Two-time Survivor AU star Felicity Egginton’s shares her birth story
“Mav was stuck in my birth canal, so at this point it was all a blur …”
Australian Survivor favourite Felicity ‘Flick’ Egginton has shared her labour and birth story to her Instagram, and we couldn’t read it fast enough!
Hitting our screen in 2016, Felicity returned to Australian Survivor: All-Stars in 2020, but the warrior has shared her latest and greatest challenge – giving birth to her first child, son Maverick ‘Mavy’ John Henry on January 18, 2022.
Felicity’s main post in Instagram, shared a month after the birth started like this:
On the 17th of January I remember turning to JJ on the couch and saying I have a feeling tomorrow will be the day during the peak of the Wolf Full moon, and that our baby would be a life path number 7 just like their daddy… I watched the full moon that night before bed, took a photo and envisioned my beautiful baby and what it would be like holding him or her in my arms.
Felicity shared a photo of her lovely bump at 38 weeks.
The reality star goes on to say that she felt the first cramps on the morning of 18th January, but as they were irregular she just monitored them and carried on about her day, playing down the intensity to her husband Jonathan ‘JJ’ Henry.
After taking a walk together, Felicity’s heavier cramps were coming every five to 15 minutes. The 29-year-old told JJ to start getting the car ready with her hospital bags. After an hour on hold to the hospital, the couple decided it was time to move!
When we got back to the house I told JJ maybe we should start preparing things for the car just incase I was in labour. I remained very calm and focused on my breathing through the contractions. We called the hospital, waited on hold for an hour before we decided to just go as they weren’t answering, a good call 😄 at this point it was just past midday.
During the drive to the hospital JJ called both of our parents to let them know we were on our way but weren’t sure if it was the real thing, I tried to mostly focus on my breathing during the contractions. At this point I knew I was in labour as I couldn’t talk at all during the contractions.
When we got to the hospital I dreaded walking through that car park, it all seemed a blur at that point but we made it through and into the Maternity Unit, I had another mum say how good of a job I was doing as the contractions intensified.
Felicity struggled to walk through the hospital carpark and said “it was all just a blur”.
By the time Felicity reached the maternity unit, at about 2pm, a nurse told her she was already 4-5 centimetres dilated – and then she found out that the midwife she’d seen all through her pregnancy couldn’t be there…
So we had to wait for an available midwife which felt like forever (we were told 30 minutes), but waited one and a half hours later before she arrived to take us into our birth room. At this point I was feeling every powerful surge!!!
I always envisioned a water birth but by the time I got into the room I ran over to a chair on the floor and knelt into it, my body did not want to move at this point. I asked for something, and started sucking on the gas but to be honest it didn’t feel like it was doing much 😅 I was much further along then anyone thought including myself.
Felicity’s waters broke before she could an epidural, and the midwife was shocked to see that she was already fully dilated. The anxious mum-to-be got an epidural but because she was so far along it didn’t take full effect and she knew she ” had to get the job done”.
I started pushing, and this is what felt like forever and probably because it was. Mav was stuck in my birth canal, so at this point it was all a blur. Jj was dabbing my face with cold towels (highly recommend preparing this for labour!), and I don’t think I spoke for the entire 3 hours and 20 minutes of pushing. I was in a whole another [sic] planet entirely.
“I asked for an epidural and they got me up onto the bed to start setting things up.”
And get the job done, she did! After 90 minutes of pushing, Felicity used a mirror to see her son’s head and that gave her the motivation to push even harder.
Just when I felt like giving up I knew that I was close, and started pushing even harder 4-5 long times during my contractions whereas In the beginning I was only pushing 2-3 times.
As Mavys heart rate was dropping and taking longer to rise, I was told that if I didn’t push him out doctors would need to intervene. At this point I put every last bit of my energy (not that I felt I had much) into pushing him out. The midwife knew he wouldn’t come out without me tearing so an episiotomy was performed. And that’s all I needed, two contractions later and Mavy was out and we finally met our surprise gender baby, a beautiful healthy baby boy.
Felicity describes the precious intimacy of when her husband told her they had a son.
We locked eyes, while they asked JJ to announce the sex to me, JJ said it’s a baby boy!!! I had my golden hour for the first three hours and JJ followed by skin to skin for close to two hours.
Maverick John Henry arrived into this world at 8:09pm on the 18th of January during the Full Wolf Moon like we had imagined. We then spent every moment holding our beautiful boy, and sharing the news with our intermediate family.
Being pregnant in COVID times, Felicity knew her birth plan had to be flexible and is understandable proud of herself for getting to full dilation without any pain relief. Go, mama!
Mavy entered the world after a very speedy labour!
“How lucky am I to have two valentines this year, my beautiful husband JJ and son Mavy. ✨”
The new mum captioned this: Until one becomes a Mother, no one can ever tell you what it will feel like to love someone else so deeply and profoundly that you will rejoice when they rejoice, ache when they ache, feel what they feel- even without ever speaking a word.” -Jennifer Quinn.
“Two weeks Postpartum today ✨
All I can say is wow. The last two weeks have felt like an absolute blur!” the mum posted on 1st February
The happy new mum took time to comment on Australian Survivor‘s Shannon Lawson’s 24-week baby bump: “Gorgeous mumma and bump 😍”
Elated by the safe arrival of their baby boy, Mavy, Felicity was keen to praise the amazing Gold Coast University Hospital that took care of her, and plans to ready to head to the hospital pronto for her next labour!
The proud mum wraps up the wonderful birth story by acknowledging that humans are incredible and promising to share her postpartum story soon.
The human body truly is the most amazing thing. We are capable of anything. All births are beautiful whether natural or C section, as a baby is brought into this world and so are the parents too. Breathing is what truly got me through to full dilation.
I learnt so much about how amazing the human body is, and I look forward to one day doing it all again and hopefully getting into the spa next time before I am fully dilated 😊
