HypnoBirthing > Birth Stories
Our HypnoBirthing experience:
The birth of my first baby left me feeling shocked and traumatised. Consequently, followed, a 6 month period of depression.With my second baby I knew I had to do something different, in an attempt to change the way I dealt with labour and enable me to truly enjoy my new baby.I thought, with a degree of skepticism, that I’d like to give HypnoBirthing a shot. When I mentioned it to my husband, I think he thought I had gone mad.
Fortunately, he is a very open minded chap and soon agreed that it was worth a try. Throughout the classes, my fear of child birth dwindled and my confidence in my ability to deliver grew. Such that, we changed our plan from a hospital delivery to a home birth.
Our HypnoBirthing practitioner was such a positive and empowering influence. In stark contrast, during my pregnancy, most of the midwives we saw, we knew, didn’t believe HypnoBirthing would be effective. We used to see a ‘knowing’ look that told us they had a closed mind. Friends and family were outright disparaging. If I’m honest, right up until I birthed, I still had a niggle in the back of my mind ‘what if it doesn’t work?!??’.
My husband did his best to protect me from negativity and we regularly needed to run through ‘fear release’ scripts.I needn’t have worried though, all the preparatory work we had done paid off. I had visualised my baby being born: the position I would be in and how long it would take - 6 hours (a bit of a tall order given that with my first baby I took just short of 27 hours!); nothing required to aid my comfort (pain relief to non-HypnoBirthers); no stitches. When my surges were five minutes apart, I phoned the midwife whilst my husband prepared the bedroom for the birth. I phoned, not because I felt I needed to, but because that’s what I had been told to do - five minutes apart.
When the midwife arrived I was sitting on my birthing ball listening to a HypnoBirthing CD. She examined me and to both our surprise I was 7 cm dilated. On my first baby I was crying out for pain relief at 2 cm. So far, it had been an absolute breeze! We just did what we had been practicing everyday to do. The midwife was surprised at how calm and clearly comfortable I was for 7 cm. My husband and I just got on with the surges whilst the midwife sat on our stairs reading.
My husband was fully involved in the birthing of our baby - using the triggers we had practiced to bring me into a deep state of relaxation. In what seemed liked no time at all (thanks to the time distortion technique) I was 10 cm dilated. I can honestly say that it was perfectly manageable. At no time did I think of a comfort aid (pain relief). We had a superb midwife who fully embraced our birth plan - she did not use the word pain; she did not direct me to push just because I was 10 cm. I did not ‘push’ until I felt ready.
I was less comfortable during the second stage of labour but nevertheless, at no time did I consider any comfort aids. I can’t say I didn’t feel discomfort during surges - but I just felt able to cope. The best way I can describe it is that my mind was really strong.
I do wish I had visualised and practiced J breathing in the actual position I planned to birth in though. I think it was harder to do it than it should have been because I had practiced in a sitting position (learning point for our next baby!).