Thank you so much for running the course. We found it incredibly helpful and came out of it feeling really confident and excited about our birth. We really enjoyed practicing together everyday, and I was able to use some of the techniques to cope with some other stressful situations over the last month.

One of these stressful situations occurred about two weeks ago. We had gone into hospital for a growth and wellbeing scan. The baby was small but our obstetrician seemed unconcerned and the scan was just to make sure everything was ok.

After the scan, the sonographer came out with the report and said gently and quietly “Your baby is struggling and she needs to come out now. She’s had enough.” It turned out our baby was beyond the ‘danger zone’ for size/age and the placenta was struggling to get blood through to her. The decision was easy for us. I was induced a few hours later.

Despite the fear and stress, I was able to breathe through it all, occasionally retreating into my bubble, and stayed calm. We had the confidence to refuse a ‘stretch and sweep’ (the midwife went to perform one without asking me but I was clued on enough to ask her if that’s what she intended and refuse when she said yes). I used hypnobirthing techniques throughout the synthetic labor which meant that my waters broke naturally, we were able to skip the second step of inducement and I didn’t require any pain relief until the syntocin drip was turned to maximum and the contractions (I felt more comfortable saying contractions ” it had no negative connotations for me) came with such speed and force, I was unable to prepare for each one. Unfortunately I was forced to labor on my back hooked up to drips and monitors on all sides but it did not matter as long as I was breathing through it all.

Once we were in the pushing phase, I quietly used birth breathing when the urge took me. The midwives however asked me to push so I pushed in time with my contractions like I was doing the most important poo in the world. After 16 minutes of pushing and one threat of a “great big episiotomy”, Katana slid into the world and Mummy remained entirely intact. She gave one squwark before settling calmly on my chest. As soon as her daddy spoke, she turned her head and looked directly at him.

Despite all the interventions and restrictions (including nil by mouth!!!), we received a calm, alert, healthy, beautiful baby and I remember my labor as calm and positive.

We will be encouraging all our friends and family who may be embarking on the pregnancy adventure to consider hypnobirthing, as our experience was amazing.

Kind Regards,

Grace and Albin, St Lucia, Brisbane