Oct. 7, 2024
Nurturing Strength: Brigette Panetta's Path Through Adversity and Renewal
Facing the daunting challenges of new motherhood amid a pandemic, Brigette Panetta's story is a testament to resilience and unwavering dedication. Just days before giving birth to her daughter Emerald, Brigette found herself embroiled in an unexpected legal battle over her family business, all while navigating the tumultuous waters of a global pandemic. Journey with us as Brigette shares her harrowing experience of an attempted home birth that led to severe complications and an ICU stay. Her narrative is one of strength, as she remained a pillar of support for her partner, James, during his legal struggles, while also ensuring the well-being of their newborn.
Brigette’s healing journey post-birth is a profound exploration of resilience through transformative practices like forgiveness, kinesiology, breathwork, and cold showers. She opens up about how these practices helped her address and release the emotional trauma stored in her body, bringing a sense of peace and balance to her new role as a mother. The discussion shines a light on the importance of balancing hormones, embracing discomfort to build mental fortitude, and learning to control emotions, which is crucial in parenting and personal growth. Brigette's insights offer invaluable lessons on how acknowledging and processing past experiences can lead to liberation and greater personal strength.
Coping with isolation during motherhood, Brigette's experience highlights the importance of self-care and mental health in navigating the challenges of parenthood without immediate support. She candidly discusses the identity transformation motherhood brings, the pressures of social expectations, and the necessity of releasing mom guilt. Brigette’s story encourages embracing imperfections and prioritizing self-love, all while maintaining family responsibilities and adapting to a new normal. Her journey underscores the power of resilience, the value of support systems, and the need for prioritizing one's well-being amidst life's challenges.
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Medical Disclaimer:
This podcast is intended as a safe space for women to share their birth experiences. It is not intended to provide medical advice. Each woman’s medical course of action is individual and may not appropriately transfer to another similar situation. Please speak to your medical provider before making any medical decisions. Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that evidence based practice evolves as our knowledge of science improves. To the best of my ability I will attempt to present the most current ACOG and AWHONN recommendations at the time the podcast is recorded, but that may not necessarily reflect the best practices at the time the podcast is heard. Additionally, guests sharing their stories have the right to autonomy in their medical decisions, and may share their choice to go against current practice recommendations. I intend to hold space for people to share their decisions. I will attempt to share the current recommendations so that my audience is informed, but it is up to each individual to choose what is best for them.
Chapters
00:00 - Surviving Motherhood Amid Crisis
14:26 - Healing After Birth
21:53 - The Decision to Go to Hospital
30:26 - Navigating Birth Complications and Recovery
40:52 - Navigating Motherhood Challenges and Self-Care
48:03 - Embracing Imperfection and Self-Care
Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hello, today I have with me Bridget Panetta.
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Bridget has emerged as a powerful advocate for individuals facing social injustice and adversity.
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Her journey began under extraordinary circumstances.
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Two days before giving birth, during the onset of the pandemic, bridget found herself losing the safe foundation she had built to bring her daughter into the world.
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Post-birth, she found herself in the ICU, recovering from a traumatic birthing experience while simultaneously supporting her fiancé through 26 legal hearings.
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Bridget welcome.
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This sounds so incredibly stressful I don't even know where to begin, so all I can say is tell me the story.
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Hi Kelly, thank you so much for having me.
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I really really appreciate it and I just absolutely love your podcast.
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I'm so honored to be here.
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Yeah, it's been an absolute journey.
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The last five years have been completely transformational, stressful, and when I look back on it I just just genuinely like when I hear you explain that bio, I just could not.
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You know, it takes me a little bit to process what has happened because I feel like I've come so far, but at the same time it's just like how did that happen to just two people just trying to build a business, trying to get on with life, trying to build something incredible?
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So five years ago, my daughter's four, now Emerald she's absolutely amazing and I tried to have a home birth.
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I created a beautiful, safe space at our home.
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I had two midwives with me and two days before that we had a proceeding launched on our family business by the Australian Securities Investment Commission for a marketing breach that they had issues with.
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So that just really disrupted my headspace, my body, as much as I tried to stay strong and just think, oh, you know, this is just absurd, there's nothing to it.
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I think my body knew something bad was coming.
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You know, your intuition kind of kicks in.
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But at the time I'm trying to just focus on having a peaceful water bath at home.
