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Writer's pictureMotherMoon

The Birth of Ella



On Monday 8/3/21 I was 40 weeks pregnant.

I was a little disappointed as another day passed with no signs of labour starting. I lay in bed around 10 pm with my partner and massaged clary sage into my tummy. At 10:30 I decided to go to the toilet & my waters released over the toilet. I thought we would be in for a long night so put on my Hypnobirthing Australia tracks to try to go back to sleep.


I was a mixture of too excited and too uncomfortable to lie down & sleep. We decided to call my mum as she had offered to come to our house in case we needed help with our 2 older sons. Mum arrived and we spoke about how it could be another 24hrs before labour starts. Mum went to sleep in one of our spare rooms.


Labour started within the hour - I spent some time kneeling over the ball, in and out of the shower - still trying to get rest. My partner, Dylan, managed to get to sleep so I enjoyed some time labouring on my own and decided to try push it to an hours rest for him before calling our midwife (Alex) - I knew calling her would wake him back up. I contacted my friend Tahnee to come who was doing my photos/video. I was timing my surges and I called Alex at 1:30 when they were 2-3 mins apart and she headed over.


I could feel myself starting to go into my inner conscious and all I could think about was having her arrive to hold space for me while I ‘left’.

I was starting to lose the ability to time my surges so stopped. I said to Dylan it’s time to start filling up the pool, part of me still wondered if we were filling it up too early - I was thinking my baby was hours away as my first birth was 14hrs all up. Alex arrived soon after. I remember her saying ‘lucky you called me’ and I felt relieved to know that things were indeed progressing. I had a little sook at some point ‘I’m tired, I’m nauseas I just wanna go to sleep’.


I struggle to pee while I labour so that was another thing I focused on - up and down off the toilet. I find it hard to sit long enough to pee. Alex and Dylan guided me through the surges ‘Just breathe, it’s nearly over, you're doing so well’ and doing light touch massages while the pool filled up. I was starting to struggle and thinking how will I manage these surges any longer. I jumped in the pool, and WOW - the surges were so manageable. I could breathe through them and some would come and go without any pain - I could feel the tightness but I could completely relax through it. I couldn’t believe how much the pool helped - it was far more effective then the gas I’d used for my first birth.



Dylan put cold washers over my back which also felt incredible - being immersed in warm water for the bottom half of my body and cool washers over my back. Dylan put on a Hypnobirthing track ‘Prompts for Birthing’ for me at just the right time. I had no idea that my baby was so close - Alex said I was quiet so it was hard to tell, but then she saw me tense/open and close my hands through a surge so she bailed and went outside to call the second midwife to come. Ah, I thought, well that’s a good sign if Alex is asking the other midwife to come.



13 minutes later my body just absolutely ejected Ella. I didn’t push, I just breathed as my body took over. All I could think was ‘how do I slow her down, how do I hold her in’ but Ella just navigated her own speedy way out while I focused on my breathing. With some prompting from Alex I reached down and grabbed Ella, bringing my little girl up to my chest.


The second midwife, Jannie, missed Ella's birth by a few minutes. We had planned to wake our 2 sons up to come and watch their sister being born, but they ended up sleeping through the whole thing. My mother was up the hallway sleeping, also completely unaware of the night perfectly unfolding.


She was born at 3:23am on 9/3/21.


Alex stayed until about 6:30. The pool was emptied and the room cleaned up. My mum woke up just after Alex left and come in to check on us. I positioned Ella so mum didn’t initially see her. Mum asked if I’d had any surges yet and I said “the midwives have been and gone”. Mum said ‘oh yeah, are they coming back later?” then I showed mum that our baby girl was here. She had absolutely no idea!

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