The transformative power of birth, Haley's 44+3 weeks pregnancy and homebirth

In this conversation with Haley, we hear her inspiring story of birthing her third baby (who was 5.4kg!) at home at 44+3. Haley shares her birth story medicine, her mindset, powerful experience and rituals she engaged with for her healing pregnancy, labour and lotus birth. 

You’ll hear us discuss:

• Haley's experience with EMDR for healing birth trauma
• Haley's pre-conception and calling her third baby in
• Haley's reflections and experience from 42 weeks pregnant onwards
• Haley's labour, the support she received and the power she birthed in 
• The imprint of normalising birth and family placenta care

Haley describes the waiting phase of her pregnancy with such incredible insight. 

“Going beyond 44 weeks is place of openness & vulnerability, where each day is sometimes broken up into agonising minutes. A place where doubts & fears need to be separated from reality. An invitation to go within, to sit with discomfort & receive the lessons of trust, surrender & connection. For it was only until I was broken, that I would be called fourth to meet my baby”.

MEET HALEY

Haley is a mother who is open, inquisitive and passionate. She has three beautiful children and each of their births has been a journey of discovery, travelling beyond the realms of what she thought was possible and emerging with a new sense of self. Her births have shaped her, inspired her and taught her to understand the world from a new perspective.

"I'd worked through my fears with a fear releasing ceremony and turned those into affirmations. So when a fear came up, such as the wellbeing of my baby,  I'd invite that fear in and I would really analyse where that fear was coming from."

Connect with Rachael Rose
Instagram: @the_rachael_rose
Website www.rachaelrose.com.au

“With my two children by my side I lifted my baby out of the water…. That moment was so profound that I could feel my daughters birth making an imprint on all of us. It was as if we were all reborn”.

"I feel really complete now after having my third daughter, that phase of pregnancy and birth, it's this flow of water, that cascades down a mountain. Each birth is this waterfall then the cascade of water continues down this mountain. I'm at that point now, where the cascade of flowing water has finished and it's this place of stillness and reflection, it feels like a place I can just return back to in my journey onwards and the lessons, of my pregnancies, my births and my babies, that will just continue to trickle into other aspects of my life"

Full Transcript attached
Music by Edwina Masson 'The Feminine Spitfire'

Transcript

The transformative power of birth, Haley's 44+3 weeks pregnancy and homebirth

Rachael Rose: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] In today's episode, I speak with my friend Haley. Haley is a mother who is open, inquisitive, and passionate. She has three beautiful children and each of their births has been a journey of discovery, traveling beyond the realms of what she thought was possible. And emerging with a new sense of self.

Her births have shaped her, inspired her, and taught her to understand the world from a new perspective, and we have the privilege of hearing her birth stories. Today, Haley is focusing on her third birth. And that pregnancy, she was 44 weeks and three days when she gave birth. [00:02:00] She also forgot to mention that her baby was 5.4 kilos.

So this big, beautiful baby born at home. Beyond 44 weeks, which is such a fantastic story and one that I cannot wait to share with women. Haley wrote some words about going beyond 44 weeks, and I wanted to read it here.

This is a place of openness and vulnerability. Where each day is sometimes broken up into agonising minutes. A place where doubts and fears need to be separated from reality, an invitation to go within to sit with discomfort and receive the lessons of trust, [00:03:00] surrender, and connection. For it was only until I was broken that I would be called forth to meet my baby.

Oh, as someone who has had two pregnancies go beyond 42 weeks. I just can't imagine what those extra two weeks are like. It was already challenging enough to go outside of societal expectations of due dates and the pressure of the medical system around when babies should be born, and I'm doing should in quotation marks.

This episode is about waiting. It's about doing something differently. It's about listening deeply to your own baby and [00:04:00] your own body and your own circumstances, and understanding your own history and patterns, and feeling into what is right for you and you alone. I had goosebumps throughout this birth story sharing.

I had tears fall down my face, and I also felt a contraction at one point. Just hearing Haley describe the intensity and the power of birth, I felt it in my womb. I loved having this conversation with my friend. I encourage you to share it widely with women everywhere, but especially anyone that's ever gone beyond 40 weeks, 41 weeks, 42 weeks.

I know that there are so [00:05:00] few stories out there of. Pregnancy is beyond 44 weeks, so I'm thrilled to be able to offer this to the world. And I really wanna thank Haley for her beautiful birth story medicine. Enjoy.

 welcome, Haley. I haven't told you this yet, but when I received the message about your birth with Forrest, the first thing I did was cry because I was elated for you and so excited and thrilled that your baby was in the world. But the second thing that I did was I grabbed a scrap piece of paper and a pen, and I wrote down Must start a podcast and interview Haley. Because I knew that the world needed to hear your [00:06:00] story and you are the catalyst for this together podcast. And I wanted to drop that during the interview and not tell you, cuz I don't wanna put pressure on you of course. But you know your story of birthing another big baby at home, gestating that baby beyond what is considered the norm, even though it is normal for you, it's something more women need to hear and I can't wait for you to share it today.

Haley: Oh, thanks Rachael. I've got tears in my eyes right now. That's, yeah dunno what to say. That's so lovely and I, yeah, I feel honored to, share my experience with you and I'm really excited to be here today, so thank you.

Rachael Rose: I remember we spoke when you were 44 weeks pregnant, and you said there's no stories like this. Like they all [00:07:00] end at 43 weeks or 44 weeks, and there's just , no one I can look to. So now you're gonna be that for someone else, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's begin back to finding out you're pregnant with Forrest. How are you feeling emotionally? How are you feeling spiritually? What had you done to prepare for that pregnancy and your birth?

