I am so excited, but not at all surprised to be writing of such a beautiful experience. From Sunday morning until about 3:30pm I had irregular and gentle contractions. So in the afternoon we were having a snooze and I felt a bizarre 'pop' , my waters had broken. I had a shower and the contractions quickly became regular and intense. It was clearly time to get out 'A Heavenly Day to Dance' - the CD I had made for these exciting moments. We had an hilarious time singing and dancing to our favourite songs. The contractions were getting longer and there was less time to dance between them so we called the hospital. We wanted to be at home as long as possible, but live 40 mins out of town, so told them we'd be in soon.
Even though things were getting pretty intense I really wanted to have a bath at home because I'd loved the bath in my visualisation - a little wacky sounding I know! It was beautiful and relaxing.
We drove into town, dropped our daughter off with friends and went to hospital. Told the midwife (who happened to be heaven sent) we were happy on our own for as long as possible. She was great and just popped in occasionally. I got into the shower the water on my back was heavenly – My partner was holding the shower head with one hand and doing light touch massage with the other.
I got the feeling that I needed to push and started pushing in the shower. The next time the midwife came in I had my hand on our baby’s head. I had to crawl on all fours from the shower to the mattress on the floor. That felt so wonderfully animalistic.
When I remember those few moments of moving from the shower to the mattress, it is in my mind slow motion. I felt like a lioness prowling. A lioness who had no reason to doubt her ability to birth her baby. Like I had managed to strip myself of clothes and fear and inhibition and doubt and everything modern - down to my absolute core so that it was just the baby, Mike and myself partaking in the birthing, which through it's absolute simplicity was absolute beauty.
So we were there in this sacred space with it's soft peachy coloured light which made my body look and feel even more beautiful for the final moments of being in it's pregnant state. The room was filled with love and gentle power and our river and lavender and heavenly music and images I had painted. I knew already that we had achieved our dream birth.
On my knees, leaning against pillows my body telling me when to push and when to breathe down, to the final bars of Pavaroti's Ave Maria (the last song on my CD!) my little Quinn arrived. A long cord allowed me to snuggle him closely to my chest and face straight away.
Our doctor arrived a little later and was very respectful of our (previously discussed) wishes to not have the third stage actively managed. I pushed the placenta out easily about 35mins after our baby was born.
Peter, it really amazed me that my experience was exactly as I had visualised it. I actually think I should say that for me the breathing and the visualisation were as important as each other. I won't go on with details, but it does amaze me that quite simply what I visualised was what happened.
Thank you for giving me the tools to rewire my mind and exchange fear for trust. I arrived at your course hoping to learn how to make the labour bearable, and I left expecting it to be exquisite. The birth of our baby boy is undoubtedly the most wonderful experience of my life.
Myolene