Beloved Bumps

BIRTH STORY: Lexie’s quick natural birth

I’d love to start getting some real life birth stories up, and Lexie has kindly agreed to be our first! I met Lexie when I did a private antenatal class for her and husband, Drew, and from the minute I met her, I knew she would have a great birth experience! She was totally chilled about it all, but at the same time knew exactly what she wanted from it. She had read lots of books from hypnobirthing, to general pregnancy books, and had even watched birthing DVD’s to mentally prepare herself. They now have a beautiful son, Leo. Read on to find out about her labour!

Lexie, Drew and Leo

Really blessed to be able to have the birth I wanted with this little man. So in true Cancerian style, Leo made a dramatic early entrance which started on Wednesday at 1230pm (conveniently right after a meeting!) I was at Starbucks in Paragon with Drew (hubby) when all of sudden I stopped mid conversation and said “I’ve either severely wet myself or my water just broke”. They say the movie-style gushing water breaking scenes only happens to 10-15% of women and it seems I was one of those. I stood up in peak lunch hour creating a massive puddle of water and waddled to the bathroom leaving a trail! Thank God a friend happened to walk past and came to the rescue with a change of clothes and other necessities ?

After going to see our doctor, he said I was only 2cm dilated and its best to go home to try allow my body to go into labour naturally as I hadn’t started contractions yet.

Drew and I decided to go for a sunset walk at East Coast Park & have our last meal as two. Mild contractions started which just felt like a period cramp. My over confident self said “well if it’s like this the whole time I’m gonna be totally fine” ?

Come 6am Thursday, my contractions actually woke me up. I stayed home as long as possible so I was in a comfortable space to move on my birthing ball and listen to my hypnobirthing tracks during contractions. I really didn’t want to be in a bright labour room for hours being prodded and checked every few minutes, so I had our midwife Natasha on whatsapp the whole time keeping her updated on my contractions and she helped guide us when it was time to go to the hospital.

We reached the hospital at 1230pm and I was 5cm dilated. I got in the birthing bath to try and relax through my contractions but only lasted about 30 mins before I went on gas and air. By that point my contractions were hitting an almost unbearable point and was told I was only 7cm so we were looking at another 2 hrs of contractions at least. When I heard “2 hrs” I immediately thought there’s no way I can do this and asked for an epidural. Literally 5 minutes after I said the “E” word, my body just had this huge urge to push. When the nurse came back in, Leo’s head was already crowning and the words “cancel epidural, call doctor now” came out of her mouth. Looks like the little man had my back too with wanting a natural drug free entry into the world. 30 mins of pushing later, almost breaking Drew’s little finger and plenty of cold towels on my face (seriously best hubby ever!!), the little man was born. I have never felt so exhausted in my life, when they tell you labour is like a marathon – IT REALLY IS! My arms and legs were still shaking til 10pm. But how incredible is your body? You truly do reach a stage where you just have to trust in it and let it take control to give you this amazing miracle.

Now 6 days out of the womb, we keep falling in love with this little man more and more every second!

 

Thanks Lexie for sharing this with us!