Haley: My life was pretty busy at the time. I had two other young children, and I always knew that I wanted a third baby. So even with my previous pregnancy with my daughter, I just knew that wasn't. My last pregnancy, it couldn't be, there was another baby that was going to come into our lives and that was meant to be.

And so I guess part of my planning and my preconception journey was really about calling a baby, into our lives [00:08:00] and just trusting that they would come at a time that was, right for them, really. And so there'd been a lot of sort inner work that I'd done over the last five or so years with my when my first pregnancy my first baby came into our lives.

And so it was just about looking back at the wisdom and the knowledge that I'd gained from. Everything, every, the com a combination of everything up until that point. And I guess one of the things that I'd done, which sort of started during the preconception phase, and which probably le leads me to talk to actually talk about the birth of my first baby, my son he was born at 43 weeks and one day, and , he was a planned [00:09:00] home birth.

But I ended up choosing to have an induction. And that was a number of reasons. It's a story in its own right, of course. But essentially I had a finding on an ultrasound. I chose to do an ultrasound around 43 weeks. And I had a lot of amniotic fluid. And that led me to make the decision to have an induction at hospital.

That birth ended up being traumatic. And what I found was that it was the complete unraveling of not only my sense of self, but his birth was so profound that it was really an unraveling of what I thought I knew about human behaviour and about society. And that birth was really the beginning of my journey of unlearning and my journey of self-discovery and connection to my feminine wisdom.

And so the reason why I wanted to mention that is because during my preconception phase [00:10:00] with forest, although I had done a lot of work, Prior to her in to being, there was still some sort of seeds that would had laid down from that first birth experience. And I decided to go and seek out a counselor that I found that had a similar birth philosophy to me.

And during the process of, the work that I did with her I found that she something called E M D R therapy and, which I'd never heard of before, which stands for eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing. And basically the work that I did, with her was about accessing those memories that I had of his birth.

And then forming new associations and new ideas a, around those memories. And that was so significant for me. It was. Absolutely a life-changing experience. And my son's birth went from a [00:11:00] birth that was traumatic, but of, but still, transformative in its own right. But it went to, exploded into this experience of power and connection and, enlightenment.

And it was miraculous that the experience that I had with this EMDR therapy and how it transformed my view of how I felt during his birth and how I perceived his birth. And I actually felt pregnant with Forrest my baby at the time. During that process of the E M D R therapy she came into my womb space and at the timings pretty special in that respect.

So that was the start of my pregnancy and that preconception journey.

Rachael Rose: Wow, I didn't know that. That's amazing. And just has it given you the ability to look back on that birth a little bit more positively and with different eyes? And does it, has it moved the feelings from [00:12:00] your body?

Haley: Yes, it has moved the feelings from my body and it's given me a whole new perspective on that birth. The visual memories that I had about that birth have changed now. As I was birthing my son the memory or the visual memory that is the strongest for me now is this. Visually I see myself birthing him with this yellow light surrounding me and it's just me.

And this light and that yellow light is power and this transformative and light that's a light of safety and a light of. That feminine wisdom that I have within myself and the feelings around his birth are now feelings of power and strength and, it's become this empowering birth experience, which prior to doing this, it wasn't that at all.

There was [00:13:00] definitely, feelings of feeling like I'd failed. Without going into the ins and outs of the actual birth itself, it's, yeah, it's completely transformed my perception and of that birth experience.

Rachael Rose: Oh, that's given me goosebumps and it makes me wanna look into it straight away because yeah, that sounds such a powerful reframe.

Haley: Really powerful.

Rachael Rose: So your second birth was quite fast and furious and powerful. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that? Did you have any expectations going into your third pregnancy based on the second birth?

Haley: Yeah, so my second birth my daughter, she was a planned home birth again. And just changed just from the knowledge that I gained and the medicine from my son's birth and pregnancy. I did things a little bit differently. One of the things that I did was decided not to rely on any external [00:14:00] information about my baby or my body.

So one of those things I did was choose not to have any ultrasounds, as an example. So for her pregnancy, I gestated her quite long as well. So she ended up being born at 43 weeks and six days, and. During that pregnancy, I was just able to really connect in with her and take the information that she was giving me about her to make the decisions around.

 a pregnancy that, going beyond 43 weeks. And I learned that from my son because when he was born, he was just perfect. And so her birth was very quick, which I was quite surprised about. So I had, no, not really any signs of labor. I think I'd lost my mucus plug. That was, that's obviously a pretty strong sign but so I'd lost my mucus plug.

Two days prior to going into labor with her and was pretty elated at that. And then my waters broke one morning and after my waters breaking, she was born [00:15:00] in just under two hours. So her birth was very fast. And because of that my experience with her, I did have an expectation that this birth with forest was going to be another very quick birth, probably faster than two hours.

Of course, knowing that might not be the case, but I did really think it was gonna be very fast this time around as well.

Rachael Rose: And just a hint for anyone listening, it was not fast.

Haley: Oh, yes. No, it wasn't.

Rachael Rose: So what were your trimesters like? did you experience any nausea and sickness? What did you have? Any physical symptoms? How are you feeling during your pregnancy?

Haley: Yeah I did have, I did feel nauseated which I have done in all my pregnancies. Not really much vomiting just to this nausea that sort of lasts for the first trimester, which is [00:16:00] very consistent with all the pregnancies that I've had for me. And yeah, apart from that, really physically, I felt really well.

 I felt a lot physically more mobile than what I did with my daughter. She was her pregnancy really. Pushed me to both my mental and physical limit And I guess what actually, what I wanted to go back and say about her birth too was while I did, she was born at 43 weeks and six days, and it was a very quick birth, but it was a very, it was a healing birth for me.

So it was a very beautiful, powerful and healing birth. And she was born at home. It was a very different birth to my son's birth. And after she was born, I did have that return of fire in my belly and I felt that I had a return of strength as well. So I just wanted to mention that it wasn't only the work that I'd done since my son's birth and the EMDR therapy, but it was also her birth was, that was quite [00:17:00] transformational for me too.

