Birth story - Emily and baby Willow

Just wanted to drop you a line with my birth story after reading the book and doing the online course. I feel incredibly lucky and humbled to have had such a quick and straight forward, positive birth with your help.

My surges started at around 2am on 19th September 2019 at 37 + 3 - I always knew she’d be early and was ready for the contractions when they came. I’d bought the course and read the book very early on so I could be as informed as possible and start practising all the breathing etc.

My waters started leaking at about 3am and the hospital told us to come in to have them checked - all fine and we were sent home to rest up and hope labour progressed naturally otherwise it would be an induction the next day. Something I was trying to avoid.

At home, I sent my husband to bed and made my self a big bowl of porridge. Then I went to the lounge and made a nest on the floor with cushions and blankets and tried to watch a film. As the surges progressed I started using my breathing techniques and getting into different positions - on all fours was a really comfy one for me.

By about 11am things were getting more intense so I went and took a shower with the shower head pointing on my lower back. This seemed to speed things up even further and from this point things really got going. I knew it was time to go to hospital as I couldn’t talk through my surges and even pulled down the towel hooks on the back of the bathroom door much to my husbands dismay. The journey to the hospital, although only 15 mins felt like a lifetime! And we got stuck behind a bus on the motorway...

We got to triage and I kept practising my breathing and started listening to my relaxing music playlist. I felt in a lot of discomfort at this point and was asking for pain relief - they didn’t have gas and air ready for me so I continued on with the breathing. I was examined soon after and was at 4cm. By 2pm we were invited to the birth suite with birth pool - a dream come true as there were only 2 in the hospital.

I got in the pool after some gas and air and it definitely eased the discomfort a bit - I started feeling the urge to push quite soon after getting in and my midwife said I could just go with it. I found the gas and air really helpful for this bit.

Willow was born very quickly at 4pm in the water - weighing a very healthy 7lb 5oz (for being early!) - the most magical memory for me was feeling her head crowning and then when it was out, her moving around like a little fish in the water while I waited to birth the rest of her.

I delivered the placenta as I had chosen with the injection to speed it up and had one stitch with some gas and air.

I feel so honoured and lucky to have had my dream birth and couldn’t have done it without the positive birth company.

It was definitely the hardest and most challenging thing I’ve ever done- I can’t even describe the power of it - and I’m not saying it was a breeze but the positive birth company really did help me through it and empowered me. I never once had any fear about the birth....even when I was in labour.