This week we celebrate my second daughter’s 20th birthday. . . .20!! How?!? Every birthday I marvel at the amazing, individual people my children are. I also reflect on what their births taught me.
The short version: one Sunday we woke up, started prepping a roast dinner, my waters broke, we had a baby, we carried on cooking the roast dinner.
That really is what happened!
However, there were so many things that I learned from Erin’s birth.
The nerves I didn’t expect
There was only 17 months between Wren and Erin. My first birth had gone so well that we didn’t think twice about going again. I’d used hypnobirthing the first time and it had given me everything I needed to feel calm and in control. This time, I started practising my relaxation and breathing halfway through the pregnancy, so I felt clear on what I was doing.
But as the weeks went on, the doubts crept in.
What if it had been a fluke last time?
What if it had nothing to do with the skills, and I’d just been lucky?
What if this time it all went wrong?
I kept practising anyway. When my waters went (not usually how labour starts, but it always has been for me), I felt relieved. It was starting, and I knew what to do.
Hands off, and exactly what I needed
My midwife spent most of the labour sitting quietly in the corner, letting me get on with it. I had my toddler to keep me busy in early labour, I called my mum, I sat on my birthing ball, I breathed, I even texted friends on my old Nokia between contractions.
I’d assumed this birth would take as long as my first, about 5 hours. So as we approached the 3 hour mark, I panicked. My breathing suddenly wasn’t working, everything felt much stronger, and my brain decided this meant it had all gone wrong.
That’s when my midwife spoke up for the first time in a while, gently asking if she could check how I was getting on. I said yes, mostly because I wanted someone to tell me what was happening.
“There’s a baby there,” she said.
Baby was ready. What I’d mistaken for things going wrong was my body in second stage – wanting to push, and I was still trying to breathe as if I was in the first stage. I switched to my down breathing. One breath, her head was born. Two breaths, she was here. Second stage was recorded as 4 minutes!
That panic I felt right before? I later learned it was transition – just before birth, your body releases a big burst of noradrenaline. It’s what signals the uterus to push the baby out, but your brain picks up on it too, and it can feel exactly like an adrenaline rush or a sense that something’s wrong.
It’s such a common part of labour. It’s the moment so many mums describe as “I can’t do this!” or “I need to go home!” Midwives hear it all the time, and they know it usually means the opposite. When a mum says it, everyone in the room gets ready to meet a baby!
The high, and the bleed that followed
I felt invincible afterwards. We had golden time, skin to skin, fed her, cuddled, took it slow for a bit. Then I got up, showered, and went straight back to cooking the roast and tidying for the in-laws.
That evening I had a big bleed. My midwife came back, took one look, and ordered me into bed with baby, rest and nourishment.
I don’t generally do advice, but I do highly recommend, however capable you feel, your body has just done something huge, so rest, feed, cuddle and even if you feel like you could climb a mountain, don’t!
And the bit that still makes us laugh
A few years later, when we talked about having a third, my hubby Stu, asked if we could maybe have that one in hospital. Not because anything had gone wrong. . .. because our home birth with Erin had been such a non-event, over almost before it started, that he felt like he’d missed the drama entirely!
That’s Erin’s birth story. Nerves I didn’t expect, a midwife who trusted me to get on with it, a lesson about rest I still pass on, and a husband slightly disappointed by how straightforward it all was!
If you are expecting a second baby and feeling a little anxious, I have pregnancy relaxation sessions each week, or grab yourself a discovery call with me.