Spelade
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With you suckling at my chest and our family here to celebrate your birth, I feel elated, and sure it must be over. But it isn't quite over yet. The family are ushered out for the doctors to begin stitching me up. I’m on my back, feet in stirrups, trying to think more about you than about the four or five people examining the damage. Your tiny fingers are so long and thin, with soft fingernails that curl over at the ends. Your hair is fair and curly, but darker than mine. Or is it the dry blood and amniotic fluid that make it look that way? Your little nose is upturned, like my sister's. It’s the one feature I recognize from the scans. Your eyes are big and blue, the shape of mine and my fathers. It’s late by the time I'm helped into a wheelchair and moved to the ward, you in my arms. We study each other's faces, stare into each other's eyes. We're wheeled down to a ward that is almost deserted, and I have to let go of these midwives and the wonderful care and attention they've given me. We're on our own. I suddenly realise it was a big mistake not to ask someone to stay with me tonight. I imagine how distressing it must be to no longer hear my heartbeat as you lie alone in the world for the first time. You are never taken from my side, and I love being with you, but I miss you being inside me, almost a part of me. I miss my pregnant belly. I study you, awake and asleep, getting to know all the parts of your face and your body. I recognize the way you move, curl up, stretch out, from how you moved inside me. I look for the things that I recognize from me, and the things I don’t recognize, that must come from him. I have no colour in my face. Even my hands and arms have the pallor of a corpse. I'm not getting much stronger. The doctors don’t think I lost enough blood to be in the state I'm in, but decide to test me, and find that I have. They give me a blood transfusion and within hours I start to feel stronger. I haven’t decided on a name yet. I've got it down to three, and thought I'd know once you were born, but my head is so foggy that I'm just not sure! I try to ignore opinions and pressures and after the transfusion, I have clarity. Astrid. Your name is Astrid. It takes weeks to feel natural, but we settle into it. Astrid is definitely who you are. Not By Accident is made by me, Sophie Harper, supported by 152 generous donors through the Australian Cultural Fund. Thanks to my family, my friends and my daughter for allowing me to record, and for the practical and moral support. Please subscribe, rate and review to help the series find more listeners. Go to notbyaccident.net to sign up to my occasional email newsletter, tweet at me @byaccidentnot and if you know anyone who might like to listen, please share! Music by permission from the artist: Hooked by Versus Shade Collapse. Music from freemusicarchive.org - CC NC License: Oxygen Garden by Chris Zabriskie; Sleepless Nights by Dexter Britain; Spellbound by Broke For Free.
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It's going to get messy, so if that’s a problem for you, you might want to skip this episode, or you can fairly safely listen to the first 9 and the last 4 minutes. I'm 6 days overdue. I can't imagine it's possible to be any bigger! I'm so uncomfortable and it's so hot! But I need to get out. I go to the little suburban supermarket near home, and think of my mother. Her waters broke with my brother in this very supermarket 34 years ago. I shop quickly, before history has a chance to repeat! I have an acupuncture appointment in the afternoon, and the acupuncturist can barely contain her excitement as she does her best induce labor. I have another appointment booked for the next day, but she doesn’t think I’ll be there. I go home, rest and drink raspberry leaf tea. It's supposed to help too. Labor might begin at any moment. Then again, it could be another week. I go to bed, trying to put it all out of my mind. For me, it had been a bit of a dark week, waiting and not knowing when our life together will start. I wake up during the night and feel a sudden gush. It's my waters, they've broken. There's meconium in them. I know this means it's urgent. We race to hospital. Labor happens in a blur, with moments of hyper-sharp focus. You are born! Not By Accident is made by me, Sophie Harper, supported by 152 generous donors through the Australian Cultural Fund. Thanks to my family, my friends and my daughter for allowing me to record, and for the practical and moral support. Please subscribe, rate and review to help the series find more listeners. Go to notbyaccident.net to sign up to my occasional email newsletter, tweet at me @byaccidentnot and if you know anyone who might like to listen, please share! Music from freemusicarchive.org - CC NC License: Zandzeepsodemineraalwatersteenstralen by Duncan Avoid; Land on the Golden Gate by Chris Zabriskie; Rewound by Chris Zabriskie; Seven by Dexter Britain.
