The birth was everything I had wished, planned, prayed and dreamt of Plus More!

*This blog post was originally published 11 February 2017*

Dear Christa,

I just thought I'd check in with you and let you know we had our little miracle join us earth side on Monday 6th February.

The birth was everything I had wished, planned, prayed and dreamt of plus more. I had been listening to my Hypnobirthing tracks I had purchased off iTunes for a number of weeks and had actually used them frequently as a tool to get me to sleep for many of the previous weeks leading up to birthing day. I had my affirmations and visual aids printed and would also often visit them and silently go over them daily.

I can honestly say I wasn't in the slightest fearful or anxious about the labour. That seems to be the question everyone likes to ask when they see you close to your due date however I would always respond positively and state I was excited to see the amazing ability of what my own body is designed so delicately to do. I'm sure people thought I was naive however I knew what my body needed to do and trusted it would do it when the birthing day came around.

When it did, I was awoken to what I thought were Braxton Hicks as I had been experiencing them for many weeks prior. I sent my husband Josh off to work in the morning and for a couple of hours continued to experience very mild surges (they were however vey inconsistent and not all that intense so I continued to think they would just go away). I went about my morning very easily doing household chores until I began to notice a pattern in the surges. At this point they were every 4 minutes however I was still telling Josh not to hurry home as they still may go away. I was walking between the surges and even practising some basic yoga telling my body to open up and all the while referring to my affirmations.

When Josh arrived home I had begun vomiting and noticed my body start to tremor. I recognised this as perhaps a sign of transition however as it had only been a couple of hours of mild surges, I was still in denial! Lucky we left for the hospital when we did however because as soon as we arrived and I began walking up to the birthing suite I began bearing down! We arrived at the hospital at 11am and our little miracle was born at 11:18am. I refused to get on the bed as the midwife instructed I do (thinking of your advice in my head "avoid getting on the bed!") and birthed our little man into the world standing up supported by my husband.

Christa, I am so thankful and forever grateful for everything you taught Josh and I in our Birth Toolkit class. I felt so incredibly prepared mentally for the birth and was confident my body would do as it is designed to do when birthing our baby into the world. I would often go through the workbook you gave us and was constantly refreshing myself with the different techniques we discussed in class. I was able to have an empowering and amazing birth thanks to you and your guidance. I will most certainly be recommending you and your expertise to anyone that will listen!

Thank you so much again Christa.