Jess’s Birth Story

I felt a bit off most of the day, slept a lot and was generally very anxious. At 8pm my waters broke. By 9pm my first stages of early labour started along with contractions, which were very mild and manageable. I had a tens machine so used that for pain relief as well as my breathing exercises from hypnobirthing and lots of light touch massage.

We had candles and the galaxy light on in the bedroom and calming music while I laboured. As the time went on contractions got more intense and regular, by 1:30am I had been having intense 1 minute contractions three minutes apart for nearly 2 hours- thanks to hypnobirthing and educating ourselves on the whole whole birth process we knew it was time to go to hospital. By the time I got to hospital and was being triaged my contractions were next level intense. Finally got taken into the assessment centre and the midwife said she needed to swab me to test that it was my waters that had broken (prior to labour) even though I had a huge pop and gush of water I knew it wasn’t anything else, plus I was currently in active labour.

She put a speculum inside me and advised that I wasn’t dilated. I couldn’t believe it my heart sunk I didn’t know how it was possible I know my body and knew what I was going through the last 5 hours and I knew my body was getting so close. I was told to come back in 12 hours or be induced. My partner said let’s just go home try to relax and come back. At this point I mentally lost it I said I need to be induced and need an epidural I can’t handle the pain for another 12 hours but with being told in the back of my mind I’m not even 1cm dilated I felt totally deflated and out of body at this point I agreed to leave. The walk back to the car was horrific I was having the most intense contractions I could hardly walk.

When we got to the car I couldn’t sit down properly as it was so painful, so I turnedaround knelt on the chair and straddled it backwards. Ten minutes down the road I felt my body start to push. I knew what was happening but was so confused because I was told I wasn’t dilated. We pulled over on the side of the road I had to get out of the car and walk for a while. I told my partner the baby was coming and I needed to birth her there but I think he was just as confused and wanted to get me home.

We got back in the car and the whole next ten minutes home I could feel my body trying to push her out I thought I was going to birth her in the car. I ran inside and straight into the shower and just squatted but couldn’t get comfortable so I ran back into the bedroom and squatted over the side of the bed. My body was pushing her and I told my partner I could feel her head and he needs to call 000. He called 000 and was on the phone for 2 minutes and within 3 big pushes she was out. He delivered her unassisted, caught her and put her straight onto my chest for skin on skin and covered us in towels. The ambulance lady was lovely and so calm. She stayed on the phone with us to make sure our baby girl and myself were okay.

The ambos turned up about 10 minutes later and made sure we were all okay. I asked them to give me some time to birth the placenta and they allowed me to do so. Ten minutes later I birthed the placenta and they let my partner cut the cord. The ambos took me straight back to the hospital for all of our checks and we had a healthy happy baby girl. I felt so let down by the hospital because I was basically ready to birth my baby in the hospital birth suite in a gentle calm water birth but instead I was told to go home and feel absolutely traumatised from everything after walking out that door.

I wish I had the voice to say I’m not leaving something isn’t right but being a first time mum I just felt I had to trust a medical professional over my own instincts. My partner and I could not have managed this without our hypnobirthing eduction and skills, we are so blessed we chose to do the course. As the time has gone by and I’ve been able to process what happened and work through the difficult 6 weeks post partum from the trauma I feel blessed I was able to experience a completely natural intervention/drug free physiological birth ❤️ bub is now 12 weeks and our biggest blessing ?