Aurora was 5 weeks old on Saturday and we are just writing now to tell you about the birth. As I’m sure you know, we have been busy adjusting and getting over a few hurdles.
Aurora’s labour/birth took place over about 4 days, so instead of boring you with all the details (which is probably why it’s taken so long to write her birth story) we will cut a long story short. The labour began on the 23rd of January after our first round of acupuncture at 41 weeks + 5 days. We didn’t realize it was early labour until we spoke to our midwife the following day. Unfortunately, by Thursday morning, early labour surges had fizzled out. We went through the same process of acupuncture, surges and stalled labour Thursday and again Friday with some early surges up to 6 minutes long. By the early hours of Saturday morning (Australia day), the surges were more regular and intense. We finally got to fill our birthing pool and were excited to be meeting our baby soon. Labour continued into daylight before stalling again. At this point, we decided to see how far dilated we were. We were 9 cm dilated, but waters hadn’t broken, our baby had a capet on its head and there was a cervical lip preventing the baby from descending. We tried different positions in water and on land to encourage waters to break, but ended up requiring an ARM just before lunchtime. I finally felt urges to bear down, but the cervical lip was still in the way and I was exhausted. On the advice of our midwife, it was at this stage that we decided to head to hospital for an epidural in the hopes that it would relax the muscles enough to clear the cervical lip. We were disappointed to leave our homebirth but we were all exhausted. In the car and on the way into the hospital, the surges were coming one on top of the other with incredible power. We had the epidural which did its job, so we asked for the epidural drip to be turned off so I could feel the sensations and birth naturally. Unfortunately, after a couple of hours, although we could feel the baby’s head, she was not descending. By this time we didn’t have many options left, so were wheeled into theatre to see if a ventouse or forceps delivery was possible and if not we would have to have a caesarean section. After an examination, the obstetrician decided that the baby was too high up for anything other than a caesarean section. We consented and at 2318hrs on Australia Day (at 42 weeks + 1 day), Aurora Ming-Gwong was brought into the world. For months, I struggled with the affirmation “I am willing to calmly accept whatever turn my birthing takes”, until I was lying on that table with no other options left, but my worst nightmare – a c-section, that I was finally able to accept what it meant and as a result, I was able to come to terms with the outcome of our birth right there and then. I feel like I did everything possible in our aim for a natural birth, and as a result, I have no regrets. Afterwards, we found out that the reason our baby had not descend was due to a short cord (approx. 30cm versus the typical 1 to 1.5m length) Hypnobirthing allowed us to celebrate our baby’s birth, despite the unexpected outcome, I used my breathing and affirmations throughout the labour and Aurora has been smiling since Day1. During the pregnancy, the Rainbow Relaxation, Surge of the Sea, and scripts was used to overcome insomnia and provide relaxation. We’ve used the fear release to clear our minds of negative images, words and fears. And it also helped us through the very late stages after our due date as we anxiously awaited the arrival of our baby.