Since the beginning of our pregnancy, we knew we wanted a natural birth with as little medical intervention as possible. It was our midwife who suggested the Calmbirth course to us. Upon looking into it we thought it would be perfect to give us the tools we needed, so we booked ourselves in and looked forward to it for weeks. The course and our educator Dawn, were incredible, and we left feeling empowered, informed and confident as we moved closer to our baby’s arrival. However, we ended up using the skills we learned in a way we never would have imagined.

We wanted to tell you about the arrival of our beautiful daughter Clara, I hope our story empowers others.

I have only ever heard negative birth experiences and I wondered how I could make sure I had a positive one. I think it’s important women know what it is possible and birth will be what you let it be.

It was such a surreal experience. It was so different to my first birth and although they were both completely different they were equally as amazing.

My Partner said “omg I cannot believe how peaceful and easy that looked” it really was a beautiful and empowering experience.

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.