The Birth of Oliver James, by Midwife, Emma Snelgar

On the morning of the 22nd December at 6:50 AM my waters broke unexpectedly after I took two steps out of bed. I was 37+1 weeks pregnant and could not believe it as it was so early! I woke Jeff up trying to catch my waters with my hands in half panic/half disbelief. We called the hospital and had to go in for assessment.

Everything checked out fine so we were sent home to ‘await events’. If I didn’t go into labour by myself we had to go back at midnight for antibiotics and be induced at 7 AM the next day at the main hospital. I was determined that was not going to happen – I made a deal with the baby – ‘This side of midnight please!’ So we came home and had a rest.

I was having tightenings towards the end of the rest but when I got up about lunchtime they had died off. We decided to go to the lake for a walk and have lunch. It was a very slow walk around the lake and things started to get moving.

We were home just after 3:30 PM and by 4 PM I was having regular surges – every 3-4 minutes. I spent 2 hours on the fit ball in the bedroom listening to the hypnobirthing CD and alternating with moving around. By 6 PM they were really regular so we called the midwives to let them know I was in labour. The midwife at the time told me to stay at home for a bit longer and suggested I have a shower for pain relief. They were coming every 2-3 minutes but I believe the midwife didn't think I was very far along. I sat in the shower for an hour on the fit ball in the dark listening to my favourite relaxation music, breathing and focusing on relaxing my pelvic floor muscles during the contractions (surges, sorry cant help it im a midwife, its ingrained!) At this point Jeff was exercising the dog out the back and getting things ready to go, checking on me every ten minutes or so – he would sit with me for a bit but I was quite happy being on my own and getting into my zone.

By 7 PM they were much more intense and Jeff was getting a bit anxious that I would have the baby at home. We called back and a new midwife – Faye – told us to come in. We arrived just after 8PM and Faye greeted us and settled us in. She said she wasn’t going to do an internal check until she felt it was really necessary. Thinking I wasn’t far enough along she encouraged me to hold out on the bath for now so I just bounced on the fit ball with Jeff massaging me until things started to get really intense after about an hour.

I couldn’t sit still during the contractions and I was walking around in circles. They were coming so fast I found I couldn’t get myself into that deep meditative state I was hoping for however I was playing my relaxation music and resting on the ball in between. Just after 9pm I was making those funny grunty noises at the peak of each contraction which had Faye running in quite quickly! I remember asking her in a sad voice if I could go in the bath now. She said she needed to check me to which I readily agreed. She was quite funny about it, saying “oh, ok then.. um, let me just check.. um yeah ok you’re baby’s head is right there and you’re fully dilated.. Ok you can do some gentle pushes if you need to but hang on just let me call the back-up midwife..” So she went to call the second midwife Marion to come in.

Once Marion arrived she began to fill the bath and I began pushing. It wasn’t something I could control – the urge to push was so strong so I just went with it. I initially tried all fours on the bed and that just did not work for me – I was shouting which I knew wasn’t effective but as much as I tried I could not control it. Instead Faye brought out the birthing stool and Jeff sat behind me for support. This was great and I was starting to get baby’s head on view with pushes when Marion came and told me the bath was ready, which was about 10PM at this point. Immediately I jumped up, ripped my dress off and ran naked down the corridor (this was one of Jeff’s favourite moments!). I had no inhibitions and just launched myself in there.

The bath was instant relief. It was such bliss! I felt sheltered and cocooned and felt like I had my own safe place so I could really get into my own zone and focus. At this point Jeff was still trying to massage me, which I found really distracting and told him off! One of the midwives brought in my iPod and I requested Florence and the Machine which always takes me to my happy place. I was sick of relaxing music by this point! The first song was ‘What the Water Gave Me’ which we all had a laugh about. This time I really let the midwife in me come out with the pushes. I was totally focused on making sure everything was relaxed so as to not hinder baby’s path but only to push until - for want of a better phrase – everything stretch out where I would stop then next contraction I would just nudge the baby just a fraction more each time to really work with my body and slowly birth the head. In between each push I leant over the bath and just rested. After the head was born (the head crowning was the most uncomfortable part of the whole process!) the body quickly followed. I scooped the baby up out of the water myself and held him to my chest. The cord was wrapped around his neck twice which the midwife helped to unravel and then I realised I hadn’t checked – it was a boy! I had suspected throughout the whole pregnancy that it was so I was overjoyed first of all that we had a son and also because I was right! We sat in the bath for a while waiting for him the pink up and adjust – we did delayed cord clamping and so after 15 minutes we cut the cord and I got out of the bath to deliver the placenta physiologically. This was the first time I had seen a physiological third stage and it was my own! After half an hour of waiting it finally came as I was doing skin to skin and attempting our first feed.

It was the most amazing, empowering, magical, powerful moment of my life and I will be forever grateful that I was able to birth completely naturally and in the way that I wanted, and I truly believe that have hypnobirthing to thank for that! Oliver was born on the 22nd December 2013.