We wanted to let you know that me and Ian had a baby girl at 3.51am on Friday 15th June.
Unfortunately I didn't get to birth her at home and went to hospital late Thursday night.
I started having contractions from Sunday so had been pretty exhausted by the time she was here on the Friday!
I managed to do most of it at home enjoying the pool and listening to music and even sat watching a few episodes of Friends! The midwives were fantastic and just let us get on with it and even suggested we both went upstairs for a nap to get some rest.
The midwives couldn't believe how far I had gone without any pain relief and kept saying how amazing I was for coping using my hypnobirthing techniques and going off into my own zone.
Things took a different turn late Thursday night after I asked for an examination to see how far I was due to contractions being 2 mins apart and by this point they were actually very painful and I started to need pain relief. It turns out she was back to back and her head was sitting horizontally stuck in my pelvis.
After a few high blood pressure readings the midwife said it would be best now to go to the hospital and at this point I was very much in need of something stronger to take away all the back pain, I was no longer getting a break between contractions so agreed to be transferred in.
By the time I got there I was 5cm and after getting an epidural within the space of 15 minutes my waters went and I was 9cms!
Within the next couple of hours I was ready to push and made sure I did this myself as I didn't want an assisted delivery.
I had the lights turned down and my music playing and I pushed her out in an hour and a half.
Her head appeared as our first dance song to our wedding came on and within 5 minutes after I even delivered the placenta naturally myself too!
The midwife wasn't expecting me to be able to push after the exhausting week I had or carry on pushing for that long but I was focused and done it.
It wasn't the "perfect" homebirth I had planned but it was as much as I wanted and although things had changed I just had to listen to all my options and decide what I wanted to do at each point and was very much still in control.
I don't think I would have been able to do as much as I did if it wasn't for the hypnobirthing, it really helped me stay focused.
We welcomed our new daughter, Ezmay Ripley Miles into the world and couldn't be happier 💖💖