Birth story - Amy and baby boy

All my life the thought of giving birth terrified me, I think this was a mixture of how the media portrays it and the negative stories you hear from people. From the day I announced I was pregnant everybody seemed to want to tell me their horror stories and I was determined that I wasn’t going to have a story like that, so when I heard about hypnobirthing I was keen to give it a go. A friend recommended the book to me and thanks to the positive birth company I had the most amazing experience.

On 2nd January at 37+4 weeks I woke at midnight to my waters breaking, it was only slight and I was unsure what had happened at this point, I went back to sleep for 20 minutes for the same thing to happen again, I took myself to the bathroom and felt a huge gush and I knew my baby was coming. I rang the midwife and she told me to go back to bed for an hour and see how I went (no chance this was happening!) so I got up and got comfy on the sofa and started listening to the positive affirmations using the Freya app, I drifted in and out of sleep.

I started to feel surges at irregular intervals and at 5am decided to have a bath which is my ultimate relaxation, this really helped. By 7am my surges became more regular so it was time to wake my husband up and again ring the maternity unit. At 10am I went in and agreed to be examined, to our disappointment I was only 1cm so was sent home and asked to come back at 8pm.

At home I couldn’t get comfy and decided to get back in the bath and focus on my breathing. I then started to use the tens machine but by 3pm the surges were becoming stronger and making me sick so I felt I needed some stronger pain relief so back to the maternity home it was. I had another examination and was now 3cm, I agreed to stay there and I opted for pethidine with an anti sickness tablet which took my sickness away. This helped me to doze off and my husband said I was snoring in between the surges! By 6pm I was 6cm and focusing more on the breathing techniques I had learnt, but felt I needed a little help so opted for gas and air. I remained focused and felt completely in the zone. I hadn’t managed to do my birth plan with my midwife as this was due to be done at my next appointment, but I had used the template in the back of the book and created my own. I wanted to use the pool and felt that the midwives weren’t so keen on this, but I insisted this was what I wanted.

At around 9pm I felt my body change and start to push, I was again examined at 9.30pm and was now 9.5cm, it was time to fill the pool. By 10pm I was in the pool, such a calming atmosphere with dimmed lights which completely relaxed me. I felt my baby’s head and knew that he was very close to arriving. The next push his head was out, and I remained calm and again focused on my breathing, with the next surge my body pushed his body out and the midwife was behind me saying you’re breathing him out this is amazing. And with that after only 50 minutes in the pool my baby boy was in my arms and I’d had the most empowering and beautiful experience of my life.

We got out of the pool after 5 minutes and could enjoy some beautiful skin to skin time. I can’t thank the positive birth company enough as I honestly believe without reading this book I would have had a completely different experience. My husband was amazing throughout and kept me calm and hydrated and gave me the encouragement I needed. I strongly recommend the positive birth company and will be forever grateful for helping to make this experience an amazing one for me.