The Birth That Changed My Life Forever
Pregnancy
I took the test in the female toilets in the recliner lounge of the Spirit of Tasmania. Corey had been away for work and since we had 2 previous miscarriages while he was away, he made me promise to wait till we were together again before I took another test.
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So there we are, standing in the communal luggage area at the back of the recliner lounge with about 100 or so sleeping and snoring strangers with a pregnancy test help upside down in my hands.
“Are you ready?” I ask Corey. He gives me the nod and we whisper down from 3, 2, 1…
Corey leans down to my ear and whispers the most excited whisper of his life “congratulations, Mrs. Millard…!”
My actual pregnancy was honestly a pretty uncomplicated one. You know, aside from the haemorrhoids, constipation, wild hair growth in places I shouldn’t mention, the thrush, getting sick with the flu - twice, the intense back pain and pelvis pain, weeing myself in public, dropping farts - and I literally mean ‘dropping’ farts, the hyper-sensitive skin, insomnia for months, tantrums over Corey eating without me even though I just said I wasn’t hungry, the bed sores from laying on one side for 9 straight months, opening a new packet of pasta and throwing the pasta in the bin instead of the empty packet because baby brain, Corey buying corn chips and avocados in bulk because all I’m craving is guacamole everything only for me to be completely grossed out by mashed anything the moment he comes home from the supermarket, waking up having a shower and getting ready for a big day of going back to bed because that’s all the energy you have for the day, making Corey stay up till the crow farts acting out every possible scenario of what we would do if an intruder broke in because I’ve been binge watching all the true crime shows On Netflix, because insomnia… but other then that, absolutely no complications during pregnancy at all. In fact, it was a breeze!
It was around the 26-week mark that a good friend suggested we watch the documentary “Birth Time”. It was from this documentary that I learnt that in 2019(I think) 33% of births in Australia ended in cesarean sections.. 45% in 2017! This seriously shocked me. At least 1 in 3 births would end in c-sections?! I thought childbirth was literally the one thing women’s bodies were designed to do. How could it be right that we needed so much medical intervention to do what we are supposed to be able to do naturally? I also learnt that the risk of having a complicated birth is immediately heightened simply by virtue of being in the hospital. This couldn’t be right.. so on I went to do my own research and yep, this was true and I was shocked.
It was around 30 weeks that I was told that a certain medical choice we had made as a family would severely impact/limit our birthing experience, and not only that, I was unfortunately told that we should begin preparations for “giving birth to a dead baby” -I’m sorry to share this but I think it’s important - because of this medical decision.
It was at that moment, and after A LOT of back-and-forth conversations, and despite all the pushback we’d get, that Corey and I decided that we’d do things our way. So we found a midwife and doula we could trust which wasn’t easy as they were, at the time, in extremely high demand - and we started preparing for a home birth.
And prepare we did! We did eons of research, spoke to countless other parents who had home birthed, watched hundreds of water birth videos, took online hypnobirthing classes with the Positive Birth Company (highly recommend
)wrote out our birth plan, mapped out the house and how it was all going to look, did a 5-hour intensive course all about the risks of home birthing and how to handle any complications/ emergencies. I spent my days doing Spinning Babies to get the little guy in the best position for birth, listening to the positive affirmations on loop on the Freya App, practising my own breathing during every poo and up breathing in the shower - every day. I read books about the herstory of natural childbirth and learnt about the physiology and biology of what actually happens in the body during childbirth. Most importantly, I practised daily how to trust and listen to my intuition, my body and my baby - this ended up being the thing that made the biggest difference… fair to say we were as prepared as we could have been and completely beside ourselves with excitement! I could not wait to give birth to baby Ollie and discover what I was truly capable of!
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Labour and Birth
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At 5.29 pm, Feb 28 I felt my first surge. I had been feeling Braxton hicks for a few weeks now and oddly, that morning I had decided I’d go for a nearly 5km walk (waddle), which was out of character since the farthest I’d walked in months was to the toilet or kitchen. I listened to my affirmations on loop for the entire walk “the surges cannot be more powerful than me because they are me” helped a lot. I got home and to my surprise, I started vacuuming the house, I did the laundry, and some dishes and even made my own lunch which I hadn’t done in a while. I hadn’t slept in about 6 weeks at this point, so to say this was all out of the ordinary was an understatement.
I was bouncing on my birth ball when I felt the first surge. I should’ve been napping but the last couple of days I thought it’d be a good idea to skip the (only) couple hours of sleep I’d get in the afternoon in an attempt to reset my body clock so that maybe, just maybe, I’d be exhausted enough to fall asleep that night. It didn’t work. And little did I know little Ollie had some big plans that night!
