At first neither my partner or I knew what to expect from hypnobirthing; we had never heard of it before and were a little sceptical, but wanted to give it a try as we were keen to immerse ourselves in everything that could prepare us for birth and parenthood. After the first session, our minds had been completely changed. It wasn’t some hippy dippy mumbo jumbo, but an extremely useful tool for so many reasons. I am a natural born worrier and had always focussed on the what ifs and the worst-case scenarios. Janet taught me to be more positive and to dispel the worried thoughts I had about giving birth.
It was all about becoming well informed: about the options that are often not offered during routine appointments and about the information and statistics about many procedures that are routinely carried out. We left with a sense of empowerment and felt able to make our own decisions with the hope that our informed choices would lead to the birth we envisaged. We had originally wanted to have our little girl in a hospital with an epidural. By the end of the course, we had decided to opt for a home birth with no pain relief if we could.
I went into labour 13 days past “due date” and due to our new information and independent research, we held off being induced. We were extremely lucky to have had Janet at our labour in the capacity of “doula” and we cannot thank her enough. At times when I thought I couldn’t go on, she helped me immensely with the hypnobirthing techniques she had taught us. She was simply amazing and we were so grateful for her presence . The hypnobirthing techniques helped me birth our beautiful daughter without any pain relief and at home in a birthing pool.
The water was a huge relief during the surges. During the last few minutes of the birth there was an unexpected turn, but with Janet’s help along with the midwives, our beautiful daughter was healthy and well – a brilliant result. Janet really is a superstar of a woman. Her help, support and amazing kindness throughout the birth and the aftermath was invaluable. She is and always will be a very special person to us.