"My waters had broken and I could feel our baby crowning." Birth Story of Dustin
I woke up at around 2:30am feeling slight surges. I had felt a few niggles here and there in the weeks prior but knew the surges I was feeling now were different, there was more rhythm to them and they were consistent. I tried to ignore them as I didn’t want to get too excited that we were going in to labour, so I decided to go back to sleep. I dozed for a few hours, before waking my partner, Luke, at around 5:30am.
Luke downloaded an app so we could track the surges. I jumped in the shower and shaved my legs because I was thinking to myself, when am I going to next get a chance to do this? While I was in the shower, Luke set up our living room with aromatherapy, the Hypnobirthing tracks and a ball for me to bounce around on, all while I was calling out letting him know when my surges had started and when they had stopped. The surges were now very consistent and approximately two minutes apart.
I was feeling relaxed, refreshed and ready to focus on labour. Luke helped by doing light touch massage (my favourite technique that we learnt from our Hypnobirthing course with Shari). I was feeling so relaxed that I could feel my surges slowing down, so I would jump up off the ball and do something active like re-pack the hospital bag. We agreed to call the midwife at around 7:00am so she could plan her day. Lisa, our midwife, was already up at the hospital preparing for an induction that day so told us to come up whenever we were ready.
We arrived at the hospital at around 8:30am, and upon entering our birth suit, I burst into tears at how beautifully our midwife had set the room up for us (we were in the birth centre at the GCUH and had snagged the rainforest room). She had lotus flower candles lit all around, aromatherapy, dim lighting and beautiful affirmation cards up on the wall.
I agreed to an examination, however Lisa knew I didn’t want to know how far along I was, so she told Luke that I was 3cm dilated. Luke suggested I hop into the shower, where I spent the next hour and a half relaxing over a ball. I felt so relaxed that I thought I was slowing my labour down again so I got out and felt like laying down on the bed for a while (this surprised me as I thought I wouldn’t want to use the bed at all). After an hour on the bed, my surges were so strong that I asked for another examination. I had started to feel them in my cervix. This surprised my midwife as she knew I didn’t wish to have any examinations as part of our birth preferences. She agreed, and once over and done with, I could hear the birth pool immediately being filled! Lisa told Luke that I was 8cm! I had progressed 5cm in 2.5 hours.
I flopped into the pool and could notice my breathing had changed. Luke put on the Prompts for Birthing Hypnobirthing track and I spent the next hour and a half changing positions, getting comfortable and bearing down. I became quite vocal during my surges, and Luke and Lisa could see that I was using up energy. Luke whispered into my ear “you’re doing a great job but you need to go inward babe. Try focusing your breaths in and down.” This is a technique we had learnt in the course, but in the throws of things, I had forgotten. That was the exact advice I needed as within a few surges, my waters had broken and I could feel our baby crowning. 10 minutes later at 1:50pm, Luke announced “We have a head!” and our baby was born!!
While snuggling with our bub, Luke and I laughed that we had gone to see a movie the night before and all I had for dinner was popcorn! Thankfully, we were back in the comfort of our home before dinner with our beautiful baby boy that same night.
Emma & Luke
Gold Coast
(Photos taken at the Gold Coast Birth Centre)
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