Former AFLW star and media personality Abbey Holmes has opened up about the traumatic experience her family endured following the birth of her first child in December last year.
On social media, Abbey, her husband Keegan Brooksby, and newborn son Braxton appeared to be a picture-perfect family. She posted a heartwarming image after the birth, captioning it: "This moment … with both my boys. I now understand, there is NOTHING that quite explains the magic!"
However, Holmes has now revealed that behind the scenes, she was left emotional, heartbroken, and even scared.
Holmes had a smooth pregnancy and worked until just five days before Braxton's birth. She was induced at 38 weeks due to doctors predicting a larger baby, but after labouring all day, she had only dilated 2cm by 5pm. She and her obstetrician decided to proceed with a caesarean section.
The birth went smoothly, but what happened immediately afterwards shattered the young family's moment.
"Keegs and I haven't actually spoken about our birth story," Abbey told the KICBump podcast. "And to be honest, it's been quite hard. I think people look at social media and you send out the announcement photos and it looks so happy and joyful. But for us, our experience was anything but."
Keegan had been unwell in the days leading up to the birth and was deteriorating rapidly. He managed to make it to the operating theatre and cut the cord, but collapsed soon after and had to be rushed to the emergency room of a different hospital.
"Poor Keegs, we went in to have the caesarean, he cut the cord and then disappeared," Abbey said. "Like, my husband disappeared. And I said to the midwife: 'Where's Keegs?' She looked at me and she was like, 'Abbs, we've got another patient. He's just collapsed on the bed next door.'"
"So Braxy was born, we knew Keegs was in a bad way, we didn't know what he had so we couldn't have him around his son," she added.
The situation was frightening, with Keegan's condition worsening to the point Abbey feared he might not survive. "Keegs ultimately drove himself to emergency at Richmond while I was at Freemasons," she said. "He ended up in hospital for four days, he had a severe bowel infection, he was grey, literally. The midwives were like 'Abbey he's lost all colour'. So what was meant to be this incredible love bubble of emotion with your husband and your newborn baby, I was [alone] in a hospital bed for five days and Keegs didn't get to hold his son for that entire time. That was heartbreaking."
Abbey, recovering from an emergency C-section and overwhelmed with hormones, was left alone to worry about her husband. "It was hard because I had this perfect, little bundle of joy in my arms and he was great," she said. "Everything to do with my post-birth experience was great in the hospital and I had so much love and support around me from the midwives and the nurses and everybody at the hospital. But my mind went to Keegan who was sleeping 20 hours a day. I'm trying to send him videos and photos and I'm not hearing back. I was emotional thinking that [his condition] was something life-ending. So I am thinking I am going to be a single mum and worst case scenario for Keegs. So that was our first five days of having Braxxy."
