Birth story - Fernanda and baby Philip

*Trigger Warning* - Contractions (not bad for me)

I was always someone that wanted a c-section as culturally it is very common in my home country. Thankfully I signed up to the Positive Birth Company and that totally changed my mind and made me realise how beautiful and natural the delivery can and should be!

My pregnancy went really well with no complications, so I decided to wait for my baby to decide when to come out. At 40+5 I decided to do a sweep to try to accelerate the process a little, but unfortunately my cervix was completely closed. I tried 2 days later and still it wasn't possible, so we made an appointment to place the balloon. At 41+4 I went to the hospital and they placed the balloon and luckily I was 1cm dilated already, by the end of the day the balloon fell, which made me very happy to know that I was at least 3cm dilated and things were moving.

The surges started to come, but they were still not strong.

The next day at 6pm my midwife came to my house and broke my water, when this was done we found out that we had meconium in the water so we went quickly to the hospital to start monitoring the baby. At this point I was 3cm dilated.

We got at the hospital at 6:30pm and on arrival I was 4/5cm dilated already.

After 2hrs they checked on me again and I was still at 4/5cm but baby had descended a little more. To be honest, I was a little disheartened to know that I didn't dilate more even though my surges were quite strong. At this moment I asked for the epidural, as I thought I could not make it.

Fortunately, I had a great midwife that encouraged me to continue naturally as I was breathing well and she thought I could make it. I thought for a bit and decided to ask for the birthing pool and to continue trying the natural way.

This helped to add a little bit of oxytocin to accelerate the process. During the contractions I kept repeating a mantra "I control my body, my body does not control me!". And with no time another 2.5hrs had passed by.

The midwife asked me to jump on the bed to check my cervix and at this point I was 8cm dilated. She asked me to go back to the birthing pool but I was not able to move anymore as the contractions were really strong and I was pushing with the contractions too.

Her shift was over and she went to call the new team, but as soon as she went out the pushing contractions got even stronger.

Once the team was back in I was fully dilated and ready to push.

From the last check, it took only 35min for baby to be born.

I have never felt so empowered, strong and happy in my life. I really never thought that I could make it! I really feel that this was only possible because of the course.

My husband also did the course with me which made him an advocate for me and helped me to stay calm and confident in the whole process.