Our Magical Hospital Birth During COVID-19:
Mila and Ricky attended HypnoBirthing classes in Victoria with HypnoBirthing Educator Meagan Otu to gain skills, confidence and trust for their upcoming birth! Their birth of little River in a Melbourne Hospital during COVID-19 was in water, and they have described this experience as a magical one! Mila has shared her birth story to help inspire and empower other couples for their upcoming births:
'I am River! I came into this world at 3.55am on 14 February 2020 diving into the bathtub like a little fishie from my mummy’s tummy! I am a bigger fella, yet feel so tiny to my parents – 55.5cm tall, weighing 3848g. This is my birth story':
We are so in love with our little miracle, and still can’t quite understand how he is actually real. We were blessed with our dream birth we had visualised welcoming our little man in the warm water!
Labour started after a beautiful day at the beach and kicked off so intense & fast without a warning or build up with early labour going from 2 to 4 surges per 10 minutes within a few hours. So we went to the hospital at 9pm where we got assessed. Active labour started at 11pm to 3am going from 3cm to 6cm opening via hypno-labouring earth side and an intense transition phase and birth from 6cm (at which stage I went into the tub to labour and help my body open) to birth within less than 45 minutes in the calming warm water. My waters released right when I was on the way to the tub, and it turned out that the fluid was greenish. I knew that this meant I they would not want me to use the tub anymore. I begged my midwife for some time in the water for relaxation, and she agreed to 30 min! (Always good to negotiate!)
As soon as I was in the tub, my body went into full primal mode, and I can only remember the feeling of breathing down whilst playing the HypnoBirthing affirmations in the background and Ricky’s voice in the distance coaching me to keep doing J-Breaths.
I was using gas at this stage to help take the edge off and to get an easier rhythm for breathing. My midwife placed a mirror in the water and when I saw the head starting to crown. I felt such a rush of endorphins and motivation that I went a little hard & fast on the bearing down and instinctively included some pushing just following my bodies lead. Our midwife checked on the heart beat of our baby with the Doppler and couldn’t find it straight away, right when my second last surge came, so I knew instinctively he needed to come with the next 2 breaths.
This is the time when I went into a total blur – I think I actually did what they say, I went to the stars & universe to collect him!
When I came back his head was out which gave me such a rush of happiness that I started laughing and smiling at Ricky, sat down on my bum leaning back (I was kneeling before) and did the last breath as gently and softly as possible so that he shot out like a torpedo with the expulsion reflex. I looked down, saw him floating in the water, picked him up myself and he was ours forever. He didn’t cry and just stared at me with open eyes peacefully, then after some rubbing on the back I heard his cute little squeal for the first time!! We spent 1 hour of bonding in the water and delayed clamping the cord until the cord stopped pulsating. Ricky cut the cord and then I came out of the tub with bub in my arms. I did 2 more J-Breaths to birth the placenta easily with Riv in my arms sitting on the toilet. We went to the bed for more skin to skin, and the first feed, then Ricky got his skin-to-skin, and we fixed my natural tearing from the super intense transition phase with just a few stitches.
It was simply magical, unbelievable and empowering.
River is so calm, easy to settle and feeds like a champ. We couldn’t be happier and still can’t believe we actually did it.
Much love from Mila, Ricky and River
THANK YOU for helping us achieve this.