Emma's Birth Story - 'I loved my birth'

I loved my birth!

I gave birth to our second child, another girl, on the 21st January 2020. It was a quick 4.5 hour labour, that was intense but manageable, thanks to hypnobirthing.

After experiencing a heavily intervened birth with our first, my husband Nick, and I decided to attend hypnobirthing classes with the amazing Nikki Jones in Adelaide. I found it so empowering and gave me the confidence to give birth without fear.

At about 9am on the 21st, I started having what I thought were practise surges as they were inconsistent in time and length. As they started to get closer together I realised that this was the beginnings of labour. The surges were pretty irregular and not painful. I rang my mum to look after our toddler and things started to ramp up. It was like my body knew that because she was going to be taken care of, it was safe to go into full labour.

The next few hours I labored at home relatively easily using the hypnobirthing tracks. My surges were coming every two minutes, but only lasting 30-45 seconds. I still thought I was in early labour as they were so much less painful than my first labour. I rang the hospital, who said to come in immediately and then Nick, who was still at work. I thought he had time to get home, but at one point I stood up and felt the baby move down. So... my dad had to start driving me to hospital! On the way we picked up my friend, who's a paramedic, just in case things went really quickly. In that time, Nick caught up to us and the three of us went to the hospital.

The car ride was the worst, but I used the breathing techniques and affirmations to relax. At hospital Nick was amazing-he put out all my LED candles, pulled blinds down, put the tracks on and applied counter pressure to my hips during every surge.

I was 7cm when they examined me, but after only 20 minutes of being in the hospital I started to feel the urge to push. The whole time I just drew into myself, blocked out everything else and let my body do what it was designed to. It was quick, but the surges were very close together (some were 45 seconds apart). My lovely OB made it just in time to deliver, and I was so happy to see her and immediately felt more at ease. My friend stayed and took some great photos. I'm so pleased she was there. 10 minutes of pushing and Ellie Rose was born at 1.39pm.

I delivered upright, no drugs, had heaps of skin to skin, and delayed cord cutting. Everything I wanted in the birth. Hypnobirthing really helped with the pain and keeping me calm and empowered.

Thanks, Emma