Welcome Earthside Baby MIla

Tanya and Harry booked in for a private hypnobirthing class at 36 weeks. I am so pleased to be able to share their incredible birthing journey!

Well we welcomed our baby girl Mila on Monday 21st of March at 07:28am, one day after my due date and it couldn’t have been any more perfect - truly thankful to you for your guidance and support!

My waters broke on the morning of Thursday 17th which had me feeling excited and elated that we would be meeting our baby girl soon. After a visit to the hospital, they confirmed it was possibly hind waters as it wasn’t a huge gush and following this they checked baby out (which she was perfect as always) and sent us on our way home. They also discussed the need to be temporarily booked in for an induction should labour not progress on it’s own - I was happy to listen to their advice but reminded them that I wanted my labour to commence naturally, if at all possible. I agreed for them to book me in for the Monday, however, I would go back to the hospital for daily checkups to ensure Mila was okay.

Naturally thinking labour could start any day we headed to my sisters where we would be staying as she was closest to Casey Hospital which I ended up transferring to last minute on the off chance that I could use the bath to have a water birth (as Dandenong didn’t have those facilities).

So Thursday, I started feeling cramps but nothing serious so just continued on with my day and tried to stay active and bounced on birth ball. Ended up grabbing a tens machine which I practiced using when I thought I was having a contraction but at this stage, I don’t think it was anything milder than just a cramp.

Friday - still experienced cramps and in the evening, I decided to do some housework at my sisters on all fours, cleaning her skirtings lol! At night, I wore the tens machine to bed and timed my contractions. They were about 10 minutes apart for most of the night so I was thinking it would happen that night but then I had a wave of nausea and diarrhoea and things fizzled out - I decided to get up to get some water and to my horror, as I turned on the light I almost stepped on a dead mouse (new house things) - this probably paused my contractions as I tensed up a bit as nothing happened after this.

Saturday - same thing. Still leaking at this point - the hospital did check ups on her and she was just perfect, comfortable, happy, content! The hospital discussed the induction with me and I was a bit apprehensive at this point, knowing that baby and mum were well - I wondered why I needed to bring labour on artificially when we were both okay and my contractions were nothing super serious. So we went back to my sisters and I continued about my day, she’s just recently moved in to a newly built home and her grass needed to be cut so my dad and I mowed the lawn, he let me push the mower so I could just keep active! That evening, my family and I had a beautiful dinner at my sisters and as the night progressed I felt more contractions - mum said they were getting closer together so we decided that maybe by doing some dancing to a Croatian Kolo, it would help bring things along - my family were in stitches!! That evening, in bed - I had your comb and would remind myself when a contraction came - floppy face, floppy fanny - my contractions continued but strangely fizzled again.

Sunday comes around - we both had a great sleep with minimal contractions and we’re on our way to hospital for our last check up before this deadline of my induction date. I was feeling a little flat as I didn’t understand why my body was holding back - I knew I could do this and started questioning what I was doing wrong and why my labour hadn’t started. We did our check up, they sent us on our way and Harry and I decided that we would go back to our home in Dandenong North and collect a few more clothes and toiletries as we didn’t pack enough given the circumstances. On the way home I said to Harry that despite being booked in for an induction, I didn’t feel like I wanted to go in the morning - I felt healthy, baby was moving lots. Why bring on something artificially that could ultimately naturally occur. Whilst their is a risk of infection, I physically felt healthy and felt baby kicking me lots and just wanted a bit more time.

So I said to Harry, let’s go for a nice big walk around our area where there are lots of hills and steep streets - it was a beautiful warm sunny day I just kept walking where ever I could find a steep hill - Harry was starting to fatigue and my contractions were definitely there but I was content walking.

We got home and showered and Harry rested on our bed - I joined him and got him to put my Tens machine back on as I started feeling them more and more. At this stage, I was feeling fine - I really didn’t want to get my hopes up as I had been having these contractions for 4 days now and didn’t know if it would be a false alarm. I decided to put my AirPods on at this point and just listen to affirmations that we practiced and just had calming music on. This really kept me in such a calm zone that with each contraction I felt, it was almost like I didn’t feel it was happening. I cuddled the toilet seat for a bit then went back to bed - made myself some scrambled eggs on toast for dinner and just leaned over the bench during each contraction.

Still at this point I didn’t think I felt like labour was really happening - I felt so fine! After dinner, I went back to bed and laid there with my headphones. They started to pick up to being 6 minutes apart but lasting like 60-90 seconds each. This lasted until around 11:30pm and my husband at this point was helping me just remain calm when they felt super intense. He reminded me not to tense up that I needed to keep my fanny floppy

By 12:30pm, he was really getting over me being in this pain that he couldn’t help - we decided to call the hospital birth unit and I kept this on loudspeaker so Harry could hear everything. I was still with it and talking fine so the midwife said that I’m welcome to come but it sounds like you’re comfortable at home. The midwife said that I should try have another shower and get on all fours and lean over the bed to try another position. Well, this got things moving - we went from 6 minutes down to 4 and by about 2am we decided after a big long surge it was time to go. I had a few contractions whilst trying to get to the car and instead of the front seat I decided the backseat laying on my side was the best position for me. At this stage, my suitcase was at my sisters house which we decided we had time to go and get. She wasn’t home but we had the key so Harry went in and I was pushing on the door and mooing through every surge. We got to the hospital and went through emergency where I just took my time walking to the ward.

