Birth story - Mittra and baby Leila-Rose

My birth preference prior to giving birth was a Birth Centre, water birth using hypnobirthing with no drugs, or as little as possible. What actually happened...

Once I hit my due date I mentally knew that my baby would arrive anytime from now. Hypnobirthing and meditation really put me at ease with my anxiety and I was in the mindset that my baby would arrive when she is ready to. I was offered a sweep by my midwife 3 days past my due date and I rejected having one. My waters broke on the same day at 10pm and I went to the birth centre at hospital to get checked out. I was then sent home and told to contact the birth centre when I had 3 surges lasting up to a minute within 10 minutes. As I got home I did start to feel the power of the surges arrive however they were not concurrent so I tried to stay as calm as possible and played my meditation and did my breathing techniques I learnt from hypnobirthing.

I really struggled to get into a comfortable position in bed because my lower back started to go numb and the feeling wasn’t pleasant. I started to walk around my flat, sit on my exercise ball and eventually decided to have a bath. The water in the bath was my pain relief as the surges intensified. It got to about 7am where I had a second bath and my heart didn’t want to even call the birth centre. I was ready to go because I knew that although the surges were not coming close enough, my senses told me that I needed to be checked out. At that point I did hit a brick wall and wanted to get to the hospital as soon as possible and was prepared to be admitted into the labour ward to get as many drugs into me as possible. My mindset of keeping cool deteriorated as the surges progressed and I just wanted relief at that point.

On the journey to the hospital I experienced surges and tried to do my breathing techniques and I found it challenging as the surges developed to a very powerful level. At around 8:30am we got to the Birth Centre and I was checked out by the midwives, whilst experiencing the powerful surges, to be told I was already 10 centimetres and ready to push! There was no time to set up the pool and it didn’t even cross my mind because I could feel the force of my baby trying to enter the world.

To ease the power of the surges I was given gas and air which did really help and by the time my baby was ready to make her appearance the gas and air wasn’t needed as I had to put my full concentration in breathing and pushing. My baby was born at 9.44am and my active labour length was a surprise to everyone.

It goes to show that although my birth preferences did not go exactly how I planned, I managed to birth my baby in a very short amount of time without realising that I did most of the hard work at home and on the car journey.

People often think hypnobirthing is just about breathing and feeling relaxed when really there is so much more to it. There is no magic to it, it’s real, proven and if applied the right way, there are many successful stories from it. I am grateful for my positive birth experience and I thank the Positive Birth Company for feeding me with knowledge. If I didn’t learn what I learnt from the PBC during my second trimester until birthing my baby, I genuinely don’t think that I would have managed such a fast, surprising and positive birth. Mindset is everything.