Birth story - Ella and baby Bodhi

*Trigger Warning* - Previous miscarriage

Pregnancy -

My pregnancy was pretty amazing and I feel very lucky for that. Previously we had experienced multiple miscarriages so I was feeling a little disheartened when I decided to change my attitude and bring my focus to something else. I really delved into my other baby, my kids yoga business and quickly found out we were pregnant again! My fertility doctor suggested I started taking aspirin and progesterone for the first 12 weeks to support this pregnancy. I took things super slow with no expectations at all, not getting my hopes up and just taking the days like any other day until our first scan. We had one at 9weeks to confirm a heart beat and then another at 13weeks (which is where we unfortunately found out we lost the last baby) So as you can imagine, this scan was a real big milestone for us! This was on Christmas Eve, and we got the all clear, baby was growing strong, fit and healthy… I couldn’t believe it… our next scan was at 20 weeks, Valentine’s Day where we got to see everything.

I honestly thought this was the most amazing thing ever seeing him growing and developing inside me! I was feeling really tired up until around 10 weeks but luckily had no sickness at all. I continued doing yoga, hiking, mountain biking, keeping nice and active and like I said, just keeping up with my normal life! I felt amazing…! All the way up until 24 weeks when started to experience some SPD… so I got a belt which really helped! Yoga and pelvic floor strengthening helped massively too.

At 32weeks I was diagnosed with Bells palsy where I lost the function of the left side of my face. This was quite a bit to navigate as they say it can take up to 3 month to recover and I was a bit a anxious about birthing without full control over my face. Luckily I recovered quickly and with no complications after 2 weeks! Seems as though Bell’s palsy is more common in pregnancy however there is no known cause… Then at 33weeks I developed tinnitus which was just another annoying thing to navigate…

Overall I loved being pregnant despite a few niggley hiccups along the way.

The birth

Wow oh wow where do I start… I guess at the beginning right! On the evening of the 24th June I had 3 random surges which woke me up! I knew this could be the start, however also knew it could still be weeks away so didn’t get my hopes up at all. For the day of the 25th of June I hung out with my partner, step son and some friends, sat in the spa pool and watched movies. Throughout the day I was getting random surges which were completely bearable so just continued on with the day as usual. At some stage in the day I went to the toilet, wiped and a large thick mucus plug was revealed with quite a bit of blood in it too! I assumed it was my bloody show and things were progressing.

As evening set in we decided it might be best for my step son to go to his mums just in case, so she came and grabbed him just after dinner. That night I couldn’t sleep… the surges were bearable still but woke me up every time, so at about 2am I decided it was time to get up and go into the front room… I hung out here by myself in-front of the fire soaking in this calm and sacred time before my life was about to completely change - for the best!

At about 8am my partner got up and I think that made me very excited and got my oxytocin going as shortly after my surges were ramping up. By 9:30 they were 3 in 10 so I asked my partner to call the midwife and just let her know where we were at. I was pretty excited!

The midwife arrived about 11:30am and hung out with us for an hour. My surges were so random while she was here, coming all at once then nothing for 10 mins… just before she left she did an internal check. It was quite uncomfortable and some bleeding began so I was advised to put a pad in. I was 2cm and she let us know that it was likely that we would meet our baby some time in the middle of the night/early morning and just to give her a call to come back when I felt I needed some more support or started to feel like I needed a poo. I went to the toilet and shouted for my midwife to come in as I looked down at my pad. This is when I really had my bloody show!! A massive and I mean massive thick mucusey bloody clot dislodged and left my quite shocked. It wasn’t what I was expecting. She reassured me it was totally normal and it usually is bigger than what people think. And then she left…

As the front door closed I was brought to my hands and knees with a mighty surge! Wow. These then continued back to back until little Bodhi entered the world.

With the intensity of the surges and how the midwife said it would be ages until things actually started to happen, both my partner and I didn’t really know what was happening or if we should be calling her back… I decided I needed to get in the shower. My partner had set up a stool for me to lean over in the shower and slowly between surges guided me in. By this stage my calm breathing was out the window and some very loud animalistic noises took over. (Keep in mind, it was about 1/2pm and we live on a golf course… Tee 3 is right outside the doors of where the birth pool was set up )

Finally my partner suggested we call the midwife back. I think we were both waiting for the other to suggest it as it was so soon! She told him to start filling the pool and she would be right over after hearing me screaming my lungs out in the shower

Because I had such a long shower we unfortunately ran out of hot water. Whoops… My partner managed to fill the pool as much as he could then it was just topped up with the kettle. I didn’t want to get in at this stage as I knew that the pool could slow things down so just hung out leaning over the back of the couch, the birthing ball and my partner.

At 3pm the midwife suggested it was time for another check and to my delight I was 7cm. I knew that now it was time to get in the pool! 12 minutes after being in the pool I felt some intense pressure, my vocals changed to a deep grunt and a want to push kicked in. The midwife then quickly called for the second midwife to arrive and I stared to push my baby out.

At 3:45pm Bodhi’s head was born and I stepped up out of the water. I was encouraged to stay standing now as he had already been exposed to the air and would not be able to go back under. 2 minutes later his body emerged, the midwife caught him and passed him between my legs and to me. I sat back leaning against the pool with my baby boy on my chest. He cried straight away, I cried in response - He was absolutely perfect!

After the birth

I started to get a little cold so decided to get out of the pool and cuddle up on the couch. Little Bodhi latched straight away and we enjoyed this skin to skin feeding time together. Our first family photo was taken and we soaked up the first moments together. Later I started to feel quite uncomfortable with some more pressure. My midwife suggested it was time to deliver the placenta. She told me to stand up and when I felt like it, to push just as I had done before. Out popped the placenta with ease and I felt instantly better.

Bodhi had all his checks and was passed to dad for skin to skin while I was checked over. To my delight I had no tears, just two small grazes, then I had my post birth shower. I was so excited about this - until I got in and we still had no hot water. So I quickly washed off and jumped into some comfy pj’s. The second midwife left soon after doing Bodhi’s checks, then my main midwife hung out with us for about an hour and a half after Bodhi was born, and then left us to it. For the rest of the evening we didn’t move…we ordered pizza and continued hanging out on the couch with our beautiful baby boy.

Over all my pregnancy and birth was amazing! Thankyou PBC for giving me the tools to bring my boy earth side. For me the most beneficial part of the course was learning about all the different stages and knowing what was happening to my body. At one stage I remember as a surge came, I started saying “no no no! I don’t think I can do this…” and as I was saying this out loud, I knew it meant I was going into transition and I would be meeting our baby soon! The most magical feeling in the world.