Welcome Louisa!

Our little girl Louisa was born at home yesterday at 5.11am on Tuesday 30th October. She was 3.16kg. After my water broken the day before at 5am, I started to have mild contractions around noon. I called the midwife around 9am, she came at 11am to check how things were going. Around 8pm the midwife on call for that night, Lorraine, gave us a ring to check how things were progressing. But at 10pm, I rang her up because I needed help! And Lorraine arrived around 11pm. And all went well at home with the help of the water pool. Unfortunately the 3rd stage of labour was in the hospital because my placenta didn’t come out. I ended up having a spinal anesthesia and a manual removal of my placenta. Mum and baby are now at home.

Anna Youngs, my yoga teacher, is absolutely right, breathing is essential for labour. Without proper breathing techniques I would not have delivered Louisa at home. The only pain relief I had was the TENS machine at the beginning and the birth pool at the end and all the way through was what I learn at the yoga course, at the preparation workshop with Anna and at the NCT classes. But it was not enough to have been to the yoga courses, my husband and the midwife Lorraine helped me so much that they made me believe I would be able to go through it. It is really the combination of what I’ve learned with Anna during all these weeks and being with great people during the labour that I could make this fabulous journey to give birth to my little one. The 3rd stage of labour for the delivery of the placenta is just bad luck… there is always something that you cannot predict!

The first pictures of our little one Louisa are available here: http://picasaweb.google.com/alanwilter/LouisaPajonSilva &
http://picasaweb.google.com/pajanne/200710_LouisaPajonSilva