Thank you Janet for all you taught us and the power and confidence you gave back to us. People keep saying how good I’m looking and how “brave” I am to have a drug free home birth but I just think it should be a normal option for people. I didn’t realise the very strong and pervasive feeling of negativity towards childbirth and perceived risk of a home birth until I spoke to people about the course. After hypnobirthing I feel so great and our son is amazing! Everyone should give it a go to truly learn their options and have empowering births!
Here is the birth story:
On the Tuesday evening nothing was happening and I sent you (Janet) a message just asking a question and we had a little conversation about how I was feeling. I said we were ready to have our baby and getting a little impatient even though we were still a couple of days from due date; I am so bad at waiting! I sent my last message to you and turned my phone off and lay down in bed and literally had my first contraction right then.
Things progressed very quickly and within a very short time contractions were very strong and close together. I was trying to concentrate on the visualisations, breathing and relaxing as much as possible through the surges but it was so quick and so intense ! However, we employed the techniques and some of them were very useful for example I had no idea of the timings or how close things were. I thought everything was still very irregular and the contractions fairly short and was confused as to why my husband was ringing my mum to come and look after our daughter and ringing the midwives. A while later two midwives arrived and I was thinking; this is way too soon! But he said he had been timing the contractions and they were at the right level to ring in.
The midwives were fantastic and took my obs without too much interference, they just let me do my thing until I was ready for them to do the next thing. Turns out my blood pressure was quite high on initial reading but nobody told me so I had no idea. I think the surprise of having two of them arrive had pulled me out of the zone a bit and elevated my adrenaline. Looking back it is easy to see the impact of being “observed”. My husband suggested we go downstairs and get onto the pool which he had already run and set up my “birthing den” with a screen, fairy lights and my affirmations so it was quite dark and quiet; my safe space. Apparently it was quite shortly afterwards they took my bp again and it was fine but I still had no concept of the time.
It must have been an hour or so later I got the urge to lie back in the pool and almost go to sleep. My husband put the colour and calmness script (which I still have never heard all the way through) and kept it on repeat. I thought we listened to it about 3 times but he said it was at least 5 or 6! I was still having intense surges but they were somehow more manageable. Then suddenly I felt a difference in the surges and a feeling to kneel up and push. Apparently I only pushed for 7 minutes and our son was born in the pool. The midwives and my husband were telling me “Baby is here! Pick him up, he’s between your legs!”. It was such a magical moment to reach down, turn him round and pick him up myself after all the work.
During the labour I remember it being painful and feeling disappointed that I hadn’t managed to achieve a beautiful pain free hypnobirth. However, looking back and comparing birth of our two children the differences are stark and our sons birth was just astonishing compared. Just 9 hours start to finish which was amazing compared to 60 hours with my first. We were so much more prepared, empowered and confident. I was offered two examinations which I turned down; everything seemed fine and there was no need to interfere. The midwives (whose faces I didn’t even see until after he was born) were excellent and spent most of their time sitting in the next room and just letting me get on with it.
They followed our birth plan, communicated with me through my husband and accepted our decisions without question (there was no need to interfere). My husband was just the best, going from feeling so lost and out of place at our daughter’s birth to being so confident and supportive, he just knew what to do and got everything done. I trusted him wholeheartedly and couldn’t have done it without him.