This girl. This friend. This WARRIOR! She is the reason I had the mental strength to follow my instincts and give birth at home. Fear free, pain free and medicine free. Christine Davies (info@nuturecentre.com) is a professional, successful Hypnobirthing practitioner and she not only helped us have the birth we wanted, but she helps numerous women to make the right birth choice for them.
Christine has birthed twice at home. Here is her amazing first home birth story as she shares how the power of the mind and instinct have powerful effects on our body's ability to birth...
Welcome Mali !
TWO freaking centimetres???
You Have GOT to be Freaking joking.
This was my reaction to my midwife when she gave me the news, that after 15 hours into labour, I had progressed, well…pretty much bugger all!
I started labouring at 7am that morning. I remember talking to my wonderful brother that morning when he called me excitedly to ask ‘so?, what does it feel like to be in labour Sis?’….
(I know. What an awesome brother.)
My little baby, who was going to be born “sometime” that day (or two), was to be the first baby in our family. The very first grandchild. A girl.
My mother is a bit psychic. This is not something we really took much notice of when we grew up. I just put it down to her experience, or a mothering intuition. But for years and years, since I was 16 years old, she had been having vivid dreams about the little girl with dark hair, I was going to have one day.
16 years of age turned to 20, turned to 25, and then 30 was getting uncomfortably close.
When was I going to have this little girl? Am I really going to ever have children? Is my mother right, or is it just wishful thinking?....or is she just freaking nuts?!!
In 2011, I felt really irritated. We’d been not exactly trying to have baby, but practicing the.. ‘if it happens, it happens’ routine. The moment that second line turned blue, I was in the bathroom, all alone in our apartment. My partner was out for a couple of hours, with the local life boating club, training in all those bond like expeditions, racing across the sea, saving lives. So whist he was being BOND, I was having a miraculous, magical, momentous experience….amongst our bathroom basin, toilet and bath.
The line turned blue, and my face turned red and wet with big tears of joy and bewilderment running down my face and crashing onto the bathroom tiled floor.
Definitely one of the happiest moment of my entire life, and I can never imagine anything else better.
Birthing Day
I was pretty chilled when my brother had called at 7am that morning.
I explained to him that everything felt fine, and “If it carries on like this, it’s going to be easy!!”
15 hours in, things started to get HARD, very HARD.
The surges had suddenly picked up quite considerably. They were so strong, and I was beginning to feel really uncomfortable.
I let all the negative thoughts flood into my mind.
“I can’t do this.”
And when my midwife finally came over, and gave me the news that I was only 2cms dilated, I felt broken.
I felt disillusioned.
I must be nuts to think I can give birth at home with no drugs. Just using Hypnobirthing?
2 freaking CMS dilated, 15 hours in.
How could my overwhelming instincts to give birth at home be so wrong? I felt safe at home. I hate hospitals, and I just wanted to be in control….but 2 cms??!!
I felt that sense of control begin to fall through my fingers.
Maybe my family were right? Maybe my low pain threshold is something I just can’t hide or fight. Maybe giving birth at home for my first child is just crazy, who the heck do I think I am? I can NOT do this.
….and then it happened...
I made the ONE crucial decision that changed everything.
I took a deep breath…. and started using the Hypnobirthing skills I’d been working on for months.
I was letting the fear get the better of me, and with a deep gulp of courage, I moved away from the bright lights of my lounge, and moved into my birthing room. A room which was the place I wanted to first see my baby girl's face for the first time, the room I visited by myself in the middle of the night trying to imagine what birth was going to be like, the room I communed with the gods and prayed I would be able to pull this birth thing off.
That dining room, my spiritual birthing space began to take on a sort of transformation, which also transformed me.
Hit the lights off, push the button on the music playlist I’d put together, fire up the candles, and get comfortable.
Sweet music was gently playing in the background, the lights were off with only the warm glow of flickering candles dancing in silhouettes on the walls.
I lay down on a sofa bed we had there, and my partner began to go through some of the visualization and relaxation scripts that we had been practising so often in the lead up to this moment.
The discomfort I had preciously been feeling started to melt away. Slowly at first, and it was a bit of a struggle to focus on being relaxed when the surges were so powerful, but it was working!!!
Continually focusing on my breath, on relaxing my body through each surge, and surrendering to the enormous power that was surging through my body lessened the discomfort considerably…
….and then I gently, gradually, gratefully slipped off into a dreamland...
I was aware of every surge, but it took on a hypnotic rhythm, and I just lay there. Anyone watching would have probably assumed that I was completely out of it and asleep, but I was totally aware, just not in the usual way.
After a while, my partner squeezed my feet. “are you ok?, you’ve been out of it for 4 hours!”.
WHAT??!
I couldn’t believe it….4 hours!?? It felt like 20 minutes had passed.
I felt like a different person. I was so shocked by how quick time had moved on, without me, my confidence soared, and I felt that sense of control was firmly back in my hands.
“I CAN do this!!!”
“I CAN give birth at home without drugs”
The midwife returned.
6 cms Dilated!!
WOW!!!!
I had gone 2cms in 15 hours feeling discouraged, and another 4 cms in 4 hours whilst feeling so relaxed!
I got into the birthing tub, and the relaxation took on a new level.
The surges continued to strengthen, get longer, and closer together.
Instead of lying on a bed, I was now swaying to the rhythm my body wanted me to dance to.
Moving my hips around, sometimes changing body position after each surge to continually improve the experience, and I begun to hear my own voice join the party….like energy moving out of my body through my vocal cords.
I did feel a bit silly to be honest. I’m not a singer. I have a terrible voice, and this sound was NOT what I would call beautiful….but it felt soo right, and I really couldn’t control it whilst letting my body take over and do what it knew it needed to do.
My midwife later commented that she’d never seen someone fall asleep at the final stages of birth. But with my arms and head laying over the edge of the pool, it felt like the most natural thing to do.
At around 7 am, I felt a heaviness in my hips, and then an overwhelming rush throughout my body.
My baby girl's head was beginning to emerge. I’d heard about the ring of fire, but I didn’t feel a thing. So when my daughter's head emerged, I have to say, it did give me a bit of a fright!!
My little girl had been ‘back to back’ and so when her head was birthed, she came out facing me! She wiggled her little head, which hit against my thighs (a very unique experience!!)
I sat there in the pool for another moment. Waiting for the final rush to wash over me, and bring my baby out into the world.
I felt the beginning of the wave, it rose, picked up speed and strength, and as it reached its peak, my body took over and powerfully heaved and pushed my baby out.
For a second after she had come out, I didn’t realise what had happened. I hadn’t quite joined the dots that she was out. I watched the faces of the people around me, my partner, my midwives and my mother, all standing at the edge of the tub, joyful, excited, emotional…
My baby was out, and she was beginning to swim herself up to the surface of the water.
Eyes wide open, and fixed on my mother gaze who was watching from the side lines.
I reached down, and made contact with that soft, gentle, perfectly formed body, and brought her closer towards my body.
I lifted her up, out of the water, and onto my chest.
God, that feeling!!!!
This little girl, whom I’d been willing, wishing and waiting for was now nuzzled on my chest.
I looked into her blinking eyes, waiting for her to begin to focus, and internally thanked the universe for bringing my little star down to me.
My mum was right. This WAS a little girl, and she was finally in my arms.
My instincts were also right.
I could give birth at home, with no drugs, in that little room with the water tub, candle light and soft music.
I DID IT!
