Birth story - Lauren and baby Emilie

I heard about hypnobirthing early on in my pregnancy while I was doing lots of research about labour and birth. I brought the online hypnobirthing course at 30 weeks and I really enjoyed learning all about the science of labour. It put my mind at ease that the body will do what it’s meant to do to birth my baby. I found the guided relaxations and positive affirmations very useful and listened to them a lot before I went to sleep as I got further on in my pregnancy. I had Braxton hicks from about 37 weeks and I spent a lot of time bouncing away on my birthing ball. I accepted a sweep at 40 weeks + 1 day and was told I was very favourable and already 2cm dilated. I had some pains that evening and we thought it could be the start but they fizzled out after a couple of hours.

On 18/03/19 at 12:45 my waters started to trickle. I knew it could be the start of labour so I sat on my birthing ball and continued to have more trickles of water. I called the hospital to let them know at 13:00 The hospital told me to monitor it for an hour and a half and then call back. I called my mum and my fiancé (birthing partners) to let them know. Over the hour and a half I continued to have trickles and a lot of gushes of water. I called the hospital back just after 14:30 and they asked me to go in to be checked. I got to the hospital and they confirmed my waters had broken- probably hind waters because there was still some membrane around her head. At this point I was a good 3cm dilated (probably more they said). The midwife then asked if she could perform another sweep to try and induce labour naturally and I accepted this as I wanted to avoid being induced as much as possible. If I didn’t go into labour naturally I was booked in for induction the next morning about 11. On the way home I had a few pains which felt noticeably different to my Braxton hicks. I started timing contractions at 16:29. My mum and fiancé were with me in my bedroom while I bounced on my birthing ball listening to the guided relaxations from the online hypnobirthing course. After a while I took some paracetamol and put my TENS machine on which helped. I called up the hospital at 19:32 and 19:53 when my contractions had been 3 in 10 for a good hour or more. The midwife tried to discourage me from going in but I knew it was time to get checked as the pain was getting a lot more intense at this point. When we got to the hospital we went up to the postnatal ward to be examined and see how far along I was. When I was checked I was a good 6cm already and the contractions were getting more intense. I asked for gas and air but had to wait until we got down to the labour ward.

When we finally started to go down to the labour ward (it was very busy so took a little while) I had a few contractions on the way and as soon as we got into the room I asked for gas and air and they got me a birthing ball. I sat there with my fiancé until the pool was ready then I got into the pool and my fiancé joined me. I carried on using the gas and air and my body started pushing around 21:30. I stayed on my back in the pool with my fiancé there next to me and baby kept coming down with each push but then bobbed back up. In my head I knew I needed gravity (UFO) to help get baby out but I just didn’t want to move. In the end I went onto my knees holding on to the edge of the pool. I had maybe another 4 contractions and a good few pushes and I felt her head with my hand and then baby Emilie was born. My fiancé caught her and put her onto my chest where we had cuddles and he cut the cord. Then he had skin to with Emilie while I got out of the pool and had the injection to deliver the placenta. I had a second degree tear and an external graze which I had stitches for. To start off with in the hospital I started listening to a labour playlist I had made on my phone but this didn’t help me so I started to listen to the guided relaxations again on the Freya app and this helped to keep me calm. I didn't want anyone to turn them off even after I had given birth and was having stitches! The labour was just under 7 hours long from timing my contractions at 16:29 to her being born at 23:27.

I cannot imagine going through labour and birth without hypnobirthing. Thanks to the positive birth company I managed to stay calm throughout labour and get my dream birth. Thank you!