We couldn’t wait to share Nicola’s birth story with you all. Grab yourself some tissues as it had us sobbing!
My 2nd beautiful daughter Matilda Poppy came along at 40+5 on 25th November. I wanted to re write my first birth as although I used hypno birthing techniques I went along with what the hospital told me. Apparently I pushed for 2 hours in my first labour but looking back I was only pushing because I was told to. There was nothing wrong with my first baby or myself but I found myself having an episiotomy and forceps with no pain relief offered to me except gas and air which I declined. I then bled and needed to be stitched and re stitched after the birth and still with no pain relief.
So, this time. I listened to the fear release MP3 every single day and then closer to the birth started listening to the birth preparation. I was shocked that I had gone over my due date this time as I was convinced I would be early. On Tuesday 24th November at 1.20pm I saw a midwife and I was offered a sweep. Although I didn’t want any intervention the midwife was amazing and spoke to me about everything. I accepted a sweep and she was able to tell me that the cervix was softening and she measured me at 3cm dilated which was encouraging. I came home and had period type pains all afternoon. By 6pm the feelings were a bit stronger and started to form a pattern every 15 minutes. I started to track them and by 8pm my surges were every 5 minutes and powerful. Just 2 hours after the first surge! In that 2 hours I had bathed my toddler, read to her and popped her to bed. I called the midwife and we made our way to hospital. My surges quietened down to 1 every 15 minutes when I got there and I remembered this could happen due to adrenalin and a strange environment. So I plugged my mp3 in and listened. I was measured at 5cm and I told the midwife I wanted to hypno birth. Although she accepted this she still wanted to monitor the baby’s heartbeat every 15 minutes. I was getting a little frustrated as I was just getting my surges back and she would disturb me for a heartbeat. I eventually explained that I needed a minimum of 30 minutes to listen to my mp3’s. My surges never got closer than every 15 minutes. After 4 hours of bouncing on a ball, walking around, lying on my side listening to the mp3’s I stood up and something pinged! My waters started to trickle. My surges came think and fast and Matilda was born 10 minutes after. My surges went from 1 in 15 to 1 every minute!
I only used my clary sage oil to sniff in between surges and for those very intense surges I just visualised my baby getting closer. I