Birth story - Viki and baby Timothy

I have been holding off on posting my birth story here as nothing went to plan for me during the birth, however I have found myself compelled to post about my experience with the Positive Birth Company as the techniques and information on the digital course really, really helped me cope with and manage the experience.

I found the digital course online when I was 37 weeks along with my first baby. I was planning a homebirth and had just been denied a pethidine prescription as Midwives in my area no longer carry this as pain relief. I had heard of hypnobirthing before and felt that I needed some extra tools to help me through a labour where the only other pain relief I could have would be ethanox. I crammed through the course and felt lifted and empowered by the information delivered by Siobhan. I practised my up breathing and down breathing and made myself some positive affirmation cards to put around the house.

Sadly, as I said, the birth didn’t go to plan. I was booked in for an induction on the Tuesday at 41+2 due to reduced movements however I went into spontaneous labour that evening. We called the community Midwives and were told they were attending another birth and to head in to the hospital as my surges were strong and often. When we arrived my labour stalled and we returned home. They ramped up again at 6am Wednesday and we re-attended the hospital. Sadly my labour stalled again once we arrived in the hospital and they admitted me to the ward as my waters had broken over 24 hours since. I spent 2 days on the ward with my surges coming and going, my cervix at 4cm and my hind waters continuing to leak. I was taken back to the delivery suite Friday evening to have my forewaters broken, which sadly contained heavy meconium and did not progress my labour. At this point we moved on to the hormone drip with an epidural however the drip was stopped after 20 minutes as the baby was in distress and we were then wheeled straight to theatre for a C-section as they wanted him out quickly due to the circumstances.

Despite the difference between the birth I had hoped for and the birth I had I always felt that I had the tools from the online course to always be able to make the right decision for myself and my baby. It gave me the confidence to challenge the midwife who wanted me to stay laying on the bed when I wanted to be sitting on my ball. It gave me the ability to calmly consider, and accept, an epidural, something I would never have thought possible as I have a severe needle phobia. The up breathing got me through 3 days of latent labour and then 10 days of recovery when I had to have anti-clotting injections. The information contained in the course made every aspect of my labour less scary. It made me feel 100% sure that I could do it, whatever was thrown at me. I will be recommending this course to everyone I know who is having a baby and I just want to say a massive thank you to Siobhan for making this course so accessible.