US listeners, support the series and eat well. Hello Fresh Has signed on to support me for 2017! Sign up at www.hellofresh.com and use the promo code 'noaccident35' to get $35 off your first delivery. Everybody wins!
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My brother's baby is due this week. I'm feeling jumpy every time the phone rings. I sit down with my sister Charlotte for a not-so-quiet talk about birth, and the end of my pregnancy. I'd thought once I was home, I could start to focus on getting everything ready for your birth, but as it turns out, this period is not to be all about you and me. During this strange period, three of us are in hospital within weeks of each other. Charlotte's gall stones are a horrible thing to have to deal with, but it is our father who becomes the real worry as 2013 begins. He is suddenly very ill. I go to meet my midwife, the first of several visits. My mother comes with me for the first appointment. I'd decided I'd like her to be at the birth, and she agreed. She comes with me to the first birth class too. Walking into the room full of couples is strangely intimidating. I turn 39. Cass and I have a joint birthday party. It makes me feel like I still have a bit of a life. But there is a dark shadow over everything as my Dad's surgery looms. I'm not as agile as I tried to convince myself I am. The intense heat is hard to cope with. I look at my legs one afternoon and they've swollen so much they're unrecognizable! It scares me. I decide it's time to go home, slow down and settle into the air-conditioned comfort of my mother's house for the final weeks. You can come now Astrid, I’m ready! Not By Accident is made by me, Sophie Harper, supported by 152 generous donors through the Australian Cultural Fund. Thanks to my family, my friends and my daughter for allowing me to record, and for the practical and moral support. Please subscribe, rate and review to help the series find more listeners. Go to notbyaccident.net to sign up to my occasional email newsletter, tweet at me @byaccidentnot and if you know anyone who might like to listen, please share! Music from freemusicarchive.org - CC NC License: Divider by Chris Zabriskie; That Kid In Fourth Grade Who Really Liked The Denver Broncos by Chris Zabriskie; Undercover Vampire Policeman by Chris Zabriskie; Shooting Star by Dexter Britain.
US listeners, support the series and eat well. Hello Fresh Has signed on to support me for 2017! Sign up at www.hellofresh.com and use the promo code 'noaccident35' to get $35 off your first delivery. Everybody wins!
Go to www.notbyaccident.net to find out more about the series or to get in touch.
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After my maternity leave, in 2014, we did move back to Denmark, just for 18 months. I did make it work, mostly, as a single mother with a demanding job, thanks to my incredible friends and colleagues. It was painful when we left them, your second family, but so worth it for you to know your grandparents, aunt and uncle, and your little cousins. There are three of them now. Nick met Nozomi soon after you were born, little Ibuki followed, and any day now, I mean I’m literally expecting the call, a fifth baby cousin will arrive! But I'm jumping ahead. It’s December 2012, Denmark. I'm 7 months pregnant. As I eat my nightly 3am pancakes, I research basinets, baby baths, change tables and car capsules. Work is busy and I'm not so light on my feet now. The documentary project, my other baby, is underway and I’m trying to manage logistics and offer some guidance to the students before they head off to shoot. Working with these courageous students, over years, seeing them make compelling films, has given me the courage and the drive to make this series. Students of the EFC, I owe you a debt of gratitude. I would not be doing this if it weren’t for everything you taught me. On the last day of school, in the morning, we have a staff Christmas event with gifts for everyone. I haven't anticipated that this is also a farewell for me. I'm given presents for my baby, and a speech, by the Principal, that is so moving, that I cannot speak to reply. It's hard to say goodbye. I don’t know if I'm coming back and so much of my heart is here. As I board the final flight to Sydney, I am thinking more and more of home, of the new life I'm about to start, and I'm feeling excited now. I'm reunited with my family