I truly imagined each long deep breath out, pushing our baby through the birth canal

Introducing our little man Lennox Jack Brodie, born at home Friday 28th July 2017.

The birth of Lennox was completely different to that of our little girl Jorja, who graced us with her presence at 35 weeks.

The private hospital pressured me into an induction with my FIFO partner only just making it home in time (had I given them the go ahead he would have missed it).

I had antibiotics, was told to birth on my back after I had tried on all fours, the Ob gave me an episiotomy without me even knowing, took her away immediately to be weighed, poked and prodded.

Then they kindly sent us on our way when she was 4 days old.

I was a first-time mum; my milk wasn’t in and we were taking home a little girl who weighed only 4.9 pounds.

We coped and today she is a cheeky, happy and healthy 2-year-old with attitude to boot and no concept on the word sleep.

Then there’s Lennox.

He came on his own terms, waiting until I was 40+3 weeks.

After the birth of Jorja I educated myself with all the visuals, power and tools I could.

We had done the Hypnobirthing Australia™ program with Jorja, so I knew it’s potential power, as although I was induced hard and fast with her, we put it into practice as best we could and I still had a powerful and fulfilling birth (all of this made possible with my extremely supportive partner of course).

This time round we went through the Community Midwifery Program (CMP) and had the support of our amazing doula, Vicki Hobbs, for our planned water birth at home. Vicki also did a hypnobirthing refresher with us to ensure that we remembered all the tools and techniques we had learnt previously especially my breathing techniques.

To keep it as brief as possible – I woke at around 2am with surges that were 40 seconds long and two minutes apart right on the dot.

My partner rang our midwife and Vicki then proceeded to begin filling the pool.

Sure enough my 11-year-old step son woke to help his dad prepare the pool. Not long after, our toddler also woke.

My partner’s mum was on her way to watch the kids for us.

I continued to labour leaning over a fit ball on the bed in the room we had set up.

My beautiful affirmations that were created my closest friends at my Mother Blessing were placed everywhere as a reminder.

Our Midwife and Vicki arrived at around 3am.

Although in my birth plan I had asked to not be checked for progress, I changed my mind and was happy for our midwife to have a look.

Sure enough to our surprise I was at 7cm.

Our Doula Vicki was incredible and in my opinion invaluable.

She used acupressure points on my lower back with each surge, and squeezed my hips together at just the right time and reminded me of my breathing and to save my energy, as I was becoming quite vocal (thankfully the kids had their heads in iPads and headphones out in the lounge room).

I got into the pool and in between surges my partner and I joked and paid each other out about our bad breath from the spaghetti bolognese we had the night before which kept repeating on me!

I’m not entirely sure on times, but suddenly things seemed to change and my midwife got me out of the pool to check again.

It was incredible to hear that baby was coming right then and there.

She told me to get back in the pool (she wanted a water birth as much as we did) so with everyone’s support I managed to get back in the pool.

More coaching from Vicki and me using my partners pecs as handle bars (poor guy) as I was bearing down without much control of my own body, but trying my best to focus on breathing baby down.

I truly imagined each long deep breath out, pushing our baby through the birth canal.

In maybe three or so big pushes our baby boy was born…… less than 4 hours after me waking with the first surges.

The feeling of bringing his little body out of the water and on to my chest was pure ecstasy.

He was covered in delicious vernix and looking for the nipple immediately.

We spent the rest of the entire day in pure bliss, cuddled up on the bed doing skin to skin with our little man while a storm raged outside.

We ate delicious soup Vicki had made us, drank cups of tea (partner a beer or two) and watched some Netflix.

Our birth team was so incredibly supportive and knew exactly what I needed and when.

I can’t fault a thing.

My partner is also now a big advocate, telling the boys up at work all about it.

He felt empowered, I felt empowered and more importantly to us, our little baby came into this world in a state of calm with no intervention.

My body is healing beautifully also.

Our little hypno-water baby is so calm and alert.

Big sister is slowly getting used to her little brother, and big brother is proud as punch to have another dude in the house.

I highly recommend the doing birth classes or the hypnobirthing program and having our doula (Vicki Hobbs) present at your birth.

Karissa & Paul, Perth WA
October 2017