Birth story - Carla and baby Amelie

After a very long birth with my first child which resulted in him inhaling meconium and requiring neonatal intensive care, I was very anxious about giving birth a second time. I was eager to have the perfect birth and skin to skin time that I never got with my first and when I found out about the online positive birthing company course I bought it immediately. I particularly liked the science section and began to realise that perhaps a part of my first birth not going according to plan was a result of too much adrenaline in my body. Understanding this really helped ease my anxiety and I began to feel relaxed and even excited about labour.

At 39 + 4 days I accepted a sweep and an aromatherapy induction (using my BRAIN) as meconium aspiration is more likely to occur after 40 weeks. That night I was woken up by my first surges at 1.30am. They were manageable using up breathing. After an hour or so the surges were quite regular and I had my show and I realised maybe this was the beginning of labour. I decided to go downstairs and sat with just the Christmas tree lights on, on my birthing ball watching a Christmas movie to get my oxytocin levels flowing. At around 3am the surges were coming every 3 minutes and felt quite strong so I woke my husband up and went into the shower and listened to my positive birth affirmations. These really helped bring me back down to green after each surge. After a while I could feel my surges getting stronger and as I had a water birth planned I wanted to go the midwifery unit and try the pool in the hope that would help me with the surges. We phoned up the midwifery unit to tell them we were heading in around 5.20am and phoned my parents to come over and look after our toddler. Just before we left (thankfully we only live 5 mins away from midwifery unit) I could feel some pressure in my bum but I still felt that I was quite far away from giving birth.

We arrived at the midwifery unit and were taken into a room right away. The midwife asked me for a urine sample and as I was trying to provide one I felt myself transitioning and immediately knew something had changed. After having an epidural with my first I was very surprised by the natural reaction of my body to push the baby out without me actively pushing. The midwife quickly got me onto all fours on a bed. I shouted for gas and air at this point which helped give me something to focus on and before I knew it baby Amelie was born 20 mins after we arrived at the unit. The documented time of the second stage of labour was 3 minutes! I had delayed cord clamping and skin to skin and it was the most amazing feeling.

I really feel that this course allowed me to have the birth I have always wanted and I hope my story helps people as I really felt reading the positive birth stories helped me. Thank you to Siobhan and the Positive Birth Company. I will recommend your course to every pregnant lady I know!