Mind the Baby’s Birth Story

If you’ve been around this blog for a while, you’ll know by now that I am a huge fan of birth stories. My own experience of giving birth left me on a high for close to two weeks afterwards, I’ve never experienced anything like it. I think part of the reason I had such a good experience was because in the months leading up to the birth, I followed the Gentlebirth guidelines to read only positive birth stories. Not because we should deny that difficult births occur. But because we recognise that for birth to proceed quickly and easily, you must be relaxed and calm. And it’s very difficult to relax if your head is full of the horror stories that people delight in sharing with expectant mothers. So I sought out every positive birth story I could find, and reconditioned myself to think of birth in a positive light.

When I read Mind the Baby’s birth story recently on her blog, I asked her if I could share an extract here, and I’m delighted that she agreed.

Extract from Mind the Baby’s Birth Story
Very excited but hungry, I ate some lunch and went to take a nap and listen to my Gentlebirth tracks while my husband popped down to the shops to pick up a few groceries and some magazines (which I never got to read). I wasn’t ten minutes into my nap when the surges suddenly increased in intensity and lying on my side listening to my iPod wasn’t doing anything for me anymore. My husband arrived back just then and helped me back downstairs but by the time I got to end of the stairs, I couldn’t speak during my surges and needed to stop and lean heavily on him. They were still coming 3-4 minutes apart. It was time to get the midwife back and fill the pool!

We have an island in our kitchen and it proved to be invaluable as I walked around it and held on to it during each surge while my husband filled the pool. I tried sitting backwards on a chair – a position we had practiced at our active birth class – but I jumped up immediately once a surge began. My body only wanted to be standing and upright all the time. It was really comfortable to just stand, walk and sway during the surges.When the midwife arrived, she examined me and told me I was about 6 centimetres and helped me into the pool. Oh the bliss! I spent the next couple of hours kneeling forward in the pool, with the midwife pouring warm water on my lower back during each surge and my husband pressing his forehead against mine as he breathed me through each one. Both our foreheads were very tender for the next few days.

Want to know what happened next? Read the rest of Mind the Baby’s birth story here: My Birth Story

If you have a positive birth story of your own that you’d like to share on Mama.ie, just let me know, and I’d be happy to publish it.