Lara’s Birth Story

It began on Tuesday the 30th of May, I was a few days past my estimated due date (26th of May) and getting a little bit stressed at my midwife was about to head on annual leave for 2 months. That Tuesday I had the urge to get some finally supplies from the chemist and noticed I was having some contractions while waiting in line, a few of them took my breath away but put it down to braxton hicks as I had been experiencing those for a few weeeks prior.

Fast forward 5 hours I was sitting on the toilet and noticed a little bit of blood on a pad so sent a photo to my midwife she confirmed it was probably very early signs on my mucus plug, this followed by contractions had me feeling hopeful that tonight could be the night.

I began to apply the breathing techniques from hypnobirthing the more intense the contractions became trying to avoid using my tens or water until I couldn’t handle anymore, I then jumped in the shower until my contractions were 2 minutes apart.By now it was around 10pm and felt like I use some more pain relief so began using the tens machine but started feeling a little out of control so decided to make our way to the hospital.

It wasn’t until I got into the birthing suite that the lights and change of environment really effected my mental state and I became quite emotional and struggled to cope with just the breathing techniques, I began using the gas however my contractions had completely backed off and my midwife decided to get my dilatation, I knew anything below 3cm would have devastated me but I needed some sort of indicator to give me some perspective, luckily I was 5cm by then and this gave me the boost I needed.

My body started up the contractions and so I moved to the shower with the help of the gas and the heat I spent the next 4 hours on my knees, rocking back and forth. I found myself in a rhythm of rocking and horse breathing making loud animalistic noises, all helping to relaxing my jaw and pelvic floor.

Finally, I heard my husband and midwife say if I reach down I’ll be able to feel my babies head, I remember that gave me all the strength I needed to get my baby out, after several attempts at pushing babies head out and in I felt I huge sense of relief when the head was finally out. At 5.54am I grabbed him and pulled him to my chest…. It’s a boy I screamed through tears.

It was like the past 4 hours melted away as I looked at our perfect little man. After the haze of the birth I heard words like hemorrhage and second-degree tear none of which even mattered in that moment nor in the coming days because he was finally here, perfect in all his glory. Our little Navy.