Here is the beautiful birth story from one of our Calm Birth School instructors, Yvonne Hopkinson, and first time parents Elina and her husband, about the birth of their gorgeous daughter Leila:
“I had the pleasure of meeting Elina early on in her pregnancy when she came along to my free hypnobirthing taster session at The Isbourne Holistic Centre in Cheltenham. Elina decided to book onto my pregnancy relaxation classes and onto one of my group hypnobirthing courses to help prepare for the birth of her baby. I also had the complete pleasure of being one of the facilitators for her NCT Antenatal class that she attended with her husband too. Elina regularly practiced her The Calm Birth School breathing and listened to her hypnobirthing tracks that she received as part of her course with me. I feel so honored to have been able to share some of Elina’s journey through pregnancy with her and will miss her is my classes! I am honored to be able to share her birth story with you. Thanks for sharing Elina……
‘My birth story….
It’s been 11 days since the birth of our baby daughter – Leila. It all still seems a bit unreal. I can’t quite yet believe that we have created this amazing and beautiful tiny human being!
Last Thursday (17.03.2017) (week 38 day 6) I decided to treat myself to a reflexology therapy and went to see Nicola (at the Camomile rooms, Cheltenham) for an hour long morning treatment. I remember feeling really, really good and relaxed after the treatment. The funny side of this is that Nicola told me that my feet really didn’t feel like I would go into labour soon and said I might still have a couple of weeks to carry her.
So after this, I was VERY relaxed thinking that I still might have a couple weeks of my “maternity holiday” left, started planning all the things I might still do, I went home and had a nap. I carried on with my day, made nice dinner and had a really relaxed evening with my husband and my cousin.
At about 9.30 in the evening, I felt mild “pressure” in my lower abdomen, so I decided to do some yoga exercises and stretch out. But the “pressure” seemed to become stronger and come and go, with intervals that were getting shorter and shorter. But being convinced that my labour was a couple of weeks away, I decided to take a bath and then go to bed. However, whilst sleeping, the pressure in my lower abdomen grew stronger and more frequent. At this point, at around midnight, my husband, who was convinced it was labour, called the Cheltenham hospital, who said that these could be the signs of an early labour and suggested I take a bath and some paracetamol. Being unimpressed by the prospect of having a long slow labour if that was the early stage, I took the bath for the second time anyway. After the bath, the abdominal pressure grew stronger and more frequent, every 3-5 min, and my body decided to eject all food as I suddenly had to vomit and empty my bowels. Having seen me like this, pausing every 3min to breathe through the pressure, my husband suggested we went to the hospital immediately.
It was 2 o’clock at night and once we arrived at the Cheltenham hospital, we were shown exactly the same birthing room with a pool that I had imagined I’d give birth in. As the contractions grew stronger, I couldn’t deny I was in labour any more. I had to stop for each contraction on all fours and breathe in and out slowly. As the midwife suggested I got into the birthing pool, my waters broke. I got into the pool, and the contractions had grown to an intensity I had never known before. A couple of contractions later, I had reached the “I can’t do this anymore” point and asked for gas and air. As I was breathing in the gas and air, I felt strong pressure on my rectum and the midwife announced that the head was crowning. But a few seconds later, she asked me to get out of the pool since it turned out that the head was the baby’s bottom and my baby was in a breech position. This turned out to be an undiagnosed breech, but since Leila was coming out, there was nothing they could change about it. I got on a sofa on all fours again, and my body just took over from then. I didn’t want gas and air anymore, I was just loudly breathing through the contractions as that was the only thing I could do. Bottom first, then legs, and the head my baby was born at 4.16am. Leila came out straight with the placenta, so I actually skipped the third stage of the labour. The moment she came out, all pressure and discomfort disappeared. I’m still overwhelmed with happiness and joy.
I definitely could not have asked for a better birth experience with a labour that lasted a bit more than 6hrs in a calm environment and no medical intervention, tearing or stitches. It was intense and there was a point when I thought I could not do it, but breathing slowly and using gas an air helped me.”
If you’re based in Cheltenham and looking for in person classes please check out Yvonne’s website relaxedbirthing.co.uk and if you’re unable to make the classes, remember we have you covered with our video course. Try before you buy with our free classes here
To see how you can create your own calm birth please sign you can sign up to our video course.
