Rachel's Birth Story

Hi Nerissa, I thought I'd send you my birth story. I did your course on Wednesday evenings from January to March this year and was having my second baby, after an emergency caesarean last time.

I'm afraid I ended up with another emergency caesarean, and Tilly was born on 17th May weighing 7lbs 13oz. I just wanted to let you know that the yoga was still very useful to me.

I was having contractions for a day and a half, varying from a minute apart to stopping completely for a couple of hours. I was at home through most of this, with my independent midwife, although I did manage a trip to Sainsburys, where my waters broke! There was meconium in the waters and so I was monitored very closely for several hours, including a couple of hours in hospital. Labour seemed to stall there, and I went home to see if that would help. It did a bit, but things were still moving pretty erratically and too slowly for the doctors! In the end I decided, with my midwife's help, that it was too risky to continue because there was fresh meconium appearing and it looked as if the labour might take another day, at least, so I opted for the caesarean as it seemed the safest thing for the baby.

I used my yoga, particularly the breathing, throughout this period and didn't have any other pain relief. My midwife thinks that this is why Tilly was so alert when she was born and that certainly helped to establish breastfeeding. The breathing also helped me to stay calm when being told off by the obstetrician for declining to comply with his plans for my birth! I also had your voice in my head, 'this contraction will end' on many occasions.

I know you always talk about things not going to plan in classes and if my story can be of any help to other women please feel free to use it, or I'd be happy to come to a class if that would be useful.

Thank you so much for your teaching. It made a real difference to me and Tilly.

Rachel