Jun 8, 2020

"My birth story isn't the typical kind, but I wanted to share it"

Hey Shari,

My birth story isn't the typical kind, but I wanted to share it with you because your classes really helped my partner and I when it didn't go quite to plan!

My waters broke on Thursday night. We had everything packed and ready as I was due that day. My partner, mother and I went to the hospital to ensure I was in labour and everything was travelling as it should. We came home hours later and I spent some time sleeping, snacking and watching tv.

Eventually, my surges became stronger but were inconsistent in timing. I was also having some back pain. My partner and I walked around our backyard in the hopes of speeding things along. Eventually, it sunk in that the pain in my back was actually back labour, and I was consistently having surges around 2 minutes apart so we raced to the hospital. Once there, the staff were incredibly kind. We had our playlist on, the lights were dimmed and the midwives knew exactly what my preferences were.

We did some rebozo to spin baby, which would be a huge relief before he would flip round again! As the hours went on I began to involuntarily push so I was examined and informed that my cervix had swollen. I tried every intervention I could to assist this, but after 26 hours of labour, I decided that the best option was an epidural. This made my swelling completely disappear and I was ready to push, however, I spent 2 hours doing so to no avail. Eventually, the intervention was decided on and a vacuum, forceps and an episiotomy were used. I gave birth to our absolutely perfect, healthy baby boy 31.5 hours after my waters broke.

I know this is nowhere near a typical positive birth story however with all the hypnobirthing techniques we used I was able to do something I genuinely never thought I could do. My partner was so amazing the doctors called him a 'textbook' birth partner. He praised me the entire time and gave me confidence in my ability- using all the language he had learned was so important during your classes. After birth I was taken straight to the theatre so it was my husband who had skin to skin with our bub, something he knew was crucial and really treasured.