Jun 29, 2020

Hypnobirthing gave my birth partner the confidence to speak up when I couldn't

Hi Shari,

I have been meaning to email you our birth story but as you know newborn life...hectic.

We welcome Rylee on the 3rd of May at 6.31pm. On the Saturday (2nd) I started having mild period like surges at around 5pm which became more regular and more intense at around 10pm i was 100% sure it had started I had a bit of a panic and my anxiety crept in not because of the labour that was ahead but the sheer fear that holy crap we are about to become parents. I put on one of my hypnobirthing tracks took some relaxation breaths and i was good to go in no time.

We were waiting until there were 3 surges in a 10 minute period before heading to the hospital as they had said. During this time I used the tracks, had warm showers then we decided to use some of the techniques taught to us in class which Joel did and honestly during those early stages it took away 100% of the pain, I had a nice bath whilst listening to a hypno track and really just stayed calm.

By midday Sunday I wanted to head to the hospital being a first time mum I just felt like things were not progressing and I wanted something for the pain at this stage we headed in expecting to be sent home. We arrived 1.30pm I was given a sleeping tablet and some pain killers, I later asked for the next step in pain meds which was morphine but because of Covid and i was 3cm dilated they had said if I had it I would need to leave birth suite and go into the ward and Joel would have to leave. That let us think this through I was definitely not keen on that however about an hour later they said we could stay in birth suite... phew.

I ended up having some morphine at 4pm at this stage I was still only around 3cm dilated we were expecting still hours and hours to go. I had been mentioning an epidural (this was something i didn't particularly want however being my first time and not knowing what I was in for i hadn't ruled it out Joel knew this and the midwives knew this) I feel like they did a great job in sort of putting it off when I asked then I was more insistent on it but by then just 2.5hours after the morphine they checked to see how far I was and yep I was 10 cm and it was time so nope no epidural it was to late. I got into position where Joel was using the positive affirmations for me and she was here 4 surges later at 6.31pm.

Joel and I had discussed that I did not want the syntocinon injection to remove the placenta. They had asked me if i wanted it in the moment I said yeah ok this is where Joel stepped in and reminded me I didn't want it am I sure I want it for which i then decided not to have it and the placenta came out naturally.

Looking back on my whole experience Im so happy with how everything went. We are so so glad we did the course with you. Also just giving Joel that confidence to speak up for me.