Baby Dale’s Birth

I woke up at 4 am with tightenings that were painless, but something felt different to the Braxton Hicks I’d been having. I just knew the baby was coming that day. I cuddled Sylvie (our 3-year-old) gently and marvelled at her as she slept, while also feeling the little baby inside slowly moving little hands, feet and knees. Sylvie slept in until 8 (which she had never done before in her life), and I just made the most of the sweet, sleepy cuddles. I was too excited to go back to sleep, so I just rested and made the most of the quiet time to cuddle my big baby and feel some of the last movements inside of the little one getting ready to be born.

When we got up, we had breakfast with Alex and I let Jo know that I was in early labour. She told me to rest and take it easy, but I was feeling too excited to sit down, so I cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed and mopped the floors, did some washing, set some soup going in the slow cooker, prepped some garlic bread and put it in the fridge to make dinner easier, washed and dried my hair, and generally went hard on the last-minute nesting until around lunchtime, when I started having to stop for contractions, which were getting closer together and building in intensity.

I had some lunch with Sylvie and Alex, then put on our Baby playlist and did figure 8s on the exercise ball while Alex and Sylvie went outside to play for a while. Contractions became more intense and closer together quite quickly from that point, and by 4 pm I wasn’t able to interact with others through them. I’d moved to leaning over the ball or the couch during contractions and resting on my hands and knees on our crash mat between them. I felt peaceful between them and powerful through them. It was a great feeling.

Nikita arrived and checked in on baby and me, and then quietly watched me lean into instinctual movement while she got things organised. As things ramped up more, she gently reminded me to breathe if I started to tense up and helped me put on the TENS machine. She also told me the instinctual movements were helping me, and that was exactly what I didn’t know I needed to hear. It really let me feel comfortable to just go with it and not overthink it.

At some point, I felt both a bit restless and like I needed to sit down to rest, so I got up and tried to sit on the couch next to Nikita, wanting just a couple of minutes to recuperate. But just as I went to sit, I felt an extra-intense contraction, leaned over the back of the couch, and then my water broke.

It felt so weird. It sort of felt like a water balloon had popped inside me, followed by a fast and warm gush. I didn’t love feeling wet, but I was preparing for the next contraction and all I managed to do was say, “My water just broke,” and then couldn’t quite work out what I wanted to do next. I’m grateful Nikita offered to help me get my underwear off because I’d sort of forgotten how to undress myself in that moment and was not feeling comfortable in wet undies.

Alex had set up the birth pool earlier that day, but I fully believed that I wouldn’t want to use it. I suddenly felt like that was the only place I wanted to be, so Alex started to fill it. Nikita wasn’t sure we’d have time, but we decided to try.

I did make it into the water, where contractions spaced out and got shorter for some reason. I don’t really know if that’s typical, but it gave me a little more time to rest between contractions. I was able to check in with my surroundings and interact with Alex and Sylvie a little, and it felt like the reprieve I’d tried to get on the couch.

Getting the chance to tell Sylvie I was doing okay and having her hold my hand just for a little while was the most perfect little moment in the middle of the intensity, and I’m so grateful to have gotten that time and space with her.

After a while, Nikita and Kara (who had arrived, I think, close to the time I got in the water) recommended I get out of the water to try to get the contractions to go a bit longer again so we could get the baby out. He was close, just not quite getting there. So I went back to the mat, leaning on the couch, and things did ramp up.

Baby was so close, and I wasn’t able to resist pushing, but after a while I just felt I couldn’t do it anymore. I think I said, “I can’t do it,” a lot. I also remember asking the baby to please come out now at one point. His head was partly out, and Nikita had me feel it. It was squishier than I expected!

We tried to change positions, but something just felt stuck. Then I pushed too hard or twisted wrong or something with the wrong part of my body and felt a pop in my chest. I injured a rib. Oops.

Nikita said she wanted to call an ambulance as she felt a thick perineum band that was standing in the baby’s way and didn’t feel an episiotomy at home was the best call. I had gestational thrombocytopenia, which carries an increased bleeding risk, which understandably meant an episiotomy would be better managed in hospital. She also wanted the ambulance officer to check my chest after the pop, too.

So, the ambulance was called and we had 3 lovely officers attend. Because of the thrombocytopenia, the local hospital didn’t want to take me, but once we were there and they saw where the baby’s head was, they agreed it was the right place.

Once in the delivery room, the doctor immediately put in some local anaesthetic, but there wasn’t time to wait for Alex and Sylvie to arrive or for the anaesthetic to fully kick in. We only managed to get one of my arms out of my dressing gown, and I don’t think we actually had time to shut the delivery room door.

I know they wanted to get monitors on, which I would have hated (it was in my transfer plan not to have this done, just to use intermittent auscultation), but there wasn’t time for this either. The only thing that happened that I would have preferred didn’t was the placement of a prophylactic cannula. However, I was willing to accept that given I had the bleeding risk.

She had to cut fast (to prevent uncontrolled tearing), and I felt it, but it was no more intense than the contraction I had, though I did scream a little. His head progressed, but then she had to cut again to make enough room without tearing beyond the initial cut. I felt that too, but less. It was dull compared to the feeling that took over my body.

I didn’t actively push, just screamed a bit more and then felt the baby come out, and then nothing hurt anymore and the baby was in my arms.

And I felt so many things so fast.

I looked at the baby, with the sweetest little face and his left ear folded over, and felt relief and overwhelming pride and happiness and every other good feeling in between.

I did it. I got my VBAC.