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So I had a lot of complications there.
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My body just wouldn't cooperate.
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I think it was highly under stress at that point.
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My pregnancy was incredible.
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Sorry, just to backtrack, my pregnancy was amazing.
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I absolutely loved being pregnant.
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I just loved growing a child inside my stomach.
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I didn't have any sickness.
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I was very fortunate in that regard.
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But then the birthing experience.
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I think, off the back of just having such a stressful situation happen, I wouldn't cooperate.
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I had to kind of be rushed into hospital.
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My placenta wouldn't detach, so I had to get that removed.
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I hemorrhaged, I had three blood transfusions and then I was actually septic from having my hindwaters broke quite early on in the piece.
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And so then attempting to have a home water birth, then my body not cooperating, it just took too long, and so my midwives actually left when I was at home.
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They're like oh, this is.
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You know, you're taking a while, your body's not cooperating, we're actually going to go home.
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And I thought, oh okay, what happens?
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Because my contractions were quite close together.
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So then they've gone and then I've just gone straight to the hospital just because I just did not want to be a home alone if I was, you know, having contractions so went into the hospital and then, yeah, I ended up having epidural and just all the things I didn't want to do definitely weren't part of my birthing plan, but I just had to accept that that was my situation at the time.
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So, yeah, I gave birth to a beautiful little girl.
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She was extremely healthy, everything was well, and then went home and literally was just not the motherhood experience or start to motherhood that I ever thought that I would ever have, because we were in COVID, so I had no support, I didn't have any visitors, I didn't have any of that and I was and James, my partner, he was just fighting legal battles for the whole, you know, until he's still doing it now, unfortunately.
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So it was very much me blindly raising my daughter.
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And you think you're prepared when you read your books and you think, oh, I'm great.
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I loved the thought of being a mom.
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I've always wanted to be a mom, I'm a natural nurturing carer, but when it's yours and when it's 24 hours and when you don't know what you're doing, it's just the expectation that you thought is just totally different.
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I didn't get the mother's group experience because of COVID, so there was just so many things missing that I just, you know, you have that picture in your mind of what motherhood looks like, and so that was kind of the beginning and it was just basically just a lot of trial and error.
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I told my body, I remember at one particular moment I told my body you have to go into survival at the moment.
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You can have a breakdown later, and right now your priority is raising this child, because there was no way I was ever going to let what was happening to our family business affect her.
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That was where that raw mum kind of protection came in.
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And also I had to protect James because he had to fight for us, because I knew there was something that wasn't correct here and I knew he had to fight because it was so wrong and he had to be healthy.
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He had to eat.
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He wasn't eating.
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You know he wasn't.
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He didn't have that comfortability of thinking I'm just going to go for lunch or, you know, I'm just going to make some lunch.
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I had zero time to think about that.
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So if I didn't have that comfortability of thinking, I'm just going to go for lunch or I'm just going to make some lunch.
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I had zero time to think about that.
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So if I didn't do that for him, I was worried about his health and him being able to sustain what he's gone through.
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And I also had to start working in the business.
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I've got a finance background and most of the employees resigned so I had to kind of step in to keep that moving, getting things to lawyers and making sure we could provide the information that James couldn't do everything, so I had to help in that regard.
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So, yeah, I just was in complete survival mode for the first probably two years of Bob's life and COVID was tough.
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But it was also good because I had her on a strict sleeping schedule Like I had no on a strict sleeping schedule Like I was.
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I had no distractions in that respect and because I had to work, I really put emphasis on making sure I could get her sleeping during the day and she was sleeping through from about three months, so when she would sleep I would just be working through the night.
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Then it was just.
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There was just so much happening, but I felt like I had it under control because I think that adrenaline is there.
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I think mums in general just have adrenaline because they're just juggling, trying to work out how to make sure this baby can survive.
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But then throw on all of this legal pressures and making sure you can help your partner when you see him struggling so much, it just adds that extra boost on.
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So I was just I felt like, super well, I was cooking, getting the house was still clean, I was making sure everything was done.
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But then a few years later we had to move house.
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We actually lost our family home through the process and once we moved and my environment changed and my routine changed, my whole body just gave up.
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Essentially, you know, that last little bit of fuel that I was running on I think just ran out and that's when my health started to really suffer and my mental health really, really suffered because I was having to face it.
