This week’s story comes from Hailey Schroder, who prepared for birth using The Calm Birth Method.
My first contraction started at 8:19 a.m. on June 18, 2019. They were pretty regular, coming about every 15 minutes but I was able to sleep through them until about 10:00 a.m. I called my husband home because things started to get a little more intense and I need him to help guide my breathing.
I paged the midwife and she came to assess me at 11:30 a.m. and determined I was 3.5 cm dilated and 70-80% effaced. She set up her home birthing equipment and told me to page back when things got closer together and more intense.
I had my grandmother and husband as support which helped so much, they helped me with light touch massage and guiding me through my breath as it started to get tough. At 4:30 I paged the midwife again and she assessed me when she arrived at my home and determined I was 6-7 cm dilated and 90% effaced. I also asked my doula to come at this point to support me through my labour. The midwife stayed at my home at this point to support me through my labour.
I continued to labour until around 7:30 p.m. I decided to get assessed again and was told that I was 8-9 cm dilated and my waters were bulging. At that point I decided to have my waters released by the midwife to speed the process along.
Almost immediately after the release my contractions intensified almost double, I laboured laying down for a bit to get some rest. When I stood up shortly after 8 p.m. the midwife told me I had a small lip of cervix in the front and to try and labour more but my body had other plans and began involuntarily pushing the baby out.
I was standing facing my husband with my arms around his neck, he supported me and in less than a minute I felt his head crowning. They told me to get on the bed at this point as baby was coming quickly and they didn’t want to ruin my carpet, to which I responded “I don’t care about that carpet!”, (Now, I am glad I got on the bed haha). I got on my hands and knees and baby’s head was out at 8:10 p.m. and he arrived at 8:11 p.m. He was born at a healthy 8lbs 7oz. and I was able to get him to latch almost immediately.
The most surprising part of this process was that the most discomfort I experienced was from the contractions at the end and not the baby coming out (feeling him coming out was a huge relief!).
I can honestly say though after having been induced with my first and receiving an epidural, I feel a million times better after this birth than my first. I was able to walk around 20 minutes after giving birth and I am in a minimal amount of discomfort and to top it off I had no tearing!
I wouldn’t have been able to do this without the calm birth school method, it really prepared my mind and body for the labour and helped me achieve the home birth that I wanted!
If you want to create your own positive birth you can start today!
Sign up for our FREE Hypnobirthing Videos here or get in touch with one of our Instructors here
