This week’s birth story comes from a lovely couple Hollie and Robert who attended a TCBS Hypnobirthing Course with Charlotte Inkpin of Hypnobirthing with Charlotte, covering areas across Braintree Essex.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful story with is!
Our first-born son, Theodore, arrived on the 27th September 2020 and it was an entrance to the world I will never forget!
The pregnancy throughout was a really enjoyable experience, and after looking into hypnobirthing with my friend who was also pregnant and due a month after me, we decided to do private classes with Charlotte! The classes were so informative and helped prepare and calm my mind for the real thing!
Towards the end of the pregnancy, I was moved to high risk due to reduced movements and the baby measuring large, which meant they offered me an induction. I used my BRAIN technique and asked for a stretch and sweep in the first instance to try and bring on labour naturally. Nothing happened and after 2 days I requested another stretch and sweep before an induction. Again, nothing happened so 2 days later I went into the hospital ready for my induction. I went in with an open mind, and listened to the MP3’s whilst waiting to be checked. Unfortunately, due to COVID my partner was not able to be there with me and I had to use my techniques I had learnt to remain calm!
Upon observations, they discovered I was 2cm dilated and surging on my own! I remained calm as I was hoping that this would help bring on labour even more quickly, and remembered to practice my breathing techniques! They left me for 12 hours, and much to my disappointment I hadn’t progressed, but I used my hypnobirthing techniques to remind myself that I am in control and this wasn’t me failing at labour! They then induced me and left me for 24 hours and again, much to my disappointment I had only progressed by 1cm. I tried so hard to remain positive but by this time I was very deflated as my surges had also slowed down. I practiced my breathing techniques again as I was starting to feel stressed which helped calm me massively.
They then decided to release my waters to try and move things along which kick started my surges again, and finally after another examination I was 4cm and could finally go to the labour ward and have my partner by my side!
After arriving on the labour ward, things slowed back down and they needed to put me on the oxytocin drip to regulate my surges. By this point, I was so exhausted as I hadn’t slept for 72 hours and the pain was becoming more intense and I wasn’t sure how I was going to carry on. My birth partner reminded me of the hypnobirthing techniques and reminded me that pain relief was still an option! So, after discussion I decided to go for the epidural. This then allowed me to get some much-needed rest whilst the oxytocin drip was working and giving me a much needed energy boost for the rest of the labour!
After my rest, I was checked at 6am the following day to find I was 10cm dilated! I then had to wait another 2 hours before I could start bearing down so me and my partner used the time to remain calm and listen to relaxation music. This helped us so much in keeping the happy hormones flowing! I then was able to start bearing down for an hour, but we then fast approached some complications due to the baby having large shoulders. I was then told I needed to have a forceps delivery and an episiotomy due to the baby’s heart rate increasing. By this point, I knew I needed to do everything to get my baby out safely and quickly agreed to this using the BRAIN techniques. Baby Theodore then arrived at 10.08am weighing a healthy 8 pounds 15 ounces!
We can’t thank Charlotte enough for her support throughout the pregnancy and we would highly recommend hypnobirthing to all expectant mothers but also for the dads as this really helped my partner remain calm in the situations we faced together!
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