The beginning
My waters broke early Sunday morning, a few weeks earlier than I was perhaps prepared for but my mum (the carer for our three big boys) was due to arrive later that day and I suppose nature has a way of knowing what is best for us. There was plenty of surges but nothing of significance and no regularity.
Once the kids woke up everything went quiet, as expected, so we enjoyed a relaxed day with our big boys and my mum. In the afternoon we had a family walk around the block, did some ball time and expressed after the kids went to bed in the hope that some peace and quiet would get things in motion again.
Making peace
I put my HypnoBirthing relaxation tracks on and the second I laid down things started again. By 11:30pm laying down became too uncomfortable, so I sat at the side of the bed on my fit ball and rested, breathing through the surges when they came.
By 4am my surges had been between 3-5 minutes apart for 2.5 hours, so we felt it was time to ring Ros, our midwife and head to the hospital before the kids got up and killed my mojo again.
Everything was good on the drive to the hospital and while we waited for the birth suite. But the second we walked into the birth suite everything slowed down. Now that I was in hospital, with waters broken, I was there for good and receiving four hourly antibiotics and monitoring. We quickly made peace with the situation and got ourselves up.
We quickly made peace with the situation and got ourselves up.
Change of midwife
Unfortunately, we had another setback when our midwife was called to a home birth, so she was replaced with a midwife we had never met. We were frustrated but determined to succeed and so we refocused.
Our new midwife was exactly what we needed. She had us calmly working out on the fitball and things finally got moving again. There was an amazing and very supportive doctor on duty who was willing to allow our labour to progress at its own rate.
Surges were irregular but intensifying and remained like that the whole way through. My body has a mind of its own and definitely wasn’t fitting into the hospital’s description of established labour.
“Go with your body…”
After three sessions on the fit ball, loads of blissful surge breathing, a hand expression, rocking, squatting, laying, standing, our calm approach and the guidance from our midwife (bub was slightly posterior) he turned and descended.
My previous bleed meant that I was determined to master the “J” breath to reduce the risk of another one. I had done the practice and now it was time to believe in myself and trust in my body.
I was hesitant as I had felt this feeling too early (4cms) in my previous two births but our midwife uttered the words I needed to hear, “go with your body”.
Breathing our baby down
The power of the mind is astounding, I took myself deeper into my zone and staring blankly into the ceiling I “J breathed” our little guy down and out.
Lorenzo Quinn Sylvester Fleming calmly arrived on 13th January 2020 at 6:06pm, weighing 7lb 12oz and measuring 50.5cm long.
The power of the mind is astounding.
A huge thank you to Lydia and Simon for sharing this amazing VBAC birth story. I appreciate my couples taking the time to share their honest experiences with others. B x
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