Birth Story Series: My third birth - 2026, part 3
As time passed, with one contraction after another, I started to feel like I should be seeing more results for the amount of effort I was putting in! The pushing phase with my first labour had been under 1.5 hours, and less than 30 minutes with my second, so I had kind of expected not more than half an hour or so this time. After a while Haylie suggested I could try moving into a lunge position…
Birth Story Series: My third birth - 2026, part 2
As Haylie was leaving home at 2:40 she messaged me to ask if contractions had started getting closer together, as she was trying to decide whether to call the second midwife yet or not. At that stage I told her they were mostly 3.5-4 minutes apart and lasting 50-70 seconds, although I had just had a spacing of 5 minutes, so there was still definitely some variation and irregularity. Dilation is rarely a perfectly linear process!
37 Weeks Pregnant - co-sleeping? room-sharing? bed-sharing? sleep training?
We’ve had family from Italy staying for a month, and they went home this week. I also had my last home visit with my last client before my maternity leave. So now I feel I am able to focus on the final preparations for our baby to arrive! There’s not a lot to do, but even so I’m breaking it down into smaller tasks to make it easier to get to. This week’s task was emptying the bassinet in our bedroom and finding storage for all the stuff I’ve been dumping in it! And yes, my babies sleep in a bassinet... I’ve found that the topic of newborn sleep is one of the most hotly-debated on social media and on parenting and new mum forums. Honestly, to my way of thinking it’s actually a pretty straightforward topic. What I mean is...
33 Weeks Pregnant - you don’t need permission to change your mind!
I have never been anti-water birth. I’ve always believed that water is a fantastic tool for pain relief during labour and birth, and studies are quite convincing that birthing in water significantly lowers the chance of perineal tears. However, it’s just never felt right for me.