I really needed to focus inward and switch off from everything

Joshua and I started trying to fall pregnant towards the end of 2021. We were very fortunate to conceive quite quickly, finding out we were pregnant in February 2022.

 While trying to fall pregnant I had spent a lot of time thinking about and planning conception (vitamins, diet, ovulation etc.) but very little actually planning my pregnancy and birth - and so when we went to see our GP to confirm the pregnancy, my understanding of birth options was essentially “private vs public”. We had private health insurance, so our GP gave us a list of private obstetricians to choose from out of St John of God Hospital (closest private hospital to where we live). Very quickly I realised how out of depth I was with choosing a care provider. I found it very hard to know who to choose and where to go. All I knew was I wanted to have what I thought was a “natural” birth - so I ended up picking an obstetrician who seemed to support this preference.  

My first trimester was tough. I had bad nausea and severe migraines multiple times a week which were quite debilitating. Fortunately, by the time I was in my second trimester they began to calm down and I felt like I could return to normal activities and begin to renter the world again.

In my second trimester I began to spend more time thinking about the birth and how I could create the birth experience I had hoped for. I also began to question whether the care option I had chosen was the right one for me.  

At 26 weeks Joshua and I did a group hypnobirthing class with Renee. Half way through the first day I was feeling even more uneasy about my chosen model of care. As Renee spoke through the options available to women in Western Australia, I knew deep down I had made the wrong choice. Joshua and I spoke about it at length over lunch, and agreed a midwifery led care option seemed to be a better fit for us. It was actually Joshua who suggested a home birth (I was very shocked by this!), as we could create a calm, safe environment which felt much more beneficial for me.

After speaking with Renee 1-1, we went home that night and applied for the MGP and CMP, and were successful in our application for a CMP home birth.  

A couple of weeks later I met my midwife for the first time. I was absolutely blown away by the level of care and support I received in just one appointment. We spent nearly 2 hours together, talking about my health, mental health, desires for my birth and many other things. After that meeting I felt the calmest I had been through my whole pregnancy. I had made the right choice.

 When I hit 40 weeks, I was feeling very ready for bub to make an appearance. I began to experience more intense braxton hicks and also the return of my pregnancy migraines.

At 41 weeks I went into King Edward hospital for a CTG and ultrasound to check the health of my baby and the health of my placenta. It was a requirement for me to do this to keep my place at CMP to have a home birth. I was incredibly anxious going to this appointment - by this stage I was so invested in the home birth and didn’t want to miss out. Thankfully, everything was perfect, and so I declined an induction and went home to wait for baby to make her appearance.

For the next few days Joshua and I did what we could to relax and distract ourselves from the days passing by. I was listening to the hypnobirthing birth affirmation track regularly at this stage, as I found it very helpful to keep my worries at bay and trust that my body and my baby would go into labour when we were ready. At 41+1 we went out for what we now know was our last night out for dinner before bub would make her arrival.

The morning of the 23rd October I was 41+2 and woke with period like cramps that were a bit stronger than they had been over the previous weeks. I went to the bathroom and realised I had also begun to lose my mucus plug. Hoping it might be the start of labour, but not wanting to get overly excited, I tried to just relax and rest as much as possible throughout the day. We kept the blinds down and watched light hearted movies throughout the day. I spent my time rotating between lying on my side and bouncing on the fitness ball. I was also pressing some acupressure points regularly to try and help things progress. Despite the cramps being more intense, they did not increase in intensity or regularity. By the end of the day, I was tired of being inside, so Joshua and I decided to go for an evening walk through the city and do some curb walking.  

At 41+3 the following morning I woke up at 4:30am with more period like cramping. This was more intense than the previous day, so I spent an hour lying in bed monitoring the surges to see if they were regular. I found they were consistently around 13 minutes apart, and so I felt quite confident that labour had really started! After a couple of hours, I felt like it was time to wake Joshua up and get things organised for the birth. I also felt like it was time to put on my TENS machine to help get me through the surges. I also called my midwife to let her know things were starting.

Through the morning Joshua set up our birth space in the living area. I spent most of the day labouring there with Joshua, listening to music and chatting between surges. My surges slowly increased in intensity and regularity throughout the day. The pressure on my cervix felt quite strong and I found that squatting down seemed to be the best way to manage each surge. I also used the TENS machine, breathing and positive birth affirmations and visualisations which I found really helpful. I thought of each surge like a wave which built up and then dropped down.

By the evening the surges were more intense and more difficult to talk between. I had a very strong desire to be by myself and to try to eliminate some of the distractions around me, so I decided to move into our bedroom to focus on the surges and let go of everything else going on.

For the next few hours I laboured against our bed, squatting through surges and using my hypnobirthing techniques and TENS machine. After a while things began to feel different; I was no longer timing my surges as I found this too distracting, but they felt more intense, and I also had started to feel nauseous. Getting through each surge was becoming increasingly difficult and required my full energy and attention. In between a surge I went to the bathroom and realised I had a bloody show! I was really excited by this and thought things must be progressing well. Instinctively I felt it was time to call the midwife.

While we were waiting for my midwife to arrive, Joshua started filling up the birth pool. By now I was very keen to get into the pool to hopefully take some pressure off my surges which I was continuing to feel on my cervix. My midwife and I had discussed the pool during my pregnancy; and I knew it was advised to not get into the pool until your labour was further progressed, so as not to slow things down. Instinctively I knew it was time, but was waiting on my midwife to give me the all clear when she arrived.

