Birth story - Mollie and baby boy

I had heard about hypnobirthing from a friend who had a baby a few months ago and had highly recommended it, but couldn't bring myself to pay the prices for local classes, so decided against it. That was until I came across the positive birth company at 34 weeks and decided to purchase the digital pack!

I had always been terrified of giving birth, however the science behind hypnobirthing just made sense to me and completely changed my mind set about labour and delivery.

I had a completely normal and healthy pregnancy until 39 weeks, when my blood pressure spiked and I was sent into triage at my local hospital for monitoring and bloods. It was here that they found my liver functions had also dropped and therefore looked liked the beginnings of pre-eclampsia. They told me that they were going to have to induce me. I had an early wobble, as this meant that my dream, natural, water birth was likely out of the cards and I would most likely need the oxytocin drip which I knew would make labour so much more intense (although this wasn't the case in the end).

Using BRAIN I accepted the induction as I knew this was best for the health of both me and my baby. On 24th September my waters were broken at 1pm and I was given an hour to see if contractions would start on their own. I bounced on the birthing ball hoping things would start happening, but unfortunately nothing. This was when the drip came in, at about 4pm they started the syntocinon and i waited for the contractions to start. At this point I was lay on the bed which I really didn't want as I wanted to be upright in order to help the baby move down.

Between 4-7pm I felt slight pressure in my back and bum which at this point were easy to tolerate but I felt like I needed to sit up. It was difficult but after adjusting all the monitors (which I needed to be on because of the drip) I was able to get back on the birthing ball where I was so much more comfortable. It was here that the surges started to get more intense but nothing that I couldn't handle without my up breathing. I up breathed through the surges between 7-10:30pm at which point I requested the midwife to check how far along I was, as I was feeling EXTREME pressure down below and wasn't sure if I could handle it for much longer. To my and the midwifes surprise I was 9cm! I couldn't believe I had gotten that far with no pain relief, as I was convinced I would need an epidural with the oxytocin drip!

Within half an hour I felt a shift and my body started bearing down and pushing. Baby got a little bit stuck coming out as he was in an awkward position, but after an hour and a half of pushing my beautiful baby boy was born naturally, with no pain relief, weighing 7lb 8oz.

Although it was nothing like what I envisaged for my birth, I came out of my labour feeling so happy and grateful to Siobhan and the Positive birth company for their amazing techniques and for helping me create such a positive birthing experience!