Michelle Andrews tells her birth story

Bump with Steph & Laura

Michelle Andrews joins Bump with Steph & Laura to share the deeply personal story behind her pregnancy and birth of Sadie, including her fertility journey, dual-factor infertility, and IVF. She

Key takeaways

• Michelle Andrews says she and her husband Mitch had dual-factor infertility, with her endometriosis, low egg count, one ovary, and his fertility issues leading them to IVF.
• Andrews was around 24–25 weeks pregnant when her mother Vicky was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, after initially hoping it might be melanoma.

Main topics

• Fertility journey and IVF
• Mother's glioblastoma diagnosis and grief

Notable quotes

It was glioblastoma.

Conclusion

The episode offers a candid, emotionally grounded account of how grief, medical

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hello! Welcome to Bump with Steph and Laura. I'm Laura. I'm Steph. We have been best friends for over 13 years now. We sure have. And we are both also parents. I have got a nine-month-old boy, Atlas. Speaker 1 (0:12) And I've got a 15-month-old little girl, Billie, and a five-and-a-half-year-old boy, Harvey. So Steffi has been on the parenting journey for a little bit longer Speaker 2 (0:20) than me. I am a novice. And you are the expert. Speaker 1 (0:24) Oh, I wouldn't say that. But we're very excited to be here, guys, and be in your ears. And super excited for this episode. Speaker 2 (0:30) Very, very, very much so. And Steffi, who are we oversharing with today? Speaker 1 (0:35) Well, I think a lot of our listeners will be very familiar with today's guest. And that is the wonderful Michelle Andrews, who is, of course, Shameless Media co-founder, which we are super proud to be working with them, not just from a business sense, but we've actually been friends for quite some time now. Some of you guys would have heard quite a bit of Michelle's story before in her fertility journey and everything. But she hasn't shared much at all about her birth story. And it was very, very generous to share so much today in our conversation. So, yeah, we've been really keen to sit down with Mish and it was such a beautiful chat. Speaker 2 (1:08) And before we get into today's episode, this episode is brought to you by Baby Bee, the award-winning Australian pram brand, making parent life easier, one clever idea at a time. Okay, Steffi, here is the wonderful Michelle Andrews. Speaker 2 (1:28) Exciting, guys. Speaker 3 (1:28) It's exciting, but I also feel like I'm going to cry a ton in this episode. And you know when you feel like you're about to cry and then you feel a bit... The Speaker 1 (1:36) anticipation of it. Speaker 3 (1:37) Yeah. That's okay. I'm Speaker 1 (1:39) excited Speaker 2 (1:40) to talk to you both. Same. I'm excited to be here. I feel like though we are, I just have to acknowledge like we're in, I've decided I'm calling you the mother. Oh, I like that. Like the mother. Speaker 1 (1:50) I know we're talking about parenting. Yeah, like you and Zara are the mothers. Speaker 2 (1:55) Last time we sat in this room with you, you were behind the wall, like, giving us feedback. And which I loved, by the way. But God, Speaker 1 (2:07) it was nerve wracking. I was like, oh my God. Speaker 2 (2:09) Oh, Speaker 1 (2:09) I'm Speaker 2 (2:09) so sorry. No, no, no. Oh my God. Don't apologize. Excuse me. I am a big believer in feedback makes us much better. I loved it. I love it sick. But now you're not behind the wall. You're in the seat. Speaker 1 (2:20) And Speaker 2 (2:21) it's so funny because we, like, obviously talk. Quite a bit. Yeah. But to have microphones in front of us is quite a strange feeling. It's okay. We're going to pretend they're not here. Okay. Speaker 1 (2:31) Yeah, I like that plan. And we feel really honoured, to be honest, to be able to have this conversation with you because Speaker 2 (2:37) you haven't shared a lot of what we're going to go into. Speaker 1 (2:39) No. But what you have been really generous to share in the past is your fertility journey. So I suppose for any listeners who may not be aware, do you want to give? I suppose a quick recap, obviously you shared it all before, so they can go back and listen in depth if they want to. Speaker 3 (2:53) Yeah. So I had married my husband, Mitch, at the end of 2022. And to cut a very long story short, we were not in a place where we were going to start trying for a baby. We wanted to be married for quite some time before we thought about children. I always really wanted kids. But after we got married, I really started experiencing profound pain. And I ended up finding out that I had endometriosis, very low egg count and one ovary. Not a great fertility story on my end. And then once doctors found out about my situation, they immediately kind of fast-tracked us to IVF. They were like, it's going to be very, very unlikely you conceive naturally with your husband. As part of the IVF journey, let's just do the routine testing on your husband and see how his fertility is. And then really profoundly unlucky that Mitch's fertility was also not ideal. And so we were one of those very rare couples battling dual factor infertility on both sides of the fence. We ended up getting embryos, which was really exciting because we thought we wouldn't be able to even do that for a time. It was very, very scary and terrifying. And then fast forward, by this point we're in 2024. Speaker 3 (4:15) We end up being able to conceive Sadie, our gorgeous daughter, via IVF and she is now almost 18 months. Speaker 2 (4:24) So going back, Mish, to when you were 24 weeks pregnant, you found out some really, really bad, like the worst possible news I suppose you could ever hear. Speaker 3 (4:35) Yeah. So when I was 24, almost 25 weeks pregnant, I found out my absolutely gorgeous, beautiful mother, Vicky. Speaker 3 (4:44) had terminal brain cancer and it just put all of our worlds into such a tailspin. Myself and my husband, Mitch, of course, Mitch and my mum were so close. But also all of my siblings, we were just the closest knit group ever. So mum found out she had three brain tumours when I was 24, 25 weeks pregnant. And then we were really hoping at the time, we were like, oh God, please be melanoma, which I know sounds strange, but thanks to Australian scientists, advancements in melanoma treatment have just been absolutely incredible. And everyone was kind of rooting for melanoma to say, if it's that, we can probably treat this and we won't be able to cure it, but we might get years together. I think it was like a 50 % chance we could get more than five years. And it was so sad because I remember sending out an email to team members here at Shameless Media saying, everyone, please hold out. cross your fingers for melanoma. The worst possible case is this will be glioblastoma. Hopefully it's not that. It was glioblastoma. So we ended up finding out very, very quickly. I think it was within the space of maybe 10 days. We went from thinking mum was pretty healthy, struggling with headaches all of a sudden, but healthy, to mum has between 10 to 18 months to live. Yeah. And I think anyone who's experienced brain cancer in their life will know you have that time together, but it's not the same as the time that came before the diagnosis because brain cancer is neurodegenerative, right? The person in front of you will change their experience of the world and the way they are will change as their brain tumors progress. So that made the second half of my pregnancy. Well, I was over halfway, as you said, 24, 25 weeks. So that made the second half of my pregnancy really stressful and bizarre. I Speaker 2 (6:43) know also that you had a lot of anxiety at the start of your pregnancy around continuing, like around miscarriage. Yeah. I can't imagine how, because I remember we would talk about it a lot. Yeah. And you also didn't announce you were pregnant for quite a long time. I think I announced Speaker 3 (6:59) it. Well, I didn't want to announce. My mum... actually had a stillbirth and a series of miscarriages when she was pregnant and she had her stillbirth at 25 weeks. Speaker 2 (7:09) So Speaker 3 (7:09) in my head I was like, I'm not going to announce until after 25 weeks because I'm really fearful for some reason that's going to happen here. And there's no real link there. It's really strange for me to have even thought that way, but I definitely felt like I had to get past 25 weeks to announce my pregnancy. And then mum fell sick and I was just, it was just such a bizarre world I was living in. I didn't announce until I was 30 weeks pregnant, but what's really odd and bizarre about that part of the story is I was having some people see me out in public, see I was pregnant and then DM me being like, how dare you not announce this? I had one person in particular, incredibly angry with me, sending me DMs being like, I saw you in public. I know you're pregnant. You have betrayed the infertility community to not tell people that you have successfully fallen pregnant. And I went back to this woman. I still remember her name. It began with the letter P. So if you're listening to this, yes, it's about you. I went back to her and I said, I'm just letting you know I haven't announced this not because I'm betraying the infertility community. I've just found out someone in my immediate family is dying and has terminal cancer. She came back and said, I don't