I woke up in the morning feeling slightly nauseous and immediately thinking something’s happening today, something is different.

The day progressed just like the many days previous I had the pregnancy bug of changing and redecorating the house and was out shopping – gotta love those hormones. I felt like I may have been having waves/contractions and informed my husband. We decided to have some lunch before heading home.

We returned home and the waves were very mild and 10 mins apart. They gradually progressed to 7, 5, 3 and then finally 2 mins apart by 2200hrs that night.

At 2200 hrs I rang the birthing unit to inform them the waves were regular and 2 mins apart. They stated to only make our way to hospital when the waves were 2 mins apart and regular for 2 hours, but to first ring them again before coming.

The next two hours I managed to sleep through 45mins of the waves and continued my deep breathing and visualisation whilst awake.

At midnight I contacted the birthing unit again and stated the waves had been regular and 2 mins apart for over two hours. The midwife told me I should stay at home because they could not be “bad” enough because I was still able to talk. She told me to come in when “the pain” is so much I can’t talk and only then am I in established labour.

At 0300 I woke my husband and told him that even though I wasn’t having “so much pain I can’t talk” I was sure that we would have to go to hospital. I was concerned about having the baby at home as we lived over half an hour away from the hospital. We then had a shower, organised some food and drove to the hospital.

Throughout the waves I continued to use my calm breathing techniques. I said to my husband that I don’t have so much pain I can’t talk but rather I feel I don’t want to talk as I was concentrating on my breathing. We arrived at the hospital at around 0430 in the morning. The midwife’s response to my husband on our arrival, “so she couldn’t handle the pain anymore at home I take it”.

Within half an hour my water broke and the waves were becoming longer in their duration averaging a minute long in length. As I did not show any discomfort during my waves, rather I was standing with my hands folded below my belly, with my eyes closed and quietly breathing, the midwives still felt I was not yet in ‘established labour’.

In my favour in the room where we were placed there was a pipe on the wall. It was raining, so the water going down through the pipe sounded like a running creek which was my visualisation – a running creek in the rainforest. This made it very easy for me to transport myself to my relaxing place.

We had provided the staff with our birthing preferences, one of which was limited to no examinations unless necessary.

At approx. 0730 the new midwife on shift asked to perform a vaginal examination just to see where we were at. I agreed on the basis that I too was curious as to how far dilated I was.

She didn’t expect me to be dilated at all and if anything maybe a centimetre or so. To her surprise the examination showed I was 4-5cm dilated.

2 hours later my body began to experience an involuntary pushing sensation. The waves had changed to this strong pushing sensation and all I felt like doing was pushing the baby out.

I told the midwife my body was pushing and that I couldn’t stop it. Her response was “ Don’t push yet you won’t be fully dilated”. She performed another examination and ascertained that I was indeed fully dilated and ready to push. In my thoughts I felt that it would not have mattered whether she told me to push or not, my body had decided and was pushing.

The 2nd stage of labour took place on the bed with the head of the bed fully raised, and my arms resting on the top of the bed head with my body kneeling on the bed, in a full upright position. I would lie down between waves to rest and have what I call “mini sleeps” to give me the energy for the next push.

In the meantime my beautiful husband was attempting to provide me with fluids as my U/A said I was dehydrated with ketones and to prevent a drip I would need to drink. Eating and drinking are the last things you want to do but my husband persisted and also listened to my subtle requests not to touch me but provide a cool face cloth which I found a necessity during this stage.

After one and a half hours of this my baby’s head was finally out and I knew that it was only a couple of more pushes and his body would come out – something I had remembered from the calmbirth® class. I pushed 1 push outside of the natural pushing and our baby flew out so quickly that he fell the 10cm onto the bed, too quick to be caught.

I heard my husband say “It’s a boy” and he was passed through my legs and up onto my chest within 30 seconds of his birth still attached to the placenta – another one of our preferences. The feeling I felt was exhilarating and the deepest love I can express. The cord was cut by my husband.

My son opened his eyes immediately and was extremely alert. Over the next hour whilst on my chest he crawled up by himself, found the nipple and began feeding without any assistance, this was the only aspect of the birth we filmed and it was an unbelievable experience on top of an unbelievable experience that is too great and wondrous to put into words.

After two hours he was weighed etc whilst I got up to have a shower. I was on a natural high for days after the birth and despite a bruised tailbone and a secondary perineal tear you would not have known I had just given birth to the most beautiful baby in the world – bias of course.

Our baby boy was 3540g and 51cm long and did not really cry until he was about 2 weeks old. Prior to this he made noises like a kitten, a ‘meowing’ which he would also do in empathy of other babies crying on the ward.

He was and still is a very calm baby. Being 3 and a half months now he cannot stop smiling – another success from the calmbirth® class – the gift that keeps on giving.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the most invaluable gift of self empowerment, that as a team we had the most wonderful experience that I cannot wait to experience again.

Rowena

next >