Chanelle Mei-Lin, daughter of Sue-Lin was born on 17th Jan at 9.40am, she weighed 3.08kg. She was born with with only gas, a tens machine and your active birthing techniques.

Mia Lunette, daughter of Danielle and Luke was born 7lb57 and 51 cm long on 23rd October.    I felt very ready after my last active birth class and went into labour that night (well some of my water had leaked).  Upon arrival at the hospital, my Birth Centre midwife was not available so had to be seen by hospital staff.  There were so many occasions where Luke and I had to assert ourselves to not be intervened.  I felt confident and trusted my body so declined any such interventions.    I returned home to labour there until about 12pm the next day where we made our way to the birth centre and I gave birth to Mia at 355pm. 

I absolutely enjoyed the whole birthing experience and knew exactly how to open my body to let Mia out.  I loved how organic the whole experience was and feeling my beautiful baby working with me.  At no point did I even consider drugs as I felt that I just wanted to be present in the moment and not break that amazing energy.  I thought I was very vocal but apparently I was chanting, and was rightly given the name "Monk" during labour.  I had no tearing and was buzzing and beaming after Mia was born.  Luke was with me the whole way and was a absolute angel massaging me, assisting me with positions and reminding me to breath.

Elijah, son of Paige and Tim was born into the world on Sunday 6th December at 2.13am! We had a beautiful home water birth with a 9 hour labour and although he was born 11 days early Elijah is a healthy 7 pound 13oz or 3.57kg, 54cm long and although we are quite biased we think he is pretty cute! 

Jack Alexander, son of Michelle and Dan was born @ 0355 16/11/09 @ Mater Mothers.  We had a wonderful active labour at home for the first 14hrs of the birth.  Jack remained in his funny quarter posterior position for the duration of the labour which meant that squatting, sitting, reclined sitting were out the the question for comfort reasons.  Being familar with alternate positions gave us both the confidence that we had things under control.  Vocalisation became a strong focus of our labour.  Our midwife commented on how in-sync myself and my husband were, and how much strength I drew from him.  Thank you for giving him the confidence to support me using a variety of different methods.  Continuing my visualisation practice despite having an epidural led to a speedy final dilation and maintenance of strong uterine surges with the smallest dose of cytocin.  Birth was an amazing process to be involved in.  I am so thankful to have experienced the natural labour and to also feel confident in our decision for intervention.

Zuri, daughter of Andrea and Shane, sister to Riley, arrived Wednesday 23 September at 11.45am (the peak of the dust storm!). Andrea started noticing regular pain after Shane left for work around 7am.  She took Riley to daycare around 9.30am by which time the contractions were 4 minutes apart.  She considered driving herself to hospital but Shane arrived home around 10.25am by which time he felt the more urgent need to get there after noticing contractions less than 3 minutes apart.  After a circuitous route to the hospital with Andrea giving directions (someone had to think clearly...) we arrived at the main entrance requiring a wheelchair to make it to the maternity ward.  The nurse at the reception desk ushered us quickly to the delivery suite (she told us later the contractions were 1 minute apart by this stage), where on examination, Andrea was fully dilated and ready to push.  Zuri arrived (before the doctor) in less than 10 minutes. 

Hugo, son to Monica and brother to Rex was born at 00.17 on 15 August 2009 weighing in at 3.370kg. The birth was exactly as I wanted - laboured at home for the most part with only the last hour and a half spent at the hospital. It was a real relief after the birth of my first son which was a posterior labour and lots of medical interventions!

Sayen, daughter of Jane and Rodolfo, was born on 25 May 2009. I had an amazing powerful beautiful birthing experience- both my husband Rodolfo and I loved it. In short, we arrived at the hospital and I was 8 cm dilated- the labour was 5 3/4 hrs and Sayen was caught by her dada.

Max, son of Sara was born in the early hours of 27th July.  After a long prelabour, I arrived at the hospital 10 centimetres dilated in the early hours, jumped into the bath tub at the birth centre and was holding our baby boy 2 hours later. It was an exhilarating and wonderful experience and I was so glad to have had all the stories as well as physical practice in the skills of active birth that you offered during the classes.

