I've always been a keen gym goer and yogi (mostly home practice and focused on more body challenging routines) but after a bleed 22 weeks into pregnancy I lost all confidence in the gym and decided it was time to slow down.
I kept up daily dog walks and gentle yoga at home but even with years of experience the more I yoga'd the more I questioned which poses I should be focusing on to help my body and baby.
It was my fellow pregnant friend Rachael that introduced me to Tessa's studio. At around 28 weeks I decided it was time to embrace a class again. I came week in week out and loved the chance to move freely and connect with my baby đ an hour in the week dedicated solely to me and bump. So precious.
I had read Hollie Dr Cruz Your Baby Your Birth containing hypnobirthing insight and techniques and was feeling confident about birth. A lot of what I read we practiced in yoga. Golden thread breathing really stood out.
Fast forward 13 weeks - baby was comfy and had decided to stay in a week longer than my due date. Spooky, myself and my husband had always said 2nd June is when our little lady would arrive and turned out we were right about when we would get started but not the day she would grace us. 2nd June comes around and like magic around quarter past midnight my waters broke. Not the gush you see in films just a trickle and when I phoned the midwife it was hard for them to diagnose over the phone so we were recommended to wait until the morning and go get examined. So this is what we did.
Next morning in Burnley the midwives confirm it is my hind waters and its systems go đ we opt to go home as I am determined to let my body do its thing. It was a beautiful sunny day so we went to Spring Wood to hill walk labour on and then for a delightful beer garden lunch (and daddy's last pint before responsibilities haha). We get home and I do one of Tessa's YouTube yoga videos and then we nap for a couple of hours đ¤ after waking up for a bath we then make our way back to Burnley for our 24 hour check up.
My contractions at this point had ramped up to around 1 every 7 minutes but the feeling was very manageable đ on being examined we receive some fabulous news - I'm 3cm dilated so we don't need inducing and we wouldn't be going home without baby in our arms đ very exciting!!!
We get transferred to our room - it's not the big beautiful room with pool, real bed and plenty of dancing space that we had envisaged when we had our tour of Blackburn Birthing Centre. Our room was in the Birthing Suite so effectively a hospital room BUT much along Tessa's advice from the birthing workshop we attended a few we make it our own - we dim the lights and put out LED candles, play the playlist my girlies put together for us and spray the same lavendar spray that Tessa uses in shivasana at the end of class đĽ°
I am hooked up to a monitor and we are left to it. The contractions got more and more frequent and intense but I focused on my golden thread breathing and on the end goal holding baby in my arms.
Because I had to stay monitored I had to stay on the bed đ which was the hardest thing for me - I had planned to move around, circle my hips like we had in class and practice the yoga poses and massage we had been taught at the workshop. It wasn't meant to be, every time I contracted babies heart rate was dipping.
Turns out baby was already really low so every contraction her little head was getting pushed further and squished and she didn't like it. We were left to do our thing for around 4 hours and then examined by the doctor. After a really positive start the doctor confirmed we were still 3cm.
This was hard to hear given all the hard work I was putting in but genuinely through controlling my breathing and knowing my options, thanks to the birthing workshop, I felt completely at ease and when recommended that we get baby out through C Section instead it was a no brainer.
The rest of the story is a whirlwind. Daddy scrubs up and we are wheeled into theatre. The surgeons were super lovely, especially the anaesthetist Bruce who made the whole experience super easy and calm.
Bob Marley was put on by request and the first song to blast out was Don't Worry đĽ°
Next thing we know baby is hoisted out of belly into the air and over to a table to be checked over and so daddy could cut the cord. Weighing 6lb7oz a perfect little hairy dot with the most insane eyelashes we'd ever seen đđ˝ââď¸ 6.32am 3rd June Raine Marla Calvert is earth side đ
Thanks to my yoga practice and Tessa's birth workshop I felt confident and in control throughout even though birth took a completely unexpected turn. I am really proud of myself and I look back on Raine's birth with fond memories of the magic of my baby entering the world healthy and happy đ and now I look at my healing scar and think how beautiful it is. The magic window that brought my beautiful baby into the world đ