I am so excited, but not at all surprised to be writing of such a beautiful experience.

After a good week of having what I would describe as 'heavy' Braxton Hicks contractions I stared to get fairly regular but gentle contractions on Saturday afternoon, having lost my show that morning.

By about 10pm I started to feel tired and the three of us decided it would be best to try to sleep and meet the next day. Amazingly I had a great sleep, waking only occasionally to a strong contraction.

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.

I'd LOVE to give you tell you about the things that I think made the birth as easy and heavenly as it was....
• Did the relaxations every day - especially the long bringing it all together one. I usually did it as soon as I put our little girl to bed during the day. By the week before our baby was born I would actually leak milk by the end of the visualisation!


• Made CD's - one that we danced to in early labour (obviously our favourite songs that kept the oxytocin pumping) and one for breathing to when things were more intense. Found myself singing along sometimes during the labour - even in between pushing. These were part of my visualisation. Didn't listen to them after I had made them though - saved them up for the big day.


• Stitched a ribbon into a circle with a 12cm diameter - had it with me until I was pushing...just kept looking at it and visualising my cervix slipping open really easily and softly during contractions - also part of my relaxation visualisation. I found it really helpful to picture the longitudinal muscles on the uterus shortening and pulling my cervix (silky ribbon) open during a contraction.


• During one of the relaxations it asks you to take yourself to a place you love to be or a peaceful place or something like that - during the peak of intense contractions I took myself there (mine was floating on my back in the river near our house) was amazingly helpful during some tough ones.


• The essay on pain in the calmbirth® book - I think is such a great summary of what you need to know. Actually had it in the car with me - during some contractions I just kept looking at a phrase in there that said ''intense pressure" and kept repeating to myself and I think it is amazing that it changed the sensation from pain to intense pressure - just because of what I was consciously labelling it as in my mind.


• The 'get huge' phrase - used this a lot - especially during transition. Just kept muttering it to myself then when I was pushing I was repeating 'I'm huge, I'm huge'. I think it was a great focus during this intense time, and helped make the contractions feel like they were really working toward to final goal.


• Mike said toward the end - 'we're about to meet our baby' - was great because it reminded me what we were here for. When I remembered I talked to the baby.


• Breathing the baby down - I practiced this as much as I could before - just with breath and when on the loo - was a big one for me because with our little girl I didn't get the urge to push so pushed her out without contractions and it was terrible. I really was able to listen to my body and sometimes I held my breath and pushed and sometimes I did a slow, restricted breath as I pushed

• There is a good article in the calmbirth® book – Let the River Flow by Itself.


• Floppy limbs - really tried to keep my limbs loose and focused on sending all the blood and energy into my uterus. Felt that by not flexing other parts of my body I was allowing this to happen as much as possible. Shrugged my shoulders a lot when I felt the rest of my body wasn't relaxed.


• I was so excited about it - I thought of it as my Heavenly Day (do you know that Paddy Griffin song?? Was the first one on my breathing CD) and I really awaited the day with absolute excitement and positive anticipation.


• Breathing - was unquestionably the biggest help on the day. I didn't count or anything, I just breathed long and slow into my belly and then up into my lungs, and out as slowly as I could. Definitely worth practising this whenever you think about it so you don't have to think about it on the day.


• I had painted in a journal short key phrases that I found inspiring - Mike had the journal in front of me most of the time. Now and again he flipped to a page that he thought I might need. e.g 'I know you're here' and a painting of my Guardian Angel, 'I breath love and oxygen down to my baby', 'I trust my body and my baby', 'I'm huge', ......Really helped to lift my energy.


• Mike did the light touch tickly type massage for almost every contraction when they were tough.


• I wanted a long labour - I wanted to be able to savour the pre labour and to have time to be able to dance and share the experience with my family. So I visualised it this way. I felt like things were really happening for about 2 weeks. It was just delicious to be so conscious of my body and the baby preparing for this Heavenly Day....I think the fact I wasn't wishing it over from the start helped me to be right there in the moments of the experience


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

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