My Child Birth Story
Every birth story is unique, no two stories in this series are the same, but each one powerfully illustrates the beauty of birth. To me giving birth is not just about having babies. It is about women's lives, women's wisdom, women's bodies, and women's empowerment.
On the 05/04/2021 at 9:38 pm our daughter Freya - Our Bunny entered the 🌍 7lbs18💚. 39 weeks and 2 days long she was inside of me.
Initially, I wanted to go for the natural route water birth with a midwife at birthing centre because in my mind I did not want many any interventions. I did so many things to prepare for what I knew was going to be the hardest, but most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life.
Most of my pregnancy was straight forward, but there were some complication at the end, due to irregular fetal movements, and the baby scan predicted that she could weight almost 10lbs by the time she is born. This also could suggested that I could be having late pregnancy diabetes which could put the child in danger. These predictions made my water birth plan become impossible and I was asked by many consultants to have an induction but I refused to do it as I believed that both my body, Freya weren’t ready and there was no way that I could have diabetes with the amount of activity and healthy nutrition that I have had during my late pregnancy, especially my glucose test result was good at week 31.
Due to my decision, I had to go to the hospital every day for 4 days continuously, 5 hours/ day to check baby movements and scans). In addition, doing Glucose Blood Test 3 times /day to make sure that my sugar level was good. These things that I had to do in my last 5 days of Freya’s pregnancy had really blown up all my positive birthing mindset and confidence that I prepared for my labour day that I learnt from hypnobirthing over months and I came close to giving up.
Fortunately, My contraction was starting in the early morning around 1.30 am on 05/04 then Rimon and I did most of the work at home till 7 am. I moaned and coped with the pain holding his hands most of the time. Even though the contraction came in strong and hard every 30 seconds or 2-3 minutes for 5 hours but my water still didn’t break till this point. The midwife had 2 attempts to break my water to help my cervix to dilate faster at the end.
My Active labor started at 6.30 pm and I was already fully dilated by 8.20 pm. Freya was born at 9:38pm . For 40 minutes I actively pushed. The intensity was such, that for one second, I doubted if I was not going to be able to do it. I would hear in the background affirmations from my midwife like "your body was meant to do this, you got this, come on Trang you can’t give up"- Rimon would say, "You can do this babe, I got you"...oh my, was that something!
I used Gas and Air throughout the labour and refused to use epidural because I want to be more in control at the push stage. If you were to ask me I'd say that I understand why some women choose to get a little bit of help in the process, and it is okay if you do.
It wasn't easy, but I'd do it without intervention if I could do it again with water birth. Giving birth is truly a miracle. I have so much respect for my fellow mums, regardless of how the baby was delivered ; This journey is exhausting, selfless, hard, sometimes even dangerous, unpredictable but at the end...WORTH IT!
Don't ask me how my body is looking after going through a marathon! Ask me how I'm feeling! Even though I might look great for a lot of people who just given birth, ask me how I am mentally dealing with the change of being a new mum.
FOR ALL MY MUMS OUT THERE, I APPRECIATE YOU AND LOVE YOU! YOU GOT THIS. DO THE BEST YOU CAN.
Motherhood is tough. You won't understand unless you've been through it . But now I have a piece of me...and a piece of him. We didn't expect to have a strong immense love like this but now I can't imagine my life without her. Things that used to matter the most like career, nice house and car now seem to become the least important. Watching our Freya’s sleep is the most peaceful thing that I have experienced.
TO ALL MY MUMS OUT THERE, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! DON'T FEEL SELF CONSCIOUS ABOUT BEING PERFECT. KNOW THAT YOU ARE DOING WHAT IS BEST FOR YOUR SITUATION AND THAT IS ENOUGH. YOU ARE A GREAT MUM. I APPLAUD YOU!