I did have to ask the doctor if she did anything beyond cutting to help him out because I didn’t push, but she said no, she just did the episiotomy and I did the rest.

I did it this time!

And it felt wonderful to get to hold my baby as he adjusted to being outside. I’d missed that with our first and I was devastated. I was so grateful to have this this time that I didn’t even think to check if we had a boy or a girl (we hadn’t found out in pregnancy).

I was asked a little while later if I’d checked and said no, so had a quick look to discover I was cuddling my son! A little brother for our daughter!

Alex and Sylvie had missed the moment of birth but made it just a couple of minutes after, which, given the episiotomy, was probably best in this instance. We were together within minutes as a family of 4, and it was wonderful, even if not exactly how we’d planned and hoped.

Sylvie was so amazing through my labour, not worried about anything, just happy to be hanging out with her Dadda, playing with her toys and just being nearby. She’d been asking for days if the baby was coming out yet.

The next little while, Alex and Sylvie came and went a bit while I was stitched and I fed our brand-new baby boy and revelled in all those good feelings. I chatted a bit to Nikita to help distract from the little twinges I could feel while being stitched. I was bruised and the local couldn’t stop all the sensations of being stitched. It wasn’t painful, just not overly comfortable.

He had his vitamin K and hep B shots in my arms, at which time he also did his first wee… in my hair… and I couldn’t have cared less. He was with me and I got to comfort him, and that was such an important thing I had wanted to make sure happened this time.

The room was bright and busy, not calm and dark like I’d hoped. I’d wanted to cut the cord after birthing the placenta, but with the need for active management from the thrombocytopenia, I ended up cutting it myself after 3 minutes of delayed clamping (the doctor asked, I said yes), and it was honestly amazing anyway.

Our golden hours weren’t quite the slow, comfy, quiet family moments in our space I’d planned on having at home, but my boy, who’d come out blue and only let out the tiniest cry (his sister had also not really cried when she was born either), wasn’t taken. He got to stay and naturally adjust to life outside with me and pinked up with me, not across the room with strangers like had happened in our first birth experience.

I’m very at peace with the plan changes this time because I felt like I was included in the decision-making, and I am grateful for the unique beauty that it ended up being under the circumstances.

A couple of hours after giving birth, I walked out of the delivery room, Alex got his first cuddle with the baby, I had a quick shower, and then climbed into the bed with my girl. She had a little breastfeed and went to sleep and spent the night snuggled on my right.

Once she was asleep, Alex settled the baby with me, where I fed him to sleep too. Then we quietly marvelled at both our sleeping babies tucked in with me, a moment we feel lucky the hospital didn’t stop us from having, and chatted about names.

The names we’d gone in thinking we’d give him didn’t feel quite right. We ended up agreeing we both liked a name we’d discussed only briefly in passing, but decided to sleep on it just to be sure.

I didn’t sleep. I was a little too wired on adrenaline and the high of birthing my baby almost physiologically, but rested with the most incredible view of both my babies snuggled safely with me. Alex slept a little.

In the morning, he ducked out to grab a couple of things for us, but just as he was about to go out the door, he turned back to me and said the name, and we settled it then.

Introducing Dale Fletcher Carr

12.07.26, 10.48 pm, 4120 g, 53.5 cm, 37 cm head.

A sweet and very calm (big) little brother to perfectly complement his wildly active but equally sweet big (but really not big) sister, Sylvie.

We were home about 12 hours after birth.

This incredible pregnancy and empowering and redeeming vaginal birth happened largely because I found Embrace Midwifery Services.

In May 2025, after finding out we were pregnant, I knew I wanted a different care model to my first pregnancy. I reached out and connected with Jo, who put me in touch with Cassie.

Sadly, we miscarried that baby at 11 weeks and 6 days naturally at home on August 5th. It was devastating, but the care I was given by Cassie (as well as the incredible love and gentleness from Alex and Sylvie, who was too young to understand but clearly knew something was up and did some beautiful, unbelievably caring things I’d never have expected from a then just barely 2-year-old) made it bearable.

Cassie was practical and open about what we should expect through the body’s natural process (we found out a few days earlier his heart had stopped), and then she came to the house to draw bloods for testing so I didn’t have to go out until I was ready.

She then came back for a follow-up and, not long after, for a couple of preconception planning appointments.

We conceived again in October, and it was just so incredibly helpful to have Cassie to lean on through the pregnancy, especially when anxieties spiked, which I think is a natural part of pregnancy following loss.

We knew there was a chance we would birth with another midwife other than Cassie because she had planned leave near our due date, which she was super open about. She offered the option of being our secondary midwife, but we wanted Cassie’s support for the pregnancy and we were hopeful this baby would come at a similar time as Sylvie and, therefore, maybe just make it in time.

We saw Jo and Nikita at the clinic a few times, so knew we’d be comfortable with any Embrace midwife who’d attend as primary, no matter when the baby chose to come.

The baby chose to come the day Cassie flew out, of course! (1 day later in pregnancy than our first came).

We then had the immense privilege and benefit of postpartum care with Nikita, Jo and Cassie, making this sweet boy very much an Embrace baby, loved on by these talented midwives (Kara, who was our secondary for birth, included of course!).

I feel so well cared for and supported, which has made this postpartum a wildly different and far more positive experience (in my body, our first baby was of course incredible) to my first.

This will not be our last baby, and we are very much looking forward to sharing future pregnancy, birth and postpartum journeys with Cassie and with the Embrace team when the time comes!