Australian actress Yael Stone gave birth to her first child, daughter, Pemau Stone Bancroft with her partner Jack Manning Bancroft in May, and has now opened up about her experience in a series of intimate birth story posts.
“I’m sharing the most vulnerable moment I’ve ever experienced,” the Orange is the New Black star wrote to her one million Instagram followers.
‘The first 10 hours I felt like a warrior’
Originally planning to birth at home, things did not quite work out that way for the first-time mum.
“We laboured at home for 18 hours, hoping to deliver there naturally,” she writes.
“The first 10 hours I felt like a warrior, after that something changed. The next 8 hours had me questioning myself, digging deeper than ever before and still not making the progress that our baby needed.
“I felt like a failure when knew it was time to go to hospital but we were so incredibly lucky to have that as an option.”
Yael Stone has candidly spoken about her ‘vulnerable’ birthing experience.
Yael shared a beautiful image of her partner, Jack, lovingly cradling her head as she laboured in a birthing pool at home.
Jack, who is the CEO of the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) program, and Yael began dating in 2017 and announced her pregnancy in November.
As ‘birth plans’ tend to do, Yael’s took its own direction, resulting in an unplanned trip to hospital for a C section delivery.
In a second post, Yael writes: “By hour 21 of labor I was being rushed off for an emergency C section.
“When our beautiful daughter arrived she needed help to breathe and I needed help stay conscious. Without modern medicine and the expertise of the doctors and nurses our baby would not be here, I would not be here.”
While a C section delivery was not what Yael had planned, she is still eternally grateful to be a mum, writing, “I know how lucky I am to hold my baby and feel her heart beating next to mine.”
While the star candidly says she “will take time to make peace” with the way her birth story went, she knows she is luckier than some.
Yael encouraged her fans to support the Aminata Maternal Foundation, an organisation that assists mothers who give birth in Sierra Leone. A country where, she explains, “you are 200 times more likely to die giving birth than in Australia.”
Following the birth, a representative told US Weekly, “On May 30th Pemau Stone Bancroft was born to Yael Stone and Jack Manning Bancroft. Her mum and dad are very tired and very much in love.”
The rep also revealed the meaningful sentiment behind the newborn’s unique name.
“She was named after her great great great grandmother who provides a powerful link to the past, the Bancroft’s oldest link to the Djanbun clan of the Bunjalung nation.”
We can’t wait to see what is next for this gorgeous new mamma.
