I was hoping that this time everything would start with surges, but my water broke in the middle of the night a couple of days before 38 weeks. They were a bit too pink, so I decided to go to the hospital, just to have a check up. Everything was good, and we came back home to wait one whole day for contractions, otherwise we agreed to stimulate 24 hours later.
I was sure that my surges would start within 24 hours after the waters had released but it didn't. :-(
I felt desperate. I was thinking and thinking, my doula reminded me that 90% of labour starts in 48 hours. The decision was made: I decided to wait one more day. I felt relieved and decided to stimulate it naturally, but before that I planned to get some proper sleep :)
So my stimulation program was: bare foot walking, squatting, contrast shower, breastfeeding my older son as much as possible and, of course, hypnobirthing audios and visualization (especially The Birth Release).
After a nap I noticed my belly was in a lower position than before. I felt very excited about it, I realized that the process had started. So all evening I was following my stimulation program. The surges became more often, but not very regularly. I went to bed and understood I couldn't sleep because of the surges. It was 10pm and the waves were every 15 min. I was super excited! I kept doing the visualization and listening to the affirmations, bouncing on my ball and doing surge breathing.
My doctor said to come to hospital when surges will be longer than 30 sec, 3 ones in 10 min, last during 3 hours. So I have expected to come to hospital about 6 am)
At 1am I understood I need my husband help me to go through the waves: they became more often and intensive. Also I have noticed that they slowed down when I was laying down.
At 2am I started to feel shivering and my surges were about every 5 min although I had already stopped counting it. So we went to the hospital. Arrived there at 3 am, my doula arrived soon as well, switched on the candles, star sky projector, and hypnobirthing audios: I felt very relaxed.
The midwife checked my dilation: it was 6 cm and the baby was still very high.
Laying down with the CTG was a torture though and also I started to feel the urge to push. The problem was the midwife wanted to write down some more contractions, but the surges were more rare and each one was longer, compared to if I was in a different position.
At last the CTG was off. I tried lots of different positions, but relief came when I started to use my J-breathing whilst standing up. During my surges my doula did acupressure and my husband was looking into my eyes and saying warm encouraging words.
Then I felt that baby has reached birth path, as I felt a really strong urge to push.
So I was doing J-breathing in squatting position and helping myself with deep throat sounds (It felt very natural). It lasted for a while (really difficult to say how long, not fast, but not long as well).
And then I heard the midwife exclaim, that the baby is breech, I was surprised as everybody else! The midwife calmed me down saying that she had delivered breech baby before.
It was a bit more difficult than the head down position, but quite soon he appeared! I brought my baby up and put him on my tummy to say hello, his dad was hugging him as well. I was relaxed, happy and full of love! It was an amazing moment.
I was waiting for him to crawl to my breast (I helped a bit) and we both enjoyed breastfeeding. It was 5:30am and only two and a half hours since we arrived to hospital.
In one hour we cut the cord. Decided to use the oxytocin shot to help delivering placenta. The surges was very strong! I used my surge breathing to help. At last it's been delivered! I was very happy!
(My previous labour the doctor took it out manually and I definitely did not want this again) Any time when I couldn't hold my baby, my husband held our son skin to skin.
It was wonderful experience!
Thanks to Jasmine Collin : the hypnobirthing course helped me so much, especially all the tools we had that helped me feel confident and calm throughout.
Thanks to my doula Suzanne Schmidt: she supported me before, during and after birth.
Thanks to the midwives of Al Zahra hospital.
And of course thanks to my husband and his every moment of support.
Elena Xx
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