Once we got in, the midwife referred to me as the woman coming in for an induction at 7am - I told her yes that’s me, I was a little eager to come in the midwife wanted to check my obs but at this stage, I was having 2-3 minute surges and instead we went straight to the birth suite. Whilst Harry went back to the car to get our suitcase, the midwife explained my options. She advised me that water was not an option after having my waters broken for so long and also due to the fact they wanted to have the monitors on my belly (which weren’t waterproof). My initial response was ‘well what’s the alternative’ and she said you can decline the monitoring and that was my first response - I declined the monitoring as they could keep an eye on her through the Doppler which I was comfortable with.

I told the midwife, I feel absolutely fine and I can feel her kicks still - my fluids were clear, no blood. Nothing! So off I went in to the shower as I felt standing was most comfortable for me. With each surge I squatted in to it or had my leg up on a chair to open my pelvis up.

Once I had had enough here I asked to be checked as I wanted to feel sure that this was labour as my midwife was keeping very quiet which I loved. At this point I was either going to be really happy or really disappointed that my body wasn’t working with me but after she checked me I was 7cms dilated and the feeling of hearing this just meant that I could do this! We went back to the shower where I got on all fours and tried multiple different positions which at this stage, I did yell for Harry to get me drugs in which he had no clue what I was asking but the midwife yelled back to Harry - ‘she wants drugs’ - we laugh now because she knew what I was yelling for. After that surge, I didn’t ask for it again so the midwife didn’t exactly follow it up - she did offer me gas early on but I declined as I wasn’t sure that it would help.

We moved to the birth ball and whilst this was a good rest period, it didn’t feel like it was helping. I ended up standing over the bed and mooing through my surges and just trying to squat each time. Once I gained the strength I asked the midwife what else I could do and she suggested to put one leg back up on the chair which I did. This helped incredibly and I ended up doing this with both legs to even everything out.

My midwife would leave the room and let us be and I asked her what happens when I’m dilated to 10 cms. She said that my body would just take over which I just didn’t quite get at the time. Once my body was ready or at least getting ready - I yelled to Harry ‘nurse, poo’ and she came back in and realised I must be almost there. We had a beautiful student midwife Darcy in the room too who was checking me with the Doppler at times and once another surge came, that sensation of needing to take a poo but also push just came over me in such a big wave. I would just remember your affirmations of breathing down the baby which I felt that I was doing but once it got too much, I would say out loud to myself to ‘stop’ as I didn’t want to go too far to cause myself damage.

We got her head out in this position but once the next surge came, I was almost a bit nervous to do this again as I felt the pressure of her almost tearing me. My midwife then suggested that because we’ve been in this position with her head out at the time we should get up on the bed and straddle it to help move this along, otherwise they would have had to intervene.

Well I managed to get myself up on to the bed (not realising her head was out) and the midwife said that I needed to give a good push in my bottom. I was so done at this point and not exactly listening that I thought she meant breath so instead of giving a push in the bottom I just let a big deep breath of air out. Harry laughs now because it did nothing but once I tried this again and gave a good push down in to my bottom, she literally just fizzled out after two pushes.

The midwife laughed after her birth because her shift was due to finish at 7:30am and when we first arrived, she said that we’re going to have this baby before her shift ends. We made that deadline by 2 minutes and also bet the clock on needing to be induced.

I truly believe that the energy of the home environment, power of the mind and techniques for breath from the hypnobirthing model was the reason we had such a positive and calm birth.

Floppy face, floppy fanny literally was stuck in my head - I didn’t use any of my other affirmations besides Harry telling me to breath and keep calm and think of my happy place but honestly that was enough for me to just get through every surge, one at a time and just focus on the next one.

Mila arrived so beautifully, she let out the most incredible cry that made me cry. Her birth was just perfect, we had no interventions, my perineum was in one piece with two tiny grazes inside and a first degree tear at the bottom that healed up nicely on its own without the need for stitches.

I’m so grateful to you for accomodating us at such last minute to learn about hypnobirthing and for teaching us all of the ways in which I could remain in control of my own birth.

I truly felt that Harry was an incredible support for me to remain focused as I do recall saying to him on a few occasions that I couldn’t do this anymore but he just reminded me that we were both in control and we just needed to get through the next surge in order to be closer to meeting our baby girl.

Forever grateful to you and have already recommended you to friends who are thinking or expecting their babies - it’s incredible what the mind can do and your guidance on how to access this truly got me through it!