Birth Stories
I would recommend this approach to anyone and would definitely chose to go down this route again if we were to have any more children
 |
 |
Suzanne’s Story
I’d been chatting at work not really wanting to go to hospital to give birth and my preference to stay in my own familiar surroundings and do things as naturally as possible. One of the girls told me all about her experience of HypnoBirthing and recommended Wendy to me. It was the first time I’d heard of HypnoBirthing so I read Marie’s book and found that so much of it resonated with how I was feeling. Having completed the course with Wendy, my husband and I quickly assessed which of the scripts and visualisations worked best for us and focused on those for our practise.
Luckily my midwife was hugely positive about my plan – whilst she’d had no direct experience of HypnoBirthing she was a strong advocate for home births and was eager to learn more about the concepts of HypnoBirthing.
Having gone past my scan “due date” (the scan due date incidentally was 6 days earlier than my original expected due date) I had been practising reflexology to encourage natural onset of labour in order to avoid induction.
At 4am, 7 days after my scan due date I was woken up by a “twinge” but then fell back to sleep. At around 6.30am the same thing happened again. I decided that if my baby was on its way I ought to have some breakfast so I went and made some crumpets before nudging my husband, Paul, at 7am to tell him that I thought something may be happening. No sooner had I told him this than my surges started coming regularly every 5 minutes.
As it was a Sunday, I was really lucky that my own midwife was on call that day so Paul gave her a ring at 9am to let her know what was happening. By the time she arrived my surges were lasting between 45 and 60 seconds and I had been using my slow breathing to augment them as much as possible. My midwife was really impressed with how I was managing the surges and asked if I wanted her to examine me to see how I was progressing. I was happy for her to do this and she confirmed that I was 3-4cm at that point and therefore in “established labour”. She asked me if I felt OK to cope without her for a while whilst she made some more house calls and I was fine with that as I was feeling very calm.
I listened to my CD’s but didn’t actually feel the need for any of the visualisations with Paul. By the time the Midwife returned at around 2pm Paul had started to prepare the birthing pool and by 4pm I was only getting a few seconds between really intense surges and felt a real need to be on my own in a darkened room so I shut myself in the downstairs toilet. I was getting an overwhelming need to help push the baby downwards. It was really obvious that I needed to change my breathing at this stage. Luckily my midwife suspected how I was feeling and she did a quick examination (with my consent) which confirmed that I was fully dilated.
I took some time out of the pool to eat some wine gums and an ice lolly, then got back in and started to help my baby join us in the outside world. The birthing pool was fantastic, both in supporting the weight of the baby but also in allowing me to get into lots of different positions to help ease baby down. The midwives were checking the baby’s heart beat every few minutes to make sure he was OK and they were really impressed that he maintained a strong, happy heart rate of around 150 bpm throughout his birthing. I had my relaxation CD playing throughout.
Dylan was born at 6.50pm without any drugs, medical intervention or stitches. The midwives popped him straight on my chest where we cuddled for a few minutes before Paul cut the cord. We then got wrapped up in fluffy towels and dressing gowns and just snuggled together as a new family whilst the midwives made a very welcome cup of tea with chocolate hobnobs!
After a lovely shower in my own bathroom (very strange to wash tummy for the first time with the baby downstairs rather than inside you) the midwives did a final check and left us to it. It was amazing to end the day with all 3 of us snuggled up in our own bed eating a pizza.
Whilst I didn’t use all the HypnoBirthing techniques on the day, I do believe that our regular practise beforehand helped ensure that I had a very happy and healthy pregnancy and that I, Paul and Dylan remained calm throughout the birth experience. I still use the relaxation music CD to soothe Dylan if he is having trouble sleeping.
I would recommend this approach to anyone and would definitely chose to go down this route again if we were to have any more children.
Suzanne, Paul & Dylan Wilde - Sheffield
