Birth Stories
“I felt so relaxed between surges I could have fallen asleep and the midwife commented that I didn’t look like I was in labour!”
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Lisa's
We decided to try HypnoBirthing after reading an article about it in our local paper. In the first session we were asked to write down words we associated with giving birth. I was quite shocked at how negative the words that I came up with were and was glad I’d decided to do the course!
Each session was very enjoyable with a calm atmosphere and Wendy made everyone feel relaxed. I always left each session with a nice warm and fuzzy feeling after doing various relaxation exercises and hearing about how amazing my body was in being able to grow a baby and give birth to it! This was a wonderful contrast to many other courses or books on pregnancy that only seemed to focus on the risks and problems that can occur during pregnancy or labour. HypnoBirthing made me feel very positive and excited about being pregnant, rather than stressed.
The relaxation techniques that we learnt were a lovely thing for me and my husband, Jules, to do together at home, giving him a sense or purpose during my pregnancy.
With my new found confidence I planned to have a home birth. However this was not to be as my waters broke when I was just 36 weeks pregnant and since this is classed as premature I had to go into hospital. My waters had broken at 5am and I was asked to remain in hospital for the day to be monitored. As the day went by I was experiencing some period-like cramps that became quite regular. I did the HypnoBirthing breathing throughout them and listened to my relaxation CD. I mentioned the feelings to the midwife, but she wasn’t very interested (I think because I wasn’t in any real pain) and since they didn’t show up on the trace on the monitoring machine I wasn’t sure whether they were real surges or not.
Around midnight the surges became very strong and I had to get off the bed and make some noise to cope with them! The midwife came and said she would get a doctor to examine me to check whether this was labour starting. Starting!!?? I was quite worried then because I thought that if that was just the beginning of labour then I would struggle to cope without drugs. The doctor came and looked and announced I was fully dilated and the baby was on its way out! I then knew that I could do this and it wouldn’t be long before I finally got to meet my baby. I was then rushed with great haste to the delivery suite.
It was almost another two hours of hard work then before my lovely baby girl was born. I had some gas and air which helped, but was taken away from me since I was not pushing hard enough! Jules was brilliant and between each surge he was whispering into my ear some of the birthing affirmations and using the relaxation techniques. I felt so relaxed between surges I could have fallen asleep and the midwife commented that I didn’t look like I was in labour! Our lovely Chloe came into the world at 2am. I was so proud that I had been able to give birth naturally despite the fact that she had come early and surprised us all.
Lisa, Julian and Chloe Fletcher - Derby
