Tayla, accidental home birth

In our course we discuss what to do in the event that your baby just cant wait for you to get to the hospital. I always reiterate to my clients that this is rare and if it does happen, its most often quick and uncomplicated. Tayla and Ben had planned to have their second baby at the Family Birthing Centre but baby Fallon had other ideas.....

"My first birth had a lot of intervention, I felt uneducated when it came to birth despite being a nurse. My lack of preparation, education and ultimately unnecessary interventions led to quite a traumatic birth for me. When it came to my second I knew immediately that I wanted a completely different experience this time. I had heard of Hypnobirthing Australia through a couple of friends and we booked to attend the group classes with Renee. Both my husband and I learnt so much. Not only the hypnobirthing techniques but also the birth process and what we had control over in regards to decision making. My husband left the classes feeling like he had a real role to play in the birth which was so nice compared to the first where he just felt completely helpless. It wasn’t until my birth that I realised exactly how much I had taken from the Hypnobirthing Australia classes.

Throughout my pregnancy I always had that fear in the back of my head of “can I do it without an epidural this time". When I passed the 40 week mark I downloaded the extra hypnobirthing track “Baby, Come Out!” and although I was fully able to enter a meditative state with my tracks it wasn’t until I listened to this one a few times that I finally felt that I really let go of that fear that I was holding on to. After this I finally told myself I was ready and It was the day after I purchased the track that I went into labour. At 3am I was woken up by a pop sound, there was no fluid so I thought maybe I just imagined it. A few seconds later my son Elijah called me, I got him and brought him back in bed and laid down with him and that’s when I felt my membranes release. My surges started straight away. I laid down with my earphones in and my hypnosis tracks on until Elijah fell asleep.

I was completely calm, prepared and had no fear.

The surges were irregular and there was no pattern but they were intense from the start. Once Elijah was asleep I sat on my birth ball leaning over the bed listening to the "Affirmations for Beautiful Birthing" and "Surge of the Sea" tracks while breathing through the surges. I found swaying on the birth ball to be very comfortable for me. I was silent and calm despite thinking that these surges were much more intense than Elijahs. At 4.30am my husband woke up and I said I wanted to wait until they were more regular or until 5am to call the midwife. I was thinking I had hours ahead of me and I didn’t need to wake my midwife up yet. The surges were still irregular ranging from minutely to 3 minutely. We called my midwife at 5.10am and I told her I felt like I could cope longer at home so she said to call back in half an hour. I asked my husband to go set up the shower with my tracks and birth ball and while he did that I said I needed to go to the toilet. I went to the toilet but the surges were so close I didn’t feel like I could get up. At this point I was still calm and really just focusing on breathing through the surges that were now just on top of each other. I looked down and saw bright red blood in the toilet and was confused because I knew this didn’t happen until transition and thought something must be wrong and told my husband to call the midwife back. I heard her say you need to decide between coming down to the Birth Centre or calling an ambulance. I originally said we would come to the Birth Centre but with the next surge I knew we needed the ambulance. Ben called the ambulance at 5.45am. After the surge I even told him to cancel it and not to worry because I still didn’t believe she could be coming so quickly. On the phone they told me to get off the toilet and get on the floor. At this point Ben could see the head was crowning and he was being told to get ready to catch the baby. As the paramedics entered the room I became panicked and I was in shock with what was happening and started to lose my cool. I really needed someone to ground me and remind me of my hypnobirthing. As you can imagine my hypnobirthing partner was in quite a shocked state himself! The ambulance had arrived in under 10 minutes, just in time to take Ben’s place and catch our daughter as she entered the world at 6.01 am. Fallon Grace was born on our bathroom floor weighing in at 4.33 kilograms.

My initial thoughts after the birth were that I hadn’t been able to utilise my hypnobirthing techniques because I had imagined and planned for a long labour at the Birth Centre. Looking back though, I realised just how much I did utilise and how much it helped me. I was so calm and comfortable labouring at home that I didn’t feel I needed to leave yet when I was probably already fully dilated. Although If I could go back I would have done things a little different in regards to allowing myself to become panicked, i’m still really proud of the birth and really happy I chose to do the Hypnobirthing Australia course. My mind was so unsure what was happening but it’s so completely true that my body and baby knew exactly what to do. "