We’re so happy with our Hypnobirthing experience

Leash’s Birth Story

Darwin
Lucy – 3.33kg
40+6
C-Section

My husband and I started the Hypnobirthing online course early into our Second Trimester. I was very blessed to have him completely involved from the beginning, we watched all the videos together, took notes, and reflected after each one to put our own spin on everything we’d learned. I did the meditations often and practised the affirmations regularly. Initially the most confronting affirmation for me was: “I am calmly prepared to meet whatever path my birthing takes.” I wanted a perfectly calm, natural Hypnobirth very badly, but luckily I rehearsed that one a lot, knowing it was my weakness.

Our labour started out beautifully calm and peaceful. The breathing through surges was amazing and the first 5 or so hours of labour was really beautiful. This was our first birth of a baby, but I had previously experienced labour through a miscarriage and the two experiences could not have been more different. My previous labour was excruciatingly painful and awful, this labour started calm, relaxed, in control and very much a team endeavour.

Then my waters broke in hospital and they had meconium in them. We definitely experienced the ‘cascade of medical intervention’ at this point which was hard, it felt like thing after thing was going wrong and we had myriad complications for a couple of hours. When the time came to make a decision as to how to progress, as Hypnobirthing parents we felt so well informed about our choices. I have had a number of experiences in hospitals where I have felt completely disempowered about my own body, so it was a super healing experience for me to make strong decisions for me, based on my intuition about my body.

I could feel in myself that something wasn’t quite right with some of my surges, I had this deep inner knowing that if we progressed with a cyntocin drip or simply naturally, we were going to wind up exhausted, traumatised and likely in an emergency c-section. We made the choice for an elective c-section at that point which was not initially what the hospital staff were recommending. I must say though, once we did make this choice they were incredibly supportive.

We were able to have a beautiful c-section, on our terms, while things were still relatively calm for us, and bring our baby into the world safely. We can’t say for sure how things would have gone if we went in a different direction, but we did learn her head and neck were on a weird angle and my cervix was quite swollen so things certainly weren’t perfect.

Our beautiful baby girl is now 5 weeks old and thriving. I’m still recovering from my surgery, but we’re so happy with our Hypnobirthing experience. It wasn’t exactly what we wanted, but it was very empowering and my husband and I felt like such a strong, united team throughout it all.

Thank you for a magnificent course and resources.