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Mioki Francis born 31 May 2012

IMG_2497-150x150When I was sleeping next to Jeremie, I felt something popped or banged at my lower belly, and I felt some sensation around there, the one I was getting in the morning before I go to the toilet in the last few days. I think these were like practice surges but not quite, because as soon as I peed, they disappeared. I woke my body up and stood up, and I felt some warm liquid coming out. I knew what happened immediately, got a bit excited about the fact that water broke two days after the show came out.

I put a maternity pad and told Jeremie that water broke. I called a midwife at Mater hospital, how it happened and its colour, she suggested having a shower and eating breakfast then coming to the hospital so that they can check it out. I didn’t want to go to the hospital at this stage but they said they need to check it, and then they might send me home or decide to keep me at the hospital. It was just before 7am.

I had a shower and breakfast, the water kept coming out, and we left the house around 8am. While we were driving to the hospital, I felt some surges, in between 15 to 20 minutes. I was getting excited that we might see him today… or soon. I was still hoping to come home after the check up.

When we got the Mater hospital, a midwife took me to one of the assessment units and she checked how my water was. There was some meconium. I kind of knew it because of its colour, so I wasn’t very shocked, I was prepared for what they might have said the next.

IMG_2470-150x150Due to the meconium, she said they’d need to induce me. Jeremie and I were both a bit disappointed, inducement is not the thing we wanted for our birthing. I was hoping any surges to come very soon. Luckily some surges hit me and we could count in between 5 to 10 minutes by then. They put monitoring belts on me, one for the baby’s heartbeat, another one for my surges.

We had a long conversation with Julie-Ann, one of the midwives there. She sounded nice and honest, when we showed our birth preferences, she read through them and said that it was all good for her.

The birth suites at the hospital were all full, we had to wait in the assessment unit for a while. When we finally could move to the birth suit, my surges were getting a bit more intense, I had to stop walking, grabbed a side bar and focus on breathing on the corridor on the way. It was around 10 or 11am.

The birth suite! I felt we were getting close to THE moment! Jeremie started to set up the environment; putting a CD on, aroma oil to burn, some pictures on the windows. I lay on the bed, trying to relax, and did slow breathing whenever surges were there. I always thought I would have a good amount of time soaking in a tub or having a hot shower when I was at the birth suite since I just love doing it. But I was bundled with monitoring belts, I didn’t bother doing that, the bed was the only thing I wanted. I didn’t even think about an exercise ball, totally forgot it until now.

When we were getting settled, Julie–Ann mentioned that she would talk to Jeremie instead of me, so then Jeremie could pass it on me. So that I could only focus on my birth partner’s voice.

IMG_2483-150x150My surges were getting more frequent and intense, I enjoyed them, and I had a little hope that I might not need to be induced if my surges came more regularly and became stronger. But they were still not quite frequent enough. Julie-Ann told us “Now I better induce you.”

Well, I understood the risks of meconium and everything, and even though I was induced, I could still have a natural birth, so I felt that I had to accept her offer. Also I didn’t my baby to suffer from meconium liquid in a uterus or distressed by something else.

She started to drip the minimum amount of induction hormone. I asked Jeremie to read the deepening relaxation script and rainbow relaxation script, he did the deepening one, I don’t think he finished reading the rainbow one. I was getting more intense surges more frequently, every time I got them, I squeezed Jeremie’s hand and we had to stop whatever we were doing.

Time distortion – it was exactly like that, I lost the sense of time a while ago, I don’t remember what time I was getting the drip, Julie-Ann increased the amount a bit. I was beginning to really struggle with the intense sensations. They just didn’t stop coming over and over, and lasted really long. I realized that I was preparing a lot for the sensation of the birth passage but I sort of forgot about the sensations of surges. I thought I could enjoy them, and had not really thought about it, funny.

At one point, My legs started to shake as the surges were just super intense, I kept doing slow breathing but it was a bit more than I could handle. Then my loveliest husband, Jeremie said, “Just remember the blue satin ribbons around your uterus, very soft and flexible, the longitudinal ribbons gently pulling up the latitudinal ribbons” ….. Wow you can’t imagine how effective that was for me at that time! I felt the tension around my legs had gone and I felt relaxed instantly.

Not long after I started to visualize the blue satin ribbon – not sure, at least I felt so, Julie-Ann undressed me and I remember I felt “Now it is getting very close…!”

Jeremie said I could send the baby down, I was relieved and I felt so much better doing the birth breathing which I had got so used to it from daily routine by then. As soon as I started doing it, I felt my baby around my cervix. Every time I breathed him down, I could feel exactly where he was -it was an incredible feeling, I didn’t expect that I could feel it that much, I can still recall it clearly. He was getting closer to the outside world with each surge, and when each surge stopped, he went back in a bit. He was doing very well, I tried not to hustle anything, but just let him, my body and the surges do their job. About midway, Julie-Ann said I could touch the baby’s head and let my hand touch him –like the rose bud picture. Then a couple of more surges, his head was out, another surge, he was born into my hands and I brought him to my breast. What an amazing, wonderful feeling, I cannot describe in words. There were only about 10 surges after I started birth breathing, and I didn’t feel pain during them, or maybe I was just so amazed to feel all the other feelings.

It was a boy! In a second, he cried a bit in my arms, and got soothed on my breast. How beautiful. He was born at 2:42pm, a 3150g healthy boy. We spent a good few hours bonding with him, and he had his first feed then. When Julie-Ann came and suggested for me to have shower, Jeremie had skin to skin bonding time with him. It was getting dark, time passed so slowly and nicely.

I really appreciate that they let us have that precious time just among us; that much time alone. Julie-A
nn was awesome; she understood what we wanted to do and followed it but kept doing her job really smoothly. I didn’t have any V.I., and she even put a sign on the door that we were doing Hypnobirthing and let others know and keep it quiet without us asking it.

Now we are home nice and cozy. Mioki Francis is a very calm and alert baby.  He loves music and a bath J He’s been growing in 2 weeks, lots of facial expressions and funny faces. We are having a wonderful time with him. My weight got back to pre-pregnancy already and I’m recovering well while Jeremie is doing all the housework – he even bakes biscuits!

We’re so happy that we did Hypnobirthing, it worked very well for both of us, for Mioki as well. Thank you so much Melissa for sharing your experiences and leading us to the very calm and beautiful birth.

IMG_2452-150x150Ryoko, Jeremie and Mioki, Sunnybank, Brisbane.

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