It was a Thursday afternoon and I had just got back home after running around all morning looking at new kitchens. I sat in the front room with a cup of tea and did some light bounces on my ball which I had been using religiously from 34 weeks.

At 15:20pm I had a strong sensation in my lower abdomen, just like a mild period pain. It came again 5 minutes later. I was 41 weeks pregnant exactly and I just knew it was happening. My baby had decided he was ready to enter the world.

I didn’t tell anyone I just went and laid in bed to relax and stay calm & mostly preserve my energy as I knew my baby was coming and I might be up in the night. The surges were coming every 5 minutes and each one was lasting a minute. I did my breathing with each surge which helped me focus.

At 6pm they were still coming regularly so I texted my partner and he rushed home from work really excited. At 8pm they were still coming every 5 minutes but each surge felt more and more powerful. I was on all fours in my bedroom, concentrating on my breathing. At 10pm I sat on the toilet as this is where I felt most comfortable.

An hour later I rang the maternity ward and told them that I was having regular surges. I was so calm on the phone that the midwife didn’t really know if I should come in. I knew that most first time mums end up going to hospital too early and end up going home; I didn’t want that to be me.

After 12 minutes of being on the phone the midwife asked me to come in as the hospital was only 10 minutes down the road and I could always go home if need be.

At exactly 11:20 pm I got to the hospital. I could tell that she thought I’d came in way too early and she said to me that I should go for a walk for an hour and come back to see if anything had progressed. She didn’t examine me at any point.

I went into the hospital corridor but I could not walk as I had such strong surges which were going round to my back at this point so I just sat on all fours and moved my hips.

An hour later I felt like I needed to go to the toilet so I went back into the birth centre and sat on the toilet. All of a sudden I felt my babies head drop lower into my pelvis and a trickle ran down my leg so I asked my mum to call the midwife. She told me to come back to the room and as I got there my body started to push; I couldn’t control this feeling and my body just took over. The midwife asked me to lay on the bed so she could see what was happening and the next thing she asked me was if I wanted a water birth; I replied yes so she started filling up the pool. The second midwife came in and sat down and told me that I was fully dilated and my baby would be born soon.

10 minutes later the head started crowning and she told me that it was too late to get in the pool as the baby was already coming. I had gas and ai

r to help me as the surges were really strong but actually they were nothing I couldn’t handle.

I remember thinking whilst this was all happening that labour isn’t so bad.  It’s nothing like the movies and nothing like people tell you and at no point was I to

ld to push. My body knew exactly what to do and with my breathing I breathed my baby out. He came into the world at 3:20 am and it was the best feeling ever. I chose to do optical cord clamping and waited 40 minutes to birth my placenta naturally.

I had an hour of uninterrupted skin to skin with my baby. My partner then did skin to skin whilst the midwife stitched me up as I got a second degree tear.

I stayed in the hospital until 8pm that evening as they wanted to observe the baby as I had been tested and found positive for Group B Strep when I was 37 weeks pregnant. I was so lucky to have the birth I
had and it was all down to KGHypnobirthing.