Birth story - Audrey and baby Kaia

I am still so over the moon I got to experience a water birth with the birth of my daughter, and being in my second pregnancy as I write this, I am hoping for a similar positive birth with my second. I loved reading all the positive birth stories on here, and I think it’s finally time I get to share my story.

I am hoping this story touches other mums-to-be who are expecting a ‘bigger than average’ baby, that you can still have a natural birth despite the fears and anxiety that comes along with it. If I can do it, you can do it too - Believe in yourself, and use the breathing techniques that PBC teach to get through each surge, and equip you with strength to birth your baby out. Your body knows what it’s doing, so surrender and let nature do it’s thing.

Pregnancy

“You’re going to have a big baby… there’s no way you’ll be giving birth naturally” is what the sonographer told me during my 36 week ultrasound. Full of confidence and positivity throughout my whole pregnancy up until that point, it was like someone switched off the bright light I had around me, and I was stuck in complete darkness with no direction, no joy, no hope. It was hard to block out that noise when it hit me, as I was also receiving a lot of noise from people on how “big” I was looking… it always felt like a small dagger that was jabbing at my self-esteem when I heard that 3-letter word. B I G. To help with drowning out my own fear of birthing a big baby, I remembered a saying: “When people throw stones at you, collect them and build yourself a beautiful monument.” My only goal during pregnancy was to birth a healthy baby, no matter how I gave birth - I saw my body as the vessel to transport my baby girl safely from the womb to the outside world… And if I could do that naturally, that would be fantastic, but I was also open to any other method if needed, as long as the health of the baby was prioritised.

Having a “go with the flow” attitude was very good for my mental health, I basically trusted in Mother Nature to take the lead. Each time I heard someone say the word “BIG,” even if it was unintentional and just stating the obvious - I collected that stone and continued to build that beautiful monument with it. BIG then became “Brave, Invincible, Goddess”. The size of my baby was exactly the size it needed to be, and my body was built to carry this baby. Positive vibes is what my baby needed, not anxiety or fear. I kept feeding myself with these positive affirmations, along with at-home prenatal yoga, and the choice to surround myself with positive people. Along with an extremely supportive husband, I am grateful to have had a supportive midwife too (I was in the midwifery program at the hospital) who believed in me, and kept me feeling confident despite the risks of having a big baby.

During one of the midwife visits in late-pregnancy, she legally had to bring in the doctor to explain what could go wrong during a natural birth, and what options I’d got to intervene with the process. The doctor was actually very calm with me, and at the end of his explanation, he gave me one look and said “I’m sure you’ll just cough this baby out” which made us all laugh. The doctor basically said I CAN do this.

I also did one birth class with my partner (one that my midwife recommended) which we found extremely informative to prepare us for labour. The teacher was also a midwife who was very pro-natural birth, and boosted my confidence even more saying it’s ACTUALLY EASIER when your baby is bigger, as gravity is on your side when in an upright position. We watched an emotional video of a mum she assisted during birth - it was a natural water birth and the baby came out 4.5kg (10lbs) without any pain relief of interventions. I found this mind-blowing, knowing it was possible to birth out a big baby.

I was very excited, but also still needed some practical tools to prepare myself for what was to come. This is when I came across PBC on Youtube in my last two weeks of pregnancy - I watched the hypnobirthing videos to get an understanding of what hypnobirthing was, and the biggest takeaway for me was the breathing. I practiced up-breathing each day to relax, and down-breathing when I felt like needing to do a poo. As strange as it sounds, it actually helped a lot to prepare me for “the day”. I had the best tool in my toolkit ready to use - my breath.

Labour

At 5am on Thursday, 11th March 2021 - two days before my due date, as well as my husband’s birthday - I felt the urge to do a poo. But a few trips to the bathroom and no signs of poo, just an upset stomach, I realised that it was probably the contractions starting. I told myself the party was just getting started. The surges were happening every 10 minutes, so I woke my husband up to firstly tell him ‘happy birthday my love,’ and secondly ‘I think I’m in labour,’ which got us both very excited. He helped me put the TENS machine on, so for each surge I would use that along with listening to meditation music to focus on up-breathing (4 seconds in, 8 seconds out).

My husband took the day off and as I was just focusing on my breathing, he went to go play golf early morning, and came straight home after to be by my side during the rest of the day. I kept myself distracted by bouncing on the exercise ball, playing playstation and video editing (a passion and profession). At lunchtime, we decided to head out for lunch while I still had the TENS machine on, lots of walking around and movement helped. By the time it was 5pm, the surges stopped completely, so I decided to take a nice long nap. After my nap, I had an urge to go to the toilet and saw my mucus plug come out. It was all progressing quite nicely.

In the early evening, my husband’s immediate family came over to wish him happy birthday, and knowing I was in early labour, they didn’t stay too long in case we had to rush to hospital. I found that having the family over was very helpful in keeping me distracted from the lower back pain I was experiencing, as the focus was on my husband. We got to enjoy a lovely homemade cake my mother-in-law made (mango cheesecake!) and sang happy birthday. Once everyone left, my husband and I just watched Disney movies in the lounge room while I was bouncing on the exercise ball and rocking on the rocking chair.

We went to bed, and around midnight I felt the surges start again - so I decided to have a nice warm bath around 1am, focusing on my breath and positive affirmations in a dimly lit room. This helped with getting me relaxed. After a while, the surges started getting stronger, roughly 5 minutes apart. Eventually it started even closer together, around 3 minutes for 50 seconds long - it was around 4am when I felt a strong urge to do a poo.. I woke up my husband to contact the midwife (she was already prepared as we gave her the heads up in early labour) and she said it was time to head to the hospital.