and meet my baby nephew Alexander for the first time. It's a year since I was last home. Life can change so much in a year. Another family Christmas, but this time with a two nephews, and you, so close. Not By Accident is made by me, Sophie Harper. Thank you to my friends, my family, my former students and colleagues and my daughter for allowing me to record, for your endless support and for believing in me. It means the world. Also a big thank you to the generous and talented Liz Tran of Blue Sky Designs, who has built me a beautiful new website, somehow, miraculously, while juggling a baby and a toddler. Hooray for Lea Thau and Strangers podcast! Not By Accident was featured on the latest episode. If you don’t already subscribe to Strangers, do it now. You won't be sorry. Please subscribe, rate and review to help the series find more listeners. Go to notbyaccident.net to sign up to my occasional email newsletter, tweet at me @byaccidentnot and if you know anyone who might like to listen, please share! Music from freemusicarchive.org - CC NC License: Say Goodbye by Adrianna Krikl; Fuck It by Broke For Free; Readers! Do You Read? by Chris Zabriskie; Level 3 by ZhangJW.
US listeners, support the series and eat well. Hello Fresh Has signed on to support me for 2017! Sign up at www.hellofresh.com and use the promo code 'noaccident35' to get $35 off your first delivery. Everybody wins!
Go to www.notbyaccident.net to find out more about the series or to get in touch.
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It's September 2012. There is a nervous excitement in the building and everybody feels it, from the chefs, to the finance department, and certainly us teachers. 115 students arrive on this Monday afternoon from around the world, about 25 different countries, to start their new life at the European Film College. Most will live on campus like me. They will work harder than probably ever in their lives, make many ambitious films, take creative and personal risks, challenge their preconceptions, find out who they are outside of their own culture, away from their family and friends, as individuals. The 9 months that they are here will feel like a lifetime, but it will go incredibly quickly. Time warps, much like it does in the first year of parenthood. I know it feels like this because I did it too, 13 years earlier. It was the first day of the best and most creatively fulfilling year of my life, up until the day you were born. I feel incredibly privileged to be on the other side now, to be a part of the team that is invested in giving these students an experience like mine. It is a great responsibility, and one I have put above all else for the past three years. There is an emotional rhythm to the year, almost a narrative arc, and I understand it well now so I hate to be leaving the story before the end. If there was a way to see it through I would, but there really isn't. I will be the best teacher I can be until Christmas time and then hand everything over. I don't have time to think much about the future. All my energy goes to surviving the present. But there is great joy in the everyday. 20 weeks, time for the second scan. I'm so nervous and excited to see you again, to hear your heart beat again. It's November. Charlotte and I check in regularly as her due date approaches. I long to go home. In only a month, I will. And soon after that, you will arrive too. Not By Accident is made by me, Sophie Harper. Thanks to my family, my friends and my daughter for allowing me to record, and for the practical and moral support. And to all of you who have left amazing reviews and sent messages, you have brought me to tears multiple times. I am inspired. Please keep them coming! Go to notbyaccident.net to sign up to my occasional email newsletter, tweet at me @byaccidentnot and if you know anyone who might like to listen, please share! Music from freemusicarchive.org - CC NC License: Cylinder One by Chris Zabriskie; CGI Snake by Chris Zabriskie; There’s Probably No Time by Chris Zabriskie; Kqaer by quobe; New Years Eve instrumental 03-12a by Silence is Sexy.
US listeners, support the series and eat well. Hello Fresh Has signed on to support me for 2017! Sign up at www.hellofresh.com and use the promo code 'noaccident35' to get $35 off your first delivery. Everybody wins!
Go to www.notbyaccident.net to find out more about the series or to get in touch.