But yeah, physically just going back to that, I felt pretty good physically throughout the pregnancy. Yeah.

Rachael Rose: So we're friends and we spoke, I think it was the day that you were 44 weeks pregnant and you were having a crisis of confidence.

What were the final weeks of your pregnancy? Were you feeling good until you weren't? Were you dipping in and out of strength? I just wanna get in the mindset of a woman who is gestating not only beyond 42 weeks, which, isn't that common?

Just because of the way that the medical system operates and the pressure on women to have inductions. But, what was it like when you were 43 weeks?

Haley: So I guess throughout my pregnancy, how I was feeling, emotionally through the pregnancy [00:18:00] was very different to how I'd felt in the previous pregnancies. So there was just some part of me intuitively, and it wasn't a, it wasn't like there was pressure, I was putting pressure on myself that it had to be this way.

It was, I had a, this sort of intuitive knowing that this last pregnancy in birth was just going to be the perfect way to complete this cycle of, calling my babies in and birthing my babies and this postpartum period because she was, she's my last baby. And I knew that, however, it played out that nothing was going to be left undone or feeling incomplete.

I, I just felt like there wasn't gonna be this yearning for another birth as I'd done previously. So I guess feeling that way gave me this sense of ease and a more laid back approach to. Going through my pregnancy because I just had, just knew intuitively it was going to end in complete completeness, which was quite interesting.

And so I think feeling that [00:19:00] way definitely made it smoother for me from a emotional perspective, going beyond that 42 week mark. So I guess going beyond the 42, even prior to 43 weeks, so between the 42 and 43 week mark I didn't, I still didn't feel ready to have a baby, which was quite interesting because my other two pregnancies, I felt a hundred percent ready at that point.

Come on baby, like where are you? Let's let's get things moving. Whereas this time, going beyond 42 weeks, I just didn't feel a hundred percent ready. I felt ready to go into labor and I was welcoming labor if it was going to if it was going to be the right time.

But there was just part of me that didn't feel. Quite ready. And I think a lot of that was probably to do with anticipating the intensity of labor itself and my daughter's labor being very intense. That sort of [00:20:00] part of me, that anticipation was like, oh, like I was a little bit apprehensive. And also I think knowing that it was going to be my last birth I know how wonderful birth is and I was so excited.

I was like, oh when she's born, that's, then it's over. Like I was just like trying to save her onto those last moments as long as I could. So there was definitely that feeling. So that was interesting that I felt that way. But a few days after 42 weeks I do remember my mindset beginning to shift a bit.

I just began to feel a little bit impatient and less that, less of that apprehensive feeling that I'd felt previously. So that was sorry, a few days, probably before 43 weeks. And I started feeling like instead of every little thing could be the start of labor. So up until that point, I'd I'd be a bit nauseated.

I'm like, oh, this could be the start of labor, or I need to go to the toilet. Oh, this could be the start of labor, every little thing. Or I'd have a Braxton hicks [00:21:00] contraction and I'd be like, oh, is that contraction getting a bit stronger? And so then at this point now I say my mind started to shift to the feeling of that I was never going to go into labor and that. Wasn't yet a sort of a negative feeling. It was just, or thought it was just there. And it was interesting having that thought process or that feeling come up for me because I'd had that with both, both my previous pregnancies and with my daughter. I really thought that was because I was induced with my son.

And so I, I hadn't had that physiological process where I'd gone into labor on my own without assistance. And so I thought that was why I felt that way, but here I was finding myself in that same place again where I felt. It's interesting cause I a hundred percent felt like I'm never gonna go into labor.

But then at the same time, like my rational, like brain is going, of course you're gonna go into labor, you're [00:22:00] ridiculous. You're not gonna be pregnant forever. But it, but the feeling and the thought was very true. It feels very true that I will never go into labor. And so I think that's really partly that, just that social conditioning, that pregnancies don't go beyond 42 weeks and there's not, you don't hear of many stories where they do.

So getting to that point can be quite challenging, I think, because you I guess you have this expectation in your mind that, okay, yep, 42 weeks, my baby's gonna be born before then, and then what happens after that? When a your baby's not born and each day and each minute that goes by, it gets more challenging.

So I think that's when I noticed that real change in my mind. But still, I was very, I. I felt very well, I felt very positive. I didn't have any mental or emotional anguish that, that, that was to come. Just really just checking [00:23:00] in on myself, checking in with my baby. Again this pregnancy, I opted for no ultrasounds because I found that having that external testing really took away from my connection with my baby and the intuition that I had.

And I'd also had no fetal heart rate oscultation, so no listening to my baby's heartbeat either through the pregnancy. And interestingly, I found that the less tests, testing or checking in that I had from an external from something external, the more invasive it, it seemed, which is why I chose to have no, no listening to her heartbeat.

So I guess I've, sorry, got, I've just sidetracked there, but.

Rachael Rose: No, it's all important.

Haley: But yeah, I guess I felt phase I, it was the tipping point I guess, but it was, I was still feeling well, and then as I journeyed beyond 43 weeks, I noticed that there was a [00:24:00] change that was happening, but it was quite slow and I began to feel some emotions that were a little bit more of a rollercoaster of emotions, but nothing really.

Down and low when no big cries or anything like that at that point. But it was just a really a reminder of that I needed to trust and to sit with what is, and that was my journey and that this was an essential part of me to become a mother. And one day I got to the point there at, coming up, when my daughter was born at around 43 and a half weeks, where I think I'd started losing her mucus plug.

And I had no signs of labor this time. And it just, and I anticipated this coming and it was just like overnight, just like a switch. And then that's when the, it flicked for me. And emotionally it was, I was just at that point of just like my emotional breaking point of how am I still pregnant?

