Rose’s Birth Story
Luna Rose, 4.05kg
40 + 2
I was one of the lucky women who went through early labour every night for a week before our beautiful baby was born. Each night my surges became closer together and were more intense, only to stop all of a sudden in the early hours of the morning!
On the day Luna was born, the labour started at 2am. At 10:30am the surges were very close together and we phoned our midwife. We were encouraged to stay home for longer, but being first-time parents we wanted to get checked out so we went in to the Family Birthing Centre. I was close to 4cm dilated and so we went home again after a stretch and sweep to labour for as long as I could! We were fortunate that the stretch and sweep worked really well for us. My surges ramped up quickly, and my abasing husband encouraged me through the most intense and amazing thing my body has ever gone through! He knew that it would help me to not talk about time and relate my experience to running a marathon. He would say things like “you’ve run 30 kms and done all the hard work. You’ve got 10 kms to go”. He also did some amazing acupressure for hours, helped me in and out of the outdoor bath and the shower, helped me with the TENS machine, and was there for me through it all.
When I thought I had to give up, he believed in me, and got me to the point where I needed to be! We returned to the hospital at approximately 5:00pm and I was 6-7cm dilated. Our amazing midwife turned up and told me the bath was already running and I was so relieved and felt really empowered to have made it to this point! I used the gas, and this really helped. As did the incredible massage our midwife performed! It was amazing. I was in the bath soon after that which was also amazing.
I felt so much calmer once I got in, and I breathed through the surges while Christian performed acupressure massage on my hands, and provided constant encouragement and care. We also played our birth playlistwhich really helped to create a comfortable environment as music is really important in our lives. We can’t exactly remember but we think I was actively pushing for 1.5 to 2 hours, with some time spent out of the bath as our midwife recommended a different position for a little while, and our incredible, beautiful, healthy baby girl was born into the water and into my arms at 9:10pm!
We have been incredibly stoked with the support we received from our amazing team at the Family Birthing Centre, and the amazing knowledge and skills we both gained from the fantastic hypnobirthing course and our awesome teachers Amy and Renee. We can’t thank everyone enough for preparing us so well for the most important day of our lives to date!