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It’s the end of August in 2012. You have reached a milestone. 13 weeks. The second trimester. For me, it’s a turning point. On Thursday, the day before my first scan, the first time I’ll see you, I put on a baggy shirt and go to meet with my boss, my friend. She is energized after the summer break and excited about the year ahead. Her plans involve me. Of course they do. We’re a team. I realise I have to tell her immediately, not after the scan as I’d intended. I have to destroy her plans, her enthusiasm. I am shaking. I feel like my heart will stop. On Friday I go for the scan. I see you for the first time. Now I don’t have to imagine, I can see! You have all your arms and legs. I am relieved for you, I want you to have as few obstacles in life as possible. I spend the weekend on the phone. 17 calls, 9 hours. I know because I recorded myself and am re-living it making this episode. I’ve categorized my conversations into themes and can see where my preoccupations lie. One third work, one third our unknown future, and the final third divided again: love, lost and longed for, my changing body, and you, my baby, inside me. I feel sad to see how much anxiety over work and the future dominate. We went to Sydney this weekend, to see friends and meet new babies. On the train up, with these conversations fresh in my head, the trip became poignant. I am truly grateful to you, my friends, my family, and my daughter, who accept me when I obsess, when I wallow, when I dominate, and when I’m withdrawn. Who allow me to record, and support me completely. Who share in my sorrows and in my great joys. Who let me share in yours. Not By Accident is made by me, Sophie Harper. Story input from Rebecca Mostyn. Please subscribe, rate and review to help the series find more listeners. Go to notbyaccident.net to sign up to my occasional email newsletter, tweet at me @byaccidentnot and if you know anyone who might like to listen, please share! Music from freemusicarchive.org - CC NC License: It’s Always Too Late To Start Over by Chris Zabriskie; The Fresh Monday by Dexter Britain; Undercover Vampire Policeman by Chris Zabriskie; Wonder Cycle by Chris Zabriskie; The Time To Run (Finale) by Dexter Britain; Chantiers Navals 412 by LJ Kruger.
US listeners, support the series and eat well. Hello Fresh Has signed on to support me for 2017! Sign up at www.hellofresh.com and use the promo code 'noaccident35' to get $35 off your first delivery. Everybody wins!
Go to www.notbyaccident.net to find out more about the series or to get in touch.
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My body has seriously never looked better naked. Everything is soft, plump and trim in all the right places. My breasts are growing. I curse the fact that nobody but me will see, but feel fortunate I don't have to negotiate a physical relationship. They hurt so much they wake me up at night! I also have to get up to pee every few hours. I am so tired. I dread brushing my teeth because of the morning sickness. Foods taste different. I can't get enough of pink grapefruit and nectarines. I am put off by the smell of beer. I never thought that could happen. I am vague and forgetful - pregnancy brain I suppose - and happy that holidays have begun so work won't suffer. My body won't let me push through exhaustion. I plan to swim and go to the gym, but instead I nap. Often. I stare for hours at the embryo images on my pregnancy tracker app, but make a deal with myself never to jump ahead. I want to know exactly what you're up to and not wish it away. Knowing you're growing in there is the most surreal and profound experience I've ever had. Summer holidays have begun and nobody is left here but me. I shouldn't be alone. I need to travel to avoid that. I pack my wheely suitcase and load my kindle with essential holiday reading: What to Expect when you're Expecting; Choosing Single Motherhood; Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice; The Complete Single Mother; Knock Yourself Up; Sperm Donor = Dad; and of course: My Miserable Lonely Lesbian Pregnancy. I have great friends scattered around Europe, I piece together a plan of who to visit and when, culminating in a week in Iceland with my brother. I take off. It is utterly surreal to be an insignificant figure in these astounding places, and at the same time to be so focused inwards. To be so aware of you there inside me. The captivating wonder of each feels somehow symmetrical and profound. I can see I need to pave two paths while I figure out which one to take. So many things to try to understand, to arrange. Two possible new lives, one in Denmark and one in Australia. Two cultures, two systems, two midwives, two hospital bookings, two childcare places, one baby. So many choices still to make. In the next episode: summertime is over baby. 13 weeks, the second trimester. Not By Accident is made by me, Sophie Harper. Thanks to my family, my friends and my daughter for allowing me to record, and for the practical and moral support. Story input from Michelle Webster, Cathy Gray and Diana Lampe. Please subscribe, rate and review to help the series find more listeners. Go to notbyaccident.net to sign up to my occasional email newsletter, tweet at me @byaccidentnot and if you know anyone who might like to listen, please share! Music from freemusicarchive.org - CC NC License: Everybody’s Got Problems That Aren’t Mine by Chris Zabriskie; Rain Begins to Fall (Instrumental) by Silence Is Sexy; Blindness Rats by Khonner; Something Elated by Broke For Free; Murmur by Broke For Free; The Stars Are Out by Dexter Britain. Music by permission from the artist: You, You’ll be Waiting by Baby Blue.
