That strange feeling of intuition is always worth listening to! So many women tell us they just _knew_ when their baby was going to arrive – they felt it. You can also use your intuition like Emily did to choose the yoga poses and breathing that will help you and your baby most and make birth a special experience.
Emily had attended Pregnancy Yoga classes with Lynn and used a lot of what she had learned. Here’s her awesome birth story…
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We were driving to visit my parents and I felt heavier than usual. I felt every speed bump and I was needing the loo more than usual, but my bump was still ‘high’ and it seemed my baby’s head was fixed but not engaged according to the doctor at my 38 week appointment.
That evening I felt different and told my partner I thought maybe baby was going to arrive soon. I woke up around midnight and realised my mucus plug had dislodged and there was a bloody show. I put on a maternity pad and had a cup of tea. There was quite a lot of liquid so we went to the midwife-led unit to check if my waters had broken, but when I got there they confirmed this hadn’t happened yet.
So… we headed home. And almost as soon as we got in the car (by now it was around 3am) my contractions started!
Everyone had said to labour as much as you can at home, so we decided to carry on with our journey home. By 3.30 the contractions were coming quite fast – about 5 minutes apart and 40 seconds long. I walked around a lot from room to room, breathing in through my nose and releasing breath with a long sound. I tried the birthing ball but didn’t want to get low on the floor. I leaned against the wall a lot and moved from room to room using the tens machine to manage the surges.
My surges were coming faster and faster, so we decided to go back to the hospital. I used deep breaths in through the nose and loud “Ahhhh” sounds out to flow with the surges.
We were admitted to one of the birthing rooms with a pool. The midwife on duty read my birth plan, which they respected and followed throughout just asking qualifying questions.
I laboured at first with hypnobirthing breath – long in and long out – as well as ‘up’ visualisations and got into the water instantly, which really helped.
Later on I used gas and air (but this took some focus because you have to change from breathing in through your nose and out your mouth to in through your mouth and out through your mouth.) In the pool I mainly used a squat pose, and unexpectedly, the one where you sit on the balls of your feet (whilst hanging over the edge of the pool). The pose where you extend your leg backwards helped with a cramp that I experienced in my legs and feet.
The last two hours were the toughest as I was very tired. I came off the gas and air and went back to my hypnobirthing practice, breathing baby out with short breaths in and long breaths out, coaching myself with, “You can do this!” and, “Hold hold hold and open.”
After birthing baby’s head, I gave two final pushes and there he was! We had skin to skin contact in the pool as we greeted our baby boy. I had delayed cord clamping, and then had quiet skin to skin time for the first hour. Oh, and I did not need any stitches!
Baby weighed in at 7 pounds 10 ounces, and 53cm long. Labour in the birthing suite was recorded at 5hours and 55 minutes, but from when my contractions started it was10 hours.
Thanks for all the sessions, it all really made a difference on my baby’s birthday.
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Thank you Emily for sharing your story, and we look forward to seeing you and your baby soon!
