I decided to have my 3rd baby at the Birth Centre after having two horrible births, both with episiotomies, the first ventouse and the second forceps. I had spoken to a couple of women in conversation who had had a home birth and birthcentre birth which sounded like such amazing experiences! I really was sick of hearing horror stories about birth and also telling friends/family about my own – I wanted to have a good story to tell about birth!
I watched so many YouTube videos of natural birth, it made me feel excited and gave me hope that I CAN birth my baby without intervention! I’d met with my midwife and she just gave me even more confidence about it, also books to read which were great. It’s about rewiring your brain, birth is normal and natural and our bodies are made for it! Also understanding what our bodies are doing during labour, the role of hormones, don’t fight the contractions, work with them.
It was a Thursday evening, I just felt a bit strange, it was weird like I knew something was going to happen! Trent was going to visit some mates. I said “I could go into labour tonight!” He said, “Well I’m only a phone call away.” Later on I went to bed, I had the shakes and Googled “is having the shakes a sign of labour” as you do haha! Then dozed off to be woken shortly after by Miss 19 months. I put her into bed with me and dozed off again and woke to a “pop” and felt my waters break! Shortly after Trent walked in the door and I told him, he said “you’re joking aren’t you?!” Anyway he got me a towel and I went to the bathroom and put a pad on and went back to bed lying on a towel. I hadn’t had any contractions so decided to try to sleep and just see what happens. The next morning I still had no other signs of labour. At about 9:30am I contacted my midwife and we decided we’d head into the birth centre after lunch.
By then I was having irregular contractions, Trent and I had a lie down on the comfy couch with the lovely warm sun beaming in on us listening to the radio and we dozed for a little while. Nothing much was happening so we decided to go for a walk, off we went across to the hospital multi story car park and walked to the top and back down, then back to the BC. Still not much was happening, we hung out at the centre for a little longer and decided to go again to try and get things moving, this time we tried the big hills and went for much longer, my contractions had seemed to be a bit more regular and I was stopping while having them and got Trent to rub my back, still nothing really painful though. Once we got back I decided to have a warm shower, and a bit of a bath. Anna came back to check how it was going then and stayed for a while but I still wasn’t quite in active labour, so decided to go to bed. This seemed to kick start my contractions! I wasn’t long lying down when they got much stronger and closer together, now I was really feeling it!
Trent called Anna back – when she arrived I think she knew it wouldn’t be much longer as she started getting things ready. She lay the birth mat on the floor in the lounge. I asked to have another bath and she said it would take about 20 minutes to fill. I was really looking forward to hopping in and having the warm water as some pain relief. My second midwife arrived just as I was heading for the bath. Once I was in, Trent poured warm water on my back which felt amazing and helped so much with the contractions. Between contractions I put my finger inside and I could feel my baby’s head a finger length away! It was amazing! I’m not sure how long I was in the bath but I remember the urge to push and I started pushing. Once pushing I could just feel bubs coming down. I got to the stage of “I can’t do this anymore.” When I said that I knew he’d be born very soon! Then I felt him crowning, it was a painful burn! Ouch! I just wanted to push, push, push! My midwife calmed me down and said I need to “breath baby out” so I did. I held back the hard pushing and just very gently pushed when breathing out, then Anna said maybe I should put my hand on his head while he’s crowning to help feel him out. I remember looking down and seeing his head crowning and it was incredible! Not much longer after he seemed to just “plop”out! Haha! There he was on the mat, he looked like a little lamb with his long skinny arms and legs! I was so overwhelmed and just so happy!
Wow, I did it!! He was here and it was just what I’d hoped for and even more! No need for Stitches!
Arlo Nile Julin was born on the 15/5/15 @11:25pm weighing 5lb 5oz, the number 5 is his number!
If you’re looking at the birth centre’s webpage, reading the stories and finding out about the LBC like I did, I say go for it! You won’t regret having your baby there. 8 weeks later I often think of my birth and just want to do it all over again! The best choice I’ve ever made. My only regret is not having had my first two births at the LBC!