My Birth Story ↠ Airlie

I can’t believe it’s been 6.5 weeks since our family grew a little bigger with the arrival of our second daughter, Airlie.

If you haven’t read my birth story from a few years ago when Sahara was born (or the post from Chris’ perspective of the birth), I’d suggest having a quick read of them so you can understand why I felt that Airlie’s birth was a completely different experience.

Because Sahara was born 11 days past her due date, at most of my appointments with the pregnancy care clinic it was suggested that I’d most likely go past my due date (25 September) this time too. So you can imagine my shock when I started to feel contraction-like pains on the night of 23 September.

We were so unprepared for the arrival on or close to the due date that Chris had only gotten the bassinet and final baby products out of the storage unit the morning labour started!

On Saturday, I went about my day as normal, the weather was surprisingly nice for late September so we spent most of it outside gardening and in the late afternoon, a friend came over. We had a cheeky fish and chips for dinner, and at around 8pm, Chris headed to bed, I was watching TV with my mum when I started to feel period-like cramps. I went to the bathroom and noticed that perhaps I was starting to loose my mucus plug, but because I’d been induced with Sahara and not experienced this before I wasn’t sure if it actually was the case so I messaged my sister and she said she had the same feelings with her first who was then born 2 days later so to just monitor it and tell mum. When I went to bed, I woke Chris up to let him know that I thought I was potentially in early labour, he was half asleep so sort of laughed it off. The cramping pain occurred every 45-60 minutes overnight and by 8am they were getting closer together. Chris woke up and looked at me then said “are you in labour?” I said, “yeah I think so…”

Again, I wasn’t familiar with going into labour naturally so I wasn’t sure if it was the real thing or if I was just experiencing Braxton hicks so I started timing the contrations on an app on my phone which told me at 11/11:30am I should start thinking about going into hospital. I gave the midwives a call to explain what was happening and get their opinion on whether I should come in or not. After speaking with a midwife it was decided that I’d pop into the hospital, get checked out and see where we were at.

Thankfully my mum had arrived only a few days prior on the Thursday so she was able to watch Sahara while Chris and I went to the hospital. Now, if you know Chris, you know his love for a Dare or Oak iced coffee. So instead of driving straight to the hospital, we take the long route just so Chris can go past the servo and get himself an iced coffee… Eventually we get to the hospital and the baby is monitored for a while. It’s confirmed that yes I’m definitely having contractions and I opted to have a midwife check to see how far along I was; it was around 2pm by now and I was 2cm dilated. Because of this I was told I could go home as it could be another few hours or possibly even days until it’s “go time”.

On the way home we made a pit stop at Kmart for Chris to do some shopping – picture me walking through Kmart having contractions every couple of steps.

Once we were home I played with Sahara and rested as much as I could. By 6pm things had really started to ramp up so I jumped in the shower to try and ease the pain a little.

I think I was in the shower for maybe 45 mins to an hour; when I got out I rang the midwives again to see what they thought I should do. The midwife I spoke with suggested I try and wait it out in the comfort of home as long as possible but if I felt as though I couldn’t do it without any pain relief then I could come in, however, because I was able to speak through my contractions still she said I could have a little longer to go.

At this point in time I’d had no sort of pain relief, and other than having a shower I’d been using a fit ball and a comb to manage the pain. When I had Sahara I’d never heard of a birth comb and only came across it by chance prior to my labour with Airlie. While you can buy specific “birth combs” from places like Bubba Bump, I just used a wooden one of Chris’ that we had in the house already.

It was 9PM, I was laying on the couch trying to breathe through contractions that were now strong and coming fast; Chris was asleep at the other end, and my mum was reading her book, I decided I needed to go to hospital now. This time there were no iced coffee stops, Chris knew it was the real deal.

I arrived at the hospital at 9:30PM, the midwife met me at the birth suite entrance and led me to a room. Coincidentally it just happened to be the same midwife I’d had in my last pregnancy care clinic appointment and I reminded her how much I’d like to have a water birth if possible so she quickly ran off to start running the bath. She did a quick check to see how far I was and I was now 5-6cm dilated.

As the bath was filling up, she said that the doctor was fine with me labouring in there but when it came time for the baby to be born they’d prefer I got out and deliver in the suite instead. The reason for this is because of my postpartum haemorrhage with Sahara and they were concerned may happen again. My midwife knew that the request to get out of the bath just before birthing bub could be a challenging one so subtly said if I “accidentally” gave birth in the bath then that’s not the worst thing!

With the lights off and a dark, calm environment set I climbed into the bath and Chris played music on a speaker. After only an hour of labouring in the water and no pain relief other than my birth comb, I felt the indescribable desire to push and at 10:30PM our little bub was born in the water.

As we had kept the gender a surprise, and I was pretty convinced we were having a boy, as Airlie came out and I went to pull her up I caught a glimpse of the umbilical cord and said “it’s a boy!” It wasn’t until Chris said “no it’s a girl” that it dawned on me that he was in fact correct.

Although I birthed Airlie in the bath, which is in a separate room, they moved me into a suite as soon as I got out of the water; what was really nice about this was that the suite I was in was actually the exact same room I gave birth to Sahara in. Although, compared to Sahara’s birth, this was as calm and relaxed as they come – and done without any pain relief! There was only Chris and the midwife present for Airlie’s birth unlike the numerous for Sahara’s.

Everything happened so quickly, I didn’t even get the chance to use anything I packed in my hospital bag such as the pregnancy and birth affirmations cards I was gifted during my pregnancy with Sahara, the room spray I had made, or even time to put out all the tea lights I’d got from Kmart. Pretty much the only thing I used was the LED candles I had which I didn’t use until I was up on the ward.

Everything went so smoothly with this birth that I was told I could go home just after midnight, but because we had Chris’ car which doesn’t have a baby capsule in it I opted to stay the night on the ward instead of waiting for him to go home, change cars and then come back in to get me.