Lisa's daughter Thank you for the active birth classes. My little girl was born on 27th June. I was able to have an active birth with the knowledge I had learnt in the classes. I spent most of my labour off the bed either in the shower or on the birthing ball. I used many of the techniques I learnt especially the vocalisation during transition and having loose lips in labour making bbrrrr sounds with my lips.

Amelia Grace, daughter of Jodie and Ben, born 11.45am on the June 3rd.  My waters broke at 8.25pm the previous evening. I work as a midwife in a busy hospital and I figured 5 weeks of maternity leave would allow me to get it all done before our bub arrived. My body and baby had other ideas. We arrived at the hospital about 10pm, An abdominal exam revealed bubs head was well engaged (1-2/5 above the pelvic brim), and an internal exam showed that my cervix had started to efface but not yet dilate.

The plan was to wait and see what happened overnight and to reassess things in the morning. From 1 am onwards I started having contraction type pains every ten minutes, lasting about 40-50 secs. I felt most of this discomfort in my lower tummy, but was able to breathe through them using a long relaxed breath (learnt at yoga) and continued to rest on my left side. By 6am I was up in the shower having contractions 2-3 minutes apart, I was making lots of noise using the sounds, breathing, spiralling movements learnt at yoga, trying hard to keep my body open. Ben rubbed my back and hips and I tried to drink plenty of water and munch on a banana in between.

By 7 am I was starting to get quite vocal, I wanted to go down to the birth suite where I could move and make noise a bit more freely and needed to know that I was making progress, if this wasn't labour I wasn't sure I could go the distance. At approx 8 am I arrived in the birthsuite, after a quick tracing of bub's heart rate which revealed he/she was still coping fine, they did an internal examination which revealed I was 7-8cm dilated, I was so relieved that these contractions had been doing something and started to feel a little out of control at this stage (typical of transition). My immediate instinct was to hop back in the shower where I leaned over a birth ball on a mat. I had hot water on my tummy and Ben rubbing and showering my back. I continued to spiral my hips, talking to our baby and making lots of "o" sounds, hoping it would keep my cervix open and relaxed. Ben kept reminding me to relax my jaw.

My own midwife arrived at 9am, I was relieved, she didn't need to say much, she was just like a Mum, holding me and reassuring me. By 11am I started pushing, using all fours, squatting, standing, the toilet, I just did what my body told me. At 11.15hrs I asked to use a mirror, there it was this mat of hair moving in and out with each push, two steps forward, one step back I had seen it so many times. Now in a squatting position with the mirror underneath me our baby was helped out by my husband Ben with our midwife Jan guiding him at 1145 hrs, Ben passed her through my legs to me and announced we have a baby girl.

I can't begin to describe that feeling of total euphoria and joy, I get tears just reliving it now. She came out screaming and went straight onto my chest. The paediatric doctors that were on standby in the room, had a quick glance at her and were happy not to remove her from my arms. She soon cuddled into my breast. The placenta delivered naturally in its own time and I was able to keep bub skin to skin until she started suckling at the breast. She spent her first night in a humidicrib with a little drip and antibiotics, but I was able to visit regularly to feed and cuddle her skin to skin. We took her home with us a couple of days later.

I just want to thank Suzanne and my class mates. Yoga really taught me how to cope during labour through breath and movement. I had a drug free labour, it was hard work but worth every moment for the amazing gift at the end, our Amelia Grace. As a midwife and woman I have a new found respect for what we as women can do. Keep reading your mantras and practising your movement and breath and I wish you all a wonderful birth and babies.

Jasmine Elizabeth EWINGS was born at 6.34am, 7 April at the Wesley Hospital only just!. We stayed at home until the last minute and arrived fully dilated with pushing underway!

Miss J was born 40mins after arrival. Needless to say we were chuffed all round and especially pleased that there was no one present except John, I and the midwife who was fabulous and respected my wish over the phone not to call Obstetrician :, no persuasion to pain relief and the log list of my other preferences for intervention free birth not that there would have been time for anything!. Breastfeeding going well to date also, we feel so lucky. Thank you for such a positive lead up to her arrival at Active Birth Yoga and also the Workshop.

Krystof, son of Klara
I believe you will be happy to hear that our baby son Krystof Jiri was safely born on 12 March. It was a very natural waterbirth in the RBWH Birth Centre, a really strong and nice experience for all three of us.