Who doesn't love a speedy first birth story. It is truly incredible how the body responds, particularly during birth. Holly and Ryan share their birth story of their first baby Riley. Attending classes back in February 2022, they were equipped to calmly meet whatever turn their birth took with all the tools of hypnobirthing.
Riley's birth story will have you cheering Holly on and leave you with a smile.
Story features - early labour at home, water immersion, natural birth, visualisation tools.
Our beautiful boy Riley Lennox Evans was born on the 23rd of April at 2:52pm after a 1 hour and 59 minute labour!!!!!!!!! It was the early morning of that Saturday when I woke up and felt some tightening's in my stomach, I didn’t think much of it because I was 38 weeks and 1 day and honestly just didn’t believe he would come early. The tightening's weren’t bad, I was able to fall back to sleep with them. About 4/5 hours later approx 0600am, I woke up again and felt the same tightening's, they weren’t bad but I thought I wonder if this is something. About an hour later my partner Ryan woke up ready to go to work. I told him what I had been feeling and we deliberated for a while on whether or not he should go to work. We eventually decided it wasn’t the right time for him to go to work. It was now about 9:30am and some surges definitely started happening but they were very inconsistent and infrequent and I did think we were gonna be in labour for hours or days.
I had noticed progressively as the morning passed my back became excruciatingly painful and I thought oh no maybe he’s turned and is now posterior which made me think this is going to take even longer. It was now about 10/10:30am and I had gone to the toilet and lost my mucus plug, so I decided to call the midwife then, she said yep this could be very early labour, stay at home, try to rest and let us know if the situation changes. After I got off the phone, things ramped right up, I started having surges that were a lot more intense, and much more close together and was timing them on my app. My back was so sore so I had jumped in the shower a few times to run the hot water on my back which definitely did help and between showers I had a hot water bottle on my back. It was now 11:30am and I was in a world of pain (my back, not the surges) I couldn’t sit down I couldn’t get comfy and I called again to say I wanted to come in.
The midwife said it’s still such early days if I can stay at home, it would be better because they were more than likely going to send me home. I was becoming frustrated at this point with the pain in my back and I said to Ryan I’ll try one more thing: jumping in the bath. I got in the bath at 12pm and by 12:15 I said, “oh no I feel like I need to push”, I got out and could tell he had dropped and engaged into my pelvis and said to Ryan we have to go now! We got in the car and we live half an hour away and that was the longest half an hour of my life! I had hit full blown active labour now and my surges were 3 minutes apart lasting 45secs to 1 min! Labouring in the car was intense!!!!
We got to the hospital and up to the ward and I was begging for some form of pain relief at this point, I didn’t think I could do it. We got put in an assessment room and the ward was busy. It was 1pm at this point and I was pacing in the room, my beautiful friend and student midwife Megan had made it to the ward and to our room! I had Megan and Ryan supporting me through the next hour as the midwives were extremely busy and we hadn’t yet been admitted as a patient. By the time handover had happened and the next midwife got to us it was about 2:15pm! In the hour and a bit, we had been at the hospital I had gotten in the shower again and laboured with the water on my back with Megan coaching me through everything. I had been saying I need to push I feel this urge to push, but there was no midwife around, so I just kept pacing the room!
The entire time I used my breathing techniques that we were taught during classes and that was what helped me through. I unfortunately didn’t like any of the light touch/massage, everything was happening too quickly I just was in my own zone! When the midwife came in I was telling her I need pain relief for my back, I can’t keep going with this back pain and the surges were hectic at this point I thought I was going to die. She said we needed to check my dilation and to see if my waters had broken and then after that we could make a pain plan. Because we were in an assessment room the room wasn’t set up for a delivery or had any equipment. So, the midwife left and came back about 20 mins later with all the equipment to check the dilation. She told me I needed to get on the bed and lie down and she could check the dilation, as I went to lie down I jumped up and ran to the toilet because I got this god almighty urge to push and I made it to the toilet and my waters burst everywhere, with the gush of the waters I put my hand down to feel and I could feel his head and I screamed “his head is coming, IM PUSHINGGGGGG” she ran into the bathroom and felt down there herself and said “yep you’re fully dilated, we’re having a baby”, she said. “We’re not having this baby on the toilet though” so she grabbed my hand and pulled me up onto the bed on all fours and all I pictured was from the classes that the uterus is contracting and to breathe my baby out and with 7 minutes of pushing, I had delivered our perfect boy, completely unmedicated. I was allowed to grab him out myself and pick him up to my chest and I’ve never felt more empowered in my life. Our perfect birth brought our perfect boy into the world at 2:52pm, weighing in at 3.155kg and 49cm long.
All up active labour was from the arrival to the hospital to the time he was born. I had written out all my birth preferences, had my speaker for my music, had snacks and water ready, none of which we used or had time to think about getting because we left the whole bag in the car when we got to the hospital (ha ha). I wouldn’t change a thing; I felt so proud of myself for being able to do something at one point I was screaming I couldn’t do! Thank you for all your expertise in the classes, I really wouldn’t have been able to do it without learning what I did. We are in love with our little man and can’t wait to watch him grow.
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