I love opening my inbox to find birth stories, especially when they are amazing like this one.
I met Georgia & Mitch for a private intensive course in January. They were such a pleasure to teach and so keen to learn all there was to know about hypnobirthing and birth itself. To say they were super chilled out was an understatement so I had good feelings about their upcoming birth.
In their birth story written by Mitch in his own words, you will read about early onset labour before 37 weeks gestation, quick natural birth, transition, active upright birth positions, and bonding post birth. I hope you enjoy this one just as much as I did and a big CONGRATULATIONS to the new parents, Georgia you are a hypnobirthing star!
7pm on Saturday night (Feb 1st), we were sitting on the couch at home watching TV, when Georgia quickly stood up and said “I think some discharge is coming out”, within seconds there was water running down her legs (luckily she made it to the laundry tiles!). We got some bags together and went into the hospital to check if they were in fact her membranes that had ruptured (it was pretty obvious though as Georgia was leaking all over the ED floor and had gone through 2 pairs of trackies!).
We arrived at hospital at around 8pm, where Georgia was put on the CTG machine to monitor her tightenings and the babies movements. After some checks she wasn’t experiencing any tightenings and was only 1cm dilated. They were talking about keeping her in hospital until Thursday as she had not reached 37 weeks yet (full term). At about midnight she was taken upstairs to the maternity ward where she may have to spend the next few days hoping to naturally go into labour before intervention on Thursday. As we were at the Mercy (public), I had to head home for the night.
At about 1am Georgia began to get some period cramps which weren’t painful so she decided to keep these to herself. At about 4am her period cramps became tightenings which were occurring more frequently so the midwife came in and called in a doctor, to find she was 4cm dilated. At about 4:45am she was taken downstairs to the delivery rooms, where she called me and said “I’m having some tightenings and they’re taking me to the delivery rooms did you want to make your way in?”. So I promptly made my way to the hospital, arriving at around 5am.
I walked into the room and the first thing she said to me was “I can’t do this”. I ignored what she had said and began getting the room ready and more comfortable for her. Music on, diffuser on, exercise ball and mat out.
Georgia told the midwife she felt like she needed to do a poo, and went and sat on the toilet. After a tightening occurred whilst on the toilet, the midwife asked her to come off the toilet and back into the main room (because the midwife noticed she was pushing).
Georgia got onto the floor kneeling on the mat and hugging the exercise ball, breathing through each tightening. I was constantly telling her how great she was doing and changing some wet towels she wanted on the back of her neck.
By 6am the midwife got me to come down and have a look at the babies head and asked Georgia to change her position, to hug the bed instead of the exercise ball (whilst remaining kneeling on the mat).
Within about 10 minutes the midwife asked Georgia to have a feel and informed her that the babies head was showing.
At 6:45am the midwife asked Georgia to put one leg up whilst keeping the other knee on the mat to help open her pelvis more.
A few moments later, our beautiful baby was born!!
A truly special moment with Mum, Dad and baby on the mat on the floor (I must admit many tears came out in this moment!).
Georgia was asked to move up onto the bed where she had some very special skin to skin time. A few minutes later I was asked to help cut the cord and Georgia also gave birth to the placenta.
Little Edie Grae Papas was born at 7:03am on 02/02/2020 (only date you can read backwards in 1000 years!). She weighed 2.89kg and was 49cm long. A completely natural birth with no pain relief and 1 internal stitch. Such an incredible effort! Her AGPAR score was 9 and 9.
Because Edie was technically premature (even if only by 3 days), she was taken to the special care nursery to help her stay warm and was put on a CPAP machine after she started grunting a little bit.
Edie joined Georgia upstairs in the maternity ward on Monday night and we were discharged on Tuesday Morning after passing all of her necessary tests.
Thanks so much for all of your help Vanessa, although the birth happened very quickly and we didn’t have much time to prepare we felt very confident with the knowledge and tools you helped us learn.