My labour was long, really long. 48 hours long. Nonetheless I can say that I had the most positive, empowering and beautiful home birth experience, supported by the brilliant Anna at Hackney Hypnobirthing and the Hackney Homebirth team. 

Two days after my due date, I knew things were shifting in my body - I was having a few twinges and very light period pain - so I had a little bit of time to get into the right headspace to prepare for our daughter’s arrival. I had been listening to Anna’s recordings throughout the week as I fell asleep each night and had covered the house in an array of her positive birth affirmations, so I liked to visualise that my body had absorbed all the positive messages!

That night at midnight, as if a switch had been flicked on, my surges began, coming consistently every 10 minutes. I dozed in and out of sleep, breathing through them. But as the sun rose and my partner’s alarm clock went off they started to mellow out - still there, but not as intense.  I fortuitously had an appointment with the wonderful Laura, my midwife, that afternoon who checked baby’s position and heart rate and let us know which midwives were on duty that night and over the weekend, so we could skip the call to the Homerton delivery suite. 

Knowing things were likely to ramp up as the night closed in, my partner and I decided to go for a nighttime walk around Hackney Downs to see if we could get things going. We stopped every 5-10 minutes so I could lean on a tree to have a surge, although at this stage I was still very present and could talk through them.

Once home, we got into bed in the hope of getting some sleep but it wasn’t long before my surges really ramped up and I could no longer just breathe or talk through them! I foolishly woke up Jake to help attach the TENS machine to my back, and with Anna's sharp comb in one hand and the tens control in the other, I worked through the surges, riding each wave for the next few hours. I found using my voice, blubbering my lips and sighing through the exhales really helped move through them. Time began to blur and some hours must have passed by.  

Anna had given us such a wealth of info around the hormones and the amazing role they play in labour, so I knew that staying calm and present with each surge - helping the oxytocin flow - was the aim of what was a very long game!

The midwives came around 5am, and Sophie (aka the taskmaster) put me through my paces; crab-walking up and down the stairs, doing inversions off the bed, holding various stretches to help baby move down and my labour progress. I was desperate to get in the pool but she would always say ‘let’s just do one more exercise and THEN you can get in the pool’. It was brutal. 

Several hours later, once I got into the pool my surges started mellowing out, and much to my despair Sophie explained they were going to leave and would come back when things had picked up again. This was a really difficult point in my labour. How on earth was I going to find the strength to keep going - almost 36 hours in?! Essentially my body was too tired to progress so Sophie advised that I eat and sleep as much as possible - in her words “fill our cups” - so that we could be ready when things picked up again. She also gave me the most brilliant, encouraging pep talk I think I’ve ever had; telling me that I was powerful and reassuring us that our baby will be arriving most likely later that night, just not right now. 

We managed to get a couple of hours sleep but by 3pm that afternoon it had all kicked off again! Jake messaged the midwives who suggested we try the Miles Circuit - a gruelling 90 minute course of only about 3-4 exercises that definitely helped things progress. By the end of the course I was having frequent surges that were irregular but often very close together. It wasn’t long before I began to feel an intense pressure in my lower back and bottom. I knew from Anna’s classes that this could very well be a sign that baby was moving down into the birth canal or that I could be fully dilated. 

This was however, probably the lowest point in my labour - my transition if you will. I felt quite helpless, unsure of how I was going to go from here to holding my baby. I couldn’t recognise that I was moving from one stage into another, albeit at a very long drawn out pace! Jake called Abby who arrived about an hour or so later.

Abby suggested I feel inside myself to see if I could touch the baby’s head. To my amazement I could! This instantly boosted me and gave me the encouragement I needed to power through to the end. 

Abby suggested doing a few contractions on the toilet, which were incredibly intense. During one of my next breaks, I went to touch my baby’s head again but could only feel a strange balloon like shape. I had a quick pang of doubt, "maybe it hadn’t been my baby’s head but just my waters." I kept feeling around, trying to search for the firm round shape I had felt moments before, and POP! Out came my waters, conveniently into the toilet bowl. From there everything then picked up several notches and I jumped back into the pool and went deep into labour land for the next few hours. At what must have been around 9.30pm, I started experiencing the urge to push and Abby helped me understand how to use my body to lean into the pushing sensation and help baby move down, something I found harder to do than expected. 

After a long 2 hours of pushing, Abby asked me to jump out of the pool and get gravity on my side which definitely helped. About half an hour later, at 11.59pm that night, our baby girl arrived into the world. She was slippery and loud, squawking non-stop and I was instantly hit with those magic hormones that make you forget all about the intensity of labour.

We had lots of skin-to-skin time, waited for the umbilical cord to turn white, did the breast crawl and my daughter latched straight away. After filling out paperwork and tidying the room Abby and the community midwife quietly left. 

So there we were, 3am in the morning, new parents, high on adrenaline and oxytocin, looking at each other and this sleeping little baby in amazement. I felt invincible. If I could do that, I can do anything. 

Anna’s Hypnobirthing course gave Jake and I such a brilliant understanding of birth - from a factual, physiological and practical point of view. It enabled Jake to become well informed and be the best birth partner I needed - calm, patient and trusting in my body and it’s ability to birth our baby. We are both eternally grateful to Anna and her course, and feel that it united us in the journey of birth and becoming parents.