care. I don't care. You've betrayed people and you should announce it. And so I think that was also strange. And some listeners came up and were amazing and very loving and gorgeous when they saw me pregnant in public and before I'd announced, but it was just a. really strange time. I think it ended up on Reddit somewhere that people had seen me pregnant. So I'd get comments on photos saying, why haven't you announced? Didn't someone take a photo of you in Speaker 2 (8:44) Byron Bay? You went to Byron Bay over New Year's. Someone saw me in Byron Speaker 3 (8:47) Bay. Speaker 2 (8:47) And then they wrote it in Speaker 3 (8:47) Reddit Speaker 2 (8:48) and then it became this thread of like trying to find out. Speaker 3 (8:50) Yeah. Someone saw me because I was, I mean, I was, guys, I was 30 weeks pregnant. Like I was so visibly pregnant. There was no hiding it anymore. But yeah, no, I'd been seen on holiday and there was like a bit of commentary around it. why I hadn't announced yet. And Speaker 1 (9:05) I mean, the why behind you, like not announcing everyone's pregnancies journey is like really different, obviously. And like, they have different reasons as to why they feel the need to announce or not announce. But was part of it going through like the grief of the news, obviously of your mom, Speaker 2 (9:22) was Speaker 1 (9:24) it kind of this battle in your own mind of like not feeling guilty for having some joy or joyful news? Speaker 2 (9:29) Was Speaker 1 (9:30) that, was that like? I think I was just really confused. I was like so overwhelmed by life. Speaker 3 (9:34) I didn't. I was also so not thinking about the public's response to anything I was doing. Like I was so in my normal everyday life, well, not normal, a completely abnormal everyday life. But mum's brain cancer diagnosis meant that immediately everything was different. Speaker 1 (9:52) And we Speaker 3 (9:53) also had some really traumatic experiences with the first hospital she was at in that they completely lost her file, which I don't understand because everything's digitised. everything got lost. Nothing was chased up upon. So I was also a couple of weeks in with my siblings, really trying to advocate for her, trying to get her documentation, trying to get the right treatment for her. She wasn't connected with a single specialist. Even the appointment where she was supposed to be, where she got her diagnosis of glioblastoma, she didn't have an appointment booked in that day. They completely lost that. So she was waiting for hours to get that. It was just a terrible experience. And so a few weeks in, by this point, I'm what, 28, 29 weeks pregnant. We were spending all of our time trying to get her moved to another hospital where the treatment would be really robust. And thankfully we could. Thank you to like our network and the fact my sister's a doctor and, you know, all these profoundly lucky things really taught me that even though the Australian healthcare system is incredible, I could not stop thinking at that point in my life about anyone who is English second language or who doesn't have strong medical literacy in that. Yeah. That moment. And people to advocate for them too. Exactly. Anyone who's lonely and doesn't have that support system around them. The only reason my mum got 10 months with us is because we knew what the diagnosis meant and we knew something had gone wrong in the system and could advocate for her. And so my pregnancy was very much spent, same with my siblings. I never want to overstate what I did because I have three incredible siblings and they were amazing. We were all just throwing everything we could at advocating for mum, getting mum into treatment and also spending time together because you have so little time left. Speaker 1 (11:41) Now, guys, if you are deep in pram research right now, because I know it can be overwhelming, there's one Australian name you've probably seen everywhere, and that's Baby B. Yes, Speaker 2 (11:50) that is exactly right, Steph. And there is a reason that parents keep recommending them. Baby B just won 10 Bounty Baby Awards, while their Juno pram was named Best Double Pram. I've heard a lot of good things about that pram. Speaker 1 (12:03) It is very, very clever. With a newborn and a toddler, which... often is the case, you can have the bassinet up top, keeping your baby close to you while your toddler still gets a proper full-size seat that fully reclines for the naps on the go. And Speaker 2 (12:16) underneath, the biggest 15 kilo basket you have ever seen. Because apparently two tiny humans require approximately 400 things every time you leave the house. Speaker 1 (12:26) And with more than 48 configurations, there is what feels like an infinite