When is this gonna happen? I, [00:25:00] every minute felt like a week at that point. And I think for me, it's not that, I need to have the pregnancy over and done with because I don't I'm over being pregnant. I guess it's, which, is a very valid feeling for other people, the, is my baby.

Okay. This is so out of the realms of what I've learned as a woman growing up and what I've been exposed to. I don't have anyone else to draw on or any experiences that I know of to help me during this time. Is my baby okay? Am I making the right decision for my baby? It's about the wellbeing of her that, that every day and every minute feels like it goes on for so long.

And what I needed to do is just really to check in on her and, make sure [00:26:00] that she was okay. 

 And so what, I guess what I need to do is really to connect in with her and to know that we were in it together and that she was okay and listened to the messages and the medicine coming from her so that we journey together and really trust in her and trust in my body

Rachael Rose: can I ask cuz I think. For some women, what you are saying now might not make a lot of sense because they just don't have the opportunity to, I mean everyone has the opportunity, but the invitation to check in. So what does that mean? Did you have daily practices or rituals or for you, was it really just micro moments of talking to your baby in your head?

Haley: Definitely moments where I talked to my baby in my head. I didn't speak to her out loud. It was always in [00:27:00] my head. So talking to her. There was also times where, a fears would come in. And what I'd done in my pregnancy is I'd had a, I'd worked with a doula, and one of the things that we'd done was a fear releasing ceremony.

So I'd also worked through my fears and turned those into affirmations. And so when a fear came up, such as the wellbeing of my baby, I'd invite that fear in and I would really analyze where that fear was coming from. Is that fear there? Because I am genuinely concerned about my baby.

So I'd, I'd talk to my baby. I'd really take time to feel her moving within me, yes. This is, she's moving a lot. She's happy, she's healthy. I can feel that she's okay. Where is that fear coming from? That fear is not coming from the world. My baby not being well it's coming from.

What I've been taught to believe about my pregnancy [00:28:00] going beyond, 42 weeks. So I guess they're the sort of things that I did. And I guess because I'd had that I drew on my previous experiences as well, I think really significantly knowing, how I journey through those pregnancies and turned out.

And I also drew from my husband, who, he was born at 43 weeks and I didn't know this until my second pregnancy, and his mother was also born at 43 weeks. So there was line on the paternal side, which I, I did draw strength from that as well. So those things definitely helped. And I think this time, Getting to the, getting to this point I was also able to feel reverence for the journey at the time.

So although I felt just emotionally broken and I, I called you Rachael as you mentioned just was, what am I gonna do? What happens if I'm still pregnant at 45 weeks? That's how [00:29:00] I felt at that point. I just, I was looking forward to the 45 weeks and thinking like, just, it was like, what am I gonna do if I get to that point?

And interestingly, when I felt that way, that feeling of not knowing what to do. It reminded me of my daughter's birth and it reminded me of how I felt with the transition with her. And I think I said some similar words like, I dunno what to do. And I, and it just reminded me of that I'm going through transition now again.

But it's in a different sense. It's that transition of the final days of pregnancy the transition of the emergence labor and birth and that those uncomfortable feelings and that psychological battle within me, is essential for me to become a mother. And that breakdown of me and that breakdown of myself, one piece at a time, there's so much medicine of that in hindsight, not at the time, but in hindsight there's so much medicine in that, and that is what I need rebirth and to reemerge as a new self and a new mother.

[00:30:00] And I, I know that from my previous experiences, so that did help me at time. Going beyond that, nearing that 44 week mark.

Rachael Rose: Yeah. And we can have these ideas and expectations around what surrender will look like, and that surrender will be serene and full of acceptance and peace and joy, but surrender can also be gritty and it can be challenging. You're still surrendering though, like every minute and every day. Even when you were battling those thoughts and stories, that was surrendering because you weren't doing anything externally about it.

You weren't trying to bring on labor in any way, shape, or form. You were just like sitting with the stories one by one and working through them.

Haley: Yep. Exactly. I think the other thing that I did as well in the last few days, so around after I got off the phone to you actually and I can't remember when that was, that I called you, was that around

Rachael Rose: I think it was 44 weeks exactly.

Haley: 44 weeks. Yeah. I [00:31:00] had, and we spoke about this on the phone, I'd already just started this, is that just doing something with my hands.

Some sort of like creative, mindful practice be to make those minutes be more bearable. And so I'd done some pregnancy, I'd done a pregnancy circle during this pregnancy and we'd made some cordage out of natural fibers, which was really great. And so what I decided to do was I just went and got some raffia and I'd, I weaved baskets for my kids.

So I weaved there two little baskets for my kids. And that really got me through the next three days, just having something to do with my hands. That was this mindful practice that took my every thought and every minute away from why am I going into labor? When am I gonna go into labor? So that was really helpful for me as well.

Rachael Rose: Apart from going to the shops to get weaving supplies, did you leave the house or do you bunker down in those final weeks?

Haley: I definitely found myself bunkering down in those final weeks. I [00:32:00] definitely felt that shift away from wanting that outside gaze and that external influence. So I really just wanted to be away from the eyes of others and, away from those comments and things that made.

So yeah, I was really found myself really being at home at that point.

Rachael Rose: And I'd love that you drew on weaving, which is a, it is a feminine practice and it is how women gathered and sat in circle and weaved together. And I feel there's just something so symbolic about essentially putting threads together, like the red thread, the lineage of women. It's very beautiful.

Where are those baskets now? Did you finish them?

Haley: Yeah, I did finish them I was in a rush to finish them before I went into labor. I wanted to go into labor, but I wanted to finish the baskets. Then once I'd started them, and the kids have got them, they use them to put little, like little trinkets and things in. And there's some photos actually of after my daughter was born [00:33:00] my kids walking around with the baskets and showing them midwives, the baskets that I've made them.

