“I currently have an obstetrician and a doula,” laughs a 36-weeks-pregnant Ana Piteira. It’s December 2021, and Piteira is on the countdown to welcoming her son. Completing the nursery in her new beachside Sydney home, figuring out what maternity leave looks like for a small business owner with 2 business, (one with 5 sub brands), and thinking about the birth. “I usually don't like the unknown,” she explains, “In the beginning, I wanted to control every aspect of the pregnancy and birth. I was desperate to find out the gender, I booked my obstetrician and was thinking I wanted a planned Caesarean so I could have an exact date. But then I did more research and had a complete 360. I hired a doula and really invested in aiming to have a natural birth with no intervention.” Ana doesn’t have a lot of parent friends (yet), so a lot to do with babies and pregnancy has been very new information, and a steep learning curve. “I’m learning to embrace the unknown, and I’m actually enjoying the mounting anticipation. It’s kind of fun! I love seeing him in the scans and watching him move around.”
Ana’s pregnancy journey has been a happy one of feeling healthy (aside from heartburn) and almost forgetting she’s pregnant, “I look in mirror and am like, ‘Oh wow, I'm really pregnant.’" She laughs. “I think to everyone else, I definitely look pregnant, but for ages, I was like, "Do I? Maybe I just look like I'd eaten a bit of pasta.’” Getting pregnant came quickly for Ana and her partner John. “We were trying, and I was going to acupuncture, and doing things to aid fertility, but because of my polycystic ovaries, I had it in my mind that it would take some time, at least a year. Not long after trying, a few days after her period was due, Ana and John were at the pub and Ana had a feeling she was pregnant. “I don't know why, because I wasn't even really that late, but I just knew. We took the test that night and it was positive.” While it was the aim of their efforts, Ana says her reaction wasn’t the stuff of Hollywood romcoms. “My response was not good. It was definitely a panic attack moment. I felt like we weren’t ready, and John was really talking me off the cliff. I made him get an Uber to Coles for more tests.”