One Mum's Story: Celine & Anais

Anais, Celine and Liam shortly after birth

My pregnancy went well, as it had with my Jaia, my belly grew into a perfectly formed basketball shape, and physically I felt fine. On the other hand, I struggled with the emotional side a lot more then I had with Jaia's impending arrival. I just didn't feel like I would be able to cope with two such small children, and all those doubts were constantly reinforced by the Universe (I strongly believe you create your reality, and that your thoughts create your destiny) - namely via strangers at the supermarket checkout commenting on my bump, and the small toddler I had in my trolley with a 'you'll have your hands full'... a statement that I learnt to despise and struggled to be polite back - but I always seemed aware that I had created this unwanted attention with my fears and lack of faith.

I can be honest and say that with this pregnancy I was on an emotional rollercoaster, not only had I created a heap of useless, unwarranted fears of the future, but we also decided to finish renovating the inside of our house - a huge job that meant we had to move out for 6 weeks- if only it had been 6 weeks - these renovations ended up stretching out to 12 weeks out of the house plus every weekend after that. A word of advice to anyone pregnant and deciding to renovate - DON'T!

So with the house in a shambles, and a small, very active toddler to keep me busy, the nine months went by in a blur of tears, and unwarranted fears... I tried my best to stay on top of things emotionally, aware of how our emotions can affect our labour journey, so I ended up having many kinesiology sessions, and for that work, and acknowledging my journey, I am very thankful that I managed to snap out of it in time and that my labour was so wonderful!

So to set the scene... I was 38 weeks pregnant and looking forward to finishing the master bedroom/birthing room... It was our last weekend of renovations and we were all looking forward to a 2 week break before bubs arrived. Liam's dad was up helping, they'd spent Saturday slapping the first coat of paint on the walls, and things were coming together - finally!

I felt unusually tired all day. Jaia's little friend was turning one so we went to his party up the road - it was only 200 metres up the road but I seriously considered driving the distance, it took some serious mental deliberation to resist the car and push that pram - I usually walk everyday, so this was very unlike me, but for the past week my pelvis had started to ache and on that Saturday I just felt 'so full'. We made it to the party and back, I was exhausted and struggled to get through the rest of the afternoon without a nap - another word of advice I had learnt from Jaia's birth. Rest, rest, rest because you need that energy for the labour... still I didn't think I'd be going into labour as soon as I did, so that advice went unheard!

That night I put Jaia to bed at 7 and prepared dinner for Liam and his dad who were working overtime painting the room. At about 7.30 I started getting the odd tightening pain but dismissed them as just being pains from being so tired. We ate dinner at 8.30 and as we ate the pains seemed to increase in frequency. We talked about the possibility of the oncoming labour and what we would do, hypothetically of course, if I was to go in labour that night.

At about 9 I decided to call Claire, my midwife, to see if she could make light of the situation. As I described the pains to her she said they did sound like the start of labour, and to wait and see what happened. Armed with this information we decided it was best to clean up the downstairs and have that pool pumped up, just in case! So Liam and his dad went to work vacuuming, mopping, and pumping while I had a shower and tried to get some rest. From about 10.30 the pains started to increase in strength, I started to need to get out of bed and rock when they came on. Everyone else was asleep, and I tried to rest as much as I could too.

By midnight things felt like they were only going to get more serious, I gave Claire a call and she said she was on her way - it would take her 2 hours to get here. Liam and his dad got out of bed and returned to the birthing preparations - you know, the usual stuff like nailing up drop sheets on the outside of the windows as the architraves were still fresh with paint - our neighbours all knew what was going on from the banging! As they worked, I stayed out of the way, just trying to stay focused on what was happening within me... focusing on my breathing, and trying to stay centered as much as possible, I wasn't too worried about what the boys were doing downstairs, somehow I just knew everything would be done on time, and being a our second birth at home I trusted that Liam knew what needed to be done.

However as the time wore on I started to resent the fact that Liam was so busy preparing when all I wanted was him with me... still that's the joy of being caught out in a homebirth situation! At 1.30am everything was mostly ready. Liam's dad left our place to go and stay at my parents. The house was quiet again, except for the music that we had playing in the lounge where I was...Liam asked if I wanted to move downstairs, he'd placed a mattress down there and things were ready for birth - except for music... we didn't have a small cd player and I really felt like I needed those earthy sounds of Sacred Earth to stay focused, so after some quick deliberation, armed with a torch, off he went again, crawling under the house to hook up some speaker wire we'd had there previously... but a beautiful partner! Not many people would be keen to go scrambling under a house at 1.30 in the morning!

Five minutes later he was back and as each contraction came and went I did my best to breathe and focus. I used rescue remedy to get through the hard times, those emotional doubts that come up when in times of stress, when I didn't know if I could get through it, I felt like I was struggling to breathe and focus as well as I had been with Jaia, my nose felt blocked and as I accepted each contraction I found it hard to stay as positive as I would have liked to.

At 2am I felt like I wanted to be in that water, for those that don't know, jumping into a birthing pool too early can relax and slow your contractions, so even though I would have loved to have been in there earlier I had held off as long as possible. I asked Liam to call Claire; she was about 20 minutes away. Phew! I thought! I entered the pool at 2am and the water was magical, fortunately it was just warm enough and although the level could have been higher I wasn't complaining!

Liam continued to be in two places at once, he even managed to pull some big pot plants in from outside into the room between contractions... I had about 10 contractions in the water, my waters broke after the third contraction, the release in pressure was amazing and it gave me renewed strength. Then the urge to push started to overcome me. As the urge came on I started to get upset, as I had really wanted to have Claire there to help me breathe through the pushing stage... with Jaia's birth I felt so overcome by them and this time I had really wanted to breathe through them better then I had the first time.

Liam was my angel, he reminded me that I didn't need Claire, that I could do it on my own... and with the strength those words gave me I breathed...by the second contraction I could already feel my baby crowning, this came as a bit of a shock to me as I had never thought it would happen so quickly, and then I breathed... and with that third contraction her head was born - so easily, I was so amazed, lost in the moment, feeling my babies head, 'this is just so easy', I kept thinking... the next contraction her shoulders came and with just another push she turned and out came her body... I lifted her out of the water, in absolute bliss - we both were!

Although the contractions had been intense, the birth really had been so easy; we were both so overcome by the ease and speed at which this baby had come. As I held her and cried, and Liam cuddled me, I had never been so 'in the now'. We checked to see what sex the baby was... it's a girl! (Something I had felt all along!)... We just couldn't stop laughing, both on such a high, Liam quickly went and found his phone so we could see what time it was... 2.25am... and then Claire walked in minutes later... she'd heard my last contraction as she was stepping out of her car. Our little girl was perfect, not a mark on her, she breathed her first breaths so easily; there really had been nothing to worry about!

So I did it, all on my own - with Liam's help of course... but the thing is, I birthed this beautiful baby on my own, because we are woman, and we are designed to give birth, and if we have faith in our bodies, if we let babies 'be' born, and trust that all is as it should be, then it will be!

Not having Claire at the birth helped me realise that I can do this, despite all my fears of not being able to cope with two little children, I CAN COPE. I have started my journey as a mother of two in the most powerful way possible and I can only thank God and the Universe for allowing the events of this journey to unfold as they did!

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