So that's really nice. Yeah.

Rachael Rose: Okay, so what was the first sign of labor if there was a obvious one?

Haley: So the first line of labor was that I was I was 44 weeks and two days pregnant. And I woke up in bed one morning at around eight o'clock and went to go to the bathroom. And when I went to the bathroom, I noticed that my underwear was actually no, I'd lo I lo What woke me up out of my sleep was I had some.

Braxton Hicks contractions, which must have been a little bit, maybe stronger than Braxton Hicks and I, so that sort of excited me. And then I got up out of the, out of bed and went to the bathroom and noticed that my underwear was slightly wet. And so I'm not sure if sort of those contractions meant that my waters had broken slightly.

So that was the [00:34:00] first sign that, my first discovery that my waters broken and that maybe something was about to happen. So I wouldn't say that I was having any actual contractions yet, but I knew that this was the start of something and I was really excited to, to meet our baby and knowing that labor was gonna, labor was gonna start soon.

And I remember just running upstairs and telling my husband and the kids and We kept them home from daycare told them, that it was likely that they're gonna, they were gonna meet their baby sister soon, because I didn't say sister to them, but I really felt a hundred percent that I was having a girl.

I just, this part of me just, I was having a daughter. My assumption at that point was it was just gonna kick off any minute and she was gonna be born very quickly, which obviously wasn't the case. That was the first sign that labor has labor was starting for me.

Rachael Rose: So how did it unfold then?

Haley: So then probably a couple of hours. And I, I think [00:35:00] yeah, I did want to mention as well that my son asked me, how do I know, how do I know that she's gonna be born soon or she's gonna be born today? And so I showed him my underwear and said, look, this is, remember we spoke about the amniotic fluid, the amniotic sac that where the baby's swimming in and looked at, my waters are broken now.

And so they were very involved in all that and very intrigued and asking lots of questions. So that was a really nice experience as well. And then a couple of hours later I had my first contraction, which was, again, very exciting but very manageable. And I just felt like it was, just this gentle awakening of my body, just this really soft, hello from my body and my baby that, this is it.

Like you're being called forward now. You're gonna meet your baby soon. It was really quite gentle and lovely and. I had thought during my pregnancy that it, wouldn't it be so nice if I I've had, happy for the labor to go however it needs and unfold for how [00:36:00] unfold, however it needs to unfold.

But wouldn't it be lovely if I had a sort of slow build up to labor and really had time to take in every minute, and interestingly, that's actually what happened. I guess during the day I putted around and walked around the house contracting and just, leaning over on when it felt right or I remember lying outside with the kids on the deck and.

I also carried a comb in my hand, a labor comb, which I hadn't used previously, but it was just something that I decided to try with this labor. And so I, I used that from the very start and it became a routine, grasping onto that labor comb from very early in my labor that I carried forward throughout the whole birth.

And during that time, I, during the labor, I just listened to my birth playlist. I had time to read the affirmations that I'd written and that stuck on the wall, [00:37:00] reading a letter that I'd written to my baby about how I envisioned her birth. I had time to read that wore a beaded necklace from my mother blessing around my neck which was also.

It felt really lovely having that connection and I had this slow birth of how I had wanted it to unfold was happening for me and it was really nice because that slow day of early labor, I felt that it really. Gave me a chance to process the huge transformation that was unfolding.

And not only the transformation of the transitioning from mother of two to mother of three, but also that this was going to be my last pregnancy and my last baby. And I felt that I really found space to honor that changing self and to appreciate and thank my body and f Fair Book, farewell My Pregnant Body and Pregnant Self for the last [00:38:00] time.

And I was able to really relish in her movements and, witness that embodied and embody that life that was dancing inside my womb. So it was nice to spend that final day with my baby, talking with her walking with her as she initiated her birth just gently and slow. Which was lovely and having that time to be with my kids and my husband as well.

It just really felt like this labor of our, of all, of us, this labor of a family that was un unfolding throughout the day.

Rachael Rose: Did you breastfeed your daughter at all during your labor?

Haley: Yes, I did breastfeed actually during my labor. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. But she doesn't breastfeed very often anymore, probably once or twice a day. So yeah, she would've definitely had her breastfeed during the day, during the labor. I don't remember it, bringing on any contractions or making anything different.

But yeah, that was definitely part of that labor time.

Rachael Rose: Oh, I love that. Just the idea of you all pottering around like it's an [00:39:00] ordinary day, which it is, but it's also so magic at the same time.

Haley: Yes. Was, and I guess yeah, and, as the day went on, I guess I, the kids even made a birthday cake with, actually doesn't that reminded me. I remember my son asking me, can we make a cake for the baby's birthday? And I said, oh, some people do make cakes when they're in labor, but we won't have time for that cause it's gonna go so fast.

So they did make a cake and they actually ate the cake cuz the labor went for so long or they ate part of the cake anyway, so they made a cake with with their dad, which was really nice. And so yeah, that's how the day went. And then in the evening my husband put them to sleep at around seven 30.

And he, at that point, I'd actually I'd already let the midwives [00:40:00] know that I was in early labor and. At that point, I think I'd messaged one of the one of my midwives who's a good friend of mine, and told her that I was getting to the point where I was feeling like I was getting a bit impatient by that point, by about seven 30 at night.

I'm like, okay, I'm ready for this now. Let's, get the labor moving a bit faster. I'm ready. I'm ready to have my baby. And My husband came back up after putting them to bed at about eight o'clock. And at that point, I guess I felt change of wanting to be more in wanting to go more inwards.

