Heather’s pain-free, first-baby birth centre birth

Mama of two, Heather, shares her story of her first birth to baby Evan that she describes as “life changing”, including how she prepared for it.

How would you describe your births?

My births were life-changing. I just thought “how amazing is your body if you just let your body do its thing?” It’s that feeling of “I’d do it again in a heartbeat”. It's a pretty mind- blowing experience to have.

 How did you feel after your births?

After birth I felt euphoric. Birth is just such a wild, raw experience.

 My birth story

 With Evan’s birth, I was going to give birth in a large public hospital nearby, but my doula suggested a small standalone birth centre near me. I think it had about a 95% success rate with natural birth and that sounded like good odds to me. I also switched from a GP-shared care model to a midwife care model for my pregnancy.

 On my due date, I walked up a big hill and my waters broke the next morning, but I did not have any contractions for another 24 hours. The next day I had an acupuncture session to gently speed things up and this brought my surges on almost instantly . I did all the work for the birth at home for six hours with only my husband. I just wanted to be left alone.

 I ended up getting so close to giving birth at home – when our doula arrived, she was like “holy sh**t ,we need to go to hospital now!,” because I was so close to giving birth and we also had to give the midwives at the birth centre enough notice to give them time to drive there, fill up the birth pool etc. I was probably transitioning in the car on the way to the hospital – luckily it was only four minutes away.

With my son’s birth, I intended to go into the birth pool, but I was so deep in my zone and I was so hot and bothered I didn’t want to get in, at first. However, when I did get into the pool, it was the most “ooh” moment – all pressure in my body shifted away and it shifted me into a more relaxed state. It took me down a level and made me more peaceful.

The whole labour was about seven hours and I gave birth in the birth pool within an hour of arriving at the birth centre. There were no complications during or after birth and I only had a minor graze. We cut the umbilical cord after around 30 minutes after it stopped pulsating. My birth to Evan went beautifully and I felt so proud – I couldn’t have asked for a better birth.

 How would you describe birth/contractions?

I didn’t feel pain during my births. During my preparation for Evan’s birth, I read someone describing birth ‘pain’ as ‘not pain at all, but rather as deep intensity’ and I really agree with that. I felt my contractions  were manageable when I thought of them as intensity.

 It’s about changing your mindset - It’s so important. You just have to go with the intensity and breath through it. Don’t fight it or fear it. Relish the idea that the stronger the surges are, the sooner your baby will arrive. This really worked for me.

 How Heather prepared for birth

It all started with seeing how Minnie (from Happy Birth Secrets) approached birth – I hadn’t thought much about birth at the time, but seeing her positive approach opened my mind away from the drama that is often depicted in movies and other horror stories. When it came to my own birth, I thought I’d just go with the flow with birth, but then I decided I wanted a natural birth, so I worked out that in order to have one I needed to be determined and prepared.

I hired a doula recommended by a friend. My doula said: “you can do a natural birth”. I educated myself about different birth interventions and I read the book called Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Sarah Buckley. From that it crystallised my thinking - I didn’t want a caesarean or interventions or anything that I thought would make my birth harder or riskier. I thought my body and its amazing hormones can do this without ‘help’. There was no suggestion I needed help with birth – everyone said I had textbook pregnancies and was low risk. ‘I can do this!’ I thought.

When I get further into my pregnancies, I go ‘peak hippy’ to get into the right headspace. I do meditation, go to regular chiropractor, and acupuncture sessions, positive affirmations, gentle pregnancy yoga, have lots of sleep, play positive music and positive natural birth story podcasts, do gentle walks and eat good food. I learned how important it is to block out other people’s fears – so many people do not understand and fear natural birth. I’m just completely focused on my mindset as it’s so easy to develop self -doubt.

I had an amazing midwife for both of my births. My private midwife was a godsend who slotted me in at very late notice. I used the same  doula for both births too. My doula changed a lot for me. She educated me and got me on the right path to have the natural births I wanted. I knew I had the right team behind me for my births.