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It was right there.
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I couldn't just keep bearing it.
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I had to really face it and think, okay, I need to really look after me now.
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So I had to.
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Obviously, emerald was still my number one priority, but the work things I just said I can't help you there.
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I can help you at home as a partner, but in terms of work I have to take a step back from that.
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And Emerald was getting older and as a baby it was quite easy, you know, I could have her next to me while I worked and it was quite.
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You'd think when you've got a newborn it's really tough.
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But then they get older and you're like, oh, that was the easiest stage.
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Now she's into everything and touching and playing and you want to give them that interaction and all of that.
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So the mental health journey was just another thing on its own, but it's probably like the most thing I'm proud of as well, because this whole situation, on top of becoming a mom, you have these amazing identity shifts and I guess navigating that, I think for moms is the most challenging.
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Because I couldn't go back to my job because I worked in the business and the business wasn't operating.
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So I couldn't go back.
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I couldn't leave the house and think, oh, I still have that for me.
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You know, my whole life just kind of crumbled and I've had to think how am I going to rebuild this?
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You know, on my own at home as a mom, because you're so isolated as well.
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We've moved all over the place, so I'm having to rebuild everywhere.
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So just navigating that mental strength and that mental challenge was really difficult, but the motherhood really kind of accelerated that process, because you think, okay, I need to do this for my child, because I need to be the best mom that I can be, and if I can't get up in the morning, who's going to look after this child?
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Who's going to give her the love that she deserves?
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So that was the whole next stage, which has been just amazing, amazing.
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I feel like I'm a better version of myself than I was before and this journey that I've been on and motherhood together, it's just really accelerated that process and I wouldn't be mentally where I am today if it hadn't have happened.
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So there's all of these opportunities that I've had to find in this struggle and in this challenge and ultimately, when I have the capacity, I'd love to help other mothers that are suffering mentally and if they're suffering any kind of social injustice, my goal is to create a foundation for women to have that support, even financially.
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I'd love to help them in terms of litigation funding, because the legal expenses are insane.
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We had to lose our home to try and keep fighting and I'm lucky James is extremely resilient, but a lot of people just aren't.
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You know it is very stressful, there is a lot of pressure and it's really tough.
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So I'd love to provide any type of financial support once you know the foundation's established, all of these things.
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But that would really make me feel like full circle moment.
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This happened to me, so I can help others.
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So, yeah, that's been the high level of the journey, but there's been a lot of twists and turns in between, but again, I've just felt like there's been so much opportunity in it to be able to be a better person and be the best mom that I can be.
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Yeah, I have so many questions.
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I want to start with.
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What path did you go on to improve your mental health and to take care of yourself?
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So the first things I did, I remember I was probably at my lowest moment mentally, like I just could not get up, like I did not want to wake up, like I'd hear Emerald's little feet, you know, and my whole body would just go into panic because I was in, I had nothing to give and I didn't have that level of support, you know, I didn't have family around and things like that.
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So I remember I went onto Facebook and a kinesiologist ad popped up and it was around the corner from me and I thought, oh, I had done it before.
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But I just gravitated towards this ad and I just thought I'm going to go, I'm going to book this in and it was the best thing to start my transformation journey because it worked on my hormones and she could read the state of stress that my body was in, because I could try and work on my mental.
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But I feel like it was my body that was stressed.
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It was holding so much trauma, there was so much pain in there, and so I'd get confused because I'd start getting upset and I just didn't know why, but because I felt like I would journal and I would write things out and I would get it out of my mind, but I couldn't get it out of my body.
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I didn't know how to release that trauma, and so she helped me actually go through a lot of amazing practices through forgiveness.
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I'd have to forgive people I didn't even know through this illegal situation.
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I knew them by name because we'd never been interviewed or we'd never spoken to anyone.
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So I would just picture you know a building and I'd be able to send forgiveness, and it actually helped me to release a lot of the anger and the frustration and the pain that I was carrying, and just whoever I felt had played a hand in making this experience for us.
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I was able to send love and forgiveness and just think well, you might just be doing a job, but I forgive you for what you're doing, even though you just wish the world had a bit more humility.
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When you're going through these kinds of things, you're like, okay, is money really worth what you are doing to a family?
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Surely there's a level of consciousness that you're doing in your role.
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To say this doesn't feel right.
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So I would definitely practice a lot of that.