The trip in the car was very unpleasant - but at least it was a quick 10 minute drive as there were hardly any cars on the road. We got to the hospital at 4:30am. It was a different midwife who saw us, but a very lovely midwife from the same Midwifery group. She asked if I’d like an epidural, but I kindly declined. What was going through my head was “your body knows what it’s doing”, and “women have been giving birth without pain relief for centuries” so I trusted my gut and went ahead with my decision. I did take the gas though!

After filling up the paperwork and making our way to the birth centre, it was around 5am when we entered the room and I was asked if I would like to get checked on the bed - I said yes. To everyone’s disbelief, I was already 7cm dilated, my husband was mostly the shocked one as I was still so calm and relaxed (thanks to PBC!) The midwife asked where I would like to labour, and I chose the bathtub. We set up flameless LED candles everywhere, dimmed the lights, and had meditation music playing on the speaker while my supportive husband kept me hydrated with coconut water (I didn’t feel like eating anything!) while he kept himself energised with all the snacks we packed in the hospital bag.

Whist I was in the warm bath, I felt really good, between each surge I experienced no pain at all, just had casual conversations with my husband who was sitting out of the bathtub holding my hand the whole time. At some point, the midwife said she was going to changeover with another midwife - a lady who I’ve never met, but I was fine with it as I believed my body knew what to do.. The new midwife came along to greet me in the tub, and a midwife student came along too. I was heaps chill in the bathtub that I didn’t mind the new faces who came along to greet me. They left us be, just my husband and I, while they monitored how my birth was progressing from the back room. I really felt like it was just myself and husband getting through most of the labour.

Each surge came like a wave of intense pain. I kept reminding myself that each contraction was a step closer to meeting my baby. I kept inhaling the gas, but honestly the best pain relief was my breathing. I kept my gaze on a blue-tinted window above me which was sort of mesmerising in between each surge. It started getting stronger and stronger, and it became the most painful thing I have ever experienced - I was starting to regret not having the epidural, but at the same time, I knew I was getting close. And then the most surreal thing happened - I heard a big ‘pop’ sound, and that was my waters finally breaking (in the bath tub!) From then on, I was sort of in an out-of-body experience, where I just completely surrendered and let my body do what it needed to do.

I was trembling all over with an adrenaline rush, apparently the sounds I made were becoming deeper and more “mooo” like, and the midwife came over a few times to check the tub with a flashlight, and then would disappear again. Allowing my body to take control, I turned around from a seated position to a squat-like position, leaning on the railings and holding onto my husband - a big contraction started and I pushed - that’s when I heard the midwife from behind me say in a calm voice “there’s the babies head, give it one more push and she’s out” and from those words, I prepared for the next wave, and felt like a primal animal with the sounds I was making. The next urge to push came, and with all my strength I pushed out the entire baby in the water. The midwife caught her and then put her straight onto my chest as I sat in the bathtub.

The feeling of incredible accomplishment flooded my body, I couldn’t stop smiling. Honestly, I was just so happy it was finally over. My husband who was still holding onto me was crying with joy, and said “you did it!” And it was the best feeling in the world. We were lucky we had the midwife student in the room, as she instinctively picked up my phone to take some gorgeous photos of this moment. Our baby girl was born at 9:55am on Friday 12th March, a day after my husbands birthday, and 5 days before my birthday. She is the greatest gift we could ever have asked for.

Looking at my babies’ squishy face, holding her in my arms covered in all the vernix (which smelled amazing) and feeling her soft skin was the most beautiful thing ever. It was also incredible seeing her turn from a blue colour to a pinky red after she started crying. So, so incredible. The midwife said that it was almost time to birth the placenta, so she passed the baby to my husband as I sat on the bathtub edge with my legs spread apart, and as the final contraction started, she said “1..2..3” and gently pulled the umbilical cord to help me birth the placenta. My husband had the duty to cut the umbilical cord - it was harder than it looked as it took him a few attempts - we laughed about it.

I was on another level of “high” that I did not even feel a thing but euphoria, it was only when my husband and I were lying on the birth centre bed when she informed us that I lost a bit of blood (750ml) which is considered a postpartum haemorrhage, so I needed to be on an IV drip and stay an additional day in hospital if I choose to have an iron infusion (which I gladly took). Then the shocking news came when they weighed the baby on the scales - 4.8kg (10.5lbs)! The midwives were so shocked, and gave us a few high fives, along with the midwife saying she’s texted all the other midwives in her Whatsapp group to inform them on the news. It made me feel like I’d just done something ‘impossible’, I felt very empowered and felt a need to celebrate this. I kissed my husband who was the best support partner anyone could wish for.

After a few cuddles with our new baby girl, I passed the baby back to my husband as I went to get stitched up (I had a second degree tear) and was given gas so I felt nothing, just felt a bit loopy. The same midwife did my stitches and even helped me get into the shower afterwards as I was feeling a little light-headed. But after lying back down, getting into comfortable clothes, eating a bit, I started feeling better, and got to snuggle again with my baby.

We stayed at the hospital for 3 days due to the postpartum haemorrhage, and I did have a few big blood clots, but nothing too concerning. The focus was then learning how to breastfeed as I struggled with getting the right positioning and attachment, but the nurses at the hospital were all amazing and helpful with their tips and tricks. It took a while to sink in that I birthed a larger than average baby, and it’s all completely possible.

I hope this story inspires anyone who has been told their baby is “big”, and is feeling scared or is being told that a c-section is the only option. With the right techniques, positive mindset and a positive attitude, that you can also birth a big baby naturally, you’ll be awesome!