Silvia

Silvia’s Birth Story –

December 28, 2022

After a few hot days and some serious nesting, I took myself off to my 37wk appointment with herbalist and acupuncturist, Sarah George. Sarah had supported me beautifully throughout my pregnancy and we took this time to review the final days of pregnancy, birth preparations, and our postpartum period ahead. Sarah felt it was right at this appointment to add in additional points to help with birth and softening my cervix. After my treatment, I sat up on the table to get dressed and to my surprise, felt a small gush of fluid.

I arrived home around midday and shared with Luca that to my complete disbelief, my waters had broken. We contacted our birth doula, Elaine Chua, around 1pm to share that my waters were leaking. Elaine suggested that we rest, eat/hydrate, finish packing our hospital bag and keep her in the loop. By around 2:00pm, after emptying my bowels and feeling a little discomfort walking, I had my first contraction. I felt called to labour on all fours, on our bedroom floor. I consciously moved my pelvis and deep breathed throughout the contractions, which increased in intensity – starting at 5 minutes apart. By 3:30ish, my contractions were 3 minutes apart and Elaine suggest that we contact the hospital to advise them we’d be coming in soon and we’d love a birth suite with a pool.

Luca swiftly drove us to the hospital while I used my deep breathing and peppermint oil on a tissue to work through the surges, also keeping my eyes closed the entire trip. We made it to the birth suite and were monitored while I tried to remain steady in my breathing to work through the contractions, as I found the monitoring quite distracting. We entered the birth pool around 4:30pm and the water immediately relieved me of my body weight and provided us with a serene environment. Luca connected my ‘Rebirth’ playlist by Positive Birth Australia to the pool, kept me hydrated and encouraged me to trust my body. Elaine arrived and immediately mirrored the deep, primal noises I was making and spoke encouraging words of affirmation or encouraged me to rest between contractions. Luca kept me cool with iced cloths and held both of my hands through every contraction, which I found very comforting. The contractions were rhythmic and predictable, especially since I had been watching the clock! So, I switched sides in the birth pool to help get out of my thinking mind and deeper into my body. I suddenly felt my body push!! The involuntary pushing sensation was high in my uterus and completely out of my control. Elaine said to me, “stop trying to think your way through this, stop trying to control, just trust your body & surrender to what it needs to do”. Hearing her words, I felt a sudden shift in myself – so much so, I started swaying in the bath and slowly started to transcend into transition. The involuntary pushing got lower in my uterus and I felt the presence of the baby’s head. I certainly felt ‘the ring of fire’ but remained steadfast in letting my body do its work and continued with my deep breathing, downward sounds and relaxing my jaw. I only ever voluntarily pushed once, visualising holding the baby’s head in position in my birth canal. My body did the remainder of the work, bringing the baby down so I could feel a thick head of hair, waiting patiently to be born into the water.

Moments after at 7:28pm, I lifted the baby up and onto my chest all while being in the depths of the birth portal. Our precious, dark haired baby never made a sound but opened one eye to see the world they had been born into. We stayed this way for some time and only checked the gender when prompted by the midwife – a girl! Luca cut the cord after it had turned white and had his first hold of our sweet baby while I made my way back to the bed for a psychological third stage. We had our precious golden hours, both of us soaking up skin to skin time and begun our breastfeeding journey with the guidance of our doula.

The Calmbirth course with Cherie was one of the very first things we booked and it complimented our work with our doula so beautifully. With Cherie, we moved through our fears and gained such invaluable insight to stages of labour, the power of the breath, the role of hormones, the hospital system, pain management, birth plans, and postpartum. We finalised our birth map together after completing the course and found that the hospital midwives respected our wishes because we were informed about our choices and had considered all scenarios.

Our baby landed on earth so calmly and we both believe it lead to a calmer postpartum period – something we attribute to the course.

I have also found a village through Cherie’s morning teas and it’s been so impactful on my motherhood journey.

Our birth of our baby is what we consider to be perfect (for us), and it’s a day we will cherish in our hearts for eternity. Thank you Cherie for your knowledge, your passion and your care.

Tamara, Luca & Silvia x