Birth story - Ines and baby girl

First of all, thank you Positive Birth Company for an amazing encouragement through the digital pack! I don’t think I would have made it through my delivery positively without it.

Short version - My surges started on Tuesday 4th December, but since by this stage I was so far gone past my due date and have been feeling a lot of surges and Braxton hicks I didn’t want to get too excited so I went to bed as normal. At 3 am that night I noticed a difference in the intensity and feel of the surges, something inside me started telling me that this is actually happening. I also noticed increase in bowl movement and remembered that this is also a sign of labour approaching. As the day progressed I noticed the intensity Increased and surges became more powerful so my husband reminded me of breathing techniques we had learned on the digital pack and he made sure I returned back to green after each surge. At this stage they were every 5 minutes. I did also notice that my baby was moving less after each surge and after about 3 hours of reduced movement my husband decided we should be seen to make sure the baby is coping well.

While at the hospital my surges picked up and were now at 3 minutes apart. Baby was recovering well and we decided that we would go home to continue to labour. Once we got back in the car (11pm) I noticed a much stronger surge and had to really take a moment to breath through it and from then on the surges were very intense. But we still used BRAIN and decided to go home to labour as we knew first babies take long. So we went home and I laboured in a bath, shower, walking all day. They became very intense throughout the day and we didn’t get any sleep on the night of the 5th of December.

December 6th the surges were 2 minutes apart and at 10am we decided to head to hospital and get examined. I was confirmed 3 cm at 10:30 am. We were now told that the baby has flipped and is not in a favourable position for fast labour and that the labour ward was full. So we waited for a room to be available (which took 2 hours) and laboured in the hallways of the hospital.

When my room was ready I had a big wobble and I felt exhausted to have laboured for so many hours. Once admitted at the hospital I was examined at 13:00 and I was still 3 cm. At this stage I had hyperventilated and also had gotten quite sick , which was explained as exhaustion so I was offered an epidural to try and relax my body to help dilate. Before labour in my birth plan I had said no to epidural, but since I felt exhausted I agreed to having it administered. Roughly 3 hours passed and I had progressed to 8 cm and my waters were broken! Then at 6pm I was at 10 cm and my epidural had worn off. I was able to feel surges to gently breath my baby out. It only took 12 minutes for my baby to be born!

Even though I didn’t fully last on breathing through surges and did take epidural, I feel so proud of myself as well as my husband for we laboured together for more 40 hours before epidural. I did have a second degree tear but even with that I feel so positive about my labour and have nothing but the best to say about how amazingly my mind was able to connect with my body and help me labour in peace.

My baby was born gently at 19:58 on the 6th December, weighing 3,880kg . She was calm at birth and 5 days postpartum I am feeling charged with such positive vibes! I don’t think it would have been possible without the digital pack and what I have learned. So thank you !❤️