Melissa had an empowered Active Birth earlier in April, and we’re absolutely thrilled for her and her lovely family! She shared her story in an email…
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We welcomed our baby girl into the world at 2.50am, some hours after I had spoken to Janet the previous evening.
We arrived at the hospital after my waters broke. The monitor showed me having contractions every 10 minutes, but I didn’t feel them. I was apparently 7cm dilated so they wouldn’t let me leave the hospital. We ordered in take away for dinner, and actually had a romantic date night in the hospital – the only way to eat out during lockdown!
By 10pm I was 8cm dilated. The OB removed my membranes but she said there was very little water left. At around 10:30pm I started to feel regular lower back achiness – this was my only sensation of the contractions, and I didn’t feel them anywhere else. I put on my tens machine and laboured over a birthing ball with clary sage and lavender. We played the hypnobirthing tracks and my husband applied pressure on my sacrum every time I had a surge. It was sufficient for me and I got to 10cm pretty quickly.
At that point, my birthing team told me to start pushing but I told them I wanted to wait for the urge to push. We ended up waiting for over 1.5 hours and i never really felt a strong urge to push hard. By that time, I was getting tired and the baby’s heart rate started to surge so my team told me I really had to bear down. It became an exercise of really holding my breath and pushing hard!
Luckily it was only a few surges and baby moved down. Baby got a full lotus birth and 45 minutes with her placenta before we cut the cord. We had immediate skin-to-skin contact, which we kept up for 12 hours and she latched onto the breast immediately. We were very happy with the experience and grateful for all the learnings at ABC.
Janet. thank you for all your help and advice yet again! I couldn’t have done it without you.
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Please note that although classes at the Active Birth Centre are on hold for now due to Covid-19, you can still get all the benefits of Pregnancy Yoga in online classes.
Janet and Lynn are also available for private, one-on-one video calls and consultations.
