Blessed and positive birth
Thank you for helping us achieve a positive & empowering birth. Without attending the Active Birth course, our experience may not have been the same. My husband & I can honestly say we felt so prepared & ready, which gave us the beautiful & calm birth that we’d hoped for.
I spontaneously went into early labour around 5am. I went about my day (as much as you can having contractions, or what I liked to call them “tightenings” every 10 mins) & my husband went to work as usual. Given I wasn’t sure if it was the “real thing”, I spent the morning pottering around my home, listening to a playlist that I’d put together for my baby blessing & something I would listen to most days during the end of pregnancy as it was relaxing & reminded me of all of the love & support we are surrounded by; I went for a walk to get a coffee; painted my nails & focused on staying calm, with trust that my body knew exactly what it was doing & my mind just had to go along with the ride. I didn’t want to get “too excited” as didn’t want adrenaline to take over & I wasn’t focused on how often or how long the tightenings were coming.
I then had a bloody show around lunch time & continued to tighten. I attempted to lie down & rest, however I was too uncomfortable, so I baked some muffins as I thought they’d come in handy the following days if I was to give birth shortly!
My membranes spontaneously ruptured approx 3pm with the tightenings really intensifying, so I called my husband & he made his way home. I called our private midwife & the plan was to continue as is as I was coping at home. I continued to stay active with the tightenings becoming regular & closer together.
My husband called our midwife around 7pm as my tightenings were approx 3 minutes a part, lasting 45-60 seconds. My midwife did a home visit, allowed me to do my thing & then did an assessment approx 9pm of which I was 7cm. We were at the hospital by 10pm. I continued to stay active & ommed my way through every tightening (learnt during the Active Birth Course, which I found most useful. I knew I was getting close to fully dilated as I thought to myself that I could not possibly go on much longer & I looked up at my husband with desperation & said “I just want to go home & have a warm blanket in my own bed”! Shortly after, at around midnight, I was fully dilated, so commenced pushing on a birth stool & our beautiful baby BOY was born in all fours at 2455.
We went home with baby Jack that morning & have been smitten ever since. It was such a lovely & surreal experience, with my husband & I feeling truly blessed to have had such a positive experience, yet so proud of the effort we put into preparing ourselves & my body as much as possible.
Sal attended the Active Birth Course with Suzanne Swan
