My crazy labour and birth could not have been such a positive experience without hypnobirthing
Bee's Birth Story
Our beautiful daughter was born 6 weeks ago via emergency caesarian, at 41 weeks. At first I was so excited to share my story as it was such a positive experience for us, but as I came back to this page and read of all the wonderful hypnobirth stories I started feeling like a bit of a failure as my birth was anything but "minimal intervention". But today I thought stuff it, my crazy labour and birth could not have been such a positive experience without hypnobirthing and I wanted to show my gratitude for that!
I experienced "Failure to Progress" during labour, I have seen the term "Failure to Wait" thrown around and I think it's unfair to assume this is always the case. This was my first birth and I was going through my local Birth Centre. At 39, this was my only chance to do this with the age cut off being 40 and I was so so excited. Instead, I went through 24 hours of early labour to get to 3cm before having a stretch and sweep. 14 hours later my membrane ruptured spontaneously with meconium in the water. I was transferred to the birth suite and my birth centre birth dream shattered.
I was only at 5cm at this stage. I laboured naturally for another 3 hours and had not progressed, so I decided to accept the syntocin induction. After 3 hours of this and still no pain relief I asked to be examined. I had not progressed past 5cm and the OB said bub's head was engaged sideways. I was then offered an epidural to help relax my cervix, at this point I was exhausted so I accepted. The epidural FAILED! I endured a further couple of hours with the syntocin running at 8 and only a numb left leg. At 6.30pm, approximately 12 hours after we discovered the meconium and 55 hours since going into early labour it was recommended I have a caesarian. We accepted this for the safety of our baby.
I had one last hurdle, a spinal block due to the ineffective epidural, and our gorgeous baby girl Ollie Ocean was born at 1927 at 4.070kg and 53.5cm (They still had to use forceps during the caesar to release her head).
Throughout this whole time the hypnobirthing techniques helped my husband and I stay focused, relaxed and positive. And even though it may seem like I wasn't in control of the situation, I still felt that I was making decisions every step of the way. I am 100% certain that it would not have been such a positive experience had I not done hypnobirthing. Every now and then I ask myself if I could have done more, but I have zero regrets.
So, two things...thankyou for the course and all the support here, and please don't automatically assume that FTP= impatience or laziness, I know I certainly gave everything I had! Thanks x
