The baby was moving so much, I thought that maybe something was wrong. At 4 o’clock I got up to go to the toilet, for what felt like the hundredth time and as I went, I heard a pop and there was a huge gush of water. I still wasn’t sure that this was anything…

I was craving a walk on the beach, and felt desperate to feel the ocean, but knew I needed to wait for Jase to get home. I took my Swiss ball onto the deck and began to dance to my favourite trance music in the sunshine. The surges increased in intensity…

Firstly, I decided to have a home birth after witnessing the terrible birth of my nephew in hospital. A change of shift and many indecisions later he was born. I knew then I deserved something better, my own midwife, who would stay with me…

I am nervous to approach you, it’s hard to see you in pain so vulnerable. I notice the strain in your face as pain sets in I can only imagine how intense the feeling must be. Your scruffed up bun is frizzy in places from the humidity of the warm water…

I was in a deeply relaxed state, only vaguely aware of the people in the room and just so focused on my body and it opening up to allow our daughter to be born. As I laboured in the pool, I was having beautiful dreams and my body felt so powerful but so relaxed…

I had 3 previous water births, and 2 of them were home births. I was pregnant with my 4th child and felt I had a clear sense of what I wanted from birth, based in a belief in the importance of birth as being something sacred, private, and deeply powerful…

I didn’t want to swear so much during labour this time and had practiced things like “oopppeennn” during early labour, but I soon dropped that and opted for “come on baby”. It was nice and long and I could drag it out and focus on the baby…

Gaby’s focus became quite definite and inward. They moved to the bathroom, and as so commonly happens when you sit on the toilet, her contractions now started coming more intensely and closer together. We could really hear the deepening…

When I wrote Arthur’s birth notice for the newspaper, I described his birth as being a ‘joyous’ occasion. And it was! This isn’t a load of hippie hogwash either. The birth of my son was the most joyful, beautiful, and incredible experience of my life…

We had prepared ourselves for a breach homebirth with lots of information. It is amazing the reactions we got when telling people that we were birthing a breach at home – most people assumed that we would be off to hospital for a caesarean…

I have no idea how fast the contractions were coming, but there was not enough of a gap to count too high. The phone rang at 7.30, about the same time the pressure moved from my front to my back, and I knew from Corban’s birth that things…

Somehow, we must have known that our second baby’s birth was close because on the 12th of March, the E.D.D (estimated date of delivery) I washed out all the baby clothes. They fluttered in the warm Southland breeze while Eric assembled the birth pool…