My waters started leaking on Saturday 26/10 around 5pm after coming home from a walk, I started to get some surges off and on, but nothing frequently until the next morning, but we set everything up that night for our home water birth. The next day at around 6 am my surges really started kicking in so I called our midwife, Kelli. She told me to start timing them. At 8am they started getting closer together. Kelli Zakharoff came over around 10 am to help things along and our student midwife, Brylee, came soon after that, and then my sister in law. All of my support team was there including my parents who were already filling up the birth pool.
Everything seemed to be progressing really well, I was listening to my hypnobirthing tracks and nothing else, which helped me stay focused and Grant did amazing at giving me encouragement! I could honestly say I didn’t associate anything I was feeling with pain. I was actually enjoying my labour! Things progressed more and I got into the pool. We thought it was almost time for our baby to arrive, but Kelli wasn’t seeing any physical signs that he was near, so we decided she should check my dilation (that was at 4pm) and found that I was only 1cm dilated. I was crushed. I had a feeling something wasn’t right, but I didn’t want to accept it and feel like I had given up. We discussed our options and decided to do some hard work at home and in a few hours we would check again. Kelli thought it might be a good idea to send everyone away to see if that helped, so my parents left with my sister in law. I did a lot of stomping up and down the stairs and bouncing really hard on my birthing ball. My surges got a lot more intense, and really hard to cope with, I kept thinking the end has to be insight because everyone says just as you want to give up, that is when the baby is soon to come.
Well at around 9pm I was checked again… Only 2cms. We knew it was time to transfer to the hospital. I was heartbroken, but knew it was the right thing to do. Kelli called ahead of time so everything was ready when we got there at around 10pm (longest car ride of my life!) and I went straight into a birthing suite. I got SO lucky as my midwife there was familiar with hypnobirthing! She was really great. Her voice even sounded like yours, Melissa, which soothed me and helped me to concentrate. Soon after we arrived, my membranes completely released,. It was the strangest feeling! My body was in the bearing down stages for quite some time, at least it thought it was. We soon found out that our bub was facing up, so his head wasn’t placing any pressure on my cervix. My body was uncontrollably pushing something that wasn’t there. It was horrible. I got an epidural somewhere between 12-1:30 am. My body could finally relax. It reminded me where it says in the book that back in the day there were no records of birth being painful except when there was something wrong, which in my case there was, and I was so grateful to be relieved of that pain. Wade never fully descended and I had to have a caesarean, and I ended up with a fever so they put me on antibiotics, which meant Wade would have to be put on antibiotics as soon as he came out :(.
At 6 am They wheeled me to the theatre, I was so scared to have a c-section (they make the procedure out to be way worse than it is), but the staff were wonderful and talked to me to distract me, one even took pictures so Grant could stay with me. On Monday the 28th of October at 6:25 am (after about 22 hours of labour) our baby was born and held up to us, and he was the most beautiful thing! I couldn’t wait to hold him! He weighed 9.5 lbs and 51cms long. When I finally got to hold him, he was so alert and even tried to go straight to my breast! Even though I didn’t have the birth I wanted, and everything turned out complete the opposite of that, my baby got here and was perfect; nothing else mattered
I am so grateful for my husband, I could not have gone that long at home, or anything without his support. He constantly reminded me to breathe and gave loving words of encouragement. He knew exactly what I needed to do and hear. Kelli and Brylee were constantly there to help me along ” they even stayed at the hospital with me until 5 am. Kelli was so great in helping us remember the things Grant and I wanted to do and not do. I couldn’t have asked for a better midwife. I loved my entire support team. When things were tough and I was disheartened, they boosted me up.
The thing I tell everyone though, when talking about my birth, was that hypnobirthing saved my life. I had the bearing down surges for about 5 hours straight. I don’t think anything else could have helped but the relaxation techniques and breathing I learned.
Thank you so much Melissa for your class and all the information you give 
Alison and Grant, Durack, Queensland
