“Our little girl, Amelie Winter Rose, was born on the 19th February at 12:59pm weighing 7lb 13.5oz via water birth.

Our full birth story…

I woke up on the morning of our guess date, 17th feb and things started but it was very very early doors.

I rang Tom to let him know and he decided to come home to be with me. We spent the day tidying and cleaning listening to our playlist. During the evening, the tightenings started to get a little stronger, I sat on my ball watching tv and used my essential oils to keep me calm. Tom started timing them from 1am and by 3 they were getting closer (about 4 mins apart) but were still inconsistent so we tried to get some sleep.

At 8am things started moving again so we started timing again. I put on my tens machine and happily sat on my ball watching friends, which kept us laughing! We kept track of our timings and surges gradually got closer together from 15 to 6 to 3 mins. Within 20 minutes the surges went from 3 minutes to 1 minute apart so we headed to the hospital. We filled the car and I popped on my playlist and lavender eye mask and we got to the hospital around 10pm that night. I wasn’t quite in established labour so we were offered to stay and I was able to have a bath, which felt great but we thought we’d achieve more at home so decided to head back and keep doing our thing. We got home around midnight and I couldn’t sleep as most of the sensation was in my
Back so I felt more comfortable standing or being in water. Tom ran me a bath and went to get some rest. I spent a couple of hours really focusing on my breathing and keeping in control of the surges as I couldn’t make it to the bath so once Tom was awake we headed to the hospital where I was admitted to the midwife led unit.

Tom handed out our birthing plan and our midwives set up our room. When we went in we were so surprised and excited. The room was amazing – they had set up fairy lights, fake candles and turned the lights off for us as we’d requested. I started on the gas & air and stood chatting to our midwife (Carrie)whilst Tom went and got everything from the car. Everything felt amazing at this point, we were on such a high! The sensation was still all in my back so Tom held a frozen clary sage flannel on my lower back whilst Carrie filled a glove with warm water and massaged my back. We happily went along with this, chatting and taking each surge as it came until 5:30am where we felt we had progressed enough to get into the birthing pool, which became our home until our baby girl arrived! We’d asked for few examinations so I was checked at 10 am but wasn’t quite there so we carried on with the plan to check again at 1pm ( I generally like having goals so it worked for us to have a loose timeline). At half 11, I felt like I was starting to push so we brought the check forward to 12 – I was 10cm! We’d gotten quite tired and were drifting off in between surges. We were doing so well together and Tom had been my rock talking me through each surge and keeping me focused on my breathing that the midwife had pretty much left us to it. When it was time to push, we both came alive! She arrived in the water at 12:59. We were so over the moon! Our new midwife, jo, left us to cuddle and then after 15 mins Tom cut the cord before having his own skin on skin time whilst I got out the pool to birth the placenta.

The whole experience was so overwhelmingly incredible. Yes, it was quite long but after completing our course with empowered bumps, we felt prepared and ready for any eventuality. I can not recommend hypnobirthing plus enough! It equips you with so much knowledge and gives you the confidence to embrace whatever your journey may be. I tell everyone about our positive experience and the role hypnobirthing played, even throughout pregnancy. I was so nervous about the birth before my time with empowered bumps but now we can’t wait to go back for classes with our next bundle of joy!”