Birth story - Louisa and baby Axel

After a pretty horrendous 3 day labour with my daughter in 2012 and three traumatic miscarriages in the space of 6months in 2017/beg 2018, I was extremely anxious to say the least when we finally found out the news that we were expecting our second child. After hearing about friends positive experiences using the online hypnobirthing course I decided to go for it and it was undoubtedly one of the best decisions I could have made.

On the day I went into labour naturally (4 days overdue) I have never felt so full of energy, I was literally skipping my daughter to school high on life and I actually said out loud ‘baby you can come today’. Little did I know the ‘pressure’ feeling that had been going on for a few days was actually me in labour!!

After my friend pointed out to me that she thought this was the real deal as I was totally oblivious, I went for a long beach walk, had some lunch out and came home at around 1pm to be greeted by 5 men sorting our gas out- great timing!! I sat in the living room bouncing away on my ball and timing the contractions on the new app (which was amazing by the way!) and finally after two hours (3pm) made my way into the MLU at our local hospital.

On arriving I set out the room as I had imagined- tea lights, spa spray and music. My husband did have a laugh at me and nearly choked on the spray (I secretly enjoyed inflicting a little pain on him at the time). When they examined me an hour later at 4:30pm (I was given the option to say no) I was delighted to hear that I was easily 6cm dilated and I could get into the pool. Up until now I had managed to control the pain all through my breathing and I really felt like I had my shit together- I couldn’t believe how manageable it had been. I said ‘do you think he could be here by 6pm’ which my husband scoffed at and said ‘don’t count on it’ (don’t you love men!).

In the pool I took to the gas and air and listened to my body and went with the surges, breathing through them and counting down until I could rest again in between- this is what definitely got me through. Finally the urge to push came and my waters went and I began mooing like a cow. I always swore I wouldn’t be a ‘moo-er’ but my body took over and did what it had to do. All the time my husband watched on and couldn’t believe the amount of gunk that was accumulating in the pool- he swears there were live creatures in there!

Finally our beautiful boy ‘Axel’ was born at 6:23pm weighing 7lb12 in the pool totally naturally and I didn’t need any stitches. The midwives actually called me ‘superwoman’ as they couldn’t believe how well I managed and they swear I didn’t tear because of my breathing. Of course I was super proud of myself and I just couldn’t believe how different the whole experience was compared to my daughters birth as that was on another level.

I truly believe I couldn’t have had this dream birth without your help so THANK YOU and I now have a super chilled baby too. BREATHE ladies, every surge brings you closer to that gorgeous bundle of joy!

❤️