By the time the first surge hit, I had been awake for almost 90 hours straight. As excited as I was to meet Ollie, I was crossing all my fingers and toes that this wasn’t it yet. I was already so exhausted, how could I possibly have the energy to labour powerfully (the way I’d prepared for) and give birth?!
Nevertheless, the next surge hit 20 minutes later and for the next 2 hours, the surges were coming in hot. Things seemed to be progressing very rapidly. When I finally decided to start timing them on the Freya app, sure enough, they were coming 3 in 10mins and lasting between 45-60 seconds. This was it. I called out to Corey to let him know and he immediately swung into gear - getting the house ready, cooking dinner, lighting all the candles, and moving things around to create a safe and warm environment, I texted my sisters and doula and midwife -who at this point couldn’t make it to the birth due to some unforeseen circumstances but was going to be with us virtually if needed. So we were now going at it completely solo.
And then… nothing. All surges had completely stopped. They went from being every minute to nothing at all. We felt confused, bummed out, relief that maybe I’d be able to get some sleep.. right as I was about to climb back in bed, boom! Surge! About 20 minutes later.. then another one 10 minutes later.. then 5 minutes, then 9, then 3, then 7… then it would be 45 minutes of consistent 3 in 10. Then nothing again for 15 minutes. This continued through the entire night.
Even if we were going to give birth in the hospital, or our midwife could make it, we wouldn’t have known when to go in/ call for Nat to come. We weren’t even sure I was really in labour since they weren’t coming the way they ‘should’ have been coming.
Nevertheless, we stuck with it. We focused on the surges that did come, didn’t dwell on how often they were coming, but that they were coming. I had my affirmations playing on loop through the speakers “each surge is a step closer to meeting my baby”, and used my up-breathing to get me through each surge. Corey was amazing with squeezing my lower back/pelvis, giving me soft touch massage on demand, bringing me teas and water and snacks, constantly telling me I’m doing amazing. I definitely couldn’t have done it without him.
I laboured between bouncing on my birth ball, slow dancing with Corey, on the toilet, pacing in the lounge, laying on my side in bed when I was just completely exhausted.
12 hours had passed since my first surge and they were still coming in very sporadically, we still didn’t know if this was really ‘it’ or not and Corey was worried that we’d be doing this for another 30 hours or so! The sun was starting to come up and we felt at the end of our tether.
Then I felt the urge to poo. I went to the toilet and a surge came in just as I sat down. I can’t tell you what it’s like needing to push out a poo at the same time as your body surging upwards.. I breathed through it and as I went to wipe I felt something strange so I looked down and there was the unmistakable bloody show in all it’s glory! Wow! I have never seen anything so gnarly in my life! Filled with excitement and pure disgust, I called out to Corey to come quick and showed him. I’ll never forget the look on his face I then proceeded to stare at it for a good 10 minutes as I wasn’t sure what to do.. do I pull it out or let it fall? -sorry for the gory details! Meanwhile, Corey’s in the background googling ‘bloody show’ to see if it really is that because he thought it was the umbilical cord
That all happened at 6am.
I honestly think that the time I spent on the toilet gawking at what had just come out of me was my transition period because the moment I walked back to bedroom I got hit with a surge like no other surge I’d felt.
I’ll never forget this surge because I was sitting on my birth ball facing Corey with my arms around his lower back and resting my head on his tummy/chest, who was sitting on a chair. Our eyes were locked and he was holding me so close. I remembered what @Mel Craven said “bringing the baby into the world should feel as intimate as it did when you made the baby in the first place”. This surge felt just like that - intimate. I remember looking up at Corey after it had passed and saying “woah! That one felt different to the others.” His immediate response was “should I get the bath ready?” He saw the slightest nod in my head, pushed me out of the way, shot up from the chair in record speed and like a man on a mission from God, he ran to the bathroom to prepare the bath. Just like that, our beautiful intimate moment was over
It wasn’t until another 8minutes later that the next big surge came in. And when I say it felt different, I mean, I could literally feel my body moving in a downward direction. All the other surges I felt an upward feeling.
*women’s bodies are incredible with what they can do. During the entire first part of labour, which is usually the longest part, the muscles in the women’s stomach (the uterus, yes this is a muscle) move up to the top of her tummy. Then there’s a transition period (literally your body giving you some RR right before the main event) and the last stage of labour all those muscles that have moved up now start pushing down in order to push the baby down the birth canal. -going off memory so please forgive me if I didn’t get this 100% correct but it’s thereabouts.
