Chelsea’s Positive Water Birth
Love reading positive birth stories, you’re in the right place…. This positive birth story is with first time mum Chelsea. Chelsea delivered her baby boy on a birth unit and had a calm water birth, lifting her baby out of the water herself.
I can’t believe it’s my time to share my birth story and wow it couldn’t have gone more the way I had planned.
My waters broke at 9.30pm after a long bath with lavender and clary sage oil (I had been doing this for around 4 week previous). I called the birth unit at 10.15pm (after knowing it was definitely my waters and not ‘bath water’ coming out ?). They said to keep an eye on it over night and see how we get on.
I managed to get some sleep with cramping on and off waking me up. At 5am I woke up and went to the toilet and noticed my mucus plug had come away. Not being able to get to back to sleep I got up and the contractions started, mild and spaced out. At around 8am they were getting stronger so put my TENs machine on, which I would highly recommend.
I was trying to stay at home as long as possible so that we wouldn’t get sent back if we weren’t too far long. At 9.15am the contractions where coming more often and were strong so we called the unit. They wanted us to “pop” in to double check that it was my waters, and so we did.
Walking through the hospital I could feel the contractions getting stronger and stronger and felt like I was in the right place. We got shown straight through to a beautiful room at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital Birth Unit. Low lightening, candles flicking around the pool and I felt my self becoming overwhelmed at the fact that this was where I may meet my baby and had a little cry!
First examination I was only 1-2cm which was disappointing but my waters had broken. As it was quiet we were allowed to stay and see how we got on, which was just as well as 40 mins later I was then 6cm! I was so proud that I had got this far using only my TENs machine, paracetamol, dihydrocodeine and of course my breathing. All I kept thinking with each contraction was we were a little closer to meeting our baby, the positive thoughts were so helpful, I knew I could do this, it’s what I was made to do!
40 minutes later I was fully dilated and ready to get into the pool. As soon as I stepped in I felt instant calm, between each contraction I could have fallen asleep I was so relaxed. The midwives were amazing at reminding me of my breathing, pushing and when to blow! I did a lot of things leading up to the labour like acupuncture, reflexology and perineal massage and remembering to blow when his head was crowing, I believe was why I didn’t need any stitches.
At 1.59pm our beautiful baby boy was born and we instantly fell in love. The midwives let us bring him out of the water ourselves which I hadn’t really thought of before, but I’m so glad we did.
Everything from the course helped massively to stay calm and remember that I could do it. Knowledge is power and I truly believe I would have had a different birth story if it wasn’t for the positivity and facts leant on the course, thank you Beth.
Click the link for more information about The Bump to Baby Chapter’s Hypnobirthing and Antenatal Online Course. Know what you can do to stack the odds in your favour for the birth that you want. Videos, checklists, audios & a support group all created by a midwife to get you feeling excited, prepared and confident for birth.
