Jess’s birth story
Date: 12/3/2021
location: homebirth
care provider: geesje maguire private midwife and trish fagnano doula
It all started on Wednesday 10th March. Contractions on and off all day and most of the night. Then waking on Thursday morning
STILL Pregnant at 42+1 weeks I felt deflated. I felt like something was holding me back from letting go and letting this labour progress. My son Bodhi who had just turned 3 had all of a sudden decided he didn’t want to be at the birth, but I really wanted him there. We had been discussing our homebirth for this baby for months and months, reading books, talking, watching home birthing videos and he was really excited. I knew I had to surrender to him so I called my parents (who live 2hrs away in Sydney) and asked them to come pick him up. They arrived at around 10am Thursday morning, we said our goodbyes and all of a sudden the house was quiet. Just me and my husband and an empty birthing pool. I sat down with my husband and had a very big but much needed cry. My birth with Bodhi turned out to be quite traumatic. We had planned a homebirth for him also but had to transfer to hospital at the last minute. All up I was in labour with Bodhi for 71 hours. I was still holding onto a bit of fear that this birth was going to end up like my first. I knew that I needed to push all this fear to the side and concentrate on this birth. I had done a lot of work with my beautiful doula Trish Fagnano on pushing through boundaries and having a magical birth. I knew I was ready and I knew at the end of the day what will be will be, I just needed to trust my body, my baby and my intuition.
I decided to talk to my baby. Tell him/her that mummy and daddy were ready for them to come. I kept saying over and over ‘we are ready for you beautiful baby, let’s have our magical birth’ I was sitting in silence on my birthing ball, rubbing my belly, eyes closed, feet grounded repeating over and over the same words. It was now getting late maybe around 4pm and I decided to listen to some meditations that my Acupuncturist had got me onto. One in particular I really really liked called soften, open, release by Shannon Moyer-Szemenyei. It only went for about 20 mins so I put that on repeat. This really got me in the zone. I knew that something had changed and tonight was the night. Soften, open, release was my new mantra. Over and over again I listened and spoke the words.
We had dinner and decided to have an early night so went to bed around 8:30pm. I got woken up at around 11pm with contractions. I knew this was it. I got up, set up my space with my birthing ball, music, yoga mat and turned my salt lamps on. I then woke my husband and told him this was it.
I put my meditation back on and started moving how my body wanted me to move. Lots of figure 8’s with my hips, swaying with my hips, kneeling on my yoga mat with my body leaning over my ball. Dane (my husband) did a lot of acupressure points on me, massaged my back and shoulders and spoke lots of positive words.
It was painful but nothing I couldn’t handle.
I decided to stand up and figure 8, this felt best. I was repeating the words soften, open, release over and over. Really leaning into this. I felt really excited for what was to come.
All of a sudden around 1:30am my waters broke. A big gush of fluid, nothing like the movies though. I was so excited as my waters didn’t break naturally with Bodhi. I had told Dane to rest as I’d need him later so he was snoozing on the lounge and woke to my excited screams ‘DANE MY WATERS JUST BROKE’ I knew then it wouldn’t be long until we met our baby.
Dane then sent Trish our Doula a text and told her my waters had broken and that id like her to come as soon as she could. Then we sent our midwife Geesje a text and told her my waters had broken also. In the moment I completely forgot that Geesje had told me at a previous appointment to call her instead of text if I went into labour in the middle of the night. Oops!
Trish turned up at our place just after 2am and as soon as she walked in the door the vibe was just calm. Trish has this aura about her that is unexplainable. She is a real life Angel. She hugged me and asked if I wanted to get in the pool. Nothing at that moment sounded better. Dane filled the pool and I got in. It was the most amazing feeling. My contractions were very rhythmic and the warm water took a lot of my pain away. Trish reminded me to stay hydrated offering me coconut water between contractions (lifesaving!!) I wasn’t keeping track of the time and I didn’t want anyone to tell me how long this had been going.
Dane was in front of me, holding my hands while I squeezed his hands during each contraction. Trish was behind me using my favourite black cockatoo mug that my Mum had bought for me pouring warm water down my back. She also had got a face washer and was wiping my face. I felt so safe, confident and loved in this moment.
