Celina's Unassisted Birth Story

I wanted to share the unassisted birth experience I had with my fifth child with other women because I feel it was empowering and has given me confidence and strength in my own body and mind. The week exactly before she was due I was feeling very inward and went to bed early with a crossword book (which looking back I always do before I go into labour), I woke at 11.20pm to the sound of a squeaky door opening, except it was my cervix, it sounded like a squeaky door but with the feeling of a muscle pulling (the strangest sound and feeling, very hard to explain) anyway I told my partner to push me up out of bed and as I stood up to walk to the bathroom I could feel something dangling between my legs and when I felt down it was the bag! It was hanging down to my knees!

I had the most massive contraction and my partner got up and said that he would call my mother who was to look after our children while we went to the hospital but when he went downstairs I called out to call an ambulance because I wasn't going anywhere as I had another massive contraction and the bag broke but while I was having it my body was responding naturally by opening up and my breathing wasn't controlled, I just let it do what it wanted, I felt like I was on my own cloud.  My partner was at the top of the stairs by now looking at me, asking if he could just throw me into the car and race to the hospital, I said that I wasn't going anywhere and that he should just catch the head because with the next contraction I could feel myself going into transition, I kneeled on the floor and could feel my whole body open up and push down, not really painful but a lot of pressure, funnily enough I instinctively reached down as the head was crowning and helped my perenium back and when the head was out waited a while so that the body could turn. I would never have done that in a hospital situation as I would have left it up to the midwives to instruct me.

 With the next push my whole body  flung back and my partner had meanwhile grabbed the doona (freshly washed white) off the bed and came in like a rugby tackle to catch our daughter as she shot out of me, my partner checked the clock to see what time she was born and to our absolute amazement it was 11.32 pm, 12 minutes later! We sat there watching our baby and talking about how amazing that was for fifteen more minutes before the ambulance arrived (wouldn't want to be dying) and the only reason I decided to go with the ambulance to be checked out at the birthing centre was because the baby was obviously big and I thought that having such a short birth would have ripped me in half.  When I got there the midwife gave me some sintocin to get the placenta out, I had not one tear or graze and the baby was 9 pounds 6 ounces! I went home straight after that and had a cup of tea and went to bed with our baby and my partner and felt completely refreshed in the morning as what is 12 minutes out of your life? My body recovered really quickly, and I was grateful because I was now caring for 5 children.  It is now nearly 5 years on and I am getting ready to have my number 6 in a month, I have my midwife booked (who lives 4 minutes down the road) and am ready to have another amazing experience and can trust my body to do the job.

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Page Last Modified by Catherine Beier, MS, CBE