My Hypnobirthing journey really started I would say as soon as I found out I was pregnant with Eliot. I had already decided that I wanted and needed my birth experience to be different from the fairly awful time I had had with my first son.
I joined an aqua-natal group and I instantly recognised Steph who was an ex-colleague of mine and pregnant with her third baby. She told me about her career change and hypno-birthing sounded like something I wanted to try; she was very passionate about and had used the techniques whilst giving birth to her two older children.
Labour might be fast
I completed the course with my husband over 4 weeks. Steph came to our house for the first couple and then we travelled to her as she was more pregnant than me! We both loved the hypnotherapy part and visualisations as well as really having a lot of anatomy explained. I was warned that Hypnobirthing was likely to mean that labour was faster and to the outsider it may not appear that I was in established labour due to feeling empowered and in control. Although I fully engaged with the course, I still had an inkling that my labour would be long, difficult and painful like the first had been. I practised and listened to the cds and kept reminding myself that I could have the birth I wanted.
Labour started with a gush
So, on the 27th January, I was sitting on the sofa tying my shoe laces and I felt a ‘gush.’ This was quite a shock as this should have been my last day at work and was 6 days before due date! So I had a moment and started crying about ‘not being ready’ etc. So I didn’t go to work but my husband, Adam did and he took Miles to my Mum’s. I called the midwives who advised usual protocol about induction after 24 hours of waters breaking and came out to examine me. They conducted the examination using Miles’s Peppa Pig torch as they’d forgotten theirs! They advised me to relax and that things looked as though they were happening. I had a sleep and ate and generally rested.
Adam came home at 4.30pm having told work he wouldn’t be in for two weeks. We had decided after much discussion, as still nothing much was happening to leave our toddler with Mum overnight. By this point I had had the odd contraction but nothing to speak of. Adam went to the chip shop at about 6pm and was gone around 15 minutes. Things started happening while he was gone and by the time he came back, surges were strong and close together. I listened to Steph’s relaxation cd and kept moving and breathing.
We should have had a home birth!
At 7pm I told Adam I wasn’t coping with the pain and felt like pushing. I went into the downstairs loo and took my trousers off so I think my instincts realised that birth was close. With hindsight we should have stayed at home but having a home birth wasn’t something either of us had talked about or particularly wanted so the obvious thing seemed to be to get in the car and go to the hospital.
Baby was born in the car
So we bundled into the car, me on my knees on the front seat, facing backwards and hugging the headrest. As we got to the slip road to come off the A34 we stopped in traffic behind a broken down bus! I had 3 big surges all together and felt the burning sensation. I said to Adam ‘he’s coming, he’s coming!’ And then ‘the heads out!’ I just got my trousers down in time and Eliot was born on the seat. Adam was still driving so I shouted to pull over, which he did and ran around to pick up the baby who had cried as soon as he’d hit the seat.
Adam shouted to the guy in the car behind “Can you give me a hand? My wife’s just had a baby!” But he took one look at Adam, said “I’m no good with that” and drove off!
I turned around and Adam passed Eliot to me. He got a blanket from the boot and we dialled 999 for an ambulance. The first responder was there within 4 minutes and then an ambulance arrived. Adam cut the cord in the ambulance after a good 30 mins so Eliot benefitted from a delayed cord clamping. I was able to breastfeed straight away in the ambulance. We were taken to the JR to be checked over.
I felt a million dollars, totally different to the exhaustion and terror I had felt during and after the birth of other son. I was convinced that we would be sent straight home once I had delivered the placenta, which I did 90 mins after birth without the injection. Unfortunately I had experienced a re-opening of my old third degree tear so had to stay in for spinal anaesthetic and stitching in theatre. We also found out that Eliot weighed 8lbs 9 oz or 3.85 kilos!
So I got my natural birth
And my experience just shows how different two births can be. The power of the mind is a wonderful thing and finding someone who can show you how to use it is equally as wonderful in my book! X
Emma