When shavon met summer
The birth of Summer was a quick one.
On a Friday evening at 7:30pm on the 18th of July 2025 during family movie night and right before my 3 year old went down to bed I felt my first contraction.
After a few had come on and off I started to think that yep, this was early labour, but still thought we had plenty of time. At 10pm nothing much was happening and my husband and I decided to try and get some sleep.
Shortly after 1am my contractions had woken me up and had started to get stronger. After a nice long shower at home and some time bouncing on my birth ball my husband had woken up and thought we had better message our amazing midwife and my mum to head around to watch our 3yr old.
At 3:30am we headed into the hospital and arrive to the birth centre at North Canberra Hospital to meet my midwife with a hot bath already run.
Shortly after our arrival my waters had broken and I still thought that Summer was a while away. After a few hours in the bath the lower back pain became a little too intense and I had decided I needed some extra pain relief. Little did I know that Summer wasn’t far away at all.
After a brief trip up the hall to the birth suite, I had a very quick and sudden urge to use the restroom. Suddenly I reached down and had caught my beautiful Summer Girls head.
Within minutes at 6:42am Summer Joyce Toussaint was born in the bathroom into my arms on the 19/07/25 with a head full of beautiful dark hair and puffy lips.
My first thought was thank goodness she is here and she’s perfect.
Thankfully due to her quick delivery we were heading home for our families and her very excited big sister to meet her shortly after her safe arrival to enjoy our new family of four.
What do you wish you knew before birth?
As a student midwife I do get the honour to experience birth often. However before my first child I wish I had more knowledge in the things that can go south.
If you could, would you do anything differently?
Absolutely not. Summers arrival was beautiful but in hindsight if I knew how close she was I would have stayed in the bath and had that beautiful water birth I had imagined.
What did your partner do that really helped during labour/birth?
At the time of Summers entrance it was just my Husband Dave and I in the restroom. It was beautiful to have that brief unexpected moment of her sudden arrival and for him to experience that exact time she arrived into both of our arms.
What advice/honest truth would give a mama-to-be about birth?
Not to be afraid of birth. It’s pretty incredible what a woman’s body can do and the more education you have around birth the smoother it can be.
Photographer Credit: Lucy Gordon Photography