As *Sarah laboured at home with her first baby for the second day her body swayed with the wave of contractions and her deep moans filled the room.
She was semi-naked and on her knees, leaning over a birth ball when suddenly her fiancé, *Michael came up behind her.
“I felt him push me around from behind. The next thing I realised he was having sex with me while I was in the middle of a contraction. He was penetrating me,” Sarah tells Kidspot.
“I was able to say, ‘stop’, and then I had another contraction. I was completely unable to do anything and in such a state.
“I was in shock, but unable to vocalise anything other than to say, ‘stop’!
“I remember thinking he thought I was responding to him as I rocked side to side trying to manage the pain of my labour.”
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*Sarah was raped by her partner while she was in labour with their child. Source: Supplied to Kidspot
The South Australian was just 24 at the time and had been with her 27-year-old fiancé for three years.
She knew what was happening was wrong - but struggled to process it as *Michael left her labouring still on the floor to have a shower.
“I felt my whole body shut down. I believe I went from transition and about to birth to my whole cervix shutting down.”
When they got to the hospital Sarah was only 2cm dilated.
She rushed into the shower and locked the door, remaining there for six hours crying and refusing to let anyone in.
“I didn’t want him anywhere near me. I was trying to process what had happened while birthing a baby,” the mum-of one shares.
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After a 72-hour labour, Sarah and the baby ended up in distress.
Michael returned from having a cigarette to a room of chaos and his fiancé being rushed into surgery.
Their son was born healthy, and Sarah checked herself out of the hospital the following day, preferring to recuperate at home.
“I remember him driving me home just 12 hours after the caesarean,” she reflects.
He sat in the car with our baby while I walked into the pharmacy to get my painkillers.
“I had no bra or shoes - and almost passed out waiting for my script to come,” she emotionally recalls.
“When I got home, he gave me a high five and said, ‘high five you’ve still got an intact pussy’.”
“I was still bleeding a few weeks post-birth and having to kick him to get him off." Source: Supplied to Kidspot
In a state of shock, Sarah then stood in the kitchen making tea for visitors, including his mother.
Just three days later, weak and sleep-deprived as the milk leaked from her breasts and blood from her vagina, Michael pushed her head down and forced her to perform oral sex.
“I thought if I do it, I could have a break from him for a few days,” the traumatised mum explains.
“I was still bleeding a few weeks post-birth and having to kick him to get him off. He was always at me constantly. I was breastfeeding the baby in bed, and he’d try to have sex with me.
“I’d breastfeed and finally get the baby to sleep at three in the morning and he’d be rubbing against me and pushing at me. I’d beg him to let me sleep but the only way I’d get some rest was to let him.
“I let him have his way with me, so he’d leave me alone.”
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Years later Sarah retold her experience to a therapist who explained she’d been raped.
“Hearing her say that was a huge shock. I tried to defend him - I didn’t think it deserved to be called rape with my partner,” she admits.
“For years when we had sex afterwards, he’d force himself on me. I used to ask him to put music on as a way of dissociating. I could follow the drum beat in my brain, or the harmony, and totally disengage from my body until it was over.
“I’d lie there and almost look down at myself from above until it was over… there was no point resisting.”
Before meeting Michael, Sarah had been in a violent relationship.
Michael seemed the exact opposite, so much so at first that she thought he was gay.
“Because he wasn’t beating the crap out of me, I thought he was safe - I thought it was a good relationship,” Sarah says.
“But he was coercive and manipulative and controlling.”
“I have moments where I get triggered and it is still there, but I am not a broken person anymore.” Source: Supplied to Kidspot
Two years after the birth of her son, Sarah fell pregnant again - but miscarried.
She blamed Michael’s heavy marijuana habit and asked him to stop if they were going to have another child. He laughed at her and went outside for another smoke.
Sarah worked three jobs, while Michael barely worked - preferring to spend his time watching porn.
“I was absolutely broken,” she confesses.
“My son said to my grandma, ‘I am really worried about my mummy’s happiness; all she does is cry all the time’... that was when I left.”
Her son was four when she finally freed herself from the abusive relationship.
Sarah has undergone intense therapy to try to heal the trauma.
“There were times when I felt so broken, I thought I’d never be OK. I thought trauma would haunt me and be my story forever,” she admits.
“I felt I bled my trauma over everybody - but I am now free of it.
“I have moments where I get triggered and it is still there, but I am not a broken person anymore.”
The inspirational woman is now a therapy counsellor herself, supporting other women affected by domestic violence.
She says women often downplay their experience and their view of their relationship is muddied, making it hard to see what is really going on.
“When you are in it, it’s important to get an external viewpoint whether a counsellor or a friend to really see what is going on,” Sarah says.
*Names changed