Amy’s Story, January 2013
Jamie and I are excited to announce the arrival of Elle on January 19th at 3:24 pm weighing 8.2 and measuring 51 cm.
My membranes released about 4:30am and we called the midwife around 7am. She figured my surges should start sometime in the next 6 hours or so and the baby would probably arrive late Saturday but more likely Sunday. So I figured I had tons of time …
As the surges started I was doing the breathing that we practiced. I went downstairs and even cleaned the kitchen thinking I had all this time, then took a shower. The surges started coming pretty intensely and I started to wonder how I was going to manage if my ‘real labour’ hadn’t even started. I spoke to our midwife at about 11am and the surges were about 6-7 minutes apart.
Within 45 minutes after getting off the phone with her they were 2.5 – 3 minutes apart, So we decided to call the midwife back, saying I know we are supposed to wait until they are 2-3 minutes apart for an hour but they are quickly coming a lot closer and are a lot more intense. The midwives decided to come.
By the time they got there about 1:30 I was very focused breathing through my surges. Keep in mind I still thought I was going to have hours of this to go. They checked and I was fully dilated! I had breathed my body open through the surges with the HypnobBrthing techniques.
We had to quickly decide whether we had time to get to the hospital! Elle’s head was crowning a little crooked or we may not have had time!
We got there and everyone knew we were coming and was literally clearing the hallway! Even with the crazy rush the midwives and staff at Toronto East General were wonderful and so calming.
We got into the birthing room. I breathed through a few more surges and then they suggested I try pushing, and within about 3 or 4 pushes about 6 minutes later Elle was born.
We had all these plans, we had our cd’s and mini speakers, pillows etc and in the end there was no time for any of it! But the HypnoBirthing techniques I used during my surges are what I, 100%, attribute to how quickly I was able to move Elle down and also what gave me the strength and focus of my pushes.
Now we are loving every minute with our little peanut!