Birth story - Sian and baby Luna

I knew I wanted to try hypnobirthing with my first pregnancy but our daughter, Rose, was stillborn at 6 months.

Following this we wanted to try & create the most positive birth experience that we could for our second pregnancy as I didn’t want the trauma of my previous birth to cause any fear of labour, so we completed the online course & downloaded the Freya app.

After a few false alarms, I started to feel surges on Sunday 14th April after lunch at the in-laws. They continued into the night but died down in the early hours before stopping completely on the Monday. We took our dog for a walk that evening & sure enough the surges started up again. I bounced on my ball & went to bed. During the night the surges increased & I started to time them using the Freya app. By 9am they were 3 minutes apart & we called the hospital who suggested that I take some paracetamol & have a bath. The bath was very soothing & I spent the majority of the day in there, with my very concerned looking dog watching me. I put my relaxing playlist on, watched some ‘Queer Eye’ & breathed through the surges.

At around 4pm the surges started to slow down so I got up and walked around. By 6pm they were back up to 3 minutes apart so we called the hospital who said that I could come in if I wanted to. We decided to go to the hospital & listened to the positive affirmations in the car on the way.

At 8pm I was examined at the hospital & was excited to hear that I was 5cm & that the birthing pool was available for me.

The midwife suggested that I walk up & down the corridor for a little while to speed things up a bit. After half an hour I came into the room & my husband set about lighting tea lights, fairy lights, putting affirmations on the walls & putting on our playlist.

While I was bouncing on the ball I felt the surges become more intense so I used some gas & air & got into the pool, which felt amazing. I alternated between the ball & the pool for a few hours, & felt very relaxed. There was only ever 3 of us in the room so it felt pretty quiet, which made it easier to do the ‘up breathing.’ All the time my husband was reading out the affirmations & I was focusing on ‘every surge brings me closer to meeting my baby.’ My baby’s heart rate was monitored every 15 mins & I was able to stay in the pool for this. I was offered 3 hourly examinations, which I agreed to using my BRAIN.

At around 1am, I started to feel the urge to push & I remember feeling so excited that I would soon meet my baby. I tried to use the ‘down breathing’ technique however my midwife felt that I was using too much energy. In the end I took away the gas & air as it was too distracting. After 2 hours my midwife said that they would let me push for another hour as baby’s heart rate was fine & she didn’t seem distressed but that I would need to change how I was pushing as she wasn’t coming out, despite me feeling her coming. Then, whilst the midwife was out of the room for a quick toilet break, I looked at my husband & said ‘I’m doing this’ before giving a big push, which resulted in her head popping out & my poor husband having to look with the mirror. By this time another midwife had arrived to help. Two more pushes & Luna shot out into the water! She was handed to me, I announced to my husband that we had a girl & he cut the cord after delayed clamping.

I ended up needing some stitches & had issues with removing the placenta but I wasn’t too bothered by this & my husband got to have some skin to skin with her.

I feel like I had such a positive birth experience which I really needed after losing my first baby & I recommend hypnobirthing to anyone who’ll listen now! 💕