Morri’s Birth Story- 13.2.22

Born at 39 +1 — Pre-labour release of membranes, spontaneous labour onset, normal vaginal delivery, postpartum bleeding requiring treatment in theatre.

Firstly, I just wanted to say how much Nic and I enjoyed and appreciated everything we learnt and absorbed during your course.

As you know, we welcomed our little boy Morri into the world on Sunday 13th feb, and I wanted to share our birth story with you. Doing your hypnobirthing course really impacted and influenced the way we approached our labour and helped give both Nic and I so much confidence to work through the labour and birth.

Prior to labour I had been eating my dates every day, drinking my raspberry lead tea, walking, bouncing on my fit ball, doing perineal massage and antenatal expressing. Which I think all assisted in getting us to the birth.

So it all started on Friday evening (I was 38weeks 6days) when my waters broke as I was bouncing on my fit ball and making bracelets with my stepdaughter Evie (the oxytocin levels were strong).

After my waters broke we bundled Evie off to her mum’s house and headed into the hospital. I think evie was pretty shocked by what was happening and what she saw when my waters broke but once I explained to her what was happening she became really excited knowing her baby bro would be with us soon.

At the hospital, they monitored bubs and checked his position. He was doing really well so they sent us home to get into labour. At this stage I was having very subtle period-type pains on and off so things were looking good in order for me to go into labour naturally.

I struggled to sleep well that night as I was so caught up envisioning our birth and meeting our baby as well as having subtle period pain surges. I really had to work on lowering those adrenaline levels. I listened to some hypnobirthing soundtracks and breath work overnight to help with this.

Saturday morning I started having more regular surges, and we went for a walk to try get things moving along. I came home and made banana bread (distracting myself and keeping upright), we watched clueless, and tried to get some rest in between surges.

I had the tens machine on by this stage. I absolutely loved the tens and would 1000% recommend every woman to use one during labour.

Saturday afternoon we went for another walk. The surges were stronger by this stage and I was doing my best to walk through them and utilizing my surge breathing. Back at home we had the candles on, clary sage burning and hypnobirthing soundtracks were playing.

From about 9pm Saturday night the surges became more intense. During surges I was either on my fit ball, or leaning over the kitchen bench. I breathed through the surges and visualized floating over a wave in the ocean. I also visualized my bubble of comfort through many of the surges. Nic was doing his soft touch and repeating our mantra to “be soft and calm”.

As we got into the early hours of Sunday morning the surges were much closer together. I was getting very tired by this stage and tried to rest between surges although when I was lying down the surges were so much more intense and spaced out. Nic called the hospital a couple of times to ask for advice about when we should come in. My surges never remained consistent and their timing was very much dependent on my position (I.e when I was standing or on the toilet they would come very fast, and when I was lying they were much more spaced out).

On the last call to the hospital they suggested we remain home a bit longer and come in at about 5/6am (note, Morri was born at 5:57am 😬).

We decided to go with our intuition and left home at about 4:30am, as my surges were getting really intense and I had begun moaning through them. I think I was potentially going through transition at this point as I really felt we needed to be at the hospital. Thankfully we live very close to the hospital. When we arrived I told them that had a lot of pressure in my bum, which was a pretty good clue I was ready to go. They put me in a wheelchair and rushed me up to the birthing suites.

Once in the suite I allowed the midwife to do an internal, in which she didn’t get very far as I was fully dilated and Morri’s head was in the birth canal. And I was so ready to start pushing!

I positioned myself on all fours on the bed hugging the back of the bed. I allowed my body to tell me when to push and was so bloody amazed by my body and it’s ability to contract and push my baby down on its own accord; I could totally feel my ejection reflex doing it’s thing.

The pushing phase was drawn out and I could feel Morri’s head bouncing up and down through each surge so I needed to put a bit more effort into each contraction to move him down. We got to a stage where the midwife felt she needed to proceed with an episiotomy, this was not something I wanted and gave me the energy to push Morri’s head out in the next contraction. And with one more contraction his body came out and Nic and I pulled our little babe up onto my belly. We we’re absolutely elated and the midwife was so impressed I managed to push him out without the episiotomy. Also note, that I did not tear in this area either (I put this down to the perineal massage we did leading up to the birth). I had two small tears on my labia and just one of them required stitches.

From here things sort of went down hill, as I birthed my placenta very quickly followed by a massive gush of blood. Everything changed from here; the lights went on and an army of, what I’d like to call life savers, came into the room. They all worked to control the bleeding but unfortunately it couldn’t be completely controlled so I had to go off to theatre.

Nic was left absolutely terrified as he held Morri and watched me be wheeled off to theatre. I was so disappointed that my post birth high was so rudely interrupted by this bleed and all those amazing loved up hormones went out the window.

However I am so utterly grateful for everyone who was in that room as they not only supported and helped me but also reassured Nic. A beautiful midwife in the room turned her attention to Nic and Morri and made sure they were comforted and encouraged Nic to do skin to skin with Morri and feed him my colostrum. Despite the situation, this gave Nic and Morri and incredible bonding moment.

In theatre they cleared out some blood clots from my uterus and managed to stop the bleeding.

And three hours later I was reunited with Nic and Morri. I immediately had skin to skin with my baby and he took to my nipple very quickly.

We had some beautiful moments once we were reunited and all felt good again. I was totally loved up and obsessed with our little bundle of joy and happy to have Bic by my side again.

In looking back I am so incredibly proud of myself to labour for so long at home and felt I could manage the surges with everything we learnt in your course. I was in a head space were I knew each surge was bringing me closer to my babe and my body knew exactly what to do.

Thank you again for all your education and support. And please know that both Nic and I have continued to live by a lot of the practices we learnt during your course.

Chloe Thornton is an AHPRA Registered Midwife, Registered Nurse, Birth Mentor and Hypnobirthing Australia™ Certified Practitioner.

She provides group classes virtually to families across the country each month and also has a small number of spaces available for private bespoke sessions online or in-person. She can be contacted by email at chloelouisethornton@outlook.com or phone 0493108658.

You can learn more about her Hypnobirthing Australia™ classes here.