Hi Louise
So, here is the story…
Once Charlotte (first daughter) had gone to grandparents, I found it much easier to immerse myself in the HypnoBirthing and Nick was able to help me with the deepening techniques, which were very effective and immediately got me into the birthing mindset! I felt relaxed and confident and was using the breathing to manage the discomfort. By about 11am, the surges were 4-5 min apart and were lasting more than a minute, so Nick rang the hospital and they arranged for the on-call midwife to call us. In the meantime, Nick had set up the birth pool in the dining room, closed the curtains, dimmed the lights and put the music on downstairs, so I moved down there. I was walking around and swaying between surges but felt I wanted to be on all fours during the surges themselves as this was more comfortable. I also decided to try the TENS machine at this point as my back was really hurting – I found this really took the edge off my backache. At this point, the midwife told me that the baby was back to back again and it was likely to be another long labour. I really wanted to get in the pool or have a little gas and air but the midwife said she didn’t have any gas and air and would come back in a couple of hours to see how I was doing. I was listening to the HypnoBirthing music and affirmations and breathing through all the surges. Nick was actually counting out loud for me, which really helped me focus.
Shortly after, I saw that I had had a show, sat down on the toilet, realised that I didn’t need the toilet. I wanted to push, without quite believing that that was what it was.
Nick was straight back on the phone to the midwife, who was driving across St Albans. I felt my body bearing down and then my waters went with a loud pop. My body was pushing the baby out with almost no effort on my part at all. It all happened so fast – it was just a couple more “pushes” and William was out! The midwife was still on the phone and told us to wrap him in a towel and put him to my chest,
The midwife explained after the birth that she didn’t examine me when she visited the house only an hour earlier, because I had seemed so calm and relatively comfortable that she assumed I was only in very early labour. With hindsight, she realised that this was almost certainly due to the HypnoBirthing.
I am still so pleased and proud of the birth experience that we had. HypnoBirthing undoubtedly played a huge part in William’s birth – we used the music, deepening techniques and light massage throughout the birthing and this kept us both calm and confident despite the fact that we were almost completely on our own for the whole thing.
We both want to thank you so much for the inspiring HypnoBirthing classes we had with you and all the guidance you gave us. We felt so positive going into the birth this time and this no doubt contributed to an almost perfect birth experience. Without the classes and the confidence they gave us, we would almost certainly have decided to take ourselves into hospital at that point of doubt, which would have resulted in William being born on the M1!!
Nick agrees that the HypnoBirthing made a huge difference to his role in the birth – not only was he more confident, but he felt so much more useful and involved in the birth (in the end, perhaps more than he had planned!!), which he really valued and which made a huge difference to me.
Thank you again and very best wishes
Rebecca and Nick xx
