Hello Archie!
Here's an absolutely amazing and inspiring birth story for you. Thank you so much Courtney for sharing and wow, well done! Archie is gorgeous.

January 7 2020
Three days past my “due date” I woke up and started the day off like usual, except I felt like getting out of the house, so Dad and myself went into my work to see everyone. Everyone was certain I wasn’t going to have a baby any day soon. We then went to the KFC drive thru for some lunch and then headed home.
Around 2 maybe 3 o'clock I started getting really bad back pains, so I jumped in the shower and held the shower head against my back under the hot water. After that helping for a minute I then decided to try and lie down for a bit, but the back pains were getting worse and worse and mum decided to call my midwife. While my midwife was on the phone, and I was explaining to her how I was, she could hear the discomfort in my voice and thought she'd better come over and check on me. So around 4 pm my midwife came and accessed me and then left again to prepare herself for me to be giving birth at some time that night. After she left and as I was on all fours on my bed, my waters broke.
At 6 pm my midwife arrived to access me and by 6:15 I was fully dialated. By this stage I was refusing to go in the car to the Waioha birthing unit due to having such bad back pain, to which my midwife giggled, “Don’t worry, we aren’t going to have time to make it to the hospital, you’re having him here.” I was so shocked, but because of how fast everything had happened I didn’t have time to panic or worry. So my midwife then called another midwife who’s experienced with home births, and she arrived at 6:30. Meanwhile mum's running around grabbing little dishes for them, heating up towels, and it honestly felt like I was in a movie with all of this happening in the background yet I felt so calm at the same time.
6:40 pm - I started pushing. At 6:50 I had from squatting to trying to lie on my left side but quickly went back to all fours and I felt this was more comfortable for me.
Mum was amazing support, holding a cold flannel above my head and supporting the container I had in case I was sick because I felt unwell at times. Every push I panicked for a second and asked for reassurance from my midwifes to push or not, and a few times I caught myself saying “I can’t do it anymore” and feeling exhausted from all of the pushing.
At 7 pm my midwife informed me she could see a little hair curl, and at 7:10 pm they could see his head. At 7:30 his head was crowning and very soon I would have my baby in my arms. By this stage I was so overwhelmed and nervous, and after a couple of big pushes I heard “He’s here, pull him up to you.” I asked them to assist with getting him to me as I was too scared. At 7:35 my sweet little boy was brought into the world where we met each other for the first time. He cried when he came out and was so content and calm when he was handed to me.
At 7:48pm my placenta came out. I had lost a bit of blood after giving birth so I was feeling faint a few times, but this passed when my midwife gave me an injection of some sort in my leg (can’t remember the name) to calm the faint and sick feeling. I was then feeling good and my midwifes assisted with getting him to latch on to breastfeed and then they were on their way.

Oh what a journey it was, and one I will never forget and cherish for the rest of my life. I never planned to have a home birth, nor did I ever contemplate it when doing the hypnobirthing classes, so I feel really lucky to have had this unexpected and wonderful opportunity to have had my little boy at home with such success.
I believe the hypnobirthing classes really worked well for me and I managed to control my panic moments with all of the breathing techniques and affirmations I learnt and practiced and didn’t even realise I was using until afterwards. It still amazes me to this day with the whole “listen to your body” thing. It’s a really hard thing to explain until you experience it, but wow am I mindblown with how our bodies work and how they know exactly what to do and help guide you through the journey.
I remember you saying in the hypnobirthing classes that some women can be in labour and not even realise it and I never thought I would be one of them. The only pain I really felt during the whole birthing experience was the intense back pains. The internal pain and “ring of fire” that some talk about was nothing compared to my back pains. I don’t even remember what contractions felt like or if I even felt them at all. And all of this was done without any pain relief or needing to go to the hospital afterwards.
My little boy, Archie Wenham-Thomas is the sweetest, calmest and easiest baby I could have ever imagined. He’s made this ride a whole lot easier then I thought it would. I still don’t know what I’m doing, but who does right? We’re just taking one day at a time and have both learnt and grown together so much already.
Once again thank you so much for an amazing class. I definitely learnt a lot from you.
Kind regards, Courtney X
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