Birth story - Lucie and baby Oscar

To any expecting mum to be, you got this.

Reading through positive birth stories helped me to define my own positive experience so I hope mine can do the same for you too. 😊

After being terrified of “big baby” he kept coming up 90th and my mums experience of labouring big baby/emergency C I had sworn to a planned C-section for years.

I decided to educate myself, doing this Positive Birth Company hypnobirthing online course, finding instagram pages like (naked Doula) and doing lots of informed reading, both Sara Wickham and Dr Rachel Reed’s books/articles had a huge part in how I was going to define my own birth experience.

I also started drinking raspberry leaf tea, eating 3 dates a day, colostrum harvesting, did prenatal yoga, sat on birth ball, Antenatal biomechanics and practiced with the Aniball, read positive birth stories daily all in run up to my birth.

So this is my story…

My Labour was just under 10 hours and when we arrived at hospital at 8.30am I birthed him out at 9.18am which I think is all thanks to staying relaxed, finding pages likes this/ educating myself and knowing that women’s body’s are truley made for this. ❤️

My waters broke in a gush in our bed at 11.30pm, so I decided to pack up my hospital bag ready to go, as knew it may escalate quite quickly and then I hopped in the bath to get relaxed.

I then decided to rest in bed listening to some relaxing things on my phone and within around 3 hours they started to build, lasting around 40seconds and coming in roughly every 3-6 mins using Freya app.

They were completely manageable and I didn’t feel ready to go into hospital yet so I just breathed through them (4 in, 8 out) on my birthing ball in different positions, fairy lights on whilst we put on the film meet the parents. I had made up some calming essential oil to breathe in (lavender, orange and frankincense).

They did build in intensity but never did I feel they were painful and thanks to mantras like FFFF and relaxed jaw I felt in control and calm knowing every surge my body was doing what it needed to do so I could meet my baby.

I had tens machine on my back and around 5 hours into my Labour, I felt the need to start switching off external world and get in the zone, with headphones in listening to my created playlist. (I had chosen calm and emotional songs that really meant something to me and even remember at one point being flooded with emotions and having a good cry about the transition of finishing the chapter with my husband as the two of us and transitioning into mother hood.) It really was so moving and powerful. 🥲

My husband made the call to start our way into hospital when I was starting to focus less on chatting and getting more and more into my own positive head space, still remembering to breathe deeply and slowly through everything.

I popped my eye mask on in the car with my headphones still on and tens machine in hand.

We arrived at hospital and I kept everything on (to stay in my zone) whilst my husband wheeled me to our birthing room.

Once I knew we had arrived in our room, my husband told me and I felt very quickly the transition happening and baby moving further down.

I started making deep animal noises whilst breathing deeply though the surges (it was powerful and my body decided to take over)! I told the midwife to quickly start filling up the pool.

And before she could take any of my measurements, I told them he was coming and I wanted to get into the water quickly.

I asked my husband for the comb (check out birthing comb!) And started a bit of gas and air whilst in the pool. The surges intensified as I could feel him moving deeper down the birth canal like doing a poo!) and I could feel his head slowly bobbing down and up. These sensations I was slightly familiar with having practiced with the aniball for weeks before so really helped me to be mentally prepared.

As our baby was almost crowning I remember smiling to my husband and saying he’s coming, before a few pushes and he was born into the water.

I caught him and brought him up to my chest holding him whilst he made his first cries and crying with my husband holding me from the side.

It was one of the most powerful, raw and beautiful moments of our lives. 😭

I delivered the placenta naturally in the water almost 1 hour later and my husband cut the cord. I had no tearing only a few grazes which I think is down to perineum massage, aniball, the water, KICO position for final bit and that warm water.

We stayed in our room until being released and made it home the same day to stop off for take away pizza which we had in front of our fire with our beautiful baby Oscar snuggled up in our arms. 🥰

To any expecting mother, you can totally define your birth experience.