My Birth Story - Elle Nielsen

On 18.12.20, we met our little creation we had spent nine months waiting for. I always wondered if I’d burst out crying straight away, but I was in pure disbelief that I’d actually birthed our baby. What an out of this world, magical and beautiful experience. Whilst nothing can quite prepare you for birth, I’ve always found comfort in learning from other birth stories, so I’m happy to share mine!

On Wednesday night at 10pm (after finishing all my work and Xmas shopping, and telling Max I was ready when he was) my waters broke. It wasn’t a gush like I had anticipated, rather a constant leak. I wasn’t having any surges (contractions) yet either, but we went off to the hospital to monitor his heartbeat and movements. My surges gently began and I was assured my baby would be joining us very soon!

We went back home to bed and overnight I tossed and turned through every surge... I must’ve slept through some of the gentler ones, but they seemed to stay about 7mins apart. In the morning at 7:30am, we went back to the hospital for another checkup on our little man, where the midwife excitedly told us to rest up and fuel up, because he was arriving today!

All of Thursday was spent in the lounge room watching movies with Scott by my side who counted my breaths through every surge (this honestly made getting through them so much easier!) While they stayed 7mins apart, the intensity increased and I was thankful to have my @mamaanditens TENS machine for this stage of labour! By 5pm, my contractions spaced out to 15-20mins apart (which I later found out was the calm before the storm!)

By 7:30pm the surges became a lot more intense, and by 8:30pm the intensity was paired with minimal recovery time between... they were now 2mins apart and active labour had begun! Scott put me in the shower to see if it would help relieve some of the pain, but within the space of 10mins, I had 4 intense surges and we knew it was time to leave! It also took him 45mins to get me from the shower to the front door but he managed to stay cool, calm and collected!

When we got to the hospital, the pain made it impossible to walk... so they put me in wheelchair and whisked me up to the birthing suite! I started feeling overwhelmed with the intensity of the surges and doubted my ability to do this without an epidural. It was my main goal to never let the words “I can’t do this” come out of my mouth... not just for me, but for Scott too. The midwives discussed pain relief upon examination and noted I was already 5cm and that the worst and longest part of labour was already over! With Max being posteriorly positioned, the most intense pain was coming from my lower back, so we decided to use sterile water injections to help relieve this. Not even joking, that was the worst scream and cry I’ve ever done in my life it was that painful, but wow it was SO worth it!! The pain subsided a little and instead I felt the surges in my tummy and not my back!
.
I jumped in the bathtub, got on the gas and slowed my breathing down. Every time I would tense up with a surge, Scott counted my breaths and reminded me to relax my shoulders (the more relaxed you are, the more the baby will know it’s safe to arrive!) The water instantly made me feel more at peace with what my body was experiencing... I was able to breathe, float and focus on him arriving. I fought off any doubtful self talk I had, cried a little here and there and just tried to remain focussed. I laboured in the bath from 9:30/10pm up until we met our boy at 12:06am Friday morning.
.
Pushing out my baby boy was the most insane, beautiful and rewarding experience... and having him placed on my chest was just the most surreal feeling in the entire world. We did it. We created a beautiful human that was half of me and half of Scott 🤍