US listeners, support the series and eat well. Hello Fresh Has signed on to support me for 2017! Sign up at www.hellofresh.com and use the promo code 'noaccident35' to get $35 off your first delivery. Everybody wins!
Go to www.notbyaccident.net to find out more about the series or to get in touch.
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I had morning sickness and was trying hard to look after myself, now about 5 weeks pregnant, but it was a struggle with the lack of structure in my life over the summer, and all this travel. Today though, back to work, just for a week. I was feeling guilty and conflicted about work. This was really the first time in my life that I wasn’t putting work ahead of everything else and it made me very uneasy. I was lonely and felt very isolated. It wasn’t a choice I’d made, to go through life alone. After I came out at 30, I ventured out into the Sydney lesbian scene. I felt like a 30 year old teenager. It was exciting and terrifying. I started internet dating. I had some fun. I got my heart broken a couple of times. I fell in love with a woman called Lucy and we had a relationship that was intense, exciting and before long, tumultuous. The fact that I wanted a baby at some point added extra strain. She moved with me to Denmark and things unraveled. I found myself living alone in a beautiful big, empty apartment, broken hearted again, in rural Denmark with no friends nearby and almost no lesbians in sight. I had my dream job but my personal life was empty and I kept wondering why I was doing this to myself in the last years of my youth. I gave everything I had to my work, which I loved. So much was unknown, and unknowable. It was the first time I really wondered if I could do this. But now I have a long vacation in Europe which I’m determined to enjoy. Six years have passed since Lucy and I broke up, but we’ll always care about each other from a distance, and now it’s clear that the love carries through to the next generation. Not By Accident is made by me, Sophie Harper. Thanks to my family, my friends and my daughter for allowing me to record, and for the practical and moral support. Please subscribe, rate and review to help the series find more listeners. Go to notbyaccident.net to sign up to my occasional email newsletter, tweet at me @byaccidentnot and if you know anyone who might like to listen, please share! Music from freemusicarchive.org - CC NC License: Like Swimming by Broke For Free; I Don’t See The Branches, I See The Leaves by Chris Zabriskie; Safe In Glass Houses by Dexter Britain; Going Under by Dexter Britain; Level 2 by Total Reboot.
US listeners, support the series and eat well. Hello Fresh Has signed on to support me for 2017! Sign up at www.hellofresh.com and use the promo code 'noaccident35' to get $35 off your first delivery. Everybody wins!
Go to www.notbyaccident.net to find out more about the series or to get in touch.
