First Time Parents Perfect GentleBirth
First Time Parents Perfect Homebirth
After two nights of solid cuddles, nipple stimulation and love making, we woke up at 2.30am (40 + 6 weeks), with what seemed to be a ramped up labour!! Surges started very regularly, 3 minutes apart and lasting for longer than 1 minute. After trying to see where this was going, I paced the floor for a good while and then decided to go for a shower. The water didn’t really seem to help with the sensations and shortly after getting out, I had a loose stool and vomited - being a midwife myself I thought this isn’t a rehearsal.
I was unable to lay down and the only elements that seemed to help were my boyfriend performing hip squeezes throughout each surge, heat pads, focused breathing and being on all 4’s with the support of my birthing ball - I did try the TENS machine but it wasn’t really working for me, so we took it off.
We continued with these coping techniques for about 3 hours before I spoke to my midwife and she suggested for me to find my own rhythm, try to manage with deep and slow breathing and keeping active but, if we needed her support, to just let her know and she would have come straight away.
Afraid that this would have been early labour we decided to give ourselves more time and continue to work with our existing strategies. Since I was tired, I was finding it helpful to lay on my left side during the breaks having Chris giving me light touch massage and again using the heat pads. As soon as the surges were beginning to build, I would jump out of bed and breathe through it, focusing more and more as the intensity increased.
We found ourselves around 7.30am in need of more support and with that decided to ask the midwife to join us - at this point I just needed to know whether I was making any progress. The midwife arrived at 8.20am and at my request performed a quick examination and sounding pleasantly surprised, she told me I was 8-9cm, it’s fair to say I could not have received any better news at this stage and all our faces lit up thinking that we were rocking this!! The only disappointment was we realized it was too late to get the pool ready.
Nanni suggested we try again the TENS but alter the placement of the pads to increase the size of the square and the setting. The next few hours felt like they went on for ages but in reality, they passed so quick. It was helpful having short tasks to complete, whereby I would have 3 surges in one position, change for 3 more and then change again.
While we were in the zone and keeping active, Nanni was organizing everything else and the second midwife Ali started to make her way over to the house. Both Nanni and Ali were so supportive and their presence was really reassuring - their relaxed, confident and patient centered approach was exactly what we needed.
At 10.55am, during a surge , my waters went and the pressure started to increase. We were getting closer and closer to the birth, so exciting!
All the time, I had the Labour Companion track from my Gentlebirth app playing in the background that kept me calm, focused and in control most of the time and I just started to follow my body’s lead, going with the surges and helping my baby to be born.
After an hour and 20 minutes of consistent pushing (I definitely didn’t just breathe my baby out!!), positive reassurance from both midwives and my boyfriend along with so many position changes and warm compresses, baby Alma made her appearance!
I managed to stay particularly focused whilst her head was crowning and Nanni performed some acupuncture on the perineum to help it relax. I birthed her whilst sitting on the cub, supported by Chris from behind at 12.55pm.
Nanni passed our baby to me and Chris and I realized for the first time, she was a girl even though in my heart I knew this all along. The emotion that came when she had her first little cry, skin to skin and looking at me was incredible, a moment I will never forget - we were now a little family in our own right!
After a few minutes together on the cub when we fell in love with each other we moved to the sofa where we allowed for the cord to become fully drained, after which it was cut by Chris and I birthed the placenta easily without drugs or intervention after about 30mins.
Nanni then checked if I needed any stitches and with great delight she announced that perineum was intact, not even a graze!!! I am sure the 8 weeks of perineal massage performed every single night by Chris played a major part in this.
Whilst Alma had her first feed, she seemed so alert and curious of the world she had just entered and to celebrate both midwives, myself and Chris enjoyed some celebratory homemade chocolate banana bread with ice cream and coffee (upgraded version of tea and toast!).
During a heavenly refreshing shower, Nanni and Ali went ahead with the routine checks and confirmed she couldn’t be any more flawless!
Once dried from the shower, the 3 of us climbed into bed for our first family snuggle!!! We felt so grateful, in awe and so proud of what we had achieved as a team. We were strong, powerful and just so blessed that everything turned out to be amazingly perfect.”
“Childbirth is a rite of initiation. There’s a time in labour called the transition phase where the woman finds her breaking point. She seems unable to continue and sometimes she experiences even the feeling that she could die, and she is right... the girl in her is not strong enough for the task being announced to her. It is during this time of transition that the young woman dies so that the woman can be reborn as a mother with her child. A new version of herself, stronger than ever. She becomes a mother. It’s that saying: you were born of me, and I was reborn of you”
A special thanks to Mama Doula for her GentleBirth workshop that enriched us with precious informations. We can’t thank Midwife Nanni enough for her amazing care and support throughout the entire journey and to Midwife Ali during the last stretch of labour, we’re so grateful for your special energy and synergy with Nanni - you girls are an incredible team and we feel honored and proud to have shared our birth experience with you.”