my labour experience was the most positive, empowered, beautiful experience that went exactly the way that I wanted it to go.

I cannot thank Debra, the legendary midwife (@empoweredtobirth), enough for teaching Shane and I how to hypnobirth via the Hypnobirthing Australia course, as well as all the positive childbirth education I have received from listening to the Australian Birth Stories Podcast (@australianbirthstories).

Shoutout to my colleague Lore for referring me to Debra. Shane and I put 12 hours of face-to-face time into the course and had loads of additional at-home practice using different tools and every amount of effort was so worth it in the end.

Hypnobirthing is not ”woowoo”. It is 100% evidence-based practice and was recommended by my healthcare professionals, colleagues and friends. MENTAL HEALTH IS EVERYTHING. 

Upon entering my third trimester, I was terrified of giving birth. All I had ever heard about labour was that it was “the worst pain I would ever experience in my life”. All I had ever seen on TV was women screaming in agony on a hospital bed with their legs wide open. I already wanted an epidural without even understanding what it was (quote by first trimester pregnant sally - “I’m so gonna get an epidural, I can’t handle pain, and I know it’s so safe nowadays. Why wouldn’t everybody just get it?”).

I can give you a spoiler now, I DID NOT NEED THAT EPIDURAL . By the way, in no means am I dishonouring women who have had an epidural, every woman’s labour experience is so different, and I completely understand the need for epidurals and women who choose this path during their labour. Who knows? I might choose it during my next birth (yes, I am confident I can do this again.

We are lucky to be in Bendigo, as the Hospital has such a fantastic, modern maternity care service we went through the Public Hospital at Bendigo, where I was privileged to be part of the MAMTA program, and to have access to such an amazing free service. Mamta is a midwife-lead continuity of care program and Megan was my MAMTA midwife.

I have had several radiology and other appointments within St John of God Hospital (private) in Bendigo and although have not used their maternity care service, the staff I have met there have also been amazing and I have heard incredible things about this service also.

I fell asleep in and out of surges in the bath-tub

Ok… so what actually happened? GET READY, IT LONG.

I had my mucus/bloody show on Saturday 16th November at 9 am during my morning toilet. This sign, along with pressure from baby’s head deeper into my pelvic canal over the past week, waking up three times overnight (normally only wake up once), plus my instincts, were all telling me that early labour was pretty imminent, and I was so damn excited and hoping this was true - and it was!

On Sunday 17th November at around 3 am, I woke up with surges (I called them surges, you can call them contractions). What did they feel like? PERIOD PAIN. Mild to moderate period pain. And god I hate period pain. These surges were 30-40 minutes apart. I rang the hospital to give them a heads up.

Surges slowly increased to 20-25 minutes apart over the next 6 or so hours. I had breakfast at dawn. After a brief series of couch naps and surges, I had a wake up where I vomited up ALL of my fluids and cereal. I was not able to eat anything (I tried) for the next 24 hours. I also struggled to drink water. I’m assuming my gut had stopped and just wanted to vomit and reflux for the whole labour. THANKS GUT! I kept going, using hot showers for relief. Our hot water actually ran out and Shane had to give it a boost.

By 3 pm, my surges were every 3-5 minutes. I decided now was the time to enter the bathtub. I fell asleep in and out of surges for the next 2 hours in the tub. The bathtub was better than the shower for me, because I could actually sleep in the tub and do my little hypnotic dance. I had to lean forward against the step ladder in the shower and there is no way to sleep in it.

By 6 pm, my surges were every 2-3 minutes. That’s when we called the hospital telling them we were coming in and requested a birth suite with a bath. I could barely hold a sentence to the midwife on call, and that’s how she knew it’s time to go in. I was in Shane’s arms and Shane continued the phone call when I could not talk.

Our home is 4 minutes away from the hospital, so we are super blessed. Shane dropped me off so he could go find parking, leaving me on a bench out the front for a brief moment. I told him I’d be ok. In that brief time, I kept using my TENS machine and the breathing techniques I’d leaned and been practicing. A concerned woman and her husband checked to see if I was ok, and I told them I was labouring and that Shane would be back soon. They waited with me until he returned and she said it was a long time since she had given birth and gave me words of support and encouragement. Poor woman saw me going in and out of listening to her and was probably so worried… but Shane came back in the nick of time and walked me into the hospital!

