We loved reading Emma’s delightful birthing story and how what she had learnt from hypnobirthing had empowered her during her birth experience. Thank you for sharing, Emma x
“My birth story starts off with a big thank you to Suzy Ashworth for the amazingly positive and supportive community she has created with Calm Birth School. The Calm Birth School’s accessibility meant hypnobirthing played such an incredible role in my second pregnancy and labour, which in turn gave me the empowering homebirth I so wanted.
My daughter surprised us (I had totally thought she was a boy) by arriving on 8th July at 23:01, weighing 6lbs 13oz.
I was 40 +4 days, (a day later than our first daughter, Orla had arrived) and a friend was kindly taking out Orla that morning to a petting farm for the day. After rushing around Tesco with her beforehand, picking items for a packed lunch for the day, I said goodbye to Orla and her nursery school friend and mother, spoke briefly on the phone to my amazing doula Cherry before heading out again to buy a gift for my fiancé Tom as his birthday was fast approaching. I must’ve known I needed to organise a gift in advance and I think all the walking that morning around a supermarket and the shops paid off, as at 4:30pm just before Orla was dropped back home, my waters broke.
I messaged Tom to say ‘come home’ and phoned the birthing centre explaining my waters had gone and told them I was listed for a home birth. They asked me to monitor my progression and phone again in an hour. I then texted my doula Cherry and let her know.
My surges started 30 minutes later and were immediately around 3 minutes apart, although they only felt like strong period pains. I made Orla her dinner and bathed her, all the while getting as much oxytocin flowing by kissing and cuddling her all the while explaining that the baby was on its way. I got her overnight bag ready and then Tom arrived home. He timed a few of the surges and suggested I phoned the birthing centre again. When I did I explained how close together the surges were and they said they would send out the midwives. Tom quickly made us a delicious pasta dinner (as last time I lost so much energy from not fuelling myself properly) and I ate a huge portion stopping every once and a while for a surge. I was feeling so excited and the surges were so manageable. I said goodbye to Orla as Tom took our daughter to my mums for the night (a ten minute drive away).
When he left I cleaned up from dinner and started lighting candles, setting up my birthing ‘nest’ in the sitting room (a thick, soft inflating matting with sheets on top) and slowly getting into a quieter mind-set.
The midwives arrived in a bit of a noisy manner (and didn’t pay much attention to my ‘Quiet please, hypnobirthing in progress’ poster by the front door) and had their equipment in the way of me walking around within minutes. Susy (the first midwife to arrive) examined me and I was 3-4 cms dilated. I was then told after they had looked through my notes that due to low platelets (135) taken at 24 weeks (which should have been subsequently re-tested and monitored) meant that I may not be suitable for a homebirth. I was shocked but remained totally calm, knowing that this news wouldn’t distract me from progressing well. The second midwife Becky took my bloods and she rushed them to hospital to be checked again.
Tom then arrived back home again at 7:30pm and I asked him to text Cherry to have her to now come.
I then went and had a shower and could feel my surges getting stronger and were now closer together around every two minutes. I could feel my body doing exactly what it needed to and I felt immense strength and confidence understanding and not fearing the process. I stood in the shower and re-read the calm birth School affirmation stuck on the tiled wall I am a day closer to meeting my baby, which had been there for the last two weeks of my pregnancy. It felt incredible knowing that my baby was finally coming. When I got out the shower I dressed in underwear and a short dressing gown, took two Paracetamol and ate half a cookie (I had to stop as a surge came).
Cherry then arrived at 8pm and I told her about my platelets and she didn’t seem at all concerned, and I again felt myself relax. I went upstairs and paced around knowing I was coming into what Cherry calls ‘room 2’. When I went downstairs I quietly set myself up in the sitting room and asked Tom for Cherry to join me and everyone else to leave me alone- my midwife occasionally came in to monitor the baby’s heart beat and then leave again, realising I didn’t want too much interruption.
I was then told that my platelets had come back lower than previously recorded and that I would have to go into hospital. As she told me I knew my body had progressed so well that there was no way I would be making it into hospital. The midwife rang for an ambulance, (but being Friday night it took three phone calls and around an hour of waiting for one to arrive – which I found out later). Throughout each surge I kept saying to myself each surge is bringing you closer to meeting your baby. This mantra helped me so much. It was getting to the point where I felt like I couldn’t handle it all anymore- which was an indicator that my baby was very close. I used my lavender scented eye pillow to breathe in every time a surge came whilst kneeling over my sofa. Between each surge Cherry encouraged me to relax my shoulders but soon they were on top of each other and I was in transition.
By the time an ambulance arrived and my midwife said it was waiting- I was ready to push. It was around 10:30pm and I remember feeling so proud that throughout all the background noise I had reached a point of being able to have my baby exactly my way.
Tom came to sit beside me and hold my hand and I said I love you and started pushing. It took 3 long hard pushes and some breathing and waiting between to allow baby to efface before my daughter literally flew out and into the midwife’s arms. Quickly she was put into a towel and then I looked to see that she was in fact a girl.
Carefully and with difficulty I turned over for stage 3, delivering the placenta. We waited for the umbilical cord to stop pulsing before Tom cut the cord.
The midwife then told me I’d need to go into hospital to be sutured. Tom quickly found our new daughter some clothes and before I knew it, my little arrival and myself were on a journey being taken in an ambulance to hospital. I was sutured which was actually the worst part of all without pain relief and my daughter lying in Toms arms I felt like all my oxytocin had vanished. When it was all finished I showered and we talked names whilst waiting to hear when we could go home. Finally, after some discussion with the doctor and midwife we were discharged and we took little Isobel Polly Halford home. We were finally in our own bed by 3am for some much needed sleep.
The next morning our eldest daughter was brought home by daddy and suddenly she looked so big. She was over the moon to have a little sister though and for the first couple of days called her ‘Lizobel’.
I look back at the entire experience so happy that I listened to myself, used the affirmations and trusted the process. I believe it helped me post-natally to recover better and generally feel like an incredible super-mama. I still have one particular affirmation stuck to my fridge, and think I always will, it makes me feel so proud and I believe will always be a great mantra for my girls – ‘She believed she could, so she did’.”
To see how you can create your own calm birth please sign up here: www.thecalmbirthschool.com/freehypnobirthing-2016
