Codie Baylis
"I believe a mother is a mother. A mother is a mother to a child who is no longer here. You’re a mother if you’re a step-mum. You’re a mother if you chose to be a mother to a child who needed one. Families don’t always have to be the traditional way; they can be how you make them."
"We’re all mums, we’re all human. We have good and bad days, and it’s okay. Let’s get together and support each other. We’re in it together. It started out as me reaching out and needing help. And it became our village."
Content warning: This story deals with topics of pregnancy loss
There are as many paths to parenthood as there are parents.
Codie Baylis’ journey to becoming a mother has been marked by moments of beauty and hardship, grief and hope, strength and community. Hers is a story of defining parenthood on her own terms.
“I believe a mother is a mother,” she says. “A mother is a mother to a child who is no longer here. You’re a mother if you’re a step-mum. You’re a mother if you chose to be a mother to a child who needed one. Families don’t always have to be the traditional way; they can be how you make them.”
Codie grew up surrounded by family. She spent her childhood years around Campbell Town, Epping Forest, Nunamara, Cressy, and Launceston. Her mother and grandmother were strong figures in her early life, and she had always dreamed of becoming a parent herself.
She fell pregnant after trying for a long, long time. She and her husband, Shannon, were overjoyed. Then, six months into the pregnancy, she sensed something was wrong. “I called the midwife and said, ‘My gut instinct is that I’m not feeling right. I feel like I need to come and see you.’” By the time she reached the hospital, she was having contractions. “All of a sudden, masses of doctors, nurses, and midwives ran in, saying ‘We need to get the helicopter ready for Hobart.’” Codie went into labour. “I was pushing and pushing, and then she was born, and they took her away straight away. She only had a few breaths and then she passed away.”
Codie and Shannon held their baby, Kimber, in disbelief. “I was amazed that I could have made her. And heartbroken. I just thought to myself how beautiful she was. Even though we were devastated, I had a sense of pride. She was a baby; she was everything.” To Codie, Kimber is her first and forever child. With Kimber’s birth, Codie became a mother.
In 2017, a year after Kimber was born, Codie and Shannon decided they wanted to give her a sibling. “We went through several tests to figure out why it was so difficult to fall pregnant. We asked for reports about why I went into early labour, but there were never any clear answers.”
These challenges led to trying in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). “I’d like to acknowledge the strength it takes to go through IVF,” Codie says. “There are so many brave people out there going through it. It’s hard. The medication changes your body and mind. You feel pregnant, but you have to wait for 14 days to find out whether it’s worked. Emotionally, it’s really hard, because you don’t want to get hopeful or overexcited. If you’ve been through loss before, it’s that extra anxiety as well. The amount of strength that you need to carry on – it’s really admirable.”
Through numerous cycles of IVF, Codie had two more early pregnancy losses, at six weeks and nine weeks. She had a feeling of “failing” again. She and Shannon went to counselling and made sure to support each other. Their grief ultimately brought them closer together, and they decided they needed a break from IVF. “We had this idea of, if this is not working for us, why don’t we try to build a family some other way? So, we looked into fostering, which has been amazing.”
Their first foster child came to them at six months of age. “She was our bright light; she was amazing. She came along at the right time – as much as she needed us, we needed her.” Codie poured her heart into helping her “flourish and see her full capacity.” Eighteen months later, her brother was born, and he joined Codie and Shannon when he was just two days old.
It was this immediate feeling of ‘I love these babies,’ and the bond was there. I didn’t have to be pregnant to nest for them. We had beautiful family and friends around us. They knew we wanted this so much for so long, and even though it was in a different capacity, they all wanted to help.
“It was this immediate feeling of ‘I love these babies,’ and the bond was there,” Codie explains. “I didn’t have to be pregnant to nest for them. It was just natural and amazing. We had beautiful family and friends around us. They knew we wanted this so much for so long, and even though it was in a different capacity, they all wanted to help.”
Then, Codie and Shannon got the surprise of their lives. Two months later, with no IVF or other trying, Codie fell pregnant with their son, Miles. “I said, ‘I’ve been through IVF, through all this, and you’re telling me I’m pregnant?!’” They could hardly believe it.
The next nine months were filled with mixed emotions, as Codie alternated between feelings of joy at being pregnant and fear at whether she would experience another loss. Doctors and midwives supported her along the way. Then, when she was in labour, Miles’s positioning reduced his supply of oxygen. As soon as he was born, the medical staff whisked him away to make sure he was okay. “We just held each other and started grieving. This can’t be happening again. Then, they brought him over to me and the best thing happened. He cried. I was waiting for that cry, it felt like, all of my life. To hear a baby cry, for that experience, and for me to hold a baby, finally. That I’d birthed. Not that you need that experience to become a mother, but it meant something to me. I finally did it.”
Codie’s immediate thought was, “it’s my job now to keep you safe.” For two years, she felt afraid of something happening to him. Even more, Codie was pregnant and then parenting a colicky newborn during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This experience is what kicked off her current role as an advocate for parents and children from all walks of life. She formed a Facebook group for people pregnant in Launceston in 2020. It was a way to share experiences and advice, and to share the journey into parenthood with people based locally. The group now has 1500 members.
The group started organising play dates, which have since evolved into the Cubs’ Club playgroup, coordinated through not-for-profit Playgroup Tasmania. “We’re all mums, we’re all human,” Codie says. “We have good and bad days, and it’s okay. Let’s get together and support each other. We’re in it together. It started out as me reaching out and needing help. And it became our tribe and our village.”
“Tasmania is very family-oriented,” Codie explains. “There’s lots of parks, and the playgroups are amazing. The CHaPS nurses are amazing. But I think it’s sad, with COVID, some of the services we’ve lost.” Both of Codie’s foster children are neurodiverse, and the complexities of health care during COVID meant their autism diagnosis was delayed. Codie was shy as a child, and over the course of her life, she has worked hard to get out of her comfort zone. Parenting has been a big part of finding her voice. “As a parent you have to become an advocate,” she explains. “You have to get this really thick skin, to push through and stand up for your child.”
Codie believes strongly in the “someone like you did it, and you can do it too” message of Little Tasmanian. “When you have a newborn, you’re just surviving and figuring it out, learning along with them. It’s an emotional tug-of-war. Especially with everything we’d been through, I thought, ‘I just need to be grateful.’ But those feelings, of being exhausted and a bit sad, are still valid. Not everything comes naturally, but love comes along naturally. With foster children, people out there think it’s a really hard job. But you can just imagine the impact you could have on that child’s life. Yes, it could be a bumpy road, but it’s the same in a typical family’s life. There’s no perfect story.”
It has been seven years since Kimber was born. Codie is now finishing her qualification to work in community services, and she has just taken on a role with Playgroup Tasmania. “It’s been a rollercoaster,” Codie reflects. “I’m proud of the journey. Kimber has given us this journey, because if she didn’t come along, I don’t think our lives would have been like this. It was the most devastating part of my life, but without that happening, I don’t know whether I would have these amazing, beautiful babies in my life too. So, her sacrifice, in a way, has brought us sadness and happiness. Forever missed, but forever grateful for all of it.”
We worked with southern Tasmanian photographer Moss Halliday-Hall for this Tasmanian story.