"My birth experience at the Family Birth Centre"

When I fell pregnant I had so many people share with me that the Family Birth Centre (King Edward Memorial Hospital) was amazing. We were going public and luckily live close to the hospital. I did my research and although being my first baby and not having the option of epidural etc felt a little daunting it still felt like the right choice for us.

I enrolled and was assigned midwife Claire who I found was wonderful though out, always available to answer my questions but luckily my pregnancy was really smooth and straightforward.

Getting close to my due date it was looking like Claire was going to be on leave when baby arrived and Murphy’s law, I went into labour the night that Claire’s 2 weeks of annual leave commenced.

My pre labour fizzled out the following morning but I went back into labour that night and active labour started in the later evening. I had been in touch with Grace that night and she ended up being the midwife who we met at the birth centre and ultimately at in the early hours the following morning helped us welcome our beautiful daughter into the world after a total 5 hour active labour ending with our desired water birth.

We honestly couldn’t have asked for a birth experience. Grace was so encouraging throughout and my husband and I feel that she was such an important part of me achieving the drug free water birth that was our wish, also appreciating that there’s potentially a lot that may not go to plan as well. 

Thank you to both Grace and Claire for your care in our journey to welcoming our daughter into our family.