Hi Jo, I’ve been meaning to write for a while so you can share my birth story at pregnancy yoga. I really enjoyed the two stories I heard when I was there, so I hope the girls enjoy mine :).
I had a show at 10:30pm in the evening. I went to the toilet and as I was walking back to bed my waters broke. It wasn’t a big gush or anything dramatic, just a trickle which continued for sometime. The color of my waters was fine, so I put a maternity pad in and went to bed, thinking this could be ages away.
The contractions started straight away, they weren’t overly painful and were completely irregular so I tried to ignore them and doze between them. Eventually they got the better of me, so I got out of bed and went into the room next door thinking that I may as well leave my husband to get some sleep. I got on my hands and knees and did hip circles through each contraction. I was timing the contractions using an app on my phone. In between contractions I was lying on the floor trying to sleep to conserve as much energy as possible. Soon the contractions were less than 2 mins apart and lasting more than 90 secs. I decided it was time to wake my husband and call my mid wife.
My husband started organizing things and packing the car. When I spoke to my midwife she said it sounded like I was managing well and it might be too early to go to the hospital. She decided to come to my place to check how far along I was, then we make a plan of when to go to the hospital from there. I was now standing in the bathroom leaning over the sink rocking from side to side and doing long breaths through the contractions. At this stage my birth affirmations were running through my head, telling myself to relax and let my body take over. I started to feel extremely sore, and I was thinking “I do anything to take this pain away, if I was in hospital I would take any drug to get rid of this pain!”. Luckily I wasn’t in hospital. This feeling of being over whelmed by the pain lasted no more than 10 mins. I then got on my hands and knees again on the floor, I called out to my husband to help and got him to put a cold flannel on my head. My mid wife arrived shortly after and examined me. She told me I was 8cm and that we should get to the hospital now.
My husband phoned my sister who was joining us for the birth so she could meet us at the hospital. In the car I was in the back seat on all fours. I knew the baby was coming as I could feel massive pressure in my bottom. I got my husband to give me a running commentary of where we were in the journey to hospital. Once we arrived we got up to the delivery room and then my mid wife told us that I was actually 9.5cm dilated at home but she decided our carpet was too nice for a home birth! I didn’t want to have the baby before my sister arrived so I was not letting the contractions make progress. I stood up beside the bed waiting. She arrived 10 mins later. I got on the bed on my hands and knees as I thought this was how I’d like to deliver. Then I had an over whelming sense of fatigue, so I decided to have a nap. I lay on my side and said I’m having a rest. I could vaguely hear my mid wife telling me I needed to have this baby, but I said I will do once I’ve had a rest. Apparently I went to sleep for about 20 mins, during this time I was having contractions but I just wasn’t letting them do anything. They no longer hurt. My midwife got me to lie on my back so she could examine me. At this point I thought, it is time to let go and let my body take over. Here I completely relaxed letting my breath out. On the next contraction I gave a push – not a big one, just a push so I could test the waters and see what happened. Once I did this I realized I could hold onto the progress I’d made from pushing using my breath. I did another small push then held. Once I did this I then just breathed down into my bottom and within three breaths my baby was out.
It was rather like an out of body experience, when my baby was placed on me I wasn’t yet back in the room, I didn’t think wow this is my baby. I was still in some other place trying to bring myself back into the room. I delivered the placenta naturally which took 45mins, and unfortunately I was bleeding behind it so lost a lot of blood and later had a blood transfusion. However this didn’t take away from the wonderful birth I had.
I have a healthy baby boy who weighed 3.225kg (7Ibs2oz). He was born at 4:24am. He is absolutely gorgeous and I love him more each day!
I can highly recommend listening to birth affirmations and doing pregnancy yoga as both of these greatly assisted me during my labour. I can also say, if you are in hospital and think you can’t handle the pain, wait another 10 mins before doing anything as the time might pass that you are feeling over whelmed.
Blake and I are looking forward to doing Mums and Bubs yoga in February – so please put us down on your list!
Kind regards,
Chrissy
