Birth story - Jennifer and baby Hebe

I absolutely have to share my birth story after having such a positive experience, I can’t recommend hypnobirthing enough and I know how comforting & encouraging reading positive birth stories such as this was to me in the last few weeks before birth. 

As childbirth is often used as a yardstick by which to measure pain I just assumed that that was the way it had to be and therefore, knowing I had no choice, decided to bury my anxieties as much as I could, suppress the fear and try not to think about it too much until the day. This of course became an impossible task the further into my pregnancy I got!  Then I came across hypnobirthing and my view of birth completely changed, I realised I did have a choice.

I first came across hypnobirthing on a podcast and the relief I felt when I heard about this mind body connection, it made so much sense to me - I suffer from IBS and have been using mindfulness and meditation techniques to improve the condition and it has worked a charm. Clearly this was was now the way I wanted to approach childbirth. My research led me to the positive birth company via Siobhan’s youtube channel and I began to feel my fear slowly disappearing which was so liberating.

My due date came and went but I constantly reminded myself that the baby would come when baby was ready - it was difficult to stay patient but only because I felt so prepared and ready to do this thing! Next time, I think I will tell people that my due date is 2 weeks after the date the midwives gave me - people asking if I’d “had the baby yet” was adding to my impatience! 

Then it happened! I woke up at 2am on 40+6 weeks having a contraction, I decided to try to go back to sleep but woke up again at 2.30am having another contraction. I went into the bathroom and rather conveniently my waters broke into the loo, not a gushing waterfall as in films but a trickle that I was sure was more than a wee! I went into the bedroom and woke my partner, Kallum, up scrabbling around looking for a maternity pad, I told him what had happened but said that he should go back to sleep as we could be in for the long haul here. I went downstairs and sat on my birthing ball, put my headphones in and listened to the relaxations on the Freya app happily breathing through my surges (I borrowed my dad’s iphone just to get the app and it was so worth it.). Then at about 4am, thanks to Freya, I knew it was time to wake Kallum to call the midwife, I was now having 3 contractions every 10 minutes and their intensity had increased although they were still totally manageable with my up breathing.

Waking Kallum up was an unfortunate distraction in my breathing and that break in my concentration made me throw up but somehow I knew that was the reason so I immediately took myself back into the bathroom to be alone, knowing Kallum could handle his side of the deal! I found myself a comfortable upright position straddling the toilet and resting my head on the cistern and went back into my zone. 

I was having a home birth (something else I would never have had the confidence to do without this course, I can’t tell you how many people were telling me I was “brave” for doing this in the lead up) so the midwife arrived to examine me and yes, I was on my way at 4cm. I threw up again after this interruption and Kallum took the midwife downstairs where they waited together - Kallum explained to Grace (my midwife) that I wanted to be left alone labouring & that I was practicing hypnobirthing, she was incredibly respectful of this and although she came upstairs to check the baby’s heart rate every 20 minutes she did it in a way that lacked intrusion, she was an incredibly reassuring presence in fact, remarking that the baby was “perfectly happy” and to “keep doing what you're doing”.  The time flew by in the bathroom on my own, I was sat on the edge of the bath with my birth ball in the bath, leaning on top of it! I'm not quite sure how I’d come up with this position but I was upright and comfortable. 

Next thing I knew Kallum had come up to tell me that the pool was ready when I was, at 9.30am I decided I was. I came downstairs and climbed into the pool and the relief of the weightlessness was a real treat. Within half an hour of being in the pool I knew it was time to push. I switched to down breathing and Grace called the second midwife as she recognised that things had changed. I pushed for an hour and still no baby, the second midwife told me that I was going to have to get out of the pool to be examined, she feared I’d started pushing before I was fully dilated. I immediately said no, I was not getting out of the pool - fairly aggressively I might add… oops! I felt the baby coming through my birth canal and I did not want this break in my concentration but I felt if I expressed this, the baby would move back up! Kallum took over beautifully on my behalf here using BRAIN I could hear him asking what the benefits of me getting out the pool would be and what the risks associated with me not getting out the pool would be - sensible questions which would allow for an informed decision to be made by us. 

However, my instinct was right, moments later the baby’s head came out, and then the shoulders and then, I barely remember doing it, but I pulled baby from between my legs and out into the world. A beautiful baby girl!  Her cord was wrapped around her neck so I couldn't lift her high and she was bright purple, not breathing - the midwives cut her cord immediately so they could take her over to the resuscitation station (my dining room table!) and although that was not what me & Kallum had planned, we were happy with their actions - Kallum was slightly worried about her and I was so blissed out/exhausted that I just watched them do it quite content. 

Hebe Grace was born at 11.27am, 5th September 2019 at 8lb 4oz. Her heart rate had stayed consistent throughout her journey through my body and I believe my ability to stay relaxed and calm contributed to her smooth arrival. The midwives wrote in my official report that it was a “lovely home birth” (my health visitor remarked that they don’t usually use adjectives like that) and that I was only in established labour for 3.5 hours. Hebe is a content, smiley baby who has slept through the night since she was 6 weeks old and I can’t help thinking that her calm arrival into this world has contributed to this.

I can’t thank the Positive Birth Company enough and have been recommending it to everybody - I am going to sign up to a hypnobirthing teaching course in the new year as I feel so passionately about hypnobirthing and want to spread this empowering feeling to my fellow mothers. 

The post partum pack was a great comfort to me too, particularly in the first month when I was struggling with breastfeeding and dizzy from recovery - just to be reassured that this is all totally normal was invaluable.