Birth story - Katy and baby boy

I discovered the Positive Birth Company pack about a month ago and spent time watching the course and practicing breathing. It really helped me and my husband to understand the process of birth better. And the breathing techniques, relaxation tips as well as doing pregnancy yoga really made a difference for me.

I woke about 7.15am and my waters broke as I got up. I did the 10 minute walk to take my daughter nursery and then called the midwifes on the way back to report my waters had broken. My husband headed home from work and we planned our morning, setting up the house for a calm water birth, organising for my daughters overnight bag and doing a shopping list for him to pick up snacks and something for lunch.

The midwife came at 9.45 by which point I was having regular surges around 5 minutes apart which I could still talk through. She was happy everything was okay and said to call when I wanted her to come back. After she left I tidied and my husband started setting up the pool. The surges started to get more intense shortly and so I called the midwife to come back shortly after 11. She asked if I was happy for her to finish the appointment she was on and then come. I agreed as at that point I still had 2-3 minutes between surges and was managing them using a tens machine, breathing and listening to the relaxation MP3’s. I was also conscious that my previous labour had been long and didn’t want her to come and have to go again because it was too early.

I continued breathing through the surges, remaining in a UFO position all the time with my husband rubbing my shoulders. They started to get quite intense, and my wobble came in the form of a lot of swearing. But I focussed on the midwife arriving shortly and being allowed in the pool to get me through them. Then suddenly they changed and I felt the baby start to move down, this was a bit of a shock and I did struggle to stay relaxed and breathe properly at this point. My husband called the midwife who raced over. Thankfully I was able to get into the (half filled) pool between contractions and our little man was born 5 minutes later at 12.15pm. Length of established labour is recorded as 5 minutes 😂