My midwife arrived around 9pm and came quietly into our bedroom to monitor me through a few surges. She checked my blood pressure and bubs heart rate, and told me I was doing an amazing job, but she didn’t say I could get into the pool... Instantly I felt quite disappointed, and began to doubt how far I had progressed and what I was feeling.

I continued to labour against the bed for a while and at 11pm my midwife asked if she could do a vaginal examination. She was finding my progress a bit difficult to gauge and wanted to get a bit more information so she could determine if she needed to call the second midwife. I had planned on no vaginal examinations during my labour, however by this stage I thought it might validate my progress, so I consented to an exam but did not want to know the outcome. After the examination she again told me I was doing very well, but did not call the other midwife or suggest the birth pool... so I knew I mustn’t have been very far dilated. I was quite disheartened by this, and began to doubt my ability to keep going if things were going to go for a lot longer.

It was now 25th October (41+4), My midwife suggested I try to rest for a while in bed, trying to lay on my side as I had been squatting through surges most of the day. At first I wasn’t keen to do this as the surges felt much more intense while laying down, but I was exhausted, so Joshua and I hopped into bed and I laboured there for the next hour. While in bed the surges were intense, but much further apart, so I managed to get some rest between each one. I also began to experience intense hot and cold flushes; alternating between being incredibly cold and burning hot. My nausea has ramped up as well and I ended up rushing out of bed to vomit. I didn’t know this at the time, but my midwife told Joshua that this was a very good sign.

 After about an hour I felt it was time to get up and began labouring against the bed again. My midwife then suggested I try hopping in the shower (still no pool!), so I decided to give it a go. We had hired a blow-up birth stool so I used this while in the shower as a way to rest between surges. I got into the shower at around 1:30am. While I was in the shower, I began to doubt my ability to keep going. I felt I couldn’t keep going for much longer as I was feeling quite exhausted. Joshua was sitting on the floor next to the shower and I remember crying and saying to him I can’t keep doing this. He replied “you are doing it, I’m so proud of you”.

I knew that my surges were much more intense and much more rapid when standing up (around 40 seconds apart), and instinctively I felt that standing up as much as possible would help to speed up my progress, so I tried to stand or squat through as many surges as I could.

In the shower things began to progress rapidly. The pressure on my cervix was coming more and more intense with each surge. As one surge peaked, I felt a pop and then release, my waters had finally broken. I was very happy about this as again; I knew it was a good sign. Joshua went to get my midwife who came quickly to check the fluid and make sure it was all clear.

At this stage I felt like things were moving very rapidly. The surges were coming quickly and intensely and I knew that my baby couldn’t be too far off. My midwife asked me what was happening and I remember telling her “the baby is coming soon”, so she went to quickly call the other midwife and get Joshua to finish filling the birth pool.

As things moved more and more rapidly, I began to think I would be birthing my baby in the shower. My midwife came back in again and again asked me what I was feeling, I just kept repeating “the baby is coming soon the baby is coming soon”, she then said (finally!) let’s get you into the pool.

I didn’t think I could make it to the pool anymore, I felt like she was coming soon and I couldn’t make the walk from our bathroom out to the living area where the pool was set up. The midwife convinced me to get out of the shower though and I moved slowly from the shower and sat on the toilet through the next surge. Again, I felt the baby wasn’t far away. My midwife tried to get me to move again but I just kept saying “I can’t I can’t she’s coming she’s coming”. The midwife asked if I could feel the head, I reached down but I couldn’t feel the head, so she said “there’s time Esther you’re not birthing your baby on the toilet”, so she held me up as I waddled from the bathroom out to the living area and into the pool. As I crossed the living room, I felt the burning sensation on my perineum. The pool felt like instant relief.

While I was making my way to the pool Joshua was still busy trying to finish filling it up, as everything happened so rapidly. My midwife had to tell him to stop or he might miss the birth of his baby!

I leaned back against the side of the pool and tried to relax into the surges. I concentrated on my breathing and slowing things down as much as I could, allowing my body to do what it needed to do to push her out. In one surge her head came out part of the way and I reached down and could feel the top of it. Despite the intensity, I felt so much joy feeling her head and knowing we were nearly at the finish line. Another surge and her head came all of the way through, and I again felt so much relief as the pressure eased slightly. One final surge and her body came all the way through, I reached down and picked her up and held her to my chest.

Maia had officially entered the world at 3:18am on the 25th of October after nearly 23 hours of labour. I found out later that I was only 4cm dilated at my vaginal examination, so I went from 4cm to giving birth in 4 hours.

I felt relieved and in awe of what my body and my baby did together. I remember saying to her “we did it, we did it” - I felt like it was us working together the whole time.

We got out of the pool after a short time as her cord was quite short. In the end I was only in the pool for around 13 minutes total. The second midwife completely missed the birth, arriving as I was getting out of the pool. I birthed my placenta standing up next to our couch while she was still attached, and then laid back down for some skin to skin and our first feed.

For me, labour and birth were such a mental game, where the most difficult part was getting out of my own head, switching off, letting go and letting my body and baby do their thing. A home birth was the very best choice for me, as I would have really struggled to do this outside of my own safe space. To be able to progress further in to labour I really needed to focus inward and switch off from everything happening around me and my desire to control the process. Hypnobirthing gave me the tools and techniques to be able to do this, as well as some much-needed insight into models of care and birth options. Thanks to this insight I was able to have an incredibly positive and empowering home birth experience.