HypnoBirthing Birth Stories
Kat and James' first birth, to baby Bobby Gray (January 2017)...
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After patiently waiting for our little person to arrive, at 41 weeks and 4 days she made the decision to start her journey. Thanks to hypnobirthing, we were not feeling impatient or tempted to hurry labour along through induction or other means. Instead we felt confident to trust our baby, to know that when she was ready we'd be ready. She came exactly when she was supposed too.
I woke up on the morning of her birth feeling 'a little bit funny' and knew that today would be the day. I called James at work and he knew before I even said anything. He's never been home so quick! We were so excited to meet her. I don't even remember what time surges began because I was relaxed and 'in-the-zone', all I know is it was sometime around ten and they were one minute apart from the get go. My partner and I lay in bed together for a while listening to our Rainbow Relaxation and Birthing Affirmations while surges continued. I really enjoyed the last hour or so of James and Kat time where we just relaxed and snuggled before things progressed.
The rest is a bit of a blur, I struggle to put everything together on a timeline as I was so focused on our breathing techniques and staying in the relaxed state we had been practicing. We continued to labour at home with our midwife checking up on us every couple of hours. I had a bath, a shower, a walk, a bounce on the birthing ball and some avocado toast and pineapple. Surges were extremely close together and intense for what felt like a really long time, I didn't ever get the 10 minutes apart stage so was feeling quite tired, but knew that things were progressing exactly how they should. At around 530pm we decided it was time to make the trip to the birthing centre and we arrived at 6pm.
We got to our birthing suite and I automatically hopped into the bath and this is where I stayed until she was born. The water was definitely my happy place during the whole labour. I felt light, loose and flexible when I was in the water and it made relaxing all that much easier. My waters broke while I was in the bath and as soon as they went, it was as if I could feel Bobby actively moving her little body down. This is when things became a lot more intense and I had to make sure I was so focused on visualisation and breathing. I was so lucky to have such calm and confident birthing partner. James was the only person I could/wanted to focus on and he was my advocate the whole way through which made me feel so much more at ease and confident with fulfilling our calm birth.
At 9.09 pm Bobby emerged and she was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen. James and I sat in the bath just looking at her for about half an hour and then continued to stare at her for about two hours as we lay in bed. She was so calm and relaxed, a true reflection of our pregnancy and birth.
We were so lucky to have come across this way of birthing. It enabled us to feel confident in taking control of what we believed to be a beautiful and natural process. Instead of feeling nervous or scared, we were empowered to make decisions based on our own beliefs. As well as enabling us to have the most special birth experience, hypnobirthing has also shaped our view on the ways in which we choose to interact with our child. Patience and trust in the natural process of our babies development is so important to us, as was it during our pregnancy and birth. Thank you for giving us the confidence to implement this way of doing things, we couldn't have done it without all of this amazing knowledge hypnobirthing has given us.
Lots of love from James, Kat and Bobby Gray.
Katie and Dan's first birth, to baby Jane (November 2016)
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Update from us......Mia Jane Morris arrived on Saturday 5th November at 3.22pm. She weighed a healthy 7'9lb. We are so in love, she is just perfect.
Our birth story....This is by no means a horror story. Where to begin.....Our plan was to birth at the birthing centre and have no intervention. However our plan went out the window. Pre-Labour started on Thursday night just before bed. I was so excited and so ready for it. We went to bed as normal however due to my excitement I couldn't sleep and ended up getting out of bed at 4am and listened to rainbow relaxation and then watched some netflix to occupy my mind.
Friday morning rolled around and Dan and I tried to keep our minds off what was happening but it was so hard. Surges appeared to be getting stonger and closer together however they were only about 40 seconds long. I called my Mum at 10am to tell her to head to the mount as she is a 5 hour drive away. I told her today is the day!
At about lunch time my pre labour stopped. We weren't too sure what to do then so decided to go for a walk on the beach. When we got home we played a game of chess and then my Mum turned up about 5pm. At around 6 pm the surges started up again. I was hopeful that this time it was it. The anticipation was building up.
The surges started to get really strong and were now becoming much closer together. At 1am I said to Dan, its time to go. We were 3 minutes apart but still only around 50 seconds long.
We got to the birthing centre and I felt like I could totally relax into it. My breathing was going really well. My midwife asked if she could check me as my waters had not broken and there was no mucus plug either at this stage. I agreed to be checked as curiosity got the better of me. I was 2cm.
For the next 5 hours I laboured. I was in and out of the bath. Breathing and visualising. I got to a point where I could feel baby moving down. I felt like she was ready to come out now. At this stage I was starting to feel a little uncomofortable and asked for gas. I told my midwife I think its getting close. She asked to check me again, I agreed as I wanted to see the progression. I was certain it was time to start my birth breathing.
We were a little bit disappointed to hear I was still only 2cm. My midwife was shocked, babies head was right there but couldnt come down anymore. At this point we started discussing alternatives. I was getting tired. My midwfie explained that she has seen this happen before in women who have had the Lletz treatment. (I have had part of my cervix removed due to abnormal smears. The way they do this is by burning a small part of the cervix off. This in turn creates scar tissue which won't stretch easily.)
Options discussed were to stay where we were and keep trying, or head to the hospital and have an epidural and oxytocin to "make" me dilate. This is the route we chose. Once we got to the hospital it was intervention after intervention after intervention, you name it we had it (except vontuse and forceps). However at no point was I scared or upset. This was the turn my birth was taking and it was okay. With the epidural I was able to have a much needed rest and my body eventually started to play ball. It was touch and go for a little while, there were discussions of a c-section.
8 hours later we had our baby girl in our arms. My midwife ended up turning the epidural off for the birthing phase so I could feel and have somewhat of a natural experience.
It wasn't the birth we had planned but doing the HypnoBirthing course prepared us for all outcomes. Not just myself but Dan as well. We were well informed and felt ready to take any turn.
Now that my cervixs have "stretched" my midwife is confident that baby no.2 should be able to be born without intervention. So that is positive. Anyway a very detailed account for you :P After all of that we got what we wanted, A perfect wee baby girl. I am doing really well and so is Mia. So far feeding and sleeping have been a dream, long may it continue.
We pulled on alot of the techniques we were taught a hypnobirthing and will continue to do so not only for our next birthing experience but for life in general.
So thank you very much Sophie :)
Katie and Dan
Mel and Martin's first birth, to baby Nova (August 2016)
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On August 25th at 5:41pm, after 3hrs of active labour (where of one hr was birthing the placenta!) our beautiful daughter Nova was born! I could not be more proud of myself, Martin or little Nova!
We ended up having a water home birth that could not have gone any better. It wasn't pain free, but I had the breathing techniques to lean on, and Martin was the most amazing support for me, reminding me to breath right and keeping me on track. I was a little thrown however at how much it stung when it came to breathing Nova out -that was something I wasn't expecting and I remember being worried I might tear, but my midwife kept reassuring me I was stretching nicely which was extremely comforting.
It feels amazing to have gone from being as scared as I was to have birthed naturally. It is so much more in alignment with who I am. Thank you for being the catalyst I needed to make it happen. It was also very reassuring to me to know I could contact you for an additional fear session had I wanted one, and for the discussed support during labour if breached etc.
Something interesting my chiropractor told me when we visited him when Nova was 5 days old was how impressed he was with how well shaped her skull was. He said there is usually always some sort of distortion due to the pressure on the skull of being born, but Nova was perfect. I credit this to HypnoBirthing and the J-breath :-)
I am recommending HypnoBirthing to everyone I meet and giving them your name :-)
Big hugs
Mel, Martin and Nova