A Calmbirth® story.
I’m very happy to let you know that our beautiful son Angus Alan was born on 8th Jan.
I had an appointment with our obstetrician on the 8th January 2020 at which time I was 3 days over due date. She checked everything and all was good. She did a stretch and sweep to try and move things along, immediately after which I had a bleed – slightly more than what was normal so I was sent to LGH to go on the ECG as a precaution, again all was fine so we got some lunch and went home.
I felt a little uncomfortable upon returning home, more just like period pain and assumed it was just from stretch and sweep. I had a bit more of my lunch and Nick said why don’t I go to bed and have a rest. He walked me down to our room and I sat on the bed and whoosh that was it, waters broke in a big way! This was approx 4pm and more or less immediately afterwards very strong and close contractions began. Nick quickly stripped the bed and put away our dogs and we hopped into the car. Nick was wanting to time contractions and I was saying no they are close we need to go. He timed a couple once we were on the road as he knew hospital nurses would ask when he called and sure enough they were 2 minutes apart. It was a very uncomfortable car ride for 45 minutes as the contractions were very intense and basically debilitating for me.
I wanted to walk into the hospital but each contraction I would pretty much collapse so I was soon brought a wheelchair and wheeled up. My obstetrician was already there when we arrived so I got wheeled into the birthing suite and was helped onto the bed and she had a look and I was 9cm dilated, which part of me seemed to know as I could feel his head pushing with downward pressure in the later parts of the car trip. Once they had checked fetal heart rate and done a few other things it was time for pushing and very soon afterwards at 7:10pm I had little Angus in my arms (8 pound 1 ounce).
Although everything happened so quickly I am so glad we learnt some calm birth methods and whist there was many we simply didn’t have time to try I know what we did learn at your course really contributed to our quick, safe and stress free birth. Being fast meant very intense contractions straight up which I couldn’t have got through naturally without the calm birth breathing. Even though at the time I’m sure the breathing wasn’t textbook it was the conscious thought to control it that helped both physically and mentally. The other hugely beneficial lesson learned was the ability to relax in all forms of the body and mind between contractions, again if I was tense and unable to let go of tension and relax the process would have taken longer and I imagine been painful. Speaking of pain, apart from my contractions I surprisingly didn’t actually feel pain during the birthing process, it was a positive experience and I think my confident mind set had a lot to do with it. The confident mind set was only instilled in me after attending calm birth.
I really didn’t want to have an induction but previous injuries (broken pelvis) meant my doctor didn’t want me going too far over. Earlier that day I was booked for an induction (which would have been in two days time). When I was told this I knew it was for good reasons but I broke down crying. I actually believe that my strong desire and positive approach to birth naturally and spontaneously forced our baby out that day and didn’t leave us needing that induction!
Bek