Ashleigh's Birth Story: The Birth of Penelope Rose

I had a beautiful home water birth on 6 June, delivering our beautiful baby girl, Penelope Rose Aldridge, who weighed in at 9.11.I was 40 plus 5 when she came along. I didn’t require any pain relief, no gas and air and no stitches and I think this is due to how relaxed my body and mind was.

My waters broke at 2am, I stayed calm went back to bed, mild contractions started pretty much straight away. When I woke up I went about my day like normal – went shopping at Tesco, took the dog for a walk and to the in laws for coffee. Around 3pm contractions felt stronger, around 5pm they were less than a min apart – by 10pm I was holding my baby girl in arms! Midwives couldnt believe how quickly I dilated or how controlled I was in labour – the whole experience was so beautiful and empowering!

I’d love for other woman to be influenced by my experience!

Although I wasn’t practising regularly or completely committed in terms of ‘watering the roots of the tree’, I would fall asleep listening to the hypnobirth tracks and reading the book completely changed my perspective on birth and really helped me to feel relaxed and trust my body. My husband got so much out of attending the class as it bought him round to the idea of home birth…and now he can’t understand why anyone would want to be in a hospital! I think that’s the beauty of hypnobirthing you can do as much or as little as you like – whatever helps you change you mindset.

I guess I just wanted to say thank you for making this incredible life event a truly empowering experience!