Birth Story of Noah
20 March 2015 - Our "Guess" Date. I was ready to turn my phone off to avoid messages and phone calls checking in to see if anything was happening. But laying in bed in the early hours of that morning I woke with light tightenings. As with any "warm ups" that I had had along the way I would stop, clear my mind and breathe through them. Taking the opportunity to practice the surge breathing that Shari had taught us during our Hypnobirthing classes. After a while though, when the surges kept coming and began getting stronger I realised that these weren't warm up surges anymore - things were really starting to happen.
Excitedly, I got out of bed, I knew I wanted to stay at home for as long as I could so I readied all of my hypnobirthing tools - the music, affirmations, visualisations and I settled in. My comfy spot at that stage was sitting and swaying on the swiss ball. During each surge I was focused on relaxing, visualising and slowly breathing up with each surge. Just like we had practised for the last 20 weeks.
Only a couple of hours had passed and my surges were becoming closer together
and feeling a lot stronger, there was a gentle release of waters and a show -
so I called my midwife. We agreed that I was still coping well at home and it
probably wasn't quite time to go to the hospital just yet. Not long after that
though, the rest of my waters released, the surges became stronger, longer and
were very close together. So off to the hospital we went.
Once in our birthing suite - our midwife didn't need to do any checks.
She knew we were close to birthing our baby. She was fully aware of
hypnobirthing and supported our birth plan and preferences.
Scott prepared our room. We had our diffuser with Clary Sage and the ipod
which had our calming, soothing music and affirmations.
I felt so relaxed and calm. I was falling asleep between surges, but on a few
occasions I was quite alert and joined in with the conversation and laughs.
During my surges and bearing down the only voice I could hear was Scott's.
I knew our midwife was there but when she would speak to me I would only
hear it once Scott quietly repeated it to me. I was only aware of him, his voice
and the light touch massage.
Not once did I feel any pain or fear. I felt so calm, relaxed and excited.
When the time came to bear down, my breathing instantly changed to exactly
what Shari had taught us and my visualisations changed from my happy place
to imagining my baby moving down the birth path.
Soon after that; little Noah arrived.
He was put straight onto my chest and we enjoyed beautiful skin to skin bonding for over an hour. Not once did our little hypnobub cry. He lay calmly on my chest, looking up at us. He searched for and found food. The cord was left to stop pulsing before it was clamped and then cut by Dad. I was also lucky enough to birth the placenta naturally.
Eventually our midwife went to get the doctor (to do her few checks) and when led into our room she was shocked that we were there. She had been in the room next door and had no idea our room was being used let alone a baby had been born in there just a couple of hours earlier. She could not believe how quiet our birth had been and how calm, alert and happy we were. Our birth was the first for our midwife since returning from maternity leave - and she was so happy it was a hypnobirth.
Everything that I had hoped and imagined for our birth had become a reality. I couldn't believe it. Scott and I had practiced our relaxation exercises, I listened to the affirmations everyday and went to sleep every night listening to the relaxation techniques and music for child birth. I was determined to have the birth that I had imagined.
I know that without Shari and her amazing classes things would not have been so perfect.
Even now 3 months on, Noah is one calm, happy little man.
I cannot thank you enough Shari for teaching us the techniques and giving me the confidence to have the most beautifully calm, positive and natural birth.
Kellie & Scott
Tannum Sands
