I went from 4cm-10cm in just over an hour.

Before falling pregnant I had mostly only ever heard negative stories about birth and felt almost sick with fear at the thought of giving birth.

When I was first pregnant, I started listening to birth story podcasts which opened my eyes to the possibility of a Positive Birth experience. I started to explore education classes available to help prepare for this. Hypnobirthing sounded like a great option and Debra’s classes had been recommended to me by a close family friend.

By the time I had finished my Hypnobirthing and Birthing Master-Class, I was actually excited to give birth and was looking forward to it. Something I never thought possible. My husband attended these classes with me, and he too felt excited and well prepared to support me through labour and birth. We wrote our birth preferences together and incorporated a lot of things into this which involved and empowered him. The in-depth education we received from Debra meant we felt well prepared to make decisions prior to and during the labour, without anxiety or confusion.

I was brought into hospital for an induction at 40+3 due to suspected growth restriction from 38 weeks. I had been 2-3cm dilated since my “due date”. The obstetrician broke my waters in the morning and luckily labour kicked off on its own about 2hrs later. Contractions started only a few minutes apart and regular.

I laboured mostly on the birth ball, with a few attempts to walk around the room however I felt quite sick, weak and shaky so felt most stable sitting or bouncing on the ball.

I listened to some affirmations and focused on my breathing techniques during contractions. I found it too hard to focus on following along with any of the guided hypnobirthing tracks.

Unfortunately, when the membranes were broken, there was meconium in my amniotic fluid. According to the “hospital policy”, this prevented me from using the pool. Water Immersion was something I really wish I could have used. But due to having continuous monitoring this wasn’t an option.

The obstetrician checked me around 1.30pm, at which point I had only progressed 1cm (I had asked not to be told this at the time to prevent be becoming disappointed).

By 2.30pm I was starting to feel a bit over it, I had been using the TENS machine for my labour, so hadn’t needed any pain relief.

Holding onto my husbands’ hands and squeezing them through each contraction seemed to give me strength and reassurance (although I almost broke his fingers).

I decided I would keep going until 3pm then try some gas, but by the time it got to 3pm I had started to push!

I had gone from 4cm-10cm in just over an hour.

I pushed my daughter out in about 30mins (but felt like 5min) and my husband caught her. The obstetrician and midwives helped coach me through the final stages but other than that I felt incredibly empowered and amazed to have birthed my baby independently.

It was the most amazing day of our lives, and we feel incredibly lucky to have had such wonderful support and preparation which no doubt helped give us such a positive experience.

Amy was not sure whether to include this part, however I believe in total honesty and transparency. Not just sharing the glossy good about birth, or the horrific bad. But all parts of birth, to keep it balanced and real.

I had some trouble birthing the placenta, despite having the syntocinon injection.

My placenta took some time to come away and required some manual manipulation from the obstetrician. While I had skin to skin during this time, it was quite painful. I passed my daughter over so I could focus on what was being done.

After the placenta finally came away, seemingly complete. I had what was called a Post-Partum Haemorrhage. This was attempted to be controlled by a number of medications administered in the birth suite. Finally, I was taken to theatre and given a general anaesthetic in order for the obstetrician to conduct an internal examination to check where the bleeding was coming from and if there were any retained pieces of the placenta. When I woke, I was told that there had been no retained placenta and that a different medication was given which stopped the bleeding.

Being reunited with my daughter and husband after this experience was indescribable.