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One day, soon after I left school, my mother told me that she wanted me to have a baby one day and she didn’t care how I did it, even if I did it alone, as long as I did it. I was a bit taken aback. Of course I’d have a baby one day. I’d always known I would. I imagined I’d do it the way school girls imagine they’ll do it: I’d fall in love with a man, he’d fall in love with me, and the family would naturally follow. It took me another decade to come out. I got cancer and faced my own mortality. My mum almost died too. Things came sharply into focus and I realized as we both went into remission, this was no way to live the rest of my precious life. Very soon after, I made a weekend trip to come out to my parents. A huge weight lifted. It seems crazy that it took so much for me to be comfortable being who I am, but for some reason it did. The thing I felt saddest about letting go of was the idea of creating a baby, biologically, with a person I was in love with and for us to be a family. Eventually I decided the end the best option was a sperm bank. After thinking about it for 8 years, it was an easy decision to make. The clinic gave me a list. Checking out their profiles was a lot like internet dating, but of course they didn’t have to choose me back. I wanted some input. My mother obliged. It would be my decision, but I was happy not to make it all on my own. Not By Accident is made by me, Sophie Harper. Thanks to my family, my friends and my daughter for allowing me to record, and for the practical and moral support. Please subscribe, rate and review to help the series find more listeners. Go to notbyaccident.net to sign up to my occasional email newsletter, tweet at me @byaccidentnot and if you know anyone who might like to listen, please share! Music from freemusicarchive.org - CC NC License: Murmur by Broke For Free; One And by Broke For Free; Our Ego (Feat. Different Visitor) by Broke For Free; Pattern 4 (Version 10) by Cyan341; Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain.
US listeners, support the series and eat well. Hello Fresh Has signed on to support me for 2017! Sign up at www.hellofresh.com and use the promo code 'noaccident35' to get $35 off your first delivery. Everybody wins!
Go to www.notbyaccident.net to find out more about the series or to get in touch.
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In 2012 I went home to Australia for Christmas. I had three weeks off from my job teaching documentary filmmaking in Denmark, just enough time to make the trip worthwhile. I wanted to ground myself after a recent break-up and as I came to terms with the fact that really was I was going to try to have a baby on my own, and soon, before it was too late. A couple of weeks after I returned to Denmark to work, I turned 38. I called a clinic and made an appointment to come and talk to them about choosing a donor and getting pregnant. This courage didn’t come from nowhere. I want to take you back to start unravelling some of the events that led to this point. As I approached 30, my mother underwent devastating treatment for advanced lymphatic cancer. She had two years of chemo and nobody thought she would survive. I had a mole on my arm that I’d been worried about for a long time, but a few doctors had told me it was nothing. It wasn’t. It was cancer. Stage two melanoma. My mother had her stem cell transplant days after I had my surgery. I don’t think there’s been a worse week in my family, ever. Then things turned around. My surgery biopsy results came back clear! Her transplant worked! It took some time to build her strength, but she went into remission! Now she has 4 grandchildren who adore her, who we’d had to accept she’d never get to meet. My father and step-mother came to Europe for a holiday just two weeks after my insemination. I hadn’t told them I’d done it yet so wasn’t totally sure how they’d react to this news. They were the first people I spoke the words to with certainty: ‘I did the test again. I’m definitely pregnant!’ Not By Accident is made by me, Sophie Harper. Thanks to my family, my friends and my daughter for allowing me to record, and for the practical and moral support. Please subscribe, rate and review to help the series find more listeners. Go to notbyaccident.net to sign up to my occasional email newsletter, tweet at me @byaccidentnot and if you know anyone who might like to listen, please share! Clips from ABC TV profile of Diana Lampe on Stateline Canberra by journalist Catherine Garrett. Music from freemusicarchive.org - CC NC License: Wednesday by Adrianna Krikl; Disconnect by Adrianna Krikl; Less Than Three by Adrianna Krikl; Tam814 by LJ Kruzer; Tamz by LJ Kruzer; The Stars Are Out by Dexter Britain.
US listeners, support the series and eat well. Hello Fresh Has signed on to support me for 2017! Sign up at www.hellofresh.com and use the promo code 'noaccident35' to get $35 off your first delivery. Everybody wins!
Go to www.notbyaccident.net to find out more about the series or to get in touch.
