Erica Chatterton

It was the most calm, gentle, nurturing experience. I felt held and cared for - while everything was at my pace and my choice. I had the opportunity to listen and trust my body and my baby and it felt like a truly magical experience. 

When I remember our birth story I describe it as amazing, magical, everything I hoped for.  

I had started to get nervous as our due date came and went - I wanted to know what would happen, what we would do. Veronica (our midwife) gave me space to share these worries and helped me come back to a place of trust.  

After a week of braxton hicks, I felt contractions starting on Wednesday afternoon at 40+5. They persisted through the afternoon and I contacted Veronica and a friend to look after my eldest.  Veronica kept in touch with me and let me know she would be near by.  Contractions continued through the night but were gentle enough for me to rest and sleep in between.  I was surprised by how long it was taking and how gentle it felt, after being induced for my first birth.  

When my eldest woke on Thursday morning and came to climb all over me, my contractions slowed down. Veronica came to see me at home and checked on me and Bub.  

My eldest went off for her swimming lessons and then to her grandparents for a sleep over.  

At home in the calm and quiet with my husband, Jeremy, labour began to intensify. It was a hot day but we were inside in the cool, keeping the lights low.  After 24 hours I lost my mucous plug and noticed contractions gradually intensifying.  I needed to move more and focus on my breathing to get through them. 

Jeremy helped me put on the tens machine and I moved through contractions sitting on my fit ball. With each change Jeremy would ask me ‘do you think Veronica should come now?’ I didn’t know when the time would be right.  

I started to need a heat pack and a lot more movement to get through each contraction. I jumped in the shower and asked Veronica to head over.  Veronica arrived and popped in to check on me and Bub as I got out of the shower. She had visited us at home so many times by now that she slipped in like an old friend.  

I was pedalling my feet and using horse’s breath as I held the heat pack into my pelvis. Veronica and Jeremy were setting up the birth pool.   

Around 8.50 pm Phoebe (the second midwife) arrived as I was climbing into the birth pool. The warm water felt like instant relief but only briefly as I felt I needed to push almost straight away.  

The next half an hour was so intense and I remember saying repeatedly how sore and exhausted I felt. There didn’t feel like a break between the pain of contractions and the pain of baby crowning. All of a sudden I felt her slip back in and just had this moment of rest and relief.  

I felt so focused on the labour - Jeremy was there in front of me as I was submerged on my knees in the pool. I didn’t even notice our little dog, Nina, saunter past to see what was going on.  As bub’s head began to emerge, Veronica encouraged me to look down and see her in the mirror and to reach down and feel her. My waters hadn’t broken and I could feel her face through the membrane.  

As each contraction brought her further down, I was touching her face, then her head, and then she was born and I was pulling her up to my chest.  She was born at 9.20pm.  

I relaxed back, cradling baby on my chest, Jeremy on one side Veronica on the other as ‘First day of my life’ played by Bright Eyes. I feel like I just had this moment of complete awe - meeting her and birthing her, she’s here, we did it!  

We carefully climbed out of the pool and wrapped up in warm towels in our big bed. Skin to skin, she was crawling looking for the breast and loudly crying. We snuggled up in bed, Bub fed and sleeping, until I felt it was time to birth our placenta.  

Our placenta was birthed into a towel over the toilet while the cord was still attached. We brought Bub and placenta back to bed to marvel at the miracle, before Jeremy cut the cord.  Our midwives tucked us up, cosy in bed, with toast and the promise of a visit in the morning.  

My eldest came home the next morning, she ran into the house ‘Is the baby here?!’ She met her baby sister with a look of complete adoration in her eyes.  

The funniest moment that sticks in my mind was Phoebe asking if she looked like her sister - I instantly and definitively said ‘no!’.   

But the next morning the similarity was undeniable.  

It makes me giggles to think how squished and swollen Bub looked in those first moments.  

It was the most calm, gentle, nurturing experience. I felt held and cared for - while everything was at my pace and my choice. I had the opportunity to listen and trust my body and my baby and it felt like a truly magical experience.  

Birth story by Erica Chatterton.