We made it into the birth suite which was BEEEAUUUTIFUL – dim lights, fairy lights everywhere, calming floral wall art, a huge room with a huge ensuite with a shower and giant bathtub. I had notified the midwife team of my hypnobirthing birth plan, and they had FOLLOWED THROUGH. I was blessed by the fact that it was an unusually quiet time in the birth suites, so I had my first choice of room.

My midwifery student Abby (bless her soul, she stayed my entire labour) arrived first, then maybe after an hour my midwife Megan arrived.

My plan was to maintain my dignity, but that all went out the window after a minute in my sports bra. I GOTTA GO NAKED; IT IS THE ONLY WAY. I am so much more comfortable nude. Especially when I’m sweating, in the shower and in the tub!

I went straight into the shower (2 hot shower heads is bliss!) then jumped into the bath.

For the entire labour from start to finish, I was listening to my 4 Hypnobirthing tracks (lol, next time I definitely need more because they got incredibly repetitive. Also need to crop the audio because the intros and outros were so not required); practicing breathing techniques (imagine meditating non-stop for 20+ hours), receiving words of affirmation, light touch massages and anchor trigger touches from Shane, sniffing pure lavender essential oil, had fairy lights and dim LED candle lights all around me, going in and out of water and using the TENS machine on and off. No single one of these techniques would work alone - they all were needed working in harmony together to get me through labour.

Once Megan arrived, I requested my cervical dilation be checked.

No words can describe the acute sadness I felt when my midwife told me that my cervix has dilated to 4cm after 16 hours of labour. That’s not even halfway!! Although this is normal, especially for a first labour, it feels pretty f***ing sh**. I think it was a few more hours until I had dilated to 5 cm. I wanted to die (I’m so impatient).

I have no recollection of the time I went from 5 cm to 9 cm dilation besides being in the bath tub, throwing up huge volumes more than 3 times in said bath tub (after eating a single Savoy cracker and then having a surge) and staring in disbelief that these three beautiful humans were still up with me at 3 am watching me labour and supporting me when I needed it. The hardest thing was having to get out of the bathtub when replenishing the water.

 When waiting for the water to replenish, I was on the hospital bed, I felt like I was dying, I realised how soothing the bath had been. That’s when I decided enough is enough, I am getting that NITROUS OXIDE GAS (part of my birth plan). IT WAS HEAVENLY. Ok, so there were a few hiccups with setting it up and replacing the gas bottles whenever they ran out, but it is what it is. I 1000% would get the gas sooner next time. I thought I was asking for it early, but actually it was a bit late, and I needed it sooner.

I went back into the bath and drifted in and out of sleep due to me hypnotising myself and being extremely sleep deprived. I had some pretty funky vivid 1-minute dreams and would wake up in extreme pain because I was sleeping and not breathing in the NO gas which takes 20 seconds to kick in after an inhalation.

At this point, MY WATERS STILL HADN’T BROKEN YET. Megan said that she wasn’t concerned about it, and I should be able to deliver naturally, so I went with her suggestion to not manually break the sac.

I kept waiting for them to break, and then finally there was a rushed flow out of my vagina several times inside the bath. The bath water became brown and bloody and very cloudy. Because the water was cloudy, Megan was unable to visualise anything, so I had to get out and onto the bed again while the water was drained and replaced. But I had just started the second stage of labour. These contractions hit different!!!! They feel like an overwhelming amount of forced, uncontrollable pressure on your uterus and out of your pelvic canal. It feels like pushing to take the biggest sh** of your life, repeated every 1-2 minutes.

My midwife, Megan had just reached her limit of hours and had to complete her shift, so I had 2 new midwifes come in. OMG, I can’t remember their names, as I was blind the whole time (no glasses/no contacts) so I can’t even remember what they looked like.

And then guess what? My midwives told me my membrane was intact. So my waters hadn’t broken. OH F**KING NO. What was that fluid in the bath then??? (in hindsight, probably a mix of mucousy show and baby pressing on my bowel and expelling some faecal matter).

