Amelia's Birth Story

One of my biggest fears in pregnancy was giving birth...  How much it would hurt, how little privacy I would have, how long it would take to heal.  Oh, how naive I was...

This is Amelia's birth story. I am proud of it, as it was the beautiful pain-free birth that we learned and hoped for in our hypnobirthing class. My daughter deserved to be born in love, and I am grateful to all those around me: my dear husband, my wonderful doula and midwifes, my mom and grandma, and our friends, who helped me along the way.

We started getting worried when our very active baby wasn't moving much on March 23... After talking to our midwifes, we thought it might be because I was having a lot of Braxton-Hicks. We counted Amelia's kicks till 1:30am that night and she gave us 6 kicks in 2 hours that we needed.

The next morning we went for our 38-week appointment. My belly grew just the right amount and everything looked good, but the midwife was having a hard time finding the heartbeat. She got another doppler and after an agonizing search finally found a heartbeat. I knew something was wrong because it was 120 and not the usual 150 that Amelia had. We decided to get a NST at the hospital and headed straight there, having no idea of what was ahead of us.

The hospital nurse could not find the hearbeat either. I proudly found her the heartbeat that the midwife found earlier, I later found out was my own... An obgyn came in with an ultrasound machine and after two longest minutes in my life, she looked at me and said: "I'm sorry, there is no heartbeat." The room started spinning and our life changed forever...

Our midwifes were there in a matter of minutes. Somehow we all still had hope. Or maybe it was just me. They said that the best way to deliver Amelia would be vaginally, but I could not bear the thought of it. Then I realised that our daughter deserves the beautiful birth we planned for her, and she was going to get it. I was already 2cm dilated when they induced me at 2pm on the 24th. We had a long wait ahead of us... Somehow in that time we had the strength to talk about what was going to happen next. I guess because we still had hope that she would be born alive and this was all just a really bad dream...

10 long hours later, after my fourth dose of whatever they were giving me, I was only 3cm and had very mild contractions. That was when I realised that I was not letting her go, I was keeping my body closed so that I can have more time with my baby. It felt strange but I remember thinking that it was not fair to Amelia, and decided it was time... That was about 2:30am. Minutes later my water broke and it started! Every contraction I had, Dan would put his hand on my shoulder and I would completely relax. I felt no pain, just love. My body was doing an amazing job and I was letting it be. I was singing through the transition stage, and it felt so empowering. Again, no pain. When pushing came I just moved her down, bit by bit, I think I was enjoying the process. At 5:08 Amelia Sofia was born, weighing 7lb 12.6oz, 21inch long. She looked so beautiful in her sleep, such soft cheeks, red lips and a lot of hair :)

We spent five wonderful hours holding her, kissing her, loving her. Then it was time to let her go...

I am very glad we got to have the beautiful birth of our Amelia. It was bitter-sweet, but it was filled with love.