I’m also sharing my birth story. Because I know how much they help and might relieve some of the fear for others. I was never afraid of childbirth; each time, I was just ‘concerned’ about how it would begin. During my pregnancy, I read countless stories and watched all sorts of videos because I was genuinely interested in how things unfold, what experiences others had, and roughly what I could expect, and these written stories always helped me.

The story begins like this…

Our plans were completely different, as we had planned a family lunch for Sunday to celebrate my birthday. So, on Saturday afternoon, my darling and I were preparing things for the celebration. Everything was as usual; my belly had been hardening for two weeks already, and I had no idea I might go into labor. No signs, no different feeling. The day passed completely normally, and so did the evening.

Around 11:00 PM, my darling and I went to bed, as we were both a bit tired. I fell asleep thinking that tomorrow would be another wonderful day spent with family, but then around 1:00 AM, I was woken by slight cramps, which I’d also had on previous nights, so it wasn’t unusual for me. I fell back asleep. At 3:30 AM, however, it was as if something burst inside me. I got up and went to the toilet. Nothing unusual, I had to empty my bladder at least 3 times every night anyway. I returned towards the bedroom when I felt something flowing. I paused, looked, it didn’t stop, did my water break, I wondered? I stood for a while, trying to convince myself that maybe it had already started? I took a step, a slight contraction. I grabbed my phone, opened the app, and waited. A second contraction came, then a third after 3 minutes, quickly a fourth…the app warned me it was time to go to the hospital. How? If not even 10 minutes had passed?

I decided to wake my partner, “Hey, umm, my water broke, I think we need to go, well, the app says so :)” The contractions are really frequent but very manageable. He got up and called his mom to come watch our older daughter. We waited for her for about 10 minutes; in the meantime, I jumped in the shower, grabbed my bag, breathed through a contraction, and my darling was already waiting for me at the entrance with a look that said, “Isn’t it high time we left?!” We said goodbye and drove off. Luckily, the maternity hospital was about 5 minutes away.

When we arrived, it was around 4:10 AM, and we rang the bell. A nurse came, and my partner remarked that we had come to give birth 🙂 I laughed. She invited me to the delivery ward; my darling stayed outside until I called him to come in. The delivery ward was empty. A wonderful midwife greeted me and gave me instructions. I changed into a gown, and then they hooked me up to the CTG. It detected strong contractions, which I was easily breathing through. She examined me and said, “You’re about 5 cm dilated, let’s go straight to the delivery room.” I agreed. I lay on my left side, she connected me to the CTG and said we would slowly fill out all the paperwork now. Slowly? A strong contraction came, she just said ‘breathe’…I breathed, it eased. Another came, I repeated the exercise. That’s when my body started to push.

“Madam, don’t push, it’s not time yet.” My answer: “I’m going to give birth now!”

She came, looked at me, and said I should call my partner. In the meantime, she quickly changed, gave me instructions. The room filled up instantly. My partner entered; I could see on his face that he didn’t quite know what was happening, or rather, he realized things were moving fast. The midwife said, “Now take a breath, pull your knees to your chest, and push.” I obeyed, they encouraged me, “The head is visible!” she said! We repeated the exercise, the head was out, “Would you like to touch it?” she asked me. I agreed. I waited for the last contraction, and our little princess was in my arms! Wait?! How?! So fast? The whole time, I only had one contraction so strong that I said to myself, “Ouch, is this what it feels like?! I hope this won’t last 3, 4, 5, or more hours!” I was in shock that you could give birth so quickly 🙂

At 5:04 AM, our little princess was born. I felt like I hadn’t given birth at all! No tears, no stitches, I wasn’t even tired! This was my second birth. Both were wonderful experiences for me, with the difference that the second one unfolded from start to finish in just over an hour.