Overall it was a beautiful birth, especially the beginning when I was walking with Eugene around the neighbourhood, and of course, the end when we met our baby girl.

Thank you so much for all your support throughout all my births. Our family is now complete and I’m so happy. I’m certain all my births have been a success because of the hypnobirthing techniques.

This birth felt very different to my previous 3 births. For a start I got a lot of practise surges in the lead-up to the actual day. I did not get many practice surges with my other pregnancies, therefore it was really confusing me about if it was go time or not. My surges were most intense at about 4am. A couple of times I questioned if I should wake hubby or not. This went on for about 5 days. By 6am, the surges were gone and I went about my day as normal. Having this happen a few nights in a row left me feeling very tired. On Monday night I decided to reach out for help. I booked a time to chat with Melissa on the phone the following morning. I also already had a midwife appointment lined up for that day. I did my best to get a really good sleep that night and actually felt a little more rested the following day (Tuesday).

Melissa helped me feel a lot more relaxed after our phone conversation, reminding me that baby will come in perfect timing. My ‘assignment’ was to allow oxytocin to flow by surrounding myself with what I love most – my family. So that’s what I did for the rest of the day. My midwife appointment went well, however they had me thinking that baby still wasn’t fully engaged, therefore it’s possible baby was still some days away. However, being my 4th baby, we all knew things could change quickly. And that’s what happened. I went home, stayed relaxed and told myself it’s okay if she takes another few days before her arrival. I was hoping she (baby) would help me sleep better that night and I could have a break from the practice surges. She has other plans. At 6pm I was getting confident that she was actually on her way. I had small manageable tightenings through the evening. In the hopes to help things along, my husband and I walked around the neighbourhood. This really helped me get in the zone.

I practiced my breathing and relaxing as each wave came and went. We got the kids to sleep. I stood and rocked my 2 yr old in my arms hoping the rocking would help the birth progress. With the kids asleep, my husband got out the exercise ball. I moved between resting on the bed and sitting on the birth ball. As it got close to midnight, I thought for a moment maybe my waters broke. But I wasn’t certain. We decided to head to the hospital. Whether it was my waters or not, things were definitely progressing. We got to the hospital and set up in the birth suite. It happened to be the same birth suite I had my son in 2 yrs earlier. My husband put my TENs machine on. The midwife then mentioned some protein had been found in my urine during my earlier midwife appointment and they wanted to cannulate me just incase I needed fluids later.

I talked to my husband about it because I was very reluctant. I was still feeling very calm and thought I could handle it if they did it now, rather than later.  So I layed on the bed for them to cannulate me and check how dilated I was. Unfortunately it took 4 attempts to cannulate me. I remember just looking at my husband each time as the stress got higher and he could tell I was starting to lose the calm I had. He was feeling stressed. After 3 people and 4 attempts, they got it. They also let me know (with my permission) that I was 8cm dilated. So I thought I could just get back into the position I felt most comfortable and everyone would leave me alone. I was using the TENs machine and asked for the gas. The midwives then asked to monitor baby just for 10 minutes so they could know baby was safe. I wish I said no to this.

But I thought 10 minutes of monitoring wouldn’t be an issue. However, the monitor kept moving and they couldn’t get 10 minutes straight for their records. So they kept the monitor on for the rest of the birth. Thankfully that wasn’t much longer. I soon could tell I was in transition. I suddenly had to readjust my position, sending the silly monitor off again. The midwife had her arm wrapped around me trying to keep it on. In that moment, I asked my husband what the hell they were doing. He knew I was in transition and reassured me.

He told me not to worry about them and that I knew what I needed to do. He reminded me to breathe and bare down. With the small distractions by the monitor coming off, I lost it for a moment and screamed from the pressure. But thankfully our bodies know what to do even in those moments. Without me consciously doing anything, my body just pushed my beautiful baby girl out at 2:30 Wednesday morning  It was so good to have her earth side. The relief from the past week, and just the relief that my final birth experience was coming to an end felt good. My family was complete. I was thankful the cannula never got used. Birthing the placenta was straightforward and happened while I was having skin-to-skin time with baby. She had her first breastfeed, getting some colostrum. Once we had skin-to-skin, I was able to have that wonderful first shower after birthing my baby and it felt amazing. After having some food, I headed to the ward where I stayed until about midday when I got to take my baby girl home to meet her brothers and sister.