Ellen’s Birth Story

Ellen & Kyle

August 2021

Baby Lucy

Bunbury Hospital

My husband Kyle & I did the hypnobirthing classes with you online. I gave birth to our daughter Lucy on Sunday morning. I feel like hypnobirthing really helped us in the situation we had!

At 37 weeks I sat up in bed around midnight & about a tablespoon of water came out, I thought to myself that’s can’t be my waters, I was nowhere near enough, nowhere like the movies! Next day I thought I lost my mucus plug, again – it wasn’t a lot, but I thought I better get checked. It was 48h since I had lost the water, I went to the hospital to get checked.

Now Kyle & I just thought we would go in, get checked & be sent home. Not the case. They checked, and my water had broken two days prior – they said I was to be induced ASAP. These words devastated me. I had done the hypnobirthing classes, I had hired the birth pool, I had a birth plan I was going to labour at home, my doula would come to the house. I had it all sorted.

Instead I was put straight into the birthing suite at Bunbury regional hospital, it was about 5pm on the Saturday. They started me on oxytocin to start my surges. I had been getting braxton hicks for weeks, so at the beginning that’s what it was like. As they increased the level of oxytocin- they increased in intensity. I remember being so upset that I didn’t get to labour at home, I wasn’t allowed in the pool or even the shower. I had to get it out of my mind & get on with what was inevitably happening.

I used what I had learnt in the hypnobirthing classes. I breathed through every surge, I had my headphones in playing my hypnobirthing tracks, I had listened to these so many times that I knew then word for word. I pictured my positive affirmations over and over in my head. I laboured for 11 hours naturally, I started to feel the urge to push so that’s when I asked for the gas. This was amazing for me as it gave me something to focus on & I had to keep my breathing under control & in rhythm while sucking on the gas. Not one time did I think I needed any other pain relief as the breathing & getting in the right head space – learnt from hypnobirthing- was all I needed. Surges are definitely intense, but they are most definitely do-able with the right tools. After 14h of labour, I sat on the birth stool & with two pushes, little Lucy was born. (She has a bit of a cone head in the photo from sitting in the birth canal).

I think back to how devastated I was & upset that within 2mins all my birth preferences had gone completely out the window & my birth plan took a much different path.

I know without hypnobirthing- it would have been a very different outcome for me.

It literally saved me, I was able to do the best with what I had at the time & it was incredible.

I plan to set up the birth pool at home & recreate my ideal birth haha ?

Thanks so much Kasey. Appreciate you