Calmbirth Birth Story - Stephanie, Mat and Baby Daisy - "Calm birth had us armed and focused on the best path to safely meet our girl"

On my due date I decided to treat myself, I’d made it (!!) and I wanted to celebrate and hit that oxytocin! After a sneaky hashbrown, a coffee from my favourite cafe and lunch outside with my mum and Gran I was feeling great. I had a Bowen treatment and then headed home. 

That night our microwave broke and I remember thinking to myself, I have a feeling this is a bad night not to have a heat pack and so Mat went out to buy me a hot water bottle (spoiler alert, I was right!) 

Day 1. 

Around 3am I started getting some cramping and just before Mat was about to leave to work they’d increased to one every 15 minutes - I was so excited it was starting! Mat stayed home and my sister came over, we hit up our favourite movies and chilled outside. The contractions decreased in the middle of the day which I was expecting and then started to ramp up again in the evening. I popped my tens machine on and started breathing. 

By about 11 they’d really ramped up and we were getting a solid 4 in 10 that were really painful - so we headed into the hospital for the first time! We were so excited Daisy would be here tomorrow (spoiler alert we were wrong!) 

When we arrived at the hospital the shower was my happy place but with awful back pain I decided it was time to try sterile water injections, after these the back pain ramped down and my contractions started to slow as we creeped toward the morning. After an assessment finding out I was 1cm but with a super thin cervix we made the decision to go home, the hospital was busy with planed inductions and I wanted to labour at home on my own time. 

Day 2. 

So home we went, I had a little cry in the car but thanks to calm birth we were armed with the knowledge that this was common and we know we would be most comfortable at home. Mat had me and it was time to just keep following our plan.

At home we focused on breathing, hydrating, fuelling and resting where I could through contractions. I switched between listening to my labour playlist and Harry Potter which helped me to fall asleep during contractions. They varied some were 15 minutes apart, some were two minutes apart. Around 1am we called the hospital to check in, they said as long as I could feel Daisy moving and my waters hadn’t broken we were doing the right thing. So we continued labouring through the night. I was so glad I was at home where I was comfortable! 

Day 3. 

The contractions continued but weren’t ramping up enough for me to head in to hospital. around mid morning we decided it was time for another assessment to understand what decisions we needed to make. I was tired but I kept focusing on my breathing, my trusty tens machine being clicked over and over as contractions continued. 

Our hospital was full so we were sent to another hospital in our catchment for the assessment, thankfully I had progressed a couple more cm to 3cm and we realised Daisy was posterior which helped us to understand what was going on. My body was working hard to turn her around and so once again we went home. Where we continued with the tens machine, breathing and getting some short power naps. 

That night my contractions ramped up and still didn’t have a clear pattern. Sometimes there were 5-10 minutes between contractions then I’d have a long 3-5 minute contraction followed by a couple of short ones. I clearly remember thinking these aren’t the 30 second ones I was promised! 

But I was calm, the pain was only functional so I wasn’t scared and all the same techniques applied, breathing, tens and visualisation. 

The contractions were so intense in my back and when the hot water ran out in our shower it flipped something in me mentally and I just needed to go in for pain relief. So into the hospital we went again, I remember having the most intense contractions in the car that lasted almost ten minutes thank god for that hot water bottle. 

We arrived to the hospital and I almost ran to the shower and asked for the gas straight away. After a few hours we had another assessment and we’d made it to (4cm) without my waters breaking. 

My back pain was so intense so we decided that it was time to try morphine to see if I could get some rest, we also arranged another assessment and decided to break my waters to see if it would progress labour. 

At this point I was just focused on getting through each contraction, but Mat could see I was exhausted at 6cm and my pain was beyond what gas or morphine could help with. We’d discussed our approach to pain management and interventions prior to going into the hospital. So my incredible partner suggested it was time we considered an epidural and thank god we did. 

We were lucky that we had an amazing aesthetitst who was able to administer it while I was lying down, which helped me stay still during the contractions. And almost immediately afterwards I slept for four hours. In hindsight this was the best choice to not only give me the strength to push but the energy to look after Daisy when she arrived! 

Day 4.

After this I just remember an incredible peace in the room, I kept on dozing in and out of sleep and eventually the nurse let us know we had moved into the stage of passive descent. 

I knew from the class that pushing would be strange with the epidural in that I couldn’t feel the contractions, so the midwife’s were guiding me. My contractions had slowed to almost one in ten which was so frustrating, I was so ready to meet our girl but I just couldn’t push and hold her for long enough to progress. After two hours I had felt her head and knew she was close and after discussing with the midwife’s and doctor we decided to use an oxytocin drip to increase the frequency of contractions. 

This part was so mentally tough for me, the doctor had mentioned the next steps of interventions and I was so determined that after almost four days of labour I was getting this girl out myself!! 

Because I hadn’t pressed the epidural button in so long the pain and sensation was returning and I remember a contraction so painful that for the first time I was scared I couldn’t do it… but the whole room said yes you can back at me and after a few more pushes came the biggest relief of my entire life came as Daisy entered the world and came onto my chest. 

Mat put on some music and we just sat in golden hour with our daughter Daisy, finally here in our arms. We did our first feed within an hour and Mat did some beautiful skin to skin with her. I was up and about walking to have a shower almost straight away and I was stoked with my recovery! Since then the fun as the Westy family began. 

I am so proud of our story and I felt like a fucking boss afterwards. What could have been the scariest four days of my life was instead four of the days of my life I am most proud of. Mat was just an epic birth partner and I love him more now than ever. 

Calm birth had us armed and focused on the best path to safely meet our girl. My advice to parents is to find yourself an Amy who can walk beside you not only through pregnancy and labour but through the newborn phase so you can focus on what matters most - your little one