George was the best birthday present I could have asked for & Calmbirth the best investment I’ve ever made!

At 25 weeks my membranes ruptured (waters broke) and I was quickly transferred to Melbourne to be at a tertiary centre with a NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). When my membranes ruptured this early (PPROM), I knew that there was a very high chance labour would come on and I was terrified at the thought of having an extremely premature baby, but even more so as my home was over 3 hours from a NICU. I was extremely fortunate that I was transferred to Melbourne and that I did not go into labour despite having ruptured my membranes.

I was also extremely lucky that an infection didn’t develop (much higher risk of this happening with PPROM) as this would have been an indication for delivery preterm. I spent a week as an inpatient with monitoring and after a week in hospital, I was discharged to outpatient care with monitoring occurring in hospital twice weekly. Once I was discharged I was very aware that it was highly likely I would birth prematurely so I booked into Calmbirth with Amy and attended this course at 30 weeks pregnant with my partner David.

To be honest, prior to attending Calmbirth I was absolutely terrified of birth. I am a NICU nurse and have attended many births in my career. For the majority of these births, there was high level of intervention for medical reasons (e.g. emergency c-sections, instrumental births) with many different professionals present at the birth given the high-risk nature. The majority of babies at these births also needed some degree of resuscitation once they were born.

I remember saying to Amy at the start of our Calmbirth course that I was fearful of birth and despite witnessing many births, had never perceived birth as something that could be a ‘beautiful’ experience.

I went into premature labour at 35+1 weeks pregnant. At 4am, I experienced cramping so I drove myself to the Emergency Department and David headed down to Melbourne from home at this time (3 hours away). I was assessed in birth suite on admission and was 4-5cm. One of my friends came to support me as David wasn’t there yet.

I spent a couple of hours in the shower which was incredible pain relief (I’ve never understood how this could be a form of pain relief but my gosh it worked wonders). I managed in the shower with breathing, visualisation and movement. I had the CTG monitor on in the shower the whole time as well.  I even said to myself throughout labour “things are going brilliantly well” when I spewed in the shower and thought I needed to do a poo. My midwife moved me to the bed with a peanut ball in the side-lying position. I started using the nitrous gas to help me through the contractions until my body was involuntarily pushing.