Birth Story - Jen and baby Evelyn

*Positive FTM Birth Story*

At 4:30am on Friday (the day before my due date), I rolled over to my waters breaking with a gush, followed by definite surges. We phoned the MLU, then took our time (there was no rush) to have breakfast and headed out to be checked.

In the car, surges were coming close together and felt so intense I ended up on all fours by the time we got to the waiting room. I tried to not listen to the internal wobble that I was already finding early stages of labour very powerful and I continued to up breathe.

It turns out I was already at 6cm with room to stretch! This helped me adjust my mindset - it was normal for it to feel so intense at this stage. My midwife ran a bath, whilst I continued to ride the surges on all fours. My husband sprayed the room, put on our playlist and had energy chews and a water bottle at the ready.

The water felt amazing and I even managed to float in between surges. When they became more intense, I used a bit of gas and air for the peaks. Soon I could feel my breath naturally changing to down breathing, as the urge to poo became apparent.

The power of my body naturally taking control of sending my baby down took me by surprise. I panicked and tried to swim away from the sensation. My husband and midwife were amazing and reminded me to stay calm and trust my instincts. Things then became pretty animalistic and I roared my baby down.

When I started to get longer breaks in between surges, I knew my daughter was almost here! As she tried to superman her way out, I had to stand in the pool to help her out. I heard a respirator being mentioned but chose to ignore this and focus on breathing my air into my baby’s journey. She arrived safely very soon after for some immediate skin to skin, feeding and then some very minor ‘aesthetic’ repairs for me.

The midwives were so complimentary and said our baby was one of the calmest they’d seen, which was a testament to how calm I’d been throughout pregnancy and labour. For this, and my amazing experience of entering mum-hood, I can’t thank Siobhan Miller and the PBC enough!

Meet Evelyn Heather Slater! Born 8lb 7.5oz at 10:03am on 8th June.