My birth was very different to what I imagined it to be! I was in labour for four days, waters breaking on the Friday and eventually giving birth on Monday evening which was 9 days after my due date!I so wanted a water birth but unfortunately because my waters had been broken for so long I wasn’t able to do that. Basically everything that was on my birth plan slowly got crossed off as not being possible, so I very quickly learned that my word for this birth was “surrender” and being okay with things not happening as I imagined. 

After attending our first Antenatal class at the hospital we felt a bit shell-shocked. We felt that it was very focused on medical intervention and the word ‘pain’ was probably the most used word. Thankfully, we investigated Calmbirth and booked in to do the course. Best decision!Following the course we reread the Calmbirth book and practiced the breathing, visualisation and other techniques such as using the rebozo regularly during the last few weeks of pregnancy. This provided focus and we felt that we began to bond more with our unborn baby.

She was born on Valentine’s day. Best Valentine’s day ever! Thank you so much Dawn for your help and advice via the Calmbirth course we attended. It helped us tremendously with the safe arrival of our beautiful little girl.