17/10/2025
Birthdays always bring around so many feels, and today is no different.
Not only is it a day to celebrate our youngest but a day to remember her birth too as she came crashing into the world so dramatically (nothing has changed!)
Birthdays can bring back so much of the actual day our babies arrived, but also the stuff before that, that got you there.
So last night, and today, I've been reflecting on it all.
The conversations, the pushing for what I wanted and knew was right for us.
Declining lots of unnecessary interventions, including stretch and sweeps and an induction.
Going outside of guidance to give birth in the only place I felt truly safe, at home with the ones I love, including the dog.
Staying strong and firm on my decisions when the community midwife threw me curveball after curve ball; "She's measuring too small", "I think she's breech", "I cant let you have a home birth until I've tested your blood again"!
All things that were unfounded but still enough to make me wobble a bit.
Because that's something they don't always tell you on a hypnobirthing course. Sometimes, advocating for yourself and what you want, especially if it goes against the grain, can feel terrifying, overwhelming and really make you question yourself.
Advocating for the things that really mattered to me, like waiting for her to decide when she was going to be born, making sure her cord wasn't touched until it was really ready (to then be cut by her big brother), birthing at home.
None of this means it was a "perfect" birth. We had an emergency during and needed the midwives to utilise all their incredible skills. But it was still a really positive experience.
One that I put down totally to the hypnobirthing course I did to get us really prepared for whatever came our way and to advocate for things we knew were right for us after researching all our options.
Birth doesn't have to look a certain way to be a positive experience.
There is no right or wrong. Only what's right for YOU!
I'm so grateful that hypnobirthing came into my life!
