Labour was such a mental game for me!

Hi everyone! We’d like to introduce our little girl Naia Rose Shrimpton. Born 22nd October, 8pm at 4.1kg, 9 days overdue. Needless to say we are smitten. We’re all doing well! ..Albeit now living on interrupted sleep, coffee and bucket loads of oxytocin. And I just wanted to say, the biggest thank you for the Calmbirth Course.

Somehow I birthed with zero pain relief. Labour was such a mental game for me – visualisation was my best friend, as was the birthing ball, essential oils and telling myself lots of affirmations of how my body was built for this. I would tell myself that “this is nothing”, “it’s going to become much harder” and before you know it I was 10cm dilated.Understanding what my body was doing, what it needed and why I think was the key to such a successful labour.

My waters broke (a trickle) at 6amish, 7.30 contractions started, we popped to the hospital at 8.30 to check that the waters had broken (they had). I then laboured at home, bending over the ball until about 3pm when I returned to the hospital. The hospital let me do my thing, no checks or interventions. And when I asked for some gas at 5.30, I was 10cm dilated!

Overjoyed. I pushed in the bath (water labour / birth was lovely!) but did struggle a little (no doubt due to her size), and gave birth on the bed. I really believe the (Calmbirth) course helped train my mind into not needing pain relief. The past week has been one of the best I think I’ve ever had, newborns are ridiculously cute, and even with a lack of sleep, we couldn’t love her any more.

It really was a mental game. We videoed some of the birth and looking back I was obviously in pain / discomfort during the contractions but at the time it felt very manageable.