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That was my biggest shift, because I felt like I'd become a lot lighter.
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The kinesiologist actually worked a lot of my hormones, which I feel like because I was still breastfeeding.
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I breastfed for the first, I think, 10 months, so I went from breastfeeding to about seven months and then I just express fed to about 10 months.
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So my body was, you know, like the hormones and everything was still really quite strong.
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So, working on a lot of that leveling that out, which was amazing.
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So I highly recommend a kinesiologist just to feel the body, just to see what the body's going through.
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And they are so incredible at how they can read your reactions and they just are spot on every time.
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It's just amazing.
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I then went on to do breath work.
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My auntie suggested it and I'd never heard of it before and I just thought I'm going to try anything because my body was just so, just in a state of shock, I think still.
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And then my first session just so much came up and I just cried for a good two hours and I could just see all these things that I'd forgotten had happened even were just still sitting in my body.
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I just cried and they were popping into my mind and I just felt amazing after that, so much lighter.
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So I actually found a school that had sessions every week.
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So I actually found a school that had sessions every week.
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So I actually went for nearly two months straight every week and just really got to the bottom of certain things and was able to just kind of grieve them out of the body, which was just amazing.
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The third thing that I really liked recommend and was really good for me was cold showers in the morning.
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Yeah, for mental like it was.
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So what I would tell myself whenever I'd have a cold shower is I'm uncomfortable, being uncomfortable, and so that just made me feel invincible.
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So like if James would come to me and say, oh, you know, this has happened, it wouldn't affect me like it used to Normally, I'd be, you know, victim and I'd say't affect me like it used to Normally, I'd be, you know, victim and I'd say why is this happening?
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I can't believe this is going on.
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And I'd go down that spiral.
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But I was just able to hear it and not attached to it, because I kind of had already trained my mind that morning that I wasn't going to let the unknown or uncertainty affect me.
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So it was just such an incredible mental shift.
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So I felt like I worked on the body and then it was like sharpening the mind and so whenever something would happen that normally I would panic about, with Emerald just going to the shops, at one point I was so anxious to go to the shops I was like, oh my God, and if she'd had a meltdown or something like it would just put me I couldn't handle it.
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Like I'd have to leave the shops.
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I was worried about others thinking you know, you're worried about so many things that you don't need to worry about.
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But once I was able to manage my mind, I could lead Emerald so much better and she felt like she had a leader more than someone who was just so nervous all the time and anxious, and she wasn't feeding off my energy.
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So I felt like that was really really good for my mental state.
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Yeah, every mom that I interview and work with, I feel like that is the transition into motherhood, that is the rebirth, and I don't know if it's the algorithm that's noticing that.
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I'm looking at these things and it keeps popping up, but I keep seeing this, like on social media, that every time a baby is born, a mom is also born, and just the person that you become once you go through that transformation and how you have to just say, okay, this isn't about me anymore, but I also have to make it about me in order to help the rest of my family, and how moms just take on that responsibility, I just feel like that's the common.
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Every mother goes through that period of, okay, how am I going to show up to this?
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And whether they start to realize that they have to show up before birth and plan everything through the pregnancy and start to advocate for themselves and realize that they are going to become a completely different person if they do that before or if they do that after.
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Either way, it is that realization that makes you become a mother.
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And then how do you step up to that?
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And I just think it's so incredible what you've been able to do and, I think one of the greatest things is in a relationship when you realize that you can only control yourself.
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You can only control your own emotions, you can't control what's going on around you, you can't control what's happening with your partner, with your child.
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And once you realize that that control is something you have to let go of because it was never there to begin with, you realize that it's not selfish to focus on yourself and it's the most amazing thing you can do to help everybody else.
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But it is so hard as a woman because you think your job is to help everyone else, so it's like this catch 22,.
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But if you don't do it, then you're not going to make it through motherhood, exactly.
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So I just think that that's so incredible.
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I wanted to go back to I'm having trouble understanding the midwives leading you.
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Oh yeah, so I, I don't know.
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So they came over, they said to me let me know when you're this many seconds apart in your contractions, make sure it's quite close.
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And I'm like, okay, so I went into labor and my contractions started and then they started getting closer and closer, and closer, and so I was keeping them updated it was about 10 30 at night keeping them updated on the time space, and so I think it was like four seconds apart or something like that that I had to let them know.