All of a sudden my contractions moved into my back. Oh my goodness they hurt. I was roaring in that pool. Swaying my hips still. Squeezing my husbands hands so tight. All of a sudden I realised Geesje wasn’t here. I knew it had been a few hours since we sent her the text to say my waters had broken. Dane messaged her again and said Jess needs you here now, don’t rush we are ok but the baby isn’t far off. Geesje replied straight away saying she had missed the first text and that she would be here ASAP (she lived 1hr or so away) it was about 4:45am at this stage. The contractions in my back kept coming, ah they hurt so much. Trish kept me hydrated and kept reminding me what a great job I was doing and Dane was still there holding my hands telling me I’m amazing and that he loved me. The roars kept coming. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep this up my back was so so sore. And just when I thought I couldn’t do it anymore I felt my baby move down. The pain in my back was gone. I knew now the baby would be here very soon. I changed positions in the pool a few times to try and get comfortable. Kneeling on one knee with the other leg up felt good. I thought I’d feel to see what was happening down there. I felt this really slimy circular thing. It didn’t add up, I had no idea that it was my babies head starting to emerge. I don’t remember when the urge to push started but I remember ‘the ring of fire’. Instead of resisting this feeling I embraced it, and again was so excited that my body knew exactly what to do all by itself. No coaching, no checks/examinations no one touching me except for myself. I felt down there again and felt more slime and it clicked OMG that’s the head!!! I said to Dane I can feel the head, he came around and felt it too. We were so excited. Another urge to push came and half the baby was now out. One more push and we would be meeting our baby. The urge came, Dane put his hands into the water and caught our beautiful baby boy. Tears of joy streamed down our face. We both looked at exactly the same time and announced at the same time ‘it’s a boy’
I did it. I birthed our baby boy at home, totally uninterrupted, in my safe space, no bright lights, no loud voices, only positive words being spoken. My baby was perfect. I held him against my chest and told him I loved him a million times with so many kisses and then we got our first cry. He was ok.
It was 6:02am Friday 12th March our Reggie Fox was born.
We immediately FaceTimed Bodhi to tell him he was a big brother and show him he had a little brother. More tears.
At 6:20am Geesje arrived to see me kneeling up in the pool holding my baby boy. Her jaw nearly hit the ground. She was so shocked. I had birthed my baby using my intuition. It was perfect.
She helped me out of the pool and got me comfy and warm on the lounge. My legs were so shaky, I wasn’t expecting that at all. Reggie was still attached to his cord. We were doing delayed cord clamping. He was on my chest getting pinker and pinker. Just perfect. I had an urge to birth the placenta not long after hopping out of the pool, maybe 45 mins later so Geesje and Trish helped me to the bathroom and we put a bowl in the toilet. I sat down on the toilet and the placenta detached immediately no issues at all. I remember that feeling like such a relief. We came back to the lounge and Reggie was showing signs of wanting his first feed. He latched on perfectly. I couldn’t believe I was looking down at my beautiful new baby feeding him.
He had his feed and his cord had turned completely white and translucent so it was time to cut it. I think it was about 1.5hrs after his birth that we cut the cord. I cut Reggie’s cord while holding him at the same time. We weighed and measured him, 4.3kgs and 55cm long of deliciousness. He was a pretty big boy but he did bake until 42+2 weeks.
I gave Reggie to Dane and they had skin to skin whilst I had a shower. Trish made me the most delicious tasting avocado on toast id ever had (I was craving that) and a beautiful cup of tea to drink. Geesje was cleaning up the birthing pool and finishing off her notes and Dane and I were basking in the blissfulness of our new beautiful son. We couldn’t believe we had created something so special and perfect.
Geesje left first and then Trish left not long after.
Dane, Reggie and I got into bed by 10:30am to have a beautiful sleep together. So blissfully happy.
We couldn’t wait to have Bodhi home with us and start our family of 4 ❤️
I can’t recommend Trish enough. She made my pregnancy, birth and postpartum period more than I could have ever imagined. I don’t really have the words for just how magical she is and I am now lucky enough to call her my friend. A homebirth is a birth like no other. The difference between my birth with my 1st son compared to my birth with my 2nd, is unbelievable. I can’t advocate for a homebirth more strongly.
I also want to mention what I did with my placenta. I decided instead of making placenta pills like last time I divided my placenta up 3 ways.
I used some for a tincture made by the lovely Nancy McLean, chopped some up fresh and made a few smoothies for the first 3 days (amazing benefits and you cannot taste the placenta) and with the remainder we have it frozen and plan on burying it on Reggie’s 1st birthday.
Thanks for taking the time to read my birth story.