I couldn’t have asked for our beautiful girl to have arrived any other way

Bella’s Birth Story

Sydney, Australia
Juliette Francis, 3030 g
38 weeks 5 days
Natural Unmedicated physiological vaginal home birth

Total time in active labour was an hour and a half  Unmedicated and unexpected home birth of our occiput posterior daughter at 38weeks + 4days. Diet controlled Gestational diabetes baby, passed all of her sugars with flying colours 0 complications and the best day of my life!!

Had inconsistent, mild cramps all day from when I woke up till around 7pm. Surges were around 45 seconds to a minute all day and getting slightly more intense but I could still talk through them (no worse than period cramps) till 7pm. Midwives and doula agreed this was consistent with pre labour and because it was so mild I was going to head into the hospital once they got more intense/once my membranes released.

I was reading my book in bed at 7pm when another surge came on, this one went for slightly over a minute and was still fairly mild until I felt a huge ‘pop’ in my lower back. Straight away I had intense back pain and intense cramping for around 5 minutes, I was very vocal and couldn’t move. When it subsided, my husband helped me stand up off our bed and my membranes released.

From there it got quite intense quite quickly. Husband called the birth centre & our doula 7.30pm and started packing the car. At 8pm we were going to head to the hospital but I started feeling the need to push (After only an hour of consistent, intense surges), and I couldn’t stand up or move any longer so my beautiful husband called an ambulance.

The ambulance arrived at 8.20pm, baby girl was born at 8.30pm in our bedroom with our two cats watching

Pushed baby girl out 100% unassisted, trusted my bodies innate wisdom and only had one small graze/tear on each labia. While bearing down, I was on my bed and focussed deeply on relaxing my entire body and making each breath as efficient as possible.

Delayed baby girls cord clamping/cutting until cord was white and no longer pulsating- my Husband cut it in our bedroom with assistance of the paramedics.

Baby latched immediately and we had around 45 minutes of skin on skin before we headed to the hospital in the ambulance.

Once at the hospital I had one stitch on each of my labia (ouch!) And delivered the placenta.

Babygirl and I stayed overnight to make sure her sugars were okay (passed with flying colours) and to monitor my stitches/making sure I could pee.

All in all I think everything happens for a reason and I couldn’t have asked for our beautiful girl to have arrived any other way than in our home surrounded by love.

I really believe my hypnobirthing course as well as all of my prior months of research into main thing a calm and positive mindset helped me immensely.

From my 3rd trimester onwards I only listened/watched/absorbed positive birth stories and refused to be scared or have any fear when it came to birth. Meditating through my most intense surges, viewing every bit of pain as progress with absolutely no fear and focussing deeply on my breathwork were a few of the strategies I used and can’t recommend them highly enough!