This surge had me mooing like no cow I’ve ever heard. Corey finally yells out to me that the bath is ready. I hobble my way to the bathroom, undress and put a foot in. Water way too hot so I begin pacing back and forth while Corey gets the temperature sorted. By this point, the surges were coming fast and hard. Literally back to back with barely any space in between.
Now I should note that our ‘bath’ isn’t really a bath. The bottom of our shower has raised sides and since we couldn’t find a plug that fit, Corey had to duct tape the hole over. So when I say he was getting the temperature sorted, I mean he was literally emptying water out with a bucket and adding in cold and then testing the temp with a thermometer each time.
‘Hectic’ is an understatement.
I finally get in the ‘bath’ and oh my goodness the instant relief I felt on my lower back and pelvis from the hot water was indescribable. Corey pulls up a chair in front of me and when I look up at him after I’ve found a comfortable-ish position, I see his eyes rolling in the back of his head. Poor bugger is not used to be up all night. So I shake him awake and yell (not on purpose but because it’s all I can manage) at him to make himself a coffee! - we still laugh about this
Less than a minute later I hear this crazy loud ‘pop/bang’ sound. After a few seconds of looking around wondering what that was, I realise that was my waters breaking!! Immediately I look around in the water to see if I can see any weird colour or smell as I know this could be a sign something isn’t quite right (ie, meconium in the amniotic fluid) but all was clear and instinctively I knew it was time so I got myself into a yogi squat and before I could comprehend it, the next surge was here.
It took 3 big surges for baby to come out. My body did all the work, I merely used down breathing to ‘help’ baby along, but not once did I physically ‘push’.
The first one, Ollie was massaging his way down the birth canal. By this point I had gone from ‘mooing’ sounds to ‘wild-beast-native-raw-warrior-woman in the middle of the jungle type noises and Corey had ditched his coffee and came running to me. He said he Could see a clear head bulge down there but nothing was out just yet.
I had a few seconds to rest and on came surge #2. This one, Ollie massaged his way down and crowned big time. I knew this because Corey was repeating “something! I feel something!” oh yeah, and you can’t really mistake the feeling of a baby's head sitting at the very edge of being in and out of your body. I believe they call this the ‘ring of fire.
Another few seconds rest and on came surge #3! And Woah! This surge felt like it went in slow motion and lasted a lifetime!
Ollie came down, he crowned again, my entire body was vibrating and I seemed to be calling out to all my ancestors for help.
At 7.08 am Corey let out a big “OMG!” And I felt instant relief as I felt Ollie’s little head come all the way out. Without the time to even take a breath, Ollie had twisted himself to pop out his top shoulder and like lightning, the rest of his little body came flying out and his papa caught him in his hands and placed him straight on my chest. Talk about having an out-of-body experience!!!
The oxytocin and adrenaline between Corey and myself were next levels!!
The moment his little face felt the cool air we heard the sweetest little cries we’d ever heard and even more relief was felt as Corey had trained to do baby CPR and was SO ready to whip it out if needed. Thankfully, it was completely unnecessary - phew!
Within half an hour Ollie had latched on to my boob and it’s been a little over 3 weeks and he honestly hasn’t un-latched!
I birthed the placenta about 2 hours later and Corey checked it over - we had been trained in what to look for - and all was good. And papa then clamped and cut his cord like he’d done it a million times!
Baby Ollie was born with absolutely no complications and I had one external tear which I am healing naturally at home.
And that’s the story of how Oliver James came into this world.
It’s easy for me to share with you what happened and how it happened but in no way can I describe with words the actual experience. The emotions, the feelings, the
Euphoria, the magic. Words just aren’t enough. I can’t explain the instant fierce love and affinity I felt when I held him for the first time. Unless you have given birth, you won’t know.
We are so beyond in love with our little man. I am personally so proud of myself. I did it! I really did it. I did it without interventions, without complications, without any invasive monitoring, in fact, no monitoring at all. I did it without any pain relief, I did it by simply trusting myself. Trusting my husband. Trusting my body. Trusting my intuition, and trusting my baby.
Who I am as a human being has changed. Who I am as a woman has changed.
Corey can’t stop telling me/ showing me with a teddy bear how he literally delivered his own son. The look of pride on his face as he demonstrates it is enough to make anyone tear up! And I honestly can’t think of a better first dad moment than that.
If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read our long birth story. We’re so so proud of what we’ve accomplished, we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave any part of the journey out!
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