Elayna Maddison, born 3 July 2015

Birthing my second child, different, rewarding, still hypnobirthing!!

After having such a positive experience with my son’s birth and of course having been told only positive birth stories from my mum, I went into my pregnancy with my daughter feeling very calm, excited and eager to hypnobirth my second baby.  For some reason I had it in my head that my second pregnancy and birth would be identical to my first but my baby girl had other plans.  The first hurdle was the position, she had decided to sit breech.  At first I thought this was amusing, I felt that she was showing off her individuality and showing me that she was different but as the weeks ticked by I became concerned.  My son had weighed in over 9 pounds and if she was going to be the same weight or close to 10 pounds my obstetrician had advised the safest delivery would be by caesarean.  I agreed with him 100% but was slightly disappointed as I still wanted the same birthing experience that I had with my son which was a natural, drug free, water birth.

As I was revising my hypnobirthing notes I also revisited the Hypnobirthing Australia website and noticed the sound track “breech turn”.  At this stage I was 33 weeks pregnant and although I had been told she could still turn by herself, I thought I would give her a bit of encouragement J  I listened to the track at night for about 5 days and then I had a strange dream that I was in a washing machine and awoke to my stomach doing massive circular movements.  Sure enough she had turned and locked into an engaged position that she maintained.

The second hurdle I had to overcome was being diagnosed with gestational diabetes.  I was diligent in managing my diet and continuing my exercise schedule but a few factors were starting to add up.  A history of large babies in the family (one of my uncles had a stroke at birth from a forcep delivery when he became stuck in the birth canal) and my son having a high birth weight, gestational diabetes and having a breech baby that could still potentially turn back around, I had a discussion with my obstetrician and decided on an induction at 38 weeks and 1 day.

I was admitted to John Flynn hospital the night before at 7pm and around 8pm a midwife administered the prostaglandin gel to prepare the cervix for labour.  I was able to stay in our hospital room and they advised that the gel would not start my surges but rather thin the cervix so that it would be more susceptible to an induction of labour once my membranes were ruptured.

Around midnight I awoke to mild surges that seemed irregular but as I wasn’t sure I sat in the nursing chair in the room and started to listen to my affirmations.  I was very excited and calm as I relaxed and chatted to my baby about being excited to meet her soon.  At around 2am I buzzed for a midwife who, after completing the 20 minute machine monitoring period, confirmed that I was indeed having surges.  She was fantastic as she quietly worked around me and only asked short questions and allowed me to breathe through my surges without interruption.  I requested to go into the bath at around 5am, however, the obstetrician still had to see me at 7am so I waited until then.

We walked up to the birthing suite where I was examined quietly and quickly in which time the obstetrician ruptured my membranes.  My waters did not break at this time but as my surges quickly increased I was grateful to be able to hop into the spa bath.  At around 9am I suddenly realised I was feeling the need to bear down, the midwife told me I had to stop and after stopping me for about 4 urges she finally checked me and felt that the head was coming out.  Luckily my obstetrician works in the John Flynn Medical Centre although I was told he had to run the stairs to make it to me in time J  Elayna Maddison was born at 9:40am at 3.38kg and 48cms long on the 3^rd of July 2015.

I was so ecstatic that I was able to hypnobirth through an induction and cannot thank the midwives at John Flynn enough for recognising I was a hypnobirthing mumma and fully supporting it.

Thank you Melissa for your wonderful course and empowering women to be excited about giving birth.  It truly is one of the most amazing experiences xxoo

Love Joel, Rebecca, Cooper and Elayna

Gold Coast