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So I let them know this is what was happening.
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And they're like, okay, we'll come over.
00:18:39.097 --> 00:18:42.176
And they said hop in the bath, cause I had the bath ready.
00:18:42.176 --> 00:18:47.479
So I hopped in the bath and things just started to slow down a bit because my body, you know, got a bit more relaxed.
00:18:47.479 --> 00:18:50.679
So we've kept them updated on that.
00:18:50.679 --> 00:18:51.711
They've arrived.
00:18:51.711 --> 00:18:56.063
And then just let me sit in the bath to relax, to see how it was going.
00:18:56.063 --> 00:19:00.582
And the contractions got further apart because my body was starting to relax.
00:19:00.582 --> 00:19:08.329
So I think, you know, they thought, oh, this is going to take longer than they assumed and I and I wasn't ready at all, my body wasn't dilating.
00:19:10.175 --> 00:19:15.313
So they stayed through the night because I was still contracting through the night, but just not as close together.
00:19:15.313 --> 00:19:24.582
They tried to um, get me to have a sleep, which I laid down, but I was still contracting so I couldn't sleep because I was still kind of in pain.
00:19:24.582 --> 00:19:29.880
So that went to about, oh, probably two or four in the morning.
00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:35.676
Then one of them said I've got appointments today, so I'm going to go home.
00:19:35.676 --> 00:19:41.816
And I was like, okay, and then this continued to about 10 in the morning.
00:19:41.816 --> 00:19:50.000
Where I was, I'd been walking around, you know, knees up, trying to walk up and down stairs on the bosom ball, trying to, you know, just bring it on.
00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.601
I think they did a sweep to try and bring on the labour as well.
00:19:54.601 --> 00:20:06.121
But by 10am the other midwife said, oh, I'm going to go home and give my son a shower and get him ready for the day and things like that.
00:20:06.121 --> 00:20:11.459
But this was just after the sweep, probably an hour or maybe half an hour after the sweep.
00:20:11.459 --> 00:20:14.272
So the contractions were closer together again.
00:20:14.272 --> 00:20:18.643
But I think she could see I wasn't cooperating, but I didn't.
00:20:18.643 --> 00:20:19.511
I don't know.
00:20:19.511 --> 00:20:24.871
You know what it's meant to look like, or this was my first pregnancy, so when she was going to go home.
00:20:24.931 --> 00:20:28.659
I went into panic because I thought I don't want to be on my own.
00:20:28.659 --> 00:20:30.063
James has no idea what to do.
00:20:30.063 --> 00:20:32.155
This is why I need you here.
00:20:32.155 --> 00:20:37.451
But I think she, without telling me, knew that it wasn't coming anytime soon.
00:20:37.451 --> 00:20:39.115
Like maybe it wasn't coming anytime soon.
00:20:39.115 --> 00:20:42.798
But I said, oh, what would happen if I do go into like labor?
00:20:42.798 --> 00:20:46.837
She's like, oh, I'm only 40 minutes away and we can just coach James over the phone.
00:20:48.372 --> 00:20:55.650
And I was like at that point I just made up my mind and I said to myself I want her to go because I want to go to the hospital.
00:20:55.650 --> 00:20:58.038
Like I just felt like I wanted to go to the hospital.
00:20:58.038 --> 00:21:02.553
I felt like something wasn't cooperating in my body and I really just wanted to go.
00:21:02.553 --> 00:21:05.597
And so all of a sudden I changed my tune.
00:21:05.597 --> 00:21:07.000
I'm like no worries, not a problem.
00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:08.362
Yeah, we'll let you know if we need you.
00:21:08.362 --> 00:21:09.785
Okay, that's fine.
00:21:14.490 --> 00:21:15.654
And I just said to James take me straight to the hospital.
00:21:15.654 --> 00:21:19.571
He actually was really reluctant to take me because it wasn't part of my plan and he thought I don't want her to do anything she's going to regret.
00:21:19.571 --> 00:21:26.192
So he actually made me get back in the bath so I could calm down because he could see that calm to me in the first instance.
00:21:26.192 --> 00:21:31.442
So then, once I was calm, I said look, something's not right.
00:21:31.442 --> 00:21:38.872
I can feel in my body that I'm not cooperating for a reason and I would rather go into the hospital because I'm in so much pain.