I was excited that I was finally in that part of labour where I could actively push my beautiful baby out. I had been waiting ages, I was overwhelmingly exhausted and really really wanted to see my baby!

The bath was refilled and ready for me to jump back in. This time I declined because I was in so much discomfort, that I didn’t want to walk to the bath tub without gas while I  walked there.

I saw light coming through the window.

I stared at the clock on the wall above and behind me. It was 6:20-6:25.

I pushed and pushed and pushed, feeling my baby coming out with each push and trying to prevent her from reversing back inwards.

I could hear my midwives in the background telling me she was coming and to breathe slowly and deeply. To just go slow.

I DID NOT WANT TO GO SLOW, SO I PUSHED AND PUSHED AND WAM BAM THANK YOU MAM MY BABY WAS OUT!  (6.28 am on Monday 18th November)

Let me tell you, words cannot describe the RELIEF and EUPHORIA I felt when she came out. It is instant relief, instant satisfaction and an instant euphoric high. Exactly like an orgasm but not sexual and BETTER.

How did Shane support me through labour? 

Shane was awake with me from 3 am on 17th November onwards. He spent his time frantically getting ready for me to go to the hospital at any time (this boy was more stressed than I was!) AND supporting me like no tomorrow through supportive words, light touch, anchor squeezes, cuddles and towards the end - letting me crush his arms to the point of bruising and scratches (my nails were short by the way). He had even less sleep than I did because I was falling asleep between surges and slept a little post-labour. He did not sleep for the full 36+ hours. I am so proud of him and lucky to have him in my life 

My baby was born en caul (this means that the amniotic membrane was still intact around her when she came out). The midwives broke it just as she flew out of me onto the hospital bed. I could feel the waters bursting all around my bottom when she came out. I didn’t hear a loud cry, only a slight cry.

They clamped the cord and Baby Evelyn was drawn onto my breast for that initial skin-to-skin. I was staring at her so in love and on a high, when all of a sudden there was an emergency buzzer called, all the lights came on, she was taken away from me and, it seemed like 20 people rushed into the room. I was told that she needed respiratory support to help her start regular breaths.

I was also told that my perineum had torn and that it looks like a grade 3b tear. I realised this was from pushing forcefully when my midwives asked me to go-slow. I told Shane straight away to forget about me and go follow baby into the special care unit.

It was all a rushed blur but once everyone had left the room, I understood more of what was going on. I wasn’t really worried at all because I was on such a euphoric high. Like I didn’t even feel the tear. I also had so many doctors and nurses treating my baby, so I had full confidence that my baby would be ok.

I was delighted that I could choose between a spinal anaesthetic and general anaesthetic, and that all the staff knew I was a vet and Shane was a GP so spoke to us in more medical than lay language which was nice (of course I would ask if I needed clarification on something). 90% of the staff also knew and remembered Shane from his hospital rotation in 2019. I chose the spinal anaesthetic as it meant that I could see my baby straight after surgery, although bedridden, but at least not unconscious! I was actually so excited to have surgery, because I’d never had an anaesthetic (besides local) or a surgery before and wanted to experience it. I was told a 3b tear was serious, but honestly didn’t care – “it is what it is”.

I went into surgery about 9 am and honestly it was such a cool experience meeting the anaesthesia and obstetrics surgery team. I was chatty the whole way through. Actually, chatty for the entire 3 days in hospital lmao. I love healthcare workers. My hospital stay helped me realise that I am a totally dependent person and need people to support and validate me constantly for me to love myself and feel good. I felt like a pampered princess the entire time 

I am so so f*ing proud of myself. 

From primary to high school days I believed I was weak and had the lowest pain tolerance in the world. This week I have discovered that I can be incredibly pain tolerant. It is ALL about mindset and relaxation. Shoutout to little 13-year-old me in the nurse’s office every month for severe period pain without pain relief (I didn’t know how to swallow tablets so would spit them in the bin) and believing I was weak as sh** for not being able to tolerate periods.

Please feel free to message me privately if you have any questions about my pregnancy or birth experience, I would love to help other women with advice based on my personal experience .