A 15-hour labour and the 'scariest moment' of her life: Chloe Fisher's birth story.

For nearly five years, entrepreneur Chloe Fisher and her Grammy-nominated husband DJ Paul Fisher (also known as 'FISHER') tried to have a baby.

But after years of fertility struggles, their journey to conceive and stay pregnant has been painful, and fraught with distress and bad news. There were miscarriages. Eight rounds of unsuccessful IVF treatments. It's a journey they've described as a 'living nightmare'. 

But at the end of 2023, Chloe fell pregnant. Naturally.

The couple recently welcomed their "miracle bub", Bobbi Maree Fisher into the world in June 2024. 

For the new parents, the experience has been nothing short of "surreal". And they're ready to share their story.

Speaking on her podcast Darling, Shine! which she co-hosts with best friend Ellidy Pullin, Chloe (and Paul) recently unpacked her entire journey through labour, birth and the often 'unspoken about' experience post-partum.

Watch: Questions about childbirth (answered by mums and non-mums). Post continues below.

For the 31-year-old business owner, "the emotional roller-coaster" had started before she even arrived at the hospital. 

"I was about to meet the baby I'd been waiting [for] nearly five years to have and everything that day was just so special," she shared.

"Honestly, this whole experience was probably one of the most profound and transformative experiences I've ever had in my whole entire life and it was beautiful — the female body and what we can do."

With her road to motherhood fraught with anxiety, distress and so many challenges, Chloe said the weight of trying to have a baby was growing heavy. "It just got so much more intense every day as it went on and went on," she shared.

"And we were blessed in the end with this little miracle bub... it was really incredible. For me, I stepped into another world."

Speaking to her experience during labour, she shared it was "so intense," that "no matter what anyone tells you, it will never prepare you for it."

"I'm not going to sugarcoat things because it is absolutely f**king insane."

As she told listeners, "I don't know whether I'm blocking it out, but I remember speaking to every one of my friends that have had kids and I swear to god, I don't remember anyone telling me that it is the most painful thing you'll ever experience in your whole life and you think that you're going to die. I don't know whether they just didn't want to scare me, but far out — it is insane."

"It was almost like a blend of pain and purpose. It was the most beautiful experience I've ever had in my entire life. It tested my limits a hundred per cent — holy s**t. But it brought out this resilience that I never knew I had within myself because I don't think you realise how strong you are until you experience labour."

Her husband Paul also reflected on the 'life-changing' experience of labour and birth, praising Chloe for her 'insane' amount of strength. 

"We went through the first five or six hours and it was just the most beautiful calm, soothing moment," he said. "As soon as we got the epidural, it really kicked in. I just remember me and Chloe were high five-ing and smiling and laughing and then that's when the tunes came on."

"We're all crying. The room was just emotional. It was happy," he said.

But it was the very moment Chloe's epidural wore off, that things started to really 'ramp up'.

"There was a point where I was like, I can't f**king do this. I was crying," said Chloe. "Ellidy was there, Paul was next to me. And in my mind I was thinking, 'I'm going to die. How do I make this stop? Like, how do I make this pain stop?'"

Chloe and best friend Ellidy. Image: Instagram/@chloe.fisher.

After a 15-hour labour and an assisted birth, baby Bobbi entered the world.

Paul shared, "All of a sudden she was just there. I remember looking at her and being like, 'geez this baby is so cute.' This baby has been here before... it was the most surreal moment... Bobbi just gave out like a little sigh. She was so mellow. I'm lost for words. It was just beautiful... a whole new love."

Image: Instagram/@chloe.fisher.

"I've envisioned this for so long," said Chloe. "And it was just everything that I dreamed of. The moment I held our little daughter on my chest for the first time. Everything just left the building. In those moments, nothing else mattered. I held her, and she was just perfect. The overwhelming amount of love I had for this little human being was just indescribable. And I cannot believe that this whole journey brought us to that moment."

But soon after the birth of her daughter, a different journey began. Just hours after meeting Bobbi, Chloe ended up in ICU.

"I was like 'can someone take the baby?'," she shared. "I was feeling a bit weird in my head. I was feeling a little spacey. I actually ended up in theatre and spent the first night in ICU without my family. And that was just pretty sad and pretty emotional and so frightening. It really has left me physically weak and completely shaken. The trauma of that and leaving Paul still very much lingers."

"It was just a massive reminder of the fragility of life and the unexpected turns that can happen at any point in time. You can go from the most incredible moment in your life to the scariest moment of your life in the blink of an eye. And that is really what happened. The way that Paul has helped me through the aftermath of what happened, I literally cannot thank him enough."

In a follow-up episode with best friend Ellidy, Chloe shared, "It's so weird. It's very much like my life the last four-and-a-half years have been leading up until this moment. I feel like every day had so much weight. I knew that it would happen one day but I just never knew when it was going to happen."

"The last few weeks have just been so hectic. I do still feel like I have a lot of underlining trauma, but it's just so crazy to think that it was always her. I knew there would be this little person that was just waiting for that right moment to come into our lives." 

On her and Paul's close relationship with Ellidy's daughter Minnie, Chloe also shared her thoughts on their close bond and what would've happened if the couple's fertility and pregnancy journey had taken a different path.

"I still do believe — and we always said this — that maybe they never came because it was our opportunity to be there for you and Minnie and have those few solid, beautiful one-on-one attention years with Minnie Moo. I know that if they were born — because we were pregnant together and were going to have babies at the exact same time — we would have done our best. But can you imagine if we both had newborns?"

"Obviously Minnie Moo is still such a big part of our lives but I would never have been able to give her the attention that we've been able to give her and have that bond. Paul has that [special] bond with Minnie."

Image: Instagram/@followthefishtv

Ellidy, who tragically lost her partner Chumpy Pullin before Minnie was born, shared how the Fishers had created a supportive 'village' around her and supported her through her journey into motherhood.  

"If we did have those babies at the same time, you guys would have been overseas a lot," Ellidy shared. "You wouldn't have been like 'please come here and bring your baby over'. Like, Fish was flying me over. Whereas if you had your own baby you wouldn't have done that naturally because you'd be like 'we're f**king tied up with our own'."

"Minnie and him [Paul] had this connection which probably just naturally wouldn't have happened. And I think that's really shaped Minnie, having you guys around. Because she literally goes to anyone, because she's always kind of had this very big family."

Chloe added, "I can't believe all four of my miscarriages were boys. And then all of a sudden this little star in the sky decided to fall down and be a little blessing. Just this little miracle person that didn't need IVF and didn't need any of the above. She was just waiting for that perfect moment to come."

"I just can't wait to watch Minnie and her grow up together."

Feature image: Instagram/@chloe.fisher.