My first child and exactly the birth I wanted! I completed the KG hypnobirthing course with my partner (Sean)who started off cynical about the whole thing at around 26 weeks pregnant. The course taught us both so much, not only breathing techniques but the science behind birthing a baby in the most natural and effective way! By the end of the course my partner was fully on board …. but still everybody around us was very sceptical with the same old comments ‘you have no control over your labour’. How wrong were they!
After completing the course every evening I would settle down and listen to the scripts before bed. I decorated my kitchen cupboards with positive birth affirmations and repeated them everyday so they were ingrained in my mind. If anybody asked about my birth I told them I was going to an independent birthing centre, having a water birth, no pain relief and it was going to be as natural as possible… I thought if I told myself this over and over and painted that picture this is the way it would go!
My surges started the morning 11/11/2019 about 6am … I bounced on my ball whilst watching comedies the majority of the day until my surges were pretty close together… they were painful but the up breathing (I imagined blowing up a hot air balloon then it going up into the sky) really took the edge off them! I even called my mum who said that I couldn’t be in active labour because I was speaking too easily and I wasn’t in enough pain!
I called the birth centre at around 7pm that evening and they asked me to come in, I stopped off at McDonalds for a quick chicken burger (this is how calm I was)…. I arrived at the birth centre and agreed to be examined and I was 6cm dilated! I was overjoyed as to that point I felt in total control! I asked for the lights to be dimmed and my hypnobirthing scripts were played whilst I kept in the zone focussing on my breathing before entering the pool.
I climbed into the pool and continued with the breathing and at that point I felt I was getting very tired, my partner reassured me that I needed not to lose my focus as we wanted this to progress and the energy I was wasting worrying needed to go to the right muscles and this again helped me re focus as I didn’t want to prolong the labour!
I remembered part of the course I was told…. just when you feel you can’t do it anymore is the point when the baby is about to come! Sean (my partner) reassured me of this …. she will be here soon. My waters broke in the water… at around 11pm and with downward breathing (no pushing) my baby girl Hayden Blake arrived safely and peacefully at 11.41pm.
It was the most empowering feeling in the world, I am proud to be a woman as I got to experience something so mentally and physically challenging but something I maintained complete control over and I can now carry this in all aspects of my life! I held my daughter in my arms until I had naturally birthed the placenta… I had no stitches and returned home with her at 4.30 am! How incredible! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge… You just cannot put a price on it! -Becky