A beautiful birth story written by Calmbirth mother, Josephine Pinto, thanking her Calmbirth Educator Melinda Webb.

23/12/2018 The Calm Blogger

“I feel very lucky to have had this experience giving birth. And both Carl and I feel that you and the Calmbirth classes gave us the tools and knowledge to prepare us. Going into this with an open mind, no fear and our Calmbirth toolkit made it, overall, a positive experience.”

So on this note, we would like to thank you and Calmbirth. It’s hard to say exactly what allowed us to have such an amazing experience, but the fact is that we followed the Calmbirth process and everything went just as we had planned – quick labour, no drugs and an amazing water birth! So a big thank you from the Pinto family, with lots and lots of love

Jo, Carl and Julius!

Our baby boy, Julius David Pinto was born 11/07/2018 at 00.55am, weighing in at 2.84kgs and measuring 48cms long. 2 weeks early!

Where to start… 7:30am, Tuesday 10/07/2018, I woke up to cramps and a bloody show. Following that I suspected my water broke (at which point Carl got the baby seat fitted.

Later that afternoon we went in for a check up with our midwife, Sarah, who confirmed that my water had broke and we would be meeting baby in the next 24 – 48 hours! At this point, I wasn’t having any contractions. Sarah recommended being induced if I didn’t go into labour in the next 24 hours, but she was fairly confident that the contractions would be starting soon. So she sent us home and told us to keep her updated.

We really wanted to avoid inducement so when we got home we focused, pulled out the Calmbirth notes and switched gears. We did everything by the book – dimmed the lights, put the clary sage oil in the diffuser, massage to get the oxytocin flowing, used the fit ball, hit those acupressure points (the sacral acupressure points gave massive relief!) and played the Calmbirth relaxation recordings.

We started all this at about 6:30pm, and within the hour I was having contractions. It worked! Amazing. And by about 8pm the contractions were like clockwork. Hard to time but Carl was writing it all down and they were lasting about 1 minute and occurring every 2-3 minutes, consistently for over an hour. It all happened so quickly but we knew it was time, so we called Sarah and off we went back to the hospital. We got to the hospital at about 10pm. We went into a waiting room as they prepared a room for us – we wanted a room with a bath so we had to wait until that room was cleaned.

At this point, the contractions were getting quite intense. Carl was super helpful – helping me to walk it out, maintain the flow of my breath, and providing moral and physical support (literally – I was hanging off him like a tree branch). We got into our room at about 11pm. We continued with the clary sage, massage and fit ball positions. We also put some music on. Carl recently found this pianist/composer, Ludovico Einaudi. I hadn’t given that much thought to music for the birth. But the moment he put it on, it somehow put me in this calmed state and I was able to breathe through a beautiful period of stillness while having the contractions. After another half hour of contractions, Sarah finally checked my cervix – I was fully dilated! It was all happening.

As a first timer, I was expecting a much longer labour but it seems this would not be the case. Here we were, 3.5 hours into established labour and I was ready to pop! So Sarah started running the bath. At about midnight, we hopped into the bath – me stripped down and Carl in his board shorts and t-shirt. Being in the water made such a difference. Giving birth was exactly as you described it – my body knew exactly when to push. So, with encouragement from Carl and Sarah, at 00:55am, Wednesday 11/07/2018, I gave birth to Julius – I got to lift him out of the water and onto my chest, whilst Carl’s arms were wrapped around me.

It’s hard to describe the feelings and the emotions. Sarah said that both Carl and I became very quiet and still. I think we were overwhelmed and stunned by it all. We hadn’t even given a thought to finding out Julius’ sex until Sarah asked us, I feel very lucky to have had this experience giving birth. And both Carl and I feel that you and the Calmbirth classes gave us the tools and knowledge to prepare us. Going into this with an open mind, no fear and our Calmbirth toolkit made it, overall, a positive experience.

So on this note, we would like to thank you and Calmbirth. It’s hard to say exactly what allowed us to have such an amazing experience, but the fact is that we followed the Calmbirth process and everything went just as we had planned – quick labour, no drugs and an amazing water birth! So a big thank you from the Pinto family, with lots and lots of love,

Jo, Carl and Julius!

References

Cochrane Review 2009, Immersion in water in labour and birth Burke 1995.

Burke E, Kilfoyle A. A comparative study: water births and bed births. Midwives. 1995;108(1284):3–7.

Burns, E. (2001). “Waterbirth.” MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 11(3): S2.

Chaichian, S., A. Akhlaghi, et al. (2009). “Experience of water birth delivery in Iran.” Arch Iran Med 12(5): 468-471.

Garland 2000. Garland D, Jones Waterbirths: supporting practice with clinical audit. MIDIRS Midwifery Digest. 2000;10(3):333–6.

Geissbuehler 2004. Geissbuehler V, Stein S, Eberhard J. Waterbirths compared with landbirths: an observational study of nine years. Journal of Perinatal Medicine. 2004;32(4):308–14.