Beatrice born to Libby & Al - 12th Dec 2006, 9:50a

We'd been in bed for about an hour when I felt a pop inside and a trickle of water escape, I stood up and turned on the light to see pale pink water running down my inner thigh. I was excited and suddenly anxious, I told Al that I thought my waters had broken but it was such a tiny amount of liquid I decided to go back to sleep and forget about it. About an hour after this (at 1am) contractions started, they felt like severe period pains and suddenly I lost more water and I knew now that my waters had definitely broken. This was the moment I had been imagining so I plugged my headphones in and began listening to my hypnobirthing cds. I took one long breath with each contraction, just like I had practised. We rang Alice (Al's sister) and our midwife Jennie just to let them know that the action had begun. We told them we'd ring back in the morning when things had progressed.

By 3am my contractions were closer together, they had started out at 7 mins apart and now they were 3 to 4 mins apart - however I didn't realise this until much later on.

During my contractions I found hot wheat bags placed on my abdomen and lower back helped relieve some discomfort. Al massaged my lower back and bum, which also gave me great relief. I continued breathing long, slow deep breaths, opening up my body, visualising my baby making her way down. By 7am Alice turned up and helped massage me and talked me through the contractions. She looked straight into my eyes and told me I was doing a great job and the strength I gained from her was immense. We rang Jennie who asked to listen to me over the phone - as I was just breathing through the contractions, she said I sounded like the sea and felt that I still had a way to go so she planned to leave her place by 9am.

For most of the night I stayed in bed on my left side getting up each hour to go to the toilet. I think getting up to go the toilet helped keep the contractions regular and when Alice arrived she encouraged me to walk and stand through my contractions. I found this hard at first but swayed my hips round and round and moaned quietly. The contractions intensified with moving about so I found massaging and heat continued to help. During this time Al and Alice had eaten a hurried breakfast and Al had taken a shower as they thought I might labour for many more hours.

By 8:30am I got into the tub. At first I couldn't fathom the thought of hot water, as I was already very hot, however as soon as I immersed my body I felt every muscle relax and expand - it felt wonderful! The relief! But within a minute or two a huge contraction came on intensified by the hot water and I nearly freaked - I nearly got out of the tub, but I knew this meant things were moving along beautifully so I embraced the side of the tub and buried my head into my folded arms. I was clinging to the edge - I couldn't get comfortable, my back hurt and the contractions were so powerful now, so different from the initial contractions. Then I began to bear down - the extreme reflex of my body pushing this baby out took my breath away, made me gasp and yelp. I wanted to push but Alice who was holding my hand told me to resist the urge to push as our midwife hadn't arrived yet. I gripped very tightly onto Alice's hand, it was my lifeline when the contractions took hold, eventually she replaced her hand with Al's and he supported my neck and held a cool cloth to my forehead. Our good friend Kristie turned up to film the birth and although I knew she had entered the room I couldn't make contact with her, I was deeply into birthing. During the contractions I had experimented with making noise as I thought it might help, but it felt wrong, to make noise felt like a waste of energy, I needed all the energy I had to help this baby be born and I felt that noise was an external expression and this job of birthing required complete internal focus.

Jennie arrived at 9:25am and I was deep into transition - Alice asked me to feel for the baby with my fingers and I could feel the baby's head coming down the birth canal. Now these bearing down contractions had big rests in between. I had minutes and minutes which surprised me, but I was reminded that these rests were important and as the Bea's head sat on my perineum I was told to take it slowly, to let my perineum stretch. The women were encouraging me with gentle words "You're stretching beautifully" and although it felt almost impossible to keep stretching I was calm and lucid. I remembered to use a pelvic floor bulge, which meant that I kept her head on my perineum, I didn't let her slip back as she naturally would have if I had totally relaxed. Finally I was given the word to push and I gathered all my strength and Bea slid out quickley, head, shoulders and body. Jennie caught her in the water and brought her into my arms. I didn't know she was a girl at this stage, but Al and I held her and were amazed.