Olivia’s Empowered Natural Birth Story – “Is that it?”

I figure I better go ahead and finish this before #2 comes along, I’m actually feeling some waves of tightening and back pain this morning.

Olivia’s amazing birth
I dont think i quite realized it at the time, but after to talking to lots of women about their births since, Olivia’s birth truly was amazing.

It was calm, relaxed, drug free, stitch and surgery free, and I honestly don’t remember it being painful. (Yes I can hear your gasps from here.) There were no screams or rants or “why did you do this to me!!”‘s. I was totally in the zone.

fear = tension = pain
The whole concept of the yoga and Calm Birth techniques I used is that fear produces tension and tension produces pain. So if you can eliminate the fear aspect, you will allow your body to relax enough to naturally do what it knows how to do, and had been doing for millions of years. By relaxing my mouth, limbs, and body, I can assist the hormones and all the processes that take place by being knowledgeable about what is going on and visualizing helping them along.

preparation
From about 28 weeks, Every night leading up to the birth I would practice my techniques. I’d listen to the calm birth tracks in my iPod, visualising my happy place (on the beach at Seal Rocks watching the gentle waves roll in past the headland)

Because with Olivia my waters broke at the very beginning of labor (after I had done Acupunture and yoga that day and felt my first twinges while on the Acupunture table), my contractions were 3 minutes apart from the very start. But I didn’t tense up when they came. I saw every contraction as a wave that i rode that helped bring me closer to my baby. I visualized my uterus and cervix as a coil of ribbon and I could loosen and unravel, letting the baby descend. I imagined myself at the beach at Seal Rocks, watching the waves, feeling the warm sun on my body, and hearing the sound of the breaking waves and seagulls overhead.

I labored for about 6 in the middle of the night. Honestly I can never listen to Bob Marley the same way again. Mostly on the couch, I tried to rest and relax and save my energy as much as possible. When a stronger wave came on I would hop up from my best of pillows and blankets and roll around on the fitness ball. I also did a lot of standing and rotating the hips in circles while resting my head on my hands on the wall. When I felt like I was starting to get tense or needed a change, I got in the bath and mike kept filling up the bath with warm water. We counted together to slow my breathing down — in 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 then long exhale: out 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Another part of my preparation was managing expectations (any good Creative Director’s will tell you this is an important part of the job!) My true only expectation was that mike was going to be there with me as my Oxytocin Warrior! So if something did happen to go differently than planned, I knew everything would be ok as long as he was there with me.

10cm dilated – coffee anyone?
We knew it was time to go to the hospital when I had the urge to go to the bathroom. When we got there the spa was available and ready for me. When the midwife did a quick under water examination I was completely dilated – 10cm!! Hooray, nearly there!

I got into the bath in a lovely dark, warm room with just a few electric candles to keep the relaxed vibe going.

For the pushing part I visualized a coffee plunge because I knew that its the muscles at the top of the uterus that need to bear downward in order to get baby out.

The midwife was hardly ever around. She would pop in and take the baby’s heartbeat after every wave, but other than that she could see that the 3 of us were in full control. Mike did ask her to come in at the very end to help direct me when it came to the home stretch pushing the head out. But 2 or 3 waves later and out swam a beautiful healthy baby girl who did a little cough and splutter and immediately held up her head and looked at mike, recognising his voice.

The first words out of my mouth were “I did it!” Although it should have been “We did it” as Mike was an amazing support every breath of the way, and Olivia played very nicely being in good position, staying calm as well, and doing everything she was meant to. Calm, natural birth. Goal achieved.

And there we have it, childbirth. 9 long months of anticipation built up to this one moment where I get to hold my baby on my chest and marvel at our genetic prowess.

is that it?
Mike reminded me just the other day when we were talking about Olivia’s birth that after she had popped out and was laying on my chest in the spa I said “is that it?” as if all the hype and buildup over the past year had all come down to that moment and I was pleasantly surprised in the end that it wasn’t as bad (or bad at all) as I thought it was going to be.

I owe my positive, empowered birth experience to the mindful meditation, breathing, visualisation, and my wonderful birth partner and baby.

Resting in between waves: