Dana's Birth Story

Hi! I am excited to share my birth story with you all! 

My birth story

It all began last Saturday when I was induced (due to a few different reasons). I felt like I was having random on and off contractions all week and had a feeling I had started dilating.

I had the first set of gels at roughly 8.30-9.00pm, the midwife checked my cervix and could feel it hadn't dilated (so I was wrong thinking I had started dilating during the week) 
After about an hour I started to get slight contractions. I couldn't sleep so I laid in bed and continued to watch the ranch while Roland got some zz.

As time went on it felt like the surges were getting stronger but I wasn't sure if it was all in my head or if it was really happening.

The midwife came back at 2am and inserted the second gels. I had only dilated 1cm. Pretty much as soon as the second gels were inserted the surges really ramped up and already felt close together.

I didn't wake Roland up and walked around the room on my own for about an hour or so as the surges became quite full on. I decided...

18th of December. 40 weeks.

Millie June’s due date.

I woke at 6am after what felt like MJ doing a giant somersault and then some minor cramping. I got up, made my coffee and put on one of my many birth prep playlists. I sat and journaled to MJ (something we had been doing throughout the pregnancy). I had a feeling that perhaps she was on her way to us.

We had our 40wk appointment that morning. The midwife offered a stretch and sweep if we wanted to speed things along or to see if my cervix was ripe , but we declined. We left the hospital talking about the wild possibility of Millie not arriving for another 12 days or so, and a “just-in-case” induction was booked in.

That afternoon we had some spicy pho for dinner, took Luna on a sunset walk, did some perineal massage (Paz’s favourite) whilst listening to my Hypnobirthing Australia tracks, and other things that have been said to help induce labour au naturel

At 10pm as Paz was playing what we now know was his...

We started our journey through Frances Perry private with Dr Sushen Naidoo who recommended that we do Hypnobirthing with Vanessa at Illoura Birth. We signed up not long after.

About halfway through our pregnancy journey, I had an intense intuition to switch to a home birth with private midwives. I loved Dr Sush so it was a hard decision but I desperately wanted a natural, Unmedicated and no intervention birth for me and my son. So, after a bit of convincing of my partner, we switched to home birth. We had the most incredible midwives and doula which helped make my partner more comfortable with the idea of birthing at home.

We had our hypnobirthing class which we both loved. I practised the techniques and recordings daily. I particularly love the tracks which I meditated to (and still do) daily.

George decided to come with no induction at 41+4 weeks. It was a 16-hour labour with a few complications making the labour longer and more painful than it needed to be. He wasn’t...