So starting to en enter that liminal phase, and not wanting to communicate. And I said to him I'm text my midwives at that point and said, I'm not texting you anymore. Don't contact me if you want to know anything. Contact my husband. Cause I didn't wanna think or make decisions at that point.

And I think that's when I began to descend into that other world that you [00:41:00] descend into when you're in labor. 

Rachael Rose: Mm, 

Haley: it was like I needed the kids to go to bed before I could really drop into thing and let things happen. Because as soon as they were in bed, that's when it, that's when I really dropped into that pl that place, that primal self.

Yeah, it was interesting.

Rachael Rose: did you get into the birth pool?

Haley: Yeah, so at that point too, my husband had. Suggested filling up the pool, but I still felt it was a bit early, so he then suggested filling up a spa downstairs and just a spa bath. And so I thought that might be a good idea. And when it was full, I couldn't bear the thought of walking downstairs.

So then I asked him to fill up the birth pool anyway. That's too far to go. So things were definitely changing. So then, yeah the pool got filled up and I think I was in the pool by about nine o'clock that night. And when I first got in, it was so hot, I was just like sweating those beads of sweat running off me.

And it was just I tried to persevere, but it was just unbearable and I had to get out. I remember it had, we had to get some more [00:42:00] cold water put in it at that point. And that was when I also said to him to call the midwives to come because I didn't feel like I quite needed them there yet. But at the same time, I just was done with that, making that decision.

I'm like, I don't wanna have to think about when's the right time to call them. I just need to really just go within myself. So he called them and they came, I think at around nine 30 and that's when I got back in the pool and. There was definitely that, that change that was occurring. I wasn't contracting very often.

It was, I think I was still having only one or two contractions every 10 minutes. But they were quite, there were these long contractions, they'd been quite long throughout the labor, two, three minute contractions. But I was, things were starting to increase, but it still felt like it was quite slow.

But I was really going within myself and I didn't really notice that there wasn't anyone around when they arrived. I didn't notice 'em arriving for example, because of [00:43:00] that, that, that liminal phase I guess that I was going into within my labor. And 

I think So I just laboured in the water for some time, and one of my midwives had asked her to bring her medicine drum with her.

And as things were really starting to increase, so it was dark then, it was nighttime, it was dark. We just had some, I had a candle that was burning that had been a candle for my mother, blessing that had been burning through my whole labor and just some dim lights on. And then my friend who was one of my midwives, my second midwife, she got out a medicine drum and she started to to play her drum.

And the drum during the labor was, so this, this beautiful deep rhythmic sound, it really felt and really helped me get into more of Ari rhythm and more of a meditative state as I listened to her playing that drum. And just with that focus of during each [00:44:00] contraction in between each contraction, just that focusing on that drum, it was transcendent and if I was to have another baby, which I won't be, but if I was to have another baby, I would just ask someone to play that drum through the entire labor because it just, the state that it got me into and the sound was just amazing.

Rachael Rose: It's like the heartbeat of your baby too. It's that primal original sound that we are drawn to and, yeah. Oh I wanna experience that.

That sounds 

amazing. 

Haley: Me too. I can, oh, it was, yeah, really amazing.

Rachael Rose: Were you able to surrender to the contractions, or did you find it, there was resistance. How were you feeling like mentally through it all?

Haley: So I was definitely at that point, still really surrendering to the contractions. The contractions were still just flowing through me. They felt good. They felt, they were definitely increasing. So there was definitely some, they definitely were that [00:45:00] were more intense.

But I was still, it felt, great sort of that flowing through my body. And then I guess it got to a point, and I dunno when this happened, but I did it. I was experiencing a lot of discomfort in my back, which I had never, I hadn't had pre in any previous labors either. And so my husband was rubbing, like my sacral area during contractions, and then it got to a point where just all of a sudden I think the intensity of the contractions really picked up.

And the rubbing just wasn't cutting it anymore. And I just needed just accu pressure on my sacrum really hard as, as hard as you could possibly press. And so I think that definitely changed because there was, I was definitely. Going within. But there was part of me that wasn't going deep within myself because I needed to communicate what I needed with the pressure on my sacrum.

So there was a period there for quite a few hours, I'd say for [00:46:00] probably the next, so four hours where there was a rotation between my husband and my two midwives of me being in the pool and with contraction like them putting that accu pressure, that constant pressure down on my back as hard as I could, which just felt so good and I, and felt like I wouldn't have been able to continue without that pressure.

It was just so important. And with my other pregnancies, I didn't want anyone to touch me at all through the whole pregnant through the whole labor. So this was very different here now with having that pressure on my back and, yeah. Yeah.

Rachael Rose: Yeah. And asking for that support and surrendering to receive it as well. That's really quite beautiful cuz. Yeah.

Haley: it was actually, yeah.

Rachael Rose: Yeah. So did you experience a noticeable transition phase?

Haley: Yeah. So I guess that really intense phase I'm talking about where that pressure was on my [00:47:00] back. That was when things were really starting to increase for me. And when you said that, receiving that and asking it for that support, it was really nice because I felt like I really needed the people around me in a good way.

Like they were there and I wanted their support and I need, and I needed their support. And that was really nice felt held like my, I still had my birth space, which was very much respected and I felt really strong and empowered, but I also felt really held by these people around me and.

That was really nice. I guess, the, as the contractions really got a lot more intense I definitely felt then that as the contraction would rise up and get to the peak of the contraction, I did notice that I started to have I guess thoughts of that I can't do this entering my head.

So I noticed, I had a thought of I can't do this, and I remember the word no, almost [00:48:00] escaping my mouth. Which reminded me of my labor with my daughter. And you being there, Rachael, and as I was saying the words no, when I was contracting, you had suggested that I say the word yes, which really changed my whole labor experience with her.

