Tora’s Fearless Birth Story from Sweden
My guest today is Tora, a podcast listener, and we had a few emails back and forth during her pregnancy, but what was so fabulous is that Tora emailed me to tell me about her amazing fearless birth.
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Tora's Fearless Birth
"Thank you so much for your podcast. It has been a wonderful tool for me to learn about birth and unlearn birthing fears.
I have listened to almost all of your episodes including the head trash clearing method. I combined your material with two free hypnobirthing meditation tracks I found online and used that to prepare for my birth.
And on sunday I gave birth to my first baby! Birth was incredibly fast and easy. Not even eight hours from first small contraction until my little baby was born. I was booked to go to a hospital here in Stockholm that I really trust, but in the end they were over booked and we went to another hospital that we knew nothing about. I gave birth only an hour after coming in to hospital though, so the surroundings didn't matter much in the end, and the staff was wonderful.
The midwife and nurses called my birth a "caramel birth" in Swedish, meaning it was a rare and beautiful thing. They complimented me on being so calm and able to take direction and were impressed by my ability to give birth, without pain meds, in a calm way.
When I called my hospital to say that my contractions were 3-4 in 10 minutes and I think I need to come into hospital now, I don't think the midwife taking the call believed me. She said "keep working at home for another hour, take a shower or a bath and call me in an hour." I should have been more persistent, but I trusted her judgement. She should have known I was meditating the baby out fear free! Maybe I sounded too calm on the phone.
After 45 minutes I felt like I needed to give birth and I told my boyfriend to call them and say we absolutely need to go in now. In the end, especially since we had to go to a hospital a bit further away, we were only 5 minutes from giving birth on the high way! After 5 minutes at hospital they saw that I was completely dilated and 1 minute later my waters broke all over the room with the first involuntary push from my body.
I pushed for 10 min, and then they told me to stop myself because the baby's heart beat was too slow. I breathed through the contractions for 20 min before they said I should push again, by that time the baby was completely fine again, and after 10 minutes of pushing the midwife put my son on my stomach. I cried with joy and today with my hormones flying around from breast feeding 3 days later I still cry when I think about that wonderful moment! Must be the best moment of my life so far.
My boyfriend was an enormous support. He was always by my side, kissing my face, stroking my hair and giving me the instructions of the midwife right by my ear. Since I had my eyes closed almost the entire labour and birth, he acted as my eyes and doula.
The midwifes told me they thought we should apply for a home birth if we have another baby. Here in Sweden giving birth is free, but if you want a home birth you need to pay for it yourself. However, you can apply for compensation which you will get if you have no complications in your pregnancy, it's not your first child, etc. Both me and my boyfriend feel like that would be the best thing for us if we decide to have another one.
I loved giving birth! I love my beautiful calm little baby boy. And I feel like you helped me through it with all your wisdom and ambition to help women have a fear free birth. Thank you so much Alexia!"
I couldn't believe it! I was thrilled! So I asked Tora if she wouldn't mind coming on the podcast to share her story... she said YES and here we are!
During our chat,