A year on and a year old: giving birth during floods

The chance of it happening in a flood was not accounted for, yet it became a major factor that could have affected the safe arrival of Kasey and Jack Threlfall’s daughter, Ava.

Wading down her flooded street in Birkenstocks, heavily pregnant and entering the early stages of labour was not a situation Mrs Threlfalll would classify as a common birthing experience.

But that’s where she and her husband found themselves during the October 2022 floods.

Ava was due on October 30 but on October 16, Mr and Mrs Threlfall, alongside their then two-year-old son Oscar, found themselves actioning their birthing plan earlier than expected.

Mrs Threlfall started going into the early stages of her labour at 8am that day, and despite the plan being that she’d progress her labour at home for as long as possible, floodwaters lapping the edge of their driveway said otherwise.

“The SES and the police were there, and they said, well, if you’re in labour, you need to get out right now. So we just had to pack all our stuff and leave,” Mrs Threlfall said.

“I remember being so upset because I didn’t want to leave my home, and I was having my baby, too.”

What would have usually been a 10-minute car ride, the journey from home to hospital took almost a day.

Their neighbour drove them by ute to Wanganui Rd, where they had to jump into a raft and travel for a bit before being picked up by Mr Threlfall’s parents and taken back to their place in Zeerust.

There, they stayed the night before heading to GV Health the next day, where at 5pm, Ava was born.

A year later, Mrs Threlfall, who is a midwife, said she was thankful she listened and left when they were told to.

“After the birth, I ended up having a large bleed, and Ava went into the special care nursery,” she said.

“So luckily, I did leave because if that happened, and I said no, I’m just going to have the baby here, which I never would have done, they probably would have had to helicopter me in.”

And if getting to the hospital wasn’t stressful enough, more chaos ensued for Mr Threlfall.

With floodwater still blocking off his family’s home, he stayed at his parents’ house with Oscar — but that didn’t last long.

They soon had to sandbag his parents’ home as flooding threatened the property.

“They all had to come to Jack’s cousin’s place just in town and they stayed there until I was discharged and the water had receded enough for us to come home,” Mrs Threlfall said.

“So he was juggling Oscar, moving again, moving from here, to out there, to back into town, coming in seeing me and Ava — it was more crazy for him than it was for me!

“I was in there for four days, and I was in a bit of a bubble, so when I got back home, I was like, wow, this is intense.”

Now, a year on, the chaotic events during that time have given way to a more normal pace of life for the Threlfalls.

Earlier this week, Mrs Threlfall returned to work, Oscar is another year older and full of typical three-year-old energy, and Ava has hit some milestones, including a big smile full of her first teeth.

“She can say Mum and Dad and okay and yes, and she can crawl, she loves to smile and she loves food,” Mrs Threlfall said.

“She can stand up, but she likes to be carried more.

“And just loves her brother; she just sits there and watches him.”