And so that's something that I really had. Made sure that I was going to do with this labor was that I had these positive mantras that I was planning on saying during my labor, which they, I didn't say any of those positive mantras, but because in the depth of labor you know what I did say, what came to me intuitively was instead of saying no, I said, just the word yes.

Inside my head over and over again, the other word, the other words that came to me was, I can. And it's temporary. It's temporary. It's temporary. It's temporary. And I'd soon as a contraction would start just to get myself in that positive [00:49:00] mindset. Whatever words came up, whatever one of those phrases came into my mind, I would just say it over and over again throughout the whole contraction.

And that really helped me, that was just really an essential part of my labor and really helped with my surrender. And, helped, yeah, helped me just keep on that path to birthing my baby. That pressure in my sacrum saying those words, I was really loud with my vocalisation.

So I was saying the words in my head, but I was just like really vocal. And I remember getting to the point where I was, talking out loud to my baby as well. So saying come on baby. Like I, come on, it's time. I'm just almost pleading with her just that I needed it to be over and that I wanted, that I was ready for her to be born and. So I guess, yeah, I was just roaring and I know I remember this this almost this harmonious song [00:50:00] of sound coming out of my mouth in between contractions as well. So just this instinctive song, this laboring song that sort of continued Yeah. In between contractions and then I remember getting to this point at the peak of my contraction, where I began to shake just full body shaking just all over.

Just realising this is it like this is transition, this is this shaking that's happening that I can't control. This is transition. I'm really close to having my baby and. I remember just, just being aware of that, and it's interesting because I feel like my experience with labor, it's like they almost happened twice.

So it's this very real feeling of being present with every sensation and being swept away by the intensity becoming birth itself, of going with, merging with, no, no ego [00:51:00] d diving deep within yourself. But at the same time as that are happening, it's like part of me is witnessing what, what's happening from above.

During the process it's like I'm having this outer body experience where I'm looking down at myself just in admiration and in awe of, this birthing process that's occurring. And this awareness is awareness of what's happening and why it's it's just, yeah, it's quite an amazing experience, 

Rachael Rose: oh, so trippy and powerful and yeah. And I love, I heard the birth shakes being referred to as like earthquakes, and I love that symbology of, that's how powerful the energy of birth is. It is like a force, and it's like our bodies are volcanoes, and when we quake and shake in labor, we're just getting ready to erupt and, yeah.

Haley: Yeah. That's beautiful. It is. It was. It was [00:52:00] like, yeah. And I feel like that power that Yeah, that shaking and that roaring you. Yeah. You do, you just feel and you feel like just the power of, earth itself and of just every being is just within you and coming out of you during that birthing process.

It's, yeah. It's pretty amazing.

Rachael Rose: Oh, so good. Okay, so the birth itself, the emergence, what was that like?

Haley: Yeah. So I guess yeah, yeah, so that, I felt that I was going through transition and that was a really challenging time. And I do remember at that point actually, but also being really in awe women and just, not myself necessarily, but just wow, like women are amazing.

Women are so strong. Look at what we do. And also Dr really drawing in the wi the strength of the women around me. That there was three women there, two midwives and a photographer and I, they'd all had multiple babies. And I [00:53:00] remember just drawing in their strength as well, thinking, wow, like these women that I'm surrounded by, they have done this.

They are so strong. Like they did this and now you are doing it, enjoying it, that you can do this. Like they've done it, you can do it. And it was interesting cause I've done it twice before, but it was like I, their strength coming in to, to To help me to get to the emergence of my baby, and so I remember go getting to this really intense part of that contraction. Contraction in the peak. And then, all of a sudden my body just letting out these few little pushes, like short little pushes. And I was like, oh, this is it. My, I'm getting to that point where I'm gonna have my baby and my daughter, she was, I think she was born in, about five pushes.

So it was a really quick that part of labor for her was very quick. And so when that happened, I remember saying, asking for my husband with my wi with my midwives. Cause I, he'd gone downstairs to be with the kids cuz they'd woken during all of the [00:54:00] the, probably all the noise and things.

So my daughter had woken, so he was downstairs with them. And the reason why I asked for him is because I knew that I was pushing and, it wouldn't be long before she was born. They said they asked. If I wanted him and I said, no, but I can feel myself pushing. So they reassured me that they were gonna keep an eye on things for me.

And so it was a different experience this time around because it, it went on for quite some time of this contraction buildup and then just a few little short pushes at the peak of the contraction and then the rest of the contraction without pushing. And that was really challenging for me because the sensation of pushing was increasing the discomfort that I was having in my back.

Let's just say what it was. It was pain, the pain in my back. It was, intense, this intense pain in my back, which is okay to experience birth as painful. It's still a amazing transformative experience. And it's this this [00:55:00] physiological pain that I'm, that this process that I'm going through.

This intense pain with the pushing. And so again, it was like this period of being impatient of oh, come on, body when are you gonna dive down into this? Really strong, intense pushing throughout the contraction. And that went on for some time until eventually I felt this, really, intense like pressure and pop and suddenly my baby's head like appeared at my perineum and I just knew that my waters had broken fully.

So there was probably just a small leak earlier on. Cause I hadn't lost much of my amniotic fluid throughout the day. And now I just, this huge pop and this breaking of waters in the water and yeah, feeling her head down at my perineum. It was a really amazing sensation and. And I just said out loud, the baby's coming because I wanted them to go and get my husband cause I knew she was about to be born.

So yeah, I [00:56:00] had my hand over her head and I could just feel the soft flow of her hair and the water, which was really beautiful. But with each contraction now I had that really un uncontrollable strong urge to push to just taking over my body and those really deep grunting sounds that were so familiar from my last birth.

But this time I had this really intense pain that remained in my back. And every time I pushed the sensation and the pain in my back was so strong. And so that meant this time around I was, I very much remained like in within myself in that internal sort of phase. I hadn't come out and wasn't really aware of the world the world around me at that point.

