S4. Ep3. Perfect in our Imperfections. Pregnancy and Parenting with a Chronic Illness.

When radio presenter Jacinta Parsons was in her early twenties, she began to feel unwell. The symptoms were insidious at first, and easy to dismiss. When she was eventually diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, a severe and chronic inflammatory bowel condition, Jacinta was so unwell that she required multiple hospital stays, invasive procedures, and ultimately, an ileostomy bag. Incredibly it was during this period, when she felt her body was failing her, that Jacinta discovered, with joy, that she was pregnant. Jacinta shares with us her journey to motherhood through her high risk pregnancy and birth. She describes how her experience of living with chronic illness led her to tiptoe through her pregnancies, feeling like she had won a prize that could be taken away at any moment. With trademark empathy and insight, Jacinta shares how the hidden world of chronic illness can impact on all aspects of birth and parenting, from the physical challenges of parenting with an ileostomy bag, to the parenting guilt that is compounded for those living with an invisible illness in an ableist world.