Sarah and Aidan’s Birth

Next cab off the rank – Abigail (Abbie) Howes!

Born 28/12/25 (39w 4d), 9:35pm, 2.8kg, at Royal North Shore.

The course was absolutely a turning point between anxiety/panic and peace/confidence about labour. Specifically, how Aidan and I would go together. I was leaning towards wanting to have a peaceful, positive, preferably natural experience, and Aidan was focusing on it as a potentially dangerous, medical event that needed to be survived as quickly and painlessly as possible. We kinda wanted the same outcomes, but it felt like we were pulling against each other some times, which made me so nervous and sad. I didn’t want to be “robbed” of the beautiful, bonding experience I knew was possible. And then the course gave us a bridge to each other, and to a shared picture of what we wanted.

The rest of our pregnancy was full of confidence and closeness and joy about what was coming. And Aidan would say that for him, pre-calmbirth he was less informed about birth and found it kinda scary. He was focused more on mitigating risks. He also knew it would be an important and beautiful experience, but he expected to feel completely redundant in the room. But post-calmbirth he had a really solid and confident sense of his importance in the process. The scientific explanations about the sympathetic/parasympathetic systems especially were SO useful for him, because he knew that his support of me would tangibly impact the birth. He engaged with our prep and birth so confidently and actively. It felt very much like it was OUR birth, a team effort. Also, his attitude about mitigating risks just sort of dwindled away after the course and weren’t heard of again – just a product of being more informed in general,

I think. Aidan and I had intended to drive to Lake Macquarie to stay with my family the day I went into labour. I was half-way packed when I started having contractions at 7am. I assumed they were Braxton’s and spent the morning on the shower floor waiting for them to settle. About 10am I bled a little, so we popped into hospital and found that I was 4cm dilated already. We went home briefly and laboured on the ball/couch with calm breaths and the TENS. We went back into hospital about 1pm.

Aidan set up our space with fairy lights, a soothing indie-soft-rock play list and an oil diffuser (unfortunately that set off vomiting and had to be turned off – I had the vomits BAD all morning till they gave me an injection!). I’d had a terrible sleep the night before and was killing for a nap, so initially I was lying on the bed with the TENS. My contractions slowed a little on arrival, but not enough to get a sleep. All pregnancy I was certain that I wanted a natural birth without an epidural. When the day came though, I felt so haggard from the start and didn’t know if I could see the whole thing through without being able to pause everything and rest, so I was contemplating the epi from the beginning.

One of the gifts of Calmbirth for me was that it gave me “permission” to have a medicated birth if I wanted to, when previously I would have considered it a failure. That was a real burden lifted.

After a bit we had another exam and found that my cervix was dilating unevenly, with a thick edge on one side. The midwife recommended I get into some more active labouring positions, so the TENs came off and we moved into the shower with gas. This was the most dreamy, peaceful part of the labour for me. Aidan was sitting on the shower chair and I was on the floor, kneeling forward, resting on his knees while he held the showerhead over my back. The water was magic and soothed me better than the TENs. I felt so close to Aidan. He was riding the contractions with me, administering juice poppers, giving encouragements or rubs or reminders to breathe deeply. It was the only phase of labour that I could relax into / “surrender” to the contractions.

Second gift of Calmbirth – I had previously been nervous that Aidan and I mightn’t be on the same page through labour, but the course opened up a shared vision of the kind of labour we wanted, a strong sense of Aidan’s critical role, and plenty of practice getting into a connected, calm zone together. This was the vibe through the whole labour, but especially for me in the precious Shower Hours.

At 8cm (*”6cm” on the thick edge) I made the call to have an epidural. I’d enjoyed labour so far and decided I’d happily call it there and have a more restful end. It took the anaesthetist 2hrs to get to us, which I spent in the bath with Aidan rubbing my arms/shoulders. By the time she arrived and administered, I was 10cm / “9ish cm” on the thickened side. Unfortunately, the epidural caused Abbie’s heart rate and my blood pressure to drop. As it took effect, the room filled with medical staff to prep me for a caesarean. They tried their bag of tricks to raise her heart rate, but nothing worked, plus the last little lip of thickened cervix meant we couldn’t rush/assist a vaginal birth, so they whizzed me to theatre. I was exhausted and blissed out on the relief of the epidural, so it felt very dream-like for me. I was very calm and trusted the team to look after us. It was much more stressful for Aidan who was alert and had a better sense of the medical team’s urgency. The OB said it was textbook and went really smoothly. They delay-chord clamped, Abs had the most beautiful tiny cry immediately after being pulled out, and after a quick check over, was put on my chest within a minute or two of birth. Aidan was able to cut her chord, and have a bunch of early skin-to-skin with Abbie while they did their final theatre clean up with me.

The caesarean was definitely not how I’d ever considered a birth of mine to go. I had a sense that I had asked for it by starting the “cascade of intervention” with an epidural. However, we knew from the vaginal exams that Abbie’s hand was coming down next to her head, which was likely to have complicated a vaginal birth and possibly required instrumental assistance, which I REALLY didn’t want. So in the end I think we accidentally ended up on the smoothest course, and I have a lot of peace about it. Plus, because I was fully dilated but didn’t push her out, I’m a prime candidate for a VBAC in the future. We’re so grateful for the amazing care in the public system. Abbie came home after 3 nights in hospital. We’re all settling in SO well, and she’s absolutely thriving. We’re completely in love. We finally made it up the coast to my parents when she was 8 days old and are loving time by the water with family who adore her. Calmbirth set us up SO well – we treasure the birth experience it opened for us.