WOW!!… What an experience!! We welcomed our baby daughter Zara Edwina into the world on 20/03/13.

Firstly, we cannot thank you enough for everything you taught us. I’m glad that I practised the relaxation as often as I did as it did make it easier on the day. Listening to your familiar voice on your CDs helped move into relaxation quickly and easily.

So here is our Hypnobirthing story…
In the early hours of Wednesday morning I was timing my surges at about 10 minutes apart. Not being familiar with the feeling, I guess I questioned the intensity of each surge..’Would they get stronger? How long should we stay at home for?’ They were intense but bearable. So at 5am when I timed them at 5 minutes apart we decided to play it safe and go to the hospital.
When we got to the hospital Simon advised the midwife that we were doing Hypnobirthing, she said she was familiar with it and said ‘I thought you looked very relaxed!!’
After the initial assessment found me to be 3cm dilated, the recommendation from ‘The Powers to Be’ was that I was not ready and that I would be another 4 to 5 hours before needing the birthing suite. The midwife realised the situation we were in, and went out of her way to organise a private room for us to wait in so we could ‘stay in the zone’, which was very nice of her.
Once we were in the room, Simon decided to move the car didn’t he…(The dreaded…’I’m going to move the car’ curse!! ) He was gone for literally 5 minutes and in that short time my waters broke. I went from 3cm to fully dilated in 10 minutes. We were then quickly rushed back down to the birthing suite, 20 minutes after sending us to the room…so much for their 4 to 5 hours!!
By the time we made it to the birthing suite, Simon just managed to hook up the iPod and adjust the lighting.There was no time for candles or aromatherapy!! The midwives in the birthing suite were very good and respected our wishes in regards to our Hypnobirthing plan. There was no offer of pain relief and very minimal monitoring.
Simon was right by my side the whole time helping me with encouraging words and keeping me on track with breathing correctly. The affirmations that I had practised daily were going through my mind. Each time a surge came on I reminded myself to breathe through it. All the skills that we learnt from you were put into practice. I kept saying to myself’ I trust my body to know what it is to do’. An hour and forty minutes later out came a calm and relaxed beautiful little girl.

One of the midwives said ‘that was one of the easiest days work i’ve done for awhile..we didn’t have to do anything. You both did it all..’ They joked and said that Simon could come to work with them everyday.

Before coming to your classes, I did have concerns about giving birth naturally, having heard all
those dreaded stories about childbirth. However after meeting you and doing the Hypnobirthing course that changed my thoughts. You showed me that my body is designed to give birth naturally, we’d do it all again tomorrow and the day after that! We want to thank you so much for making our birthing experience such a pleasurable one.
We love telling everyone about our positive birthing experience.
Thanks again Melissa,

Warmest regards,
Anna & Simon, Brisbane