spontaneous labour, Waterbirth, hospital birth, midwife mama.
Below is a lovely birth story from a beautiful mum Brianna, who traveled all the way from Canberra to attend my October class. She also happens to be an amazing midwife! A huge congratulations again to Brianna and her husband Jack on the birth of their beautiful little boy, Darcy 🤍
We were filled with excitement from the first moment we found out about him. But being a midwife in a tertiary hospital birth suite, I was already completely aware of all the endless possibilities of what my birth story may look like. We knew we wanted to dedicate our pregnancy to being a calm and mindful experience, and hypnobirthing seemed like the perfect fit for us. In the weeks leading up to Darcy’s birth, we used daily meditation with music, light touch massage, daily exercise (10,000 steps) and pelvic opening exercises to prepare my mind, body and baby for a calm birth. I woke up at 11pm on my due date, with what I thought was an upset tummy. It took us way too long to realise that we were actually on the way to meeting our baby boy. Contractions became intense quite quickly once we made the realisation. They started coming 5 minutes apart. We set up our bedroom with candles, calming music and clary sage diffusing. I used a TENs machine and the shower for comfort, but I found being on all fours the most comfortable position to be in.
Contractions started coming 2.5-3 minutely after about 3 hours. At this point we contacted our midwife and made our way to the hospital. I was determined to walk up the 3 flights of stairs to the birth centre and I did, only stopping half way for a contraction! Once we arrived, my beautiful midwife met us and had already set up a beautiful birthing space with the bath filled, dimmed lights and oils diffusing. I initially wanted to avoid vaginal examinations to assess dilation for fears of disappointment but decided to ask for one to get a baseline idea of our progress.
We were 7cm already! I’m so glad we decided to do this in the end, it gave me the motivation I needed to keep going!
I jumped in the bath and we ended up having a beautiful water birth 3 hours later. We delayed cord clamping until his cord was white which took about 10 minutes. We did a physiological 3rd stage and his placenta was delivered with a just few pushes after about 30 minutes. We were also able to take Darcy home just 4 hours after meeting him.
Thank you Chloe for helping us prepare for the most memorable day of our lives. I hope Darcy’s birth story will empower another Mumma to trust in her body and have a positive birth experience, just like we had.
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