We are grateful to share the inspiring journey of Emma Mackay, who is fundraising for the Birth Trauma Association (BTA) as part of the 2025 ASICS Gold Coast Marathon. Emma’s personal experience with childbirth has driven her to raise awareness and funds for this essential cause.
Her story, which highlights the significant challenges she faced during her first pregnancy and the emotional toll of inadequate care, has deeply impacted her and many others. From experiencing agonising delays in pain relief to the trauma of feeling unsupported during such a vulnerable time, Emma’s journey underscores the need for better maternity care and support for mothers facing traumatic births.
Emma’s decision to run in the marathon and fundraise for BTA comes from a place of resilience and a desire to ensure other women receive the care and support they deserve. She is committed to creating awareness for birth trauma and advocating for improved systems and practices for future mothers.
We are incredibly grateful for Emma’s support and encourage you to visit her fundraising page to contribute and show your support for her cause. Every donation helps us continue our mission to support women and families affected by birth trauma.
You can follow Emma’s fundraising journey and donate to her page
Birth trauma is an all-too-real experience that many women face, often in circumstances that leave them feeling unsupported and unheard. In my first pregnancy and birth at a private hospital, I experienced firsthand how inadequate care can leave lasting scars.
It was my first pregnancy and birth, we were with the Mater Mothers as a private paying patient. I had contractions early morning, and we were admitted 10am into the waiting room. A lot of waiting..
Finally, we were seen, about midday, and I was 2cm dilated and in quite a bit of pain. I’m a long-distance runner, and she was in a perfect position last scan, and no complications. So prior, I thought, I might see how long I can go without intervention, yet also open to epidural, emergency C-section if needed. I knew something was wrong. It was even suggested that I go back home, and come back when I’m in “a lot of pain”. (I’m a new Mother, in a private hospital and dilated).
It’s now the afternoon, I asked for pain relief, and was advised I will need to wait as all beds were full upstairs in the ward. They took me to a room and gave me Gas, which made me so nauseous. Finally at 5pm, I was taken upstairs to the ward. They rechecked me, as I was crying in pain, and they said “oh only 3 cm dilated, you’re not progressing fast, and the epidural is coming, you’ll just have to wait. I waited and waited in agonising pain. No-one knew my daughter had flipped, in posterior, and was stuck, wedged like in between my internal hip muscles. Apparently this happens to a lot of runners and triathletes in birth. It’s now 8pm and no sign of pain relief. I had called this hours ago. They checked me again, now 5cm. Still no epidural. I kept talking to myself about the epidural, “its on its way, I’m in a safe, private hospital, it’s nearly here”. And all I was told “it’s on its way”.
The problem, it was never on its way. Both anaesthesiologists, were in 2 cat ones. And the hospital did not think to call out one to come into the hospital and administer. It’s now 11pm, and still no epidural and I’m in excruciating pain. The nurse commented my stomach looked like she was breached but no-one performed any scans, checks etc to confirm this. It’s 2am and there’s a spare bed on the birthing suite level. They take me down, still “its coming”.
It’s now intolerable, I’m screaming “I’m a private paying patient, where is my epidural, where is an on-call Anaesthetist”. Finally they make a call and one comes in his pyjamas to administer and I cant feel the first needle as my contractions are too severe.
Finally some relief. I also suffer from low blood pressure and sugar, so if I don’t eat every 2 hours, I feel very faint. As you can imagine, I now feel like death with no salts, water and food from 10am that morning. It is now 3am.
Suddenly Arabella’s heart rate drops, a flashing light spins and the head nurse comes in and presses the emergency button. 9 Doctors and Nurses are in my ward, saying things like “this isn’t normal” “she needs to progress so we should leave it in” “take it out, there’s death risk”. They all leave the room and leave one 23 yr old new nurse to take care of us on her own. She pulls out the medication to progress my contractions, and the heart rate stables. My OB is called, and I can tell she is beside herself as to why it took so long to give me pain relief, and why she was not phones hours ago. It wasn’t her night on, she came in as things were getting “hairy” and she was disappointed in how we had been treated so far. I never spoke on the phone, this was from nurse to OB.
My OB Julie, a measured, kind-natured women was extremely upset, we could hear her from our suite speaking to the entire nursing team that had looked after me and why an epidural was not given hours ago. The heart rate dropped again, lights flashing, and now Julie was at least in the room with 9 staff. All behaving so differently, like soldiers under their command. Julie spoke rationally and measured. Included me in the comments, whilst instructing staff.
She broke my waters, gave me papers, and instructed me to fill them out, we need to go into emergency c-section immediately. We now had a high risk of losing both Arabella and myself. My blood pressure was severely low, I fainted in and out, and could felt like a rag doll. I felt the urge to push, and I was wheeled into theatre. It is now 7am. I cried the entire time they pushed me to theatre. My husband Sam is quiet, and introverted, and I can only imagine how much shock he would have been in. The nurse had to ask him to talk to me to make me feel ok.