So my eyes stayed closed. I was very much in engulfed in the process and. My husband and the kids had come up at this point, and I knew that they were there, but I wasn't interacting with anyone. So I guess I just, as I continued to push I, [00:57:00] those powerful surges over my body, I feeling my baby's head emerging and her head was very slow to emerge, which was, again, very different from my daughter who, whose head emerged with two pushes.

But this time it was very slow. I felt like my body was working really hard to birth her head. I was instinctively changing position, trying to find the best position to birth her which was really quite effort. Effortless cuz I was in the pool. And I remember feeling her head after rich contraction and being quite surprised at how slow her head was to emerge out of my body.

And eventually I put one leg up out in front of me, almost in a lunge position. And that. Was when her head began to emerge. And I think, like in, interestingly, for me I've not had any fears come up in birth previously, but at that point when I was pushing out her [00:58:00] head and her head was slow to emerge, there was a fear that I'd in my pregnancy about her shoulders getting stuck and it was because of a story that I'd heard.

And sometimes of course when you hear stories in pregnancy, these fees just become a fear of your own. And so I worked on this. With my doula, and I'd changed that fear into an affirmation. But what I found as her head was slow to emerge is the fear came into my head. So just the thought of her shoulders getting stuck came into my head.

It didn't feel scary at the time, or like a reality, but the thought came into my head, which I found quite interesting. And I don't feel that it slowed down her head emerging, although, I don't know. I don't feel, but it definitely came into my mind. And the reason why I bring that up is because after her head was born, I think then with the next contraction I pushed and [00:59:00] her shoulders came out and her just, her, her abdomen and her legs were still inside me, and I could feel that, but it was then it was at that point that I had almost this panic where I said help me get her out like that all of a sudden, because that fear became a, an actual fear.

And then my midwife said, you are good. And then I just gave her a little push and then she came out behind me and my midwife just gently pushed her under my legs. And I remember looking down into the water and I saw her floating in the water in front of me with her eyes open. And I lifted her up out of the water and went back and sat back on the birth pool and, started just stroking her head and stroking her body.

And then she let out this beautiful, like boisterous, loud cry. And it was so beautiful. And I looked over and my two kids were on my left and my husband was there. And I remember saying, look look, kids, like she's taking her first breath. [01:00:00] Remember, that we'd spoken about that. And it was just lovely to have them there and, having that experience with them and.

 My daughter ended up getting in the pool with me as well. She asked to get in the pool, so she got in the pool and she was in there with me and my son stayed out just really by my side. And I ended up getting out of the water to birth the, my placenta. I birthed the placenta on the lounge and that was a quite a healing process for me too, because I'd had my, I wasn't able to birth my placenta physiologically with my daughter, and I needed to transfer to hospital.

I had a, and have assistance birthing my placenta in theater. So this time to be able to birth my place, oh, my baby's placenta, not my placenta, my baby's placenta at home. Home was, yeah, quite a beautiful healing experience. So she was a lotus born baby. [01:01:00] placenta fell off on its own about five days later.

And just that process of. Giving the place her placenta a chance to, and her a chance to come into the world in her own time was really lovely and it really slowed us down. Her temperament is very gentle and I feel like that's partly because of that ritual that we had with her placenta. And it was really lovely that the other kids were involved in that.

They would help me prepare her placenta every day with herbs and salts and it was a really nice family bonding experience, I think, and just an experience that really helped to normalise birth and talk about this really special [01:02:00] organ and the spiritual aspect of, her placenta as well, which was really lovely.

Rachael Rose: Yeah. And you just naturally have to go slow, don't you? Because the movements have to be slow when you pass the baby to each other and the way that you position yourself to breastfeed, you have to be resting as much as you can. I think it's such a beautiful idea women are able to do it to just, yeah, honor that, that phase, because a birth doesn't really finish until the placenta is born.

And then it sounds like your birth experience had a continuation of an extra four or five days, which is amazing.

Haley: Yeah, it did. It really did. And you're right, it did. The movements are just so much slower than what you realise. Of course you're slow and gentle with your baby when there's, when their placenta isn't attached, but you have to just be so gentle and so slow and it just, yeah, it's just this really lovely experience, of [01:03:00] just slowing things down.

Rachael Rose: Yeah, and it feels like it. Granted that wish that you had to savor every moment you had a long pregnancy, a long labor,

Haley: Yes.

Rachael Rose: then a beautiful long lotus birth as well.

Haley: Yeah, I did. That was, it was really lovely and it did grant that, that wish and I guess all my births, I guess each, this birth was just a culmination of all my births and, everything in my life up to that point. Yeah, just, I feel really complete now after having my third daughter like complete on that, that phase of pregnancy and birth and, it's almost yeah, just this flow of water, that cascades almost down a mountain, and then each. Each birth is this waterfall then the cascade of water continues down this mountain until, another birth is a [01:04:00] waterfall. And I feel like it's just at that point now, I guess that, where the, that cascade of flowing water has finished and it's this place of stillness and reflection, and it just feels like this place now that I can just return back to back to in my journey onwards as a mother in all aspects of my life and the lessons of these, of my pregnancies and my birth and my babies, that will just continue to trickle into other aspects of my life, which is a lovely place to be, I think.

Rachael Rose: Oh, that's such a beautiful way to end this conversation. Thank you so much, Haley, for sharing your incredible birth stories. It's been such an honor to hear them.

Haley: Thank you, Rachael. It's been an honor to be on your podcast.

Rachael Rose: Thank you for listening to together. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider sharing that you are listening on social media or rate and review. [01:05:00] This weaves a web of connection and makes a huge difference in getting these stories out to the women that need to hear them.