Birth story - Kim and baby James

We were introduced to the course in my 32nd week of pregnancy and bought it shortly after looking at the Instagram account. My husband and I loved the course and we loved reading the positive birth stories. It all helped us believe in myself and that I could have my baby the way I wanted to and with a positive mindset.

I finished work on Friday the 3rd of May as I wanted as much maternity leave as possible with my little one. My husband and I went to friends for dinner and ended up coming home at around 11pm. At 2.30am on Saturday the 4th of May I woke up to a wet bed, it seems my waters had broken and were slowly leaking. There was no gush for me but just a steady leak so I put a pad on and a towel down and went back to bed after waking my husband up with excitement as this could be the day! I knew I would need the rest even though I was so excited! I eventually fell asleep and woke up again at around 7am. I encouraged my husband to go to our local park run and I got comfy on the couch with Netflix. I hadn’t had any signs of labor starting other than mild diarrhoea. My husband got back and we cooked up a big breakfast and slowly started getting all our final pieces into our hospital bags. My slow steady leak continued this whole time. We contacted our doctor and our midwife and both encouraged us to relax at home until labor started and then drive through to the hospital which is a good 1.5 hour drive from our town. Our doctor also spoke about a possible induction if labor didn’t start within 24 hours from my waters breaking. I had a bath and the mild period cramps started (Although I received a message shortly afterwards from my Dr, saying not to bath due to possible infection risk. Oops!).

By 1pm the period cramps were intensifying and our family encouraged us to leave our town for the hospital. So we decided to leave home, the surges started to kick in on the drive and the Freya app confirmed I was in labor around 2.30pm. We got to the hospital shortly after that and I got settled into one of the delivery rooms, I was examined and was 1cm dilated. Using the app and my husband, I got through each surge one by one with our birthing playlist in the background. By 6.30pm, the surges had intensified and I asked the midwife for pethidine and an examination and I was 3cms dilated. The pethidine helped me relax and calm down between each surge, I really think it helped me progress as fast as I did. At 8.15pm I was examined again and I was 8cms and half an hour later I was 9.5cms dilated- this is when the pushing urge kicked in but the midwife was concerned as the half a cm that still needed to dilate was not happening and this could be dangerous as the cervix could tear if I pushed through it so she used her fingers to push it out the way in sync with my surges. The doctor joined us then and they confirmed that it was time to push. Around 15 minutes of pushing and he was out!

I really needed some inner strength for the last two pushes (head and shoulders). Being upright forward and open (UFO) really helped me during my surges and through the transition to push my baby out. I stood throughout the intense surges leaning on a lifted hospital bed or my husband until I had to push- I went onto my knees leaning my top half of my body on a pilates ball which I had also used earlier on to bounce through early surges. My husband was an absolute trooper throughout the day. The sex of our baby was a surprise to both of us so it was such a magical moment when we found out he was a boy. We had delayed cord clamping and skin to skin.

The whole day was so positive and we couldn’t have asked for a better place and time to birth our beautiful baby boy. Thanks to the Positive Birth Company for keeping our thoughts positive and helping us make it such a positive day!!