I remembered I went laser-focused and in severe shock. I went extremely still, quiet and just told myself, please don’t die, as I truly felt like I was outside my body, I felt like a shell, in total shock. They gave me medication to increase blood pressure, hormones, other things that were severely low. The surgery was finished and I didn’t want her on me. They asked me twice and I said no. I laid there eyes shut saying “salt” “i need salt”. They gave me anti-shock medication, more hormones and wheeled me to ICU for further medication. They handed Arabella to breastfeed and she latched on right away. I still felt nothing and so weak. I said I need salt, water. And was finally given it, and felt like I was at least a human being again. Julie said when she cut me open, she was in posterior and was stuck between my hip muscles and they needed 3 doctors to pull her out of me. I don’t even remember this, my husband told me this. She said I would have ended up in emergency regardless of heart rate, as there was no way Arabella was coming out, she was stuck.
Then in a suite upstairs, it was straight into it all. Breastfeeding, beeping, medications, breastfeeding, no sleep, beeping, no recovery whatsoever was offered. I was in excruciating pain even on Endone. They said I had one of the longest labours into surgery in a very long time.
Ok, well then where’s my recovery? Is there a psychologist? Any different pain medication? Anyone offering to hold Arabella so I can catch up on sleep?
My Mum a prior nurse and I was delivered at Mater Mothers, could not believe the difference in the level of care of mothers, from her generation to ours. And she has a low-risk birth.
We are back at home, still in quite a bit of pain, I cant walk, I cant stand, I cant laugh, even when I breath out, it really hurt. I’m still on strong Endone, and I’m a natural person who doesn’t like to opt for pain relief. Now I’m taking this, which is being digested by my new baby. It was a hard one to handle. So was not a vaginal birth. Yet the worst part was being lied to for so long that this pain medication was coming, when it never was.
We are now in Covid lockdown, everyone around the world is dying, and we are 2 months into Australia catching the disease. I’m at home, 24/7, in pain, a social extrovert, who cant leave the house, can’t really walk by herself. On top of this, our daughter did not sleep at night at all. I know lots do say this, but the only time she slept was when my dear Mum would come over at 4am, and put her on her chest, and wake her up at 8am, and we would be woken up. She was awake all night, until 4am for 9 weeks straight. I never slept during the day, I couldn’t, I felt like she would die if I slept.
As you can imagine, I wasn’t in a good way. I was extremely lonely, I had PTSD from the birth, and felt like I was still in shock, exhausted from not sleeping, breastfeeding and quite anxious with this new disease called Covid which no-one had a solution for, and I had a newborn baby. It was torture. I was a recruiter and on average spoke to hundreds of people in a week, I had on average 1o meetings and interviews, now I’m staring at 4 white walls everyday. It was hell.
What is so sad about all of this is because of my experience in hospital, it completely changed my experience with my darling daughter on mat leave. I was frustrated, angry, tired, in shock, depressed, lonely and I am usually a very positive, optimist, resilient and happy women. I have always loved children, and am very maternal, pre-school teaching was my second option at Uni! I love kids. This felt like torture, and it really changed my love of looking after my new child. I was therefore very interested to go back to FT work. I was offered a national role, with a global company, in-house for one of my clients. After 6 months I negotiated to 4 days so I could have 1 day off with Arabella, 2 days at home while the Nanny was there so then Arabella could see, touch and have me around, and my Mum had her the other day. I still didn’t feel right. I went on mat leave with my second child, my son Henry, elective c-section and what a change that experience was. The pain was hardly there post surgery and I was walking the next day and off Endone in 3 days instead of 5 weeks. It was chalk and cheese yet the same procedure. I had now had time off with my daughter which I was so happy and content and realised, if my birth wasn’t so traumatising, I would have liked to go back to work part-time and had Arabella part-time. She suffered, I suffered, I can never get those hours, days back that I could have spent happily with her. Instead I was traumatised, and working full time.
After Henry I decided to run my own business so I could spend more time with the children. I work 2.5 days a week, in kindy hours and its just perfect.
I had the Director of Mater Mothers call me 2 years after Arabella to apologise about our case, that they study it in training as to “what not to do” and because of our case, have changed a rule, where if the patient calls for an Epidural, their OB has to be notified. This is now common practice.
I still can’t believe women are going into a private hospital, where inadequate staff headcount and competency are not at safe practice. It makes me too upset to think about today, so many women would have suffered trauma. I can’t even imagine what the state hospital system must be like, and am at least blessed I could be in a private room post the experience. I also still can’t believe how society has not assisted new mothers, to fill that gap of loneliness on mat leave. There should be free council-run social groups where its a local cafe and park in every suburb so we have someone to speak to and chat with. To not feel like work is our saviour but instead, the community. I would have gone back PT and so would lots of my friends if there was more local support and stimulation. I have a big friendship group and am naturally social, and I felt so isolated and devalued. And what does this do? Consequently back on our children as more children are in daycares, not around their Mothers, and in turn suffering too.