number of ways to set it up to suit your family. Then... When you're done with the double mode, it converts back into a beautiful single pram. Speaker 2 (12:38) Their prams look premium, but behind the beautiful designs, there are seriously clever solutions to real parenting problems. Plus, all Baby B prams come with a lifetime warranty. Love that. Speaker 1 (12:49) And if a pram is on your baby list, check out babybonline.com. And thank you to Baby B for making this episode possible. Speaker 2 (13:00) And then you got to 37 weeks pregnant and something happened Speaker 1 (13:05) that changed kind of what your birth then was. Did you have a birth plan? I Speaker 2 (13:10) feel like too, Mish, because you, I think what is the hardest thing to hear in your mum's story is like people always say like don't assume the worst, like don't assume the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario literally is what happened. So you were already thinking like with. what happened to your mum when she was 25 weeks pregnant. Speaker 3 (13:29) Yes. Speaker 2 (13:29) Yeah. In having a stillbirth, like, well, the worst case scenario has happened to my family member. So why would it's so easy to get into that mindset of why wouldn't it happen to me? Speaker 3 (13:39) Whenever I would be in the shower, it would occur to me when was the last time she kicked? Is she kicking enough? Am I about to have a stillbirth? It was constantly playing in my mind. But you're right. At 37 weeks pregnant. Speaker 3 (13:52) everything kind of flipped again. So I kind of went through pregnancy, not feeling strongly about the kind of birth I was going to have. Before I found out mum was sick, I was intrigued by the idea of an elective C-section. I was intrigued by the idea of a vaginal birth. I didn't feel a pull out of the way. I just wanted to see how it was going. When mum fell sick, I realised very quickly elective C-section was off the table. If I needed a... an emergency C-section, then I'd have to go through that. And that was just what it was. But because I was now one of mum's carers, my parents are divorced. I need to be there to lift mum up if she falls. I need to drive mum to treatment every day. If I can avoid surgery, I need to avoid surgery. So I knew I was probably almost definitely going to have a vaginal birth if it was possible for me. When she was 37 weeks pregnant. I was at the hairdresser and it was kind of that like, oh, I'm going to get my hair done before I give birth so I feel fresh and all that. And the hair dye was in my hair and I remember it so clearly. I knew what mum was doing every second of the day because she had to kind of have people around most of the time. And one of her friends had been over having a cup of tea with her and her friend called me and said, I need you. Where are you? I need someone here now. Like someone needs to come here now. Something's not right. And so I essentially said to my hairdresser, I'm like, can you please just like, I think I just melted. I was like, I don't know what's going on. I need to get back. She was amazing. And she like quickly washed my hair. And I got into this Uber with like dripping wet hair. And I think you called me, Laura. Someone called me. I was on the phone with someone being like, I don't know what's going on. The hairdresser, I need to get home. I need to get to mum. And I walked in the door and. Mum essentially was having seizures, but they weren't clear. Like it wasn't the seizure that you would think of like an epileptic fit. She was having seizing activity where she could see stars and she wasn't quite right. And for whatever reason that day, something had gone wrong that she'd had extreme brain swelling or something. And she couldn't get out of bed and things were really bad and we needed an ambulance. And so I... It was really stressful because she needed to get out of bed and she was very determined to get out of bed. She needed to go to the bathroom. She couldn't. And I couldn't get her up anymore because I was so heavily pregnant. So thankfully my husband could come over and my brother came over and we got an ambulance in and she ended up being taken to a hospital and she almost died. She had an extreme amount of brain swelling due to her tumours and the treatment. And she had something called, I think it's called midline shift, where the... The swelling of the brain is so bad. The position of the brain really changes between the two hemispheres. And so she was essentially unconscious then for a couple of days. And what was so traumatic to the whole family at that point was my little brother had moved his wedding up. It was supposed to be later in the year. He'd moved it up. It was the next weekend. So we're a