Ida’s Calmbirth story

…told by her dad.

"This story is extra special, it’s not every day I receive a birth story from a dad. Thank you, Mark, for sharing. I think this is only the second dad’s story I’ve ever had come in."

Baby Ida was born on Monday, November 3, almost three weeks early.

I worry she takes after her mum Dani - who is very determined to get things done quickly - and fear I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with two independent and strong women in my life!

I just hope when Ida starts walking, she doesn't walk as fast as Dani because I can never keep up.

Speaking of walking, the name comes from the mountain we got engaged on top of at Lake St Clair. Ida was 16 weeks and the size of a lemon in Dani’s tummy at that stage and it was a special feeling having her there with us and thinking about what her future might look like. Hopefully one filled with love and adventure.

We decided to do the Calmbirth classes with Cherie on the advice of friends to best prepare for a relaxed and informed birth.

As a man, I’ve never liked the dumb dad trope where birth is treated jocularly and you’re expected to be hopeless. I wanted to learn as much as I could to support Dani and Ida.

The course was better than I anticipated. It was informative and I learned so much about the female body and the amazing work it does during labour and birth. The uterus is unbelievable!

Understanding the stages of labour and what to expect built confidence, clarity and calmness for me.

I knew Dani would be fine during birth. She’s a very strong person in mind, body and spirit. As an ocean and mountain lover, she is calm and prepared and she’s also the type of person who can push pain and hardship to the background, having been a competitive rower and hiked the Alps in Switzerland.

In fact, the first hike we did was in Cradle Mountain on a -5c night. I was freezing. She was fine. The next day she took me on an off piste bush bash up Mt Emmett. After 20+ kilometres on the trail, we missed the last bus and Dani ran the last 3km to hitch a ride before the car park emptied for the day!

Emmett was going to be our name for a boy but I’m glad Ida was a girl as the memory of that walk involves a lot less scoparia and crying, from me!

Anyway, back to the Calmbirth classes.

Apart from the physical facts, one of the greatest takeaways for me was that labour pain is meaningful, powerful and purposeful. As a bystander and man, I knew I’d feel a little helpless and be tempted to try and “solve” or “fix” the pain of labour for Dani.

The advice to flip your thinking of labour pain as something pathological to be treated to something that is meaningful and bringing our baby closer with every contraction also gave us both great comfort that we could do it as a team - admittedly a team where Dani did all of the work and I’d cheer her on!

Practical tips like the hip squeeze, pressure points, baby sifting and lifting, massage and sacral rub and the advice to “do it, don’t ask”were great tips for the birth partner and ones we used before and after Dani’s waters broke. I’d just recommend a little more conditioning and gym work for dads because it’s quite exhausting!

Calmbirth gave us the headspace in a busy life to really think deeply about what birth experience we wanted and pointed us towards lots of other fantastic resources like the Great Birth Rebellion podcast, where we learned more about breech births and epidurals. Talking through our birth plan and what we wanted well in advance eased the anxiety about the unknown. We were clear on how we wanted our plan to progress and also where it might divert if plans changed. We knew what we wanted, what we were willing to flex on if needed and our non-negotiables.

Dani's waters broke on the Monday morning of the November long-weekend, ironically after spending the previous day with family friends, one of whom was a midwife and the other who had helped deliver his daughter’s daughter at home. As Ida had been sitting breech for several weeks and was awaiting an attempt at a manual turn, a c-section was mandatory. The obstetrician said, "I don't want to rush you ... but you will have this baby today". Yeah, no rush then. We hadn’t even packed a bag!

Although we were hoping for a natural birth, we were prepared for this eventuality and the classes meant we were confident to communicate or wishes clearly. Without the Calmbirth learnings, I could see how easily one could be overwhelmed by the speed of the situation and the noise and light of theatre and shrink away from your plans to just let the medicos take over.

Cherie’s lessons gave us a voice that we used to explain we still expected many of the Calmbirth principles: music, quiet voices, positive language, no personal talk (we didn’t want a conversation about their long weekend, we wanted this to be Ida’s day!)

The lessons and meditations also gave us the knowledge to remain calm via breath work and meditation. When things became a little stressful, we’d just say “deep breaths” and turn our brains from sympathetic flight or fight to parasympathetic rest and digest state.

So why it was technically an emergency Caesarian, it was still calm and relaxed and the theatre team were just amazing - so professional and skilled but very kind and funny.

On the day, the theatre team had already done several caesareans, including twins just before Ida, but they didn’t treat her birth as just another surgery. They seemed genuinely excited, with the head obstetrician remarking in awe, “look at that membrane!” as they cut into the uterus without rupturing the caul.

They knew we didn't know the sex and wanted to discover that ourselves, so the doctor was saying, "nobody say anything" as she was lifted out. I was so surprised she was a girl that it took a few moments to register and even then I was not one hundred per cent confident I’d called it right!

It made for a great experience. We had music. We had delayed cord clamping. I cut the cord (twice). Dani had skin to skin contact immediately and a tummy crawl in recovery.

Dani was just amazing in the lead up, during the surgery and as soon as she held Ida. She is a natural mum.

Ida did her part too, finding the breast for her first feed before we’d even got back to the ward.

Despite being early, she weighed 3520g, which is smack bang in the middle of the growth curve for a girl. The early arrival likely cost me some cash as I bet for a 4.5kg bundle in the baby sweep - Dani was very mad I thought 10 pounds but had she kept cooking, I reckon I would have been spot on.

Ida’s birth story is exactly what it needed to be: she arrived according to her own schedule and had started the birth process on her terms, which feels much better than a planned C-section before she was ready to meet us earth-side. My only disappointment is Dani and I didn’t get to make out in the bathroom like Cherie suggested!

I’ve written this on her due date of November 23 and Ida is doing really well.

We know she’s keen to get out into the big, wide world and we look forward to summiting her namesake one day,

but for now, we're just soaking up this special time with baby Ida who is just a delight.

Mark & Dani