Our small (2.6kg) but perfectly formed Magnus Campbell was a bit keen and arrived 3 weeks early in the end on the 21st January (despite my discussions with the bump to stay put until at least 40weeks! ” needing the extra time for house renovations!)

As it was I woke up at 6am on the Saturday morning expecting to get ready to and head off to do some work but instead thought Jock had spilt a glass of water over me, when I stood up I very quickly realised my waters had broken, although with no other action happening at that point, so we called our midwife and headed into RBWH to check that all was well.

Thanks to our Hypnobirthing sessions and Melissa’s “knowledge is power” mantra, we were totally prepared when the obstetric review team started discussing that we could ‘negotiate’ staying in hospital and having an induction. Having checked that bub was fine we dug our heals in and told them we were going home to see if we could kick labour off naturally within the next 72hrs, they said we had to go in for check ups everyday but that was fine.

After a big brekky, lots of walking, squatting, a curry a glass of wine and some clary sage dabbed under my earlobes I started to get ‘period pain’ at 10pm on the Sunday & not knowing whether it was labour or not I had a snooze for an hour. When I woke up at 11:00pm the ‘period pain’ was still there so I decided to put my TENS machine on and Jock started taking note of how far apart the surges where, they started at 25minutes apart and within an hour and a half were down to 3minutes and I was struggling to find any position other than sitting on the toilet (!) that was comfortable.

We called the midwife again and said we were thinking of coming in but given it was our first baby she said its likely to be several hours yet and I sounded to be coping so we should stay at home as long as possible. I wasn’t convinced I was coping but I think the vote of confidence made me decide to stay at home a bit longer, despite Jock’s face suggesting he would prefer otherwise. I managed another 45minutes, pretty much exclusively sat on the loo using the TENS machine and the breathing techniques through surges, at which point all I could think about was getting into the birthing pool and how I was going to manage to get off the loo for long enough to get in the car and go to the hospital. I waited out a few more surges now 2mins apart while Jock got the bags and car ready and bundled everything including my parents into the car and I made a ‘run’ for it, stopping to ‘go floppy’ on the roof of the car before we headed off.

When we got into the birth centre and into our lovely room, unsurprisingly I headed straight for the loo again and no amount of alternative offers or comforting positions would prize me off! As my waters had broken the day before they needed to get a cannula on me to get some antibiotics into the baby in case of any infection, I think this ended up being the hardest part of the whole labour as it took 2 nurses and a doctor 4 attempts to get the needle in at which point I was having a bit of a quiet chat with myself about whether I was going to be able to do this, and then having another quiet chat with myself about whether this might be transition, given I really felt like going home!

To my great joy one of the midwives then came and told me I was fully dilated and baby wasn’t far away (I was terrified, when we got in there they were going to tell me I was only 2 cm dilated and I should go home!) with all the formalities taken care of I was then allowed to take the TENS machine off and get into the birthing pool. I cannot say enough about how amazing the water was, once in there my body completely relaxed, I was comfortable and was able to focus better and I started running through the affirmations and visualisations while Jock did some soft touch massage on my back. After 15minutes and 4 surges our little boy’s head was out, eyes wide open and looking all around him (which was very funny and a bit bizarre from my angle!) one further push and he was in the water and scooped up by Jock and laid on my chest in the water at 4:40am. The midwives where then on hand with enormous hot towels to wrap us both up in while we waited for the placenta and Jock cut the cord, such a sense of comfort, the birth centre midwives were also superb!

I was completely surprised by everything happening so quickly, but it was such an amazing experience for all of us and as many of you have said, I’m convinced that our little boy is as chilled, content and alert as he is because of the birth he had and how calm we felt we were able to be given the preparation from Hypnobirthing that we had. Unfortunately we couldn’t avoid a hospital stay completely because the antibiotics didn’t have long enough to take effect before I had him so we were admitted for observation for two days. I do agree with you all though, I would and have recommended Hypnobirthing to anyone, it made for a very positive, confident pregnancy and a beautiful birth experience.

Thank you Melissa and we wish all of you much love and happily ever afters with your new families!

Alex, Jock and Magnus