00:21:38.971 --> 00:21:44.340
I've been in pain since 10 pm, so it'd been 12 hours and I said I just need.
00:21:44.340 --> 00:21:47.030
I don't feel safe here, I feel like everyone's left.
00:21:47.030 --> 00:21:50.579
I want to be somewhere where I've got more, a bit more support.
00:21:50.579 --> 00:21:58.715
Then, once I was calm and I was able to articulate that that he's like okay, I just didn't want you to do anything you'd regret, because I knew you didn't want to be in the hospital.
00:21:58.715 --> 00:21:59.778
So I was a little bit.
00:21:59.778 --> 00:22:13.935
You know, I understand there's still people and they they to sleep too and things like that, but I just it made me really feel unsafe having both of them leave at the same time, just because the contractions were still there.
00:22:13.935 --> 00:22:16.241
I just didn't know how it should work.
00:22:16.241 --> 00:22:19.940
Should they have left, or how does it work from your perspective?
00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:26.132
Well, I feel like normally there's an additional support, like usually there's backup support.
00:22:26.132 --> 00:22:37.923
So having like a doula and I don't know how every practice works in the United States Usually there's a doula that's there in the interim to help work through some of that and then they can call the midwife when it's time to come.
00:22:37.923 --> 00:22:42.186
But I mean, I feel like having them there and then leaving.
00:22:42.906 --> 00:22:43.126
Yeah.
00:22:43.770 --> 00:22:45.229
Is it the best look?
00:22:49.536 --> 00:22:55.424
yeah, and I engaged a doula at the start just to get my head right and understand some.
00:22:55.424 --> 00:23:10.255
I can be quite masculine in my role of work and life, so I really needed that help to just be a bit more feminine and a bit more in flow, because sometimes I can try and control everything, which, if you're trying to have a home water birth, that's not what you want to do.
00:23:10.696 --> 00:23:14.612
You want to just allow your body to do what it needs to do and get your mind out of the way.
00:23:14.612 --> 00:23:19.051
But the midwives had actually said, oh, she does exactly the same as what we do.
00:23:19.051 --> 00:23:23.561
So then I thought, oh well, I don't need to double up if they're going to be able to provide that support.
00:23:23.561 --> 00:23:40.981
So then I was like, oh, I wish I didn't listen and I had the doula, so that way she could have been there and I would have felt a bit safer, because then she could have known when to ring and call the midwives in, so then they could have come maybe the next day if they weren't required to be there.
00:23:40.981 --> 00:23:47.549
So that's probably one thing I would suggest to mums is, if they're going to do the home birth, just to make sure the doula, you do get it.
00:23:47.930 --> 00:23:52.922
It's so frustrating that we have to ask so many questions, but ensuring that there's backup care.
00:23:52.922 --> 00:23:56.817
Like if things don't move quickly enough.
00:23:56.817 --> 00:23:57.598
What's the plan?
00:23:57.598 --> 00:24:01.795
Leaving someone to feel unsafe at home isn't the best plan.
00:24:01.795 --> 00:24:06.163
Yeah, and I totally feel you when you feel like you're not getting what you want from somebody.
00:24:06.163 --> 00:24:08.670
You could tell they're not going to change their mind.
00:24:08.670 --> 00:24:10.796
You're like, okay, whenever we're going to move on.
00:24:11.037 --> 00:24:18.670
Yeah, and I felt like a bit of a burden, to be honest, which you don't want to feel like when you're vulnerable and you're trying to give birth.
00:24:18.670 --> 00:24:23.979
I just felt, I felt like they wanted to go, you know, and I was like, oh well, I'm not going to keep you here.
00:24:24.138 --> 00:24:29.752
Yeah, if that's the vibe they're giving off, it's really hard for you to relax into that Exactly.
00:24:30.316 --> 00:24:33.930
Yeah, there was something not right about it and I just wanted to go to the hospital.
00:24:33.930 --> 00:24:40.357
Like I just wanted to go to that place where I felt like I would maybe have that extra level of support.
00:24:40.357 --> 00:24:47.794
And I'm actually so glad that I did, because I was septic in the end, so I had to have emergency treatment.
00:24:47.794 --> 00:24:50.661
So if I was at home I would have had to be rushed.
00:24:50.661 --> 00:24:53.493
So it's like my body was telling me you need to go there.
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