Our Hypnobirthing Story…

My first baby, Maddison Rose was born August 6^th at 8.37am, 7.3lbs.

2 weeks before my due date I started to get a little impatient to meet my little girl, I was drinking raspberry leaf tea, I did acupuncture, I should have purchased a pineapple farm with the amount I was drinking, I was walking every day, to say that I was nesting would be an understatement, with my new found obsession for being organised I had the bubs room spotless, all clothes washed, folded and put away, the oven scrubbed, the linen cupboard sorted, not a speck of dust in the house, the yard was spotless and I lost count of how many times I repacked my hospital bag! I was ready…

Every day I would play the affirmations cd at least twice, just in the background as I was getting on with my day, my lotus flower picture was stuck on the fridge, each night my husband & I would read aloud the selected affirmations that I thought would be most helpful for our birth, then we would tuck ourselves in to bed, burn my special blend of aromatherapy oils and fall into a blissful sleep listening to surge of the sea. At this stage I felt really confident with our hypnobirthing and I couldn’t wait to put it into practice for the real deal.

1 week before our due date I had an appointment with my Ob, I proudly handed over my hypnobirthing preferences (Complete with smiley faces and pretty writing haha). I suddenly got the vibe that she didn’t like this. I allowed her to do an internal to see if labour was far off, this is where things almost came to an end for my hypnobirthing. I was told that my cervix was nowhere near where it should be for labour and that it was unlikely that I would go into labour on my own, I would most likely need to be induced and she thought I had a high chance of needing an emergency c section as the bub was a good size already & in a posterior position. Boom!! Just like that my hypnobirthing dreams where momentarily shattered, I couldn’t believe it, all my practice & positive thinking and now this! This was a nightmare, needless to say as a result of this news and probably a good dose of pregnancy hormones I bawled my eyes out the whole way home.

Once I got home I sent Melissa an email telling her what had happened, and she very kindly called me straight away and hit me with some hypnobirthing positive vibes. I couldn’t let this derail me, firstly I was still a week off my due date, how could we already be talking induction?? Secondly, bub was in posterior yes, but we still had nearly 3 weeks to go into labour naturally and for bub to turn, thirdly, what was all this big baby scare tactic? And last of all, an emergency c section? For what reason? The answer is, NO REASON.

The following week I went to visit my ob again, I was 40 weeks plus 2 days. We checked over baby and saw that she had started to turn and was now on her side, her heart was beating happily. Again induction was discussed and it was agreed that I would be booked in when I was 10 days past my “due date”.

That night at about 9pm I was getting ready for bed, I felt that something was happening, I had been experience Braxton hicks for a few weeks now but this felt a little stronger, I had this strange feeling of excitement & nervous energy… my tummy was a little upset and I kept ducking off to the toilet. By 11pm, I was finally convinced it was the real thing! We dimmed all the lights, got my oils burning, surge of the sea playing & I started slowly walking laps around the house (I just could not keep still), I would occasionally lay over the exercise ball in the lounge room, my dog kept curling up at my feet, It was so cute, he knew something was going on! My hubby called the maternity unit to let them know things had started and that we would be in there soon, by 4 am I knew it was time to get to the hospital, I had my shower, put on my birthing outfit and away we went. I don’t even remember the car trip to the hospital, it was only about 20 mins, I had my eyes closed the whole time and was doing my deep breathing.

When we arrived at the hospital we parked the car and took the stairs to the maternity unit, as we entered the corridor I was experiencing a surge and leaned against the wall, closed my eyes and started swaying my hips and pictured myself riding over a wave, one of the midwifes rushed over to put her hands on me, but my husband politely told her that we were a hypnobirthing couple so needed to be able to focus, so as little touching and talking to me as possible. We made our way to one of the birthing suites and once again got set up, it was 4.45am and things were really ramping up, my surges were coming on stronger, I had a shower and was then given an internal to see how I was progressing, I was already at 7cms!  From then on things just passed in a beautiful blur, I had my eyes closed and was leaning against my husband swaying & breathing together, I could hear surge of the sea in the distant background and the smell of lavender was burning. My surges were coming on stronger and stronger, I imagined myself out in the sea the whole time, sitting on a boogie board riding over the top of a wave, time seemed to go by so fast because all of a sudden it was 7.45am & my body started bearing down, it was such an unreal sensation that I had no control over. It shocked me how strong my body was pushing all on its own,  It actually felt good in a strange way, the change of focus was such a relief as I knew my little girl was so close to being with me, after 45 mins of breathing her down (and about 2 litres of ice rubbed over me by hubby lol) & the help of a vacuum extraction, our little girl arrived at 8.37am and was placed immediately on my chest where she started her crawl and latched onto my breast.

My husband did a truly wonderful job of being my birthing “body guard” ensuring that I was left to focus, he was with me every step of the way. I could not have done it without him. Hypnobirthing gave him the knowledge and confidence to be my biggest support.

I never would have thought that I would be able to have a natural & drug free birth, I had always been so scared of giving birth, but I cannot credit hypnobirthing enough and how it works, I will forever be singing its praises! I am looking forward to hypnobirthing again when I am ready for my second bub.

Thanks again Melissa for giving us the ability to have such a beautiful calm birth.

Amanda & Jarrod xxx (Gold Coast)