the story, hopefully no one ever finds the photos, though)
Anyone who knows me knows this is almost comical.
I'm anti-alcohol.
Anti-coffee.
Anti-tea.
Anti-sugar.
Anti-fluoride.
Basically anti-most-things.
Yet there I was...
Attached to the happy gas whistle like I'd been waiting my whole life for it.
And I'll be honest.
It was glorious.
The stress melted away.
Then, for the first time in almost an entire day, I was offered something I hadn't experienced since labour began.
Relief...
(And a very fun head spin, whee)
Then came one of my favourite memories from the entire birth.
I looked across the room and saw this incredibly attractive nurse in blue scrubs, around my age, standing next to the anaesthetist next to my bed.
Looking at me like I was the most beautiful person in the room.
Smiling.
Holding my hand and rubbing my leg.
I remember quietly thinking,
"Jeez... you're ridiculously good looking... but if Jesse saw you looking at me like that, you would no longer exist."
It didn't stop me staring at him though, wondering where he came from.
Nitrous oxide hits hard but also wears off quickly, so a few moments later, I had the hilarious realisation:
That super sexy nurse, WAS, in fact, Jesse, in scrubs. Ready to attend theatre with me.
Hilarious.
Anyway, moving along.
An extremely painful yet brief examination revealed that Xander was right there. His head was incredibly low.
He was very stuck. And even the very tiny little occasional half hearted contractions that simply fizzled out, were creating drops in his heart rate that were now becoming life threatening.
Whilst the plan hadn't been fully hashed out at this point, we were now standing in a life altering fork in the road. I could be issued drugs immediately to stop any contractions, which would have protected the baby from further stress, but be a slam dunk confirmed cesarean section, given I would be unable to push him out, even with help.
Or we had to take the risk and hope the last of the on call medical team would make it in time before too many more contractions occurred, so that surgery could begin and be maintained as a forceps delivery as first priority. (Though cesarean was a very real concern should this be unsuccessful anyway).
We nervously opted for the second option and I laid extremely still, in hopes that no more contractions would occur. There was so much happening around me behind the scenes. Noise, people everywhere. Bright lights. I just kept my eyes closed, Happy Whistle between my lips, and focused on the feeling of "Sexy Nurse Jesse" holding my hand, as he stood rock solid by my side.
Fortunately, without too much more of a wait, the team had assembled and we were off to theatre. I was a little disappointed to hear I couldn't bring the happy gas, so like a greedy little user, I stocked up and then waved goodbye to the machine (I swear it waved back...🤦♀️)
Once in theatre, things moved very swiftly. I had a spinal block in preparation for proper assessment. It was clear what the path forward needed to be, and the plan crystallised into an assisted forceps birth. And the potential to escalate to emergency C section should this fail. (My biggest fear by the way).
Within minutes, the pain that had consumed every thought for nearly nineteen hours simply... disappeared. In its place, two numb legs that felt like I had sat on the toilet scrolling for far too long. But stronger. The block was also higher than your usual epidural, in the case of needing to do a cesarean. Hopefully not required but performed prophylactically.
I'll never forget that feeling. After spending almost an entire day feeling relentlessly hunted by wave after wave of terrible pain and suffering, unable to move, change positions, breathe....
Finally, the silence was almost surreal. My body had permission to stop fighting.
He wasn't an unusually large baby at all. At 3.5 kg, he was a perfectly normal size for full term. The obstetric team explained that it may have been his position, which was likely Occipital Posterior, AKA "Back to Back", my long-standing frozen pelvis, my "Fibromyalgia", or a combination of those factors. Whatever the exact reason, something simply wasn't allowing that final part of labour to happen.
To safely complete the final tiny part of his journey, an episiotomy was recommended.
Naturally, I declined, so they tried without it.
Very quickly they stopped and explained that if they continued, I was at extremely high risk of sustaining at least a third-degree tear.
So...
I reluctantly agreed.
They performed the episiotomy.
Tried again.
Still really stuck.
A little more added to the episiotomy.
One final attempt.
And then...
Out he came.
Healthy.
Crying immediately.
A full head of dark hair, the same colour as Jesse's.
Time seemed to stop.
For twenty hours, labour had consumed every thought, every drop of energy, every emotion we had.
And then, in a single instant...
..none of it mattered anymore.
I looked across at Jesse just as Xander appeared, and for the first time that entire day, I saw tears leave his eyes. He had been so incredibly strong until now, not letting on a single hint of terror about what had happened (but obviously he was riddled with desperation and panic, just as I was. I only found out just how much it affected him later when he told me he genuinely thought he was going to lose us both that night.)
But the moment he saw our son for the first time, he finally allowed himself to release.
Ten perfect fingers.
Ten perfect toes.
Perfect in every way.
