Jemma’s Birth Story
Melbourne
Sebastian 3.3kg
39+4
Natural water birth
At 39+4 I woke up in the morning at 7 and felt super disappointed that I was still pregnant, and had been becoming increasingly impatient as my due date was coming close. I went back to sleep and woke up at 8:30am to my waters breaking – I told my husband and we were aware that it was probably going to be a slow day with lots of bouncing on the ball and distractions. At 10:30am I had my first period pain-like sensations so I popped on my TENS machine and called my midwife to let her know. By about 11:30am my contractions were becoming incredibly intense already, lasting around 50 seconds and coming every 2.5 minutes.
I had a few thoughts of if I’m going to have a whole day of this I’m not sure if I will make it. I utilised a number of positions through contractions such as laying on my side, being on all fours, standing, rocking, and lastly in the shower (water was my ultimate pain relief). My contractions continued like this and around 1:30pm I made the decision to go to the hospital as I felt walking in there would be difficult with the current intensity. I got to the hospital close to 2pm (I believe I may have been transitioning at this point but I wasn’t aware), my midwife offered me a vaginal examination but after watching me go through a contraction she said it wasn’t necessary to see where I was at.
The spa was filled immediately when I arrived as I had requested a water birth – I was feeling intense pressure at this point and was finding it hard to breathe through the contractions. I hopped in the spa and after about 10 minutes I reached down and I could feel his head and the hair on his head, I literally could not believe it – all of the sudden I realised I was way closer to giving birth than any of us thought. His head came down and went back up for the next few contractions, I used my breath to try to breathe my baby out and let my body do the pushing for me. I felt that the sensations and urges during this pushing and then crowing phase felt so much more productive and manageable than contractions as I knew I was about to meet my baby.
The whole time I would put my hand on my perineum to feel the stretch and use counter pressure (I learnt this in hypnobirthing), after 39 minutes in the spa baby Sebastian was born into my husbands hands and was gently held under the water for a few moments and lifted onto my chest! Absolutely euphoric. I had requested to be given an hour to try to birth my placenta naturally, when I stood up to get out of the bath my midwife asked if I’d like to try one push to get the placenta out which I did and it came out instantly while Sebastian was still attached to the cord. We did delayed cord clamping and my husband cut it.
I literally had the most incredible, dream birth. It’s 3 weeks later and I’m still on cloud 9. I owe so much of that to hypnobirthing and the knowledge and power we got from that to be informed and to visualise our dream birth. My healing and postpartum has been equally beautiful and I’ll be forever grateful to Mel from little bird flies hypnobirthing.