Sakoda’s Birth Story

You are probably familiar with the expression “in the zone”. This is often used to describe a flow state.

Psychologists define the flow state as a feeling where you become fully immersed in what you are doing – this focus leads to a sense of ecstasy and fulfillment as well as great achievement.

This mental state was discovered by studying a wide variety of high-performing people. And while it’s often associated with sports, this is the olympic athlete hack that I teach the expectant mamas inside my Better Birth course.

It is this mental state that creates stories like Sakoda’s birth.

And the wonderful secret is that ANYONE, including YOU can do this, by training your brain for a gentler, more comfortable birth.

Enjoy!

It was New Years eve.

And I just had that feeling that my body was getting ready for delivery. So we decided to rent a hotel room in the city where the hospital is located as we live about 60 minutes away. Plus my doctor have advised me that this delivery was going to be fairly fast. And I just didn’t want my husband worrying about the highways.

The night before I was really tired so I went to bed early. I wanted to make sure I was all rested up. 

Then at 3:18am on Jan 1st I had my first surge. The surges were about 6 min apart. 

By 3:45 I decided it was time to wake up my husband and get ready to go to the hospital.  It was 5:00am by the time we got to the hospital ER. The surges were now 4 min apart. 

I choose to walk to the assessment rooms. I had to stop a couple of times so that I could breath though a couple of surges. Upon assessment I was 5cm dilated.

However they told me that there were no delivery rooms available and that we would have to stay in the assessment room. Then when the nurse came back she said that they were preparing a delivery room for me right away and that we would be moved as soon as the nurse who they called in arrived. 

I was in my own zone and I knew how to breath through all of the surges. 

My husband was right by my side to remind me if I got off track. Plus I had my mom for support too. 

I wanted to have a bath and so the nurse started the water.

I decided I wanted to sit on the toilet until the tub was ready. While sitting there the surges went from 4 mins to continuously and then I felt the pressure to push. 

The nurse decided that I was not having a bath and that as soon as there was a break from the surges that we better go back to the bed.

But there were no breaks in the surges. They were continuous. So the nurse and my husband helped me walk back to the bed while breathing through the surges.

 It was time to start pushing at 6:48am.

I remember the doctor saying to the nurse that they had it easy with this one as I knew just exactly what to do and continued to breath down the baby. 

I delivered lying on my side as that was the most comfortable position. What really helped me redirect the pain – was the tight grip on my husbands side seam of his bluejeans. I never let go until Sakoda was fully delivered at 7:00am sharp.

Then we spent in time skin to skin with Sakoda just looking at me in a nice calm manner.  

After the baby and placenta were delivered I made the comment “wow that was easy”, as my first baby took two hours of hard pushing to come out, the doctor just laughed and said that was the first time he has heard that in the delivery room.

I’m so thankful to Marie for offering such wonderful classes to help us get the fear out of giving birth. 

Because of her classes I was able to enjoy the entire time I was pregnant as well as ENJOY the birth of our beautiful Daughter Sakoda. 

Once again, Thank you.
Shantel and Curtis S.

You might enjoy reading more birth stories from my birthbliss moms so that you can an idea of what a gentle and calm birth can be like. https://birthbliss.ca/category/birth-stories/