This is Beccy Fairman's Inspirational Birth Story!
I started with contractions on Friday evening but baby had been having a mad hour in my tummy & so I'd thought it was just her causing strange sensations as it was all in my bladder! I was pretty uncomfortable Friday evening but completely passed out fast asleep after listening to your relaxation tracks you sent us for the workshop. I had a fair few pains overnight & into Sat morning & then after a bath, they started to change in feeling a little & so I realised they were indeed contractions! Craig set up the living room with all the candles & our diffuser with the lemongrass & we watched some light hearted/funny bits on TV whilst I bounced on my ball & scooped around the living room! My waves were coming fairly regularly for most of the day but weren't really lasting over 30 seconds. I got to about 4:30pm when Craig could tell I was really starting to struggle so he called through to Macc hospital to tell them where my contractions were up to. They were a bit vague & said oh well we're quiet, so come in if you feel you need to & we can assess you. So off we went, after a bit of deliberating, mainly because I'd started to feel a bit sick so I knew it perhaps was the right time to go! I think I must have stopped 5 times in various corridors to breathe through a wave, I was in my zone!
We arrived at 5:35pm, they assessed me & confirmed at about 6:10pm that I was 5cm dilated so we could move to the delivery rooms...the midwife seemed quite surprised. Craig thinks it was because I was fairly quiet really just focussing on my breathing. We requested a birth pool & luckily there was one available. Craig again did an amazing job setting the room up with all our candles, the diffuser & tunes & I got into the birth pool at about 6:30pm.
My waters broke after a wave whilst in the pool just before 7pm & Ivy was born at 7:45pm. I'd had no pain relief whatsoever. I'd kept saying I'd maybe try the gas & air but it was like I was so much in the zone, I couldn't grasp how I'd even work it & use it whilst experiencing a wave.
I literally did breathe Ivy out! I did it all with just my breathing techniques & Craig was an incredible support reminding me to breathe all the way through it. We'd been doing the relaxation readings you'd given us from the workshop a few times a week before bed & so I do think Craig's voice then really had become my anchor.
The midwives were amazing & took thorough note of my birth preferences, to the point where I barely even noticed them in the room with us. They kept it calm & quiet, whispering throughout & put everything through Craig so I didn't have to talk to them.
They didn't coach me to push, they told me to focus on my breathing & to just go with what my body was telling me to do.
I was so in the zone, I genuinely didn’t really have any clue as to what was going on around me & Craig told me Ivy's head had been born as I'd not really realised myself!
I even ended up with no tears or stitches so I count myself immensely lucky. Again, we'd been religiously doing the perineum massage since 36 weeks, not every day, but a few times a week so I'm sure that along with the water birth & breathing Ivy out rather than really pushing hard for a long period of time helped with all of that too!
So there we go! Thank you so, so much again, what a truly incredible experience all thanks to the amazing yoga & breathing techniques you taught us! I never believed it could really be like it was, but I now know it's 100% achievable. The Midwives were very sweet & said how amazing it had been & that they have very few births like that. They were all saying, definitely a home birth for you next time! The student midwife who took the lead with our delivery was fab & she said she'd felt really privileged to be a part of it!
We would really love to join the next baby massage course too!
Much love
Beccy, Craig & Ivy xxx
