There is no doubt that our hypnobirthing course was a huge contributor to such a positive empowering first birth

Ruby’s Birth Story

Geelong
Lenny 3665g
40+6
Homebirth in Water

There is no doubt that our hypnobirthing course was a huge contributor to such a positive empowering first birth for both myself and my husband. As a midwife myself I felt the need to learn techniques to help me switch that part of my brain off during my own labour and birth. After completing the course at 31 weeks with Felicity from @mybirthgeelong I listened to the affirmations for beautiful birthing each night as I completed my pregnancy stretches and visualized myself in labour. I also listened to the self hypnosis tracks daily from 36 weeks usually whilst enjoying a warm bath and used that time to connect with my body and baby. When my labour started spontaneously at 40+5 I felt calm and excited to meet my baby. We took our dog for a walk in early labour at around 6:30pm and by the time that was over I was very keen to put the TENS machine on.

We got home and made dinner and finished that around 7:30pm. After that we began to set up the birth space, my contractions were roughly every 5 minutes apart now and I was having to stop and breathe through them. I had the affirmations playing on a speaker pretty much my entire labour which kept me grounded and focused on my baby. As things intensified I went to get in the shower and my waters broke at 8:45pm from there I utilised the surge breathing and visualised my baby moving down and my cervix opening. My contractions were roughly 2 minutes apart since my waters breaking. I got out of the shower at about 9:15pm and put the TENS machine on, I was moving between all 4’s and leaning over the birth pool. At about 10pm I felt as though things were really intensifying so I messaged our midwives.

They arrived at roughly 10:30pm. They suggested I get in the pool but I was afraid it was too early. They knew things were happening so sent me to the shower while they sorted out the pool. I got in the pool around 11:15pm and it was immediate relief and after being in the pool for a short time I began to intermittently feel the urge to push and not long after my body began to push with each surge roughly around 11:45pm, There was nothing I could do to avoid this my body was just doing it. After an hour of pushing on all fours in the pool squeezing a comb our gorgeous boy was born through the water and straight into my arms at 1:07am. We moved to the couch and stayed skin to skin for a couple of hours soaking in the bliss of a beautiful birth I couldn’t of asked for a more positive experience and the tools and techniques we learned in the classes along with the TENS machine certainly contributed to that!