When julia met nora
As a midwife, I had set really high expectations for myself going into my first pregnancy. I thought, if I could support someone to have the birth they want and deserve, shouldn’t I be able to experience the same? This ultimately was a huge focal point of anxiety for me. I struggled throughout my pregnancy with intrusive thoughts about everything that could go wrong for me, everything I didn’t want to happen and worst case scenarios. Often people would ask me whether I believed I was better off knowing “everything” about labour and birth, or whether I wish I could be more naive.
I was supported throughout my pregnancy by a known continuity midwife and beautiful colleague of mine. Having a known midwife enabled me to feel safe when I was most vulnerable and allowed me to feel comfortable and totally relax into my birth knowing she would advocate for my family and our wishes.
My birth was intense, wild and powerful. My waters broke at 10:30pm on 29/4/24. They woke me up and although I was excited, I wasn’t contracting yet, so I got back into bed starting to cycle through scenarios in my head of what may happen to me. Before I knew it, I was cramping regularly and was too uncomfortable to lay in bed. I got up and took the opportunity to fix my hair, knowing we would be getting photos later (lol). I don’t remember much of my early labour although, I do remember my husband focusing on the almighty task of preparing the birth pool, a task he seemed to take very seriously. I established in labour around 2:30amand quickly became very overwhelmed with the sensations, unable to become comfortable and honestly, starting to panic that I wouldn’t be able to do it. At 5:30am, we rang my midwife to come and see me at home. My husband was doing a fantastic job however, she was truely the person to calm me down and help me focus. At 7:30am, I was checked in the bath at home and determined to be 8cm dilated, so we headed into the birth centre. Ultimately, the drive was the worst part due to the timing and inevitable traffic of people heading to work for the day. Once I arrived in the birth centre, I was greeted by my beautiful birth photographer and climbed into the beautiful deep bath. Between 8am and 9am, I struggled with an anterior lip of my cervix which wouldn’t budge despite an overwhelming urge to push, causing it to swell and pain at the peak of my contraction. It never went away until I was able to hold it back myself during a contraction and push past it.
I gave birth to my baby at 10:14am in the bath. It was the water birth I always imagined, birthing my baby into my own hands and bringing them up to my chest myself, with the support of my husband. We were able to announce her gender ourselves, in our own time. I felt completely present and empowered by my own body, without the use of pain relief, I was able to trust in the process and allow my body to do as it was designed to, which was extremely important to me. I ended up needing to go to theatre to have my placenta removed as it wouldn’t come out on its own, however, my bleeding was normal so my midwife supported me to have two hours uninterrupted skin to skin with my baby including allowing her to feed in her own time, which was something we had discussed antenatally.
Despite being a midwife myself, I truely believe that continuity of care with the same midwife had a hugely positive impact on my birth, allowing me to feel confident in my body again with her ongoing support. I believe no matter how a woman wants to birth, she should have access to continuity of care with a midwife. Hopefully this is something we will be able to strive for as a community in the near future.
What do you wish you knew before birth?
I’ve supported many women and their families to birth their babies, so I knew it would be challenging however, I always perceived challenging as a negative term. After birthing Nora, I feel rebirthed as a whole new woman, so strong and honestly, so proud of myself l. I wish this was something I could have expected or looked forward to throughout my whole pregnancy, instead, I was often overcome with negative emotions and feelings.
If you could, would you do anything differently?
I wouldn’t change anything about my labour or birth, it was truely amazing and everything I’d hoped for.
What did your partner do that really helped during labour/birth?
My husband was an incredible support. Something he did extremely well through my whole pregnancy, labour/birth was remind me that my body was designed for this, that my baby and I were safe and ultimately, if I didn’t have time to “prep” (that dreaded perineal massage), that my body knew what to do, and I just had to go with it.
Husband quote “you don’t have to do birth, you just have to be able to relax and let it happen”
What advice/honest truth would give a mama-to-be about birth?
I am a huge advocate for education! Please don’t go into this experience completely unaware, we have so many fantastic resources available to us both online such as podcasts and face-to-face, like education classes, doulas, student midwives, midwives etc. Take the time to access these and prepare yourself. You don’t need a set in stone birth plan, but you and your partner will benefit greatly if you have the tools to advocate for yourselves.