We did it. Oh my God, we finally did it. The nightmare was over. The war had been won. Or, almost.
Unfortunately, the placenta became the next issue. It had almost become embedded within me, to the point that two very aggressive doctors playing trampoline on my stomach for 40 minutes (30 minutes is cut off for active management by the way) were really struggling to get it out.
So eventually, with the help of some details that are best left spared here, (but picture what happens to a Christmas turkey when you want to stuff it), the placenta was delivered.
Picture a loading bar. 99% of delivering this baby was achieved in 15 hours.
Ready to go.
Then the last 1%, stuck for 4 hours, blue screen of death, "ERROR - PAPER JAM".
And totally stopped.
It was not only disappointing to come so close, then fall short at the very end, but it was also terrifying knowing that without help, this would have been a complete disaster with no positive end in sight for either of us. Modern medicine is so cool and I am grateful to the entire team for their astute and professional on-the-fly decision making.
We stayed in hospital for 2 days, but honestly I would have believed you if you'd told me it was 2 weeks. Time became wildly warped. So much happened. I had visits from every medical professional you could imagine. Almost in a conga line, or "take a number and she'll be with you shortly". One would come in just as the last would leave. I can't count how many times I tried to eat the same piece of cold lunch on my fork, only to put it back down again to speak with the next person coming into the room... Such a whirlwind.
Within the long line of visitors was a very interesting kidney doctor who has taken an interest in my Rhabdomyolysis attacks.
One to Google, but basically yet another extremely significant health condition, usually seen in hardcore gym junkies who push too hard, not pregnant but still largely very fit, active and metabolically healthy athletes who are just hand walking their quiet horse here and there, carrying a biscuit of hay, or cleaning a stable slowly. He has requested a heap of blood work to try to get to the bottom of if this is relevant to my life long "Fibromyalgia syndrome that isn't quite Fibromyalgia but can't be diagnosed" or something else entirely. The recent Rhabdomyolysis episodes left me extremely muscle sick and toxic, borderline black urine, skin that felt like it was burned and raw, muscles that were the most achy you've ever felt, elevated CK and protein.... Basically muscles attacking themselves and melting, releasing toxic chemicals into my bloodstream.
More importantly, pregnancy didn't cause it, rather reveal it as my exercise tolerance slowly dropped later into gestation. The normal version of me has been affected by this previously, mildly, but not enough for me to really take notice, because I've been so fit that it didn't affect me as much. But pregnancy does interesting things to your body and it basically undid my forcefield bit by bit. Currently leaning towards a rare genetic metabolic disease, not sure which. We shall see. Work in progress but will hopefully know more about it soon. Might be answers to questions I've had my whole life about why I'm always so stiff and sore all the time.
Xander, for all things considered, is an extremely healthy and strong baby. His long bones are "extra long and extra kicky". He can already lift his neck up fully for tummy time, shows intention to crawl and roll over, his grip is tight and firm, and if you intend to get a finger lost for good, offer it into his mouth.
He is basically unscathed in all of this, beyond a little residual neck pain from the forceps. I on the other hand am looking a little worse for wear. Those sculpted core muscles I've spent years tenderly building as a professional dressage rider have decided to separate, I have pain in places I'll politely leave to your imagination, and I'm still not entirely convinced I've returned to the same planet I left before labour. I've also lost track of how many people have stared or interacted with this or that belonging to my body (child birth is very humbling and raw, let's put it that way!)
I have been through worse and I will heal. I also avoided the dreaded C section too, which was the main concern for us.
Considering the fact that this baby couldn't have been delivered without, not only help from forceps, not only an episiotomy, but an extended episiotomy.... It's no surprise to me that I couldn't finish the job on my own, after 4 hours of pushing. It seems you just simply cannot fit a square peg in a round hole. Or at least not the whole peg anyway.
Last night, 17th July, just two days later, we carried our precious little man out of Ballarat Base Hospital.
Looking back, it wasn't the birth we had imagined.
It wasn't the peaceful home water birth we had spent months preparing for.
But I don't look back feeling like I failed.
I laboured naturally for nearly 21 hours.
I trusted my midwife.
When the situation changed, we changed with it.
And together, with an incredible team, we made exactly the right decisions to bring our son into the world safely.
We are well supported with both Paix and Farquhar extended families engaged and ready to assist us in these challenging early months of being new parents. For which we are both extremely grateful for. It certainly does take a village.
So, understandably, sorry if I'm a bit slow to respond to inquiries. Now you know why 😅 the last few days have honestly been so completely wild. I still don't even know what day (or year) it is.
Sometimes, the best birth isn't the one that follows the plan.
It's the one where everyone gets home safely.
Welcome to the world, Xander Lucas Farquhar. The next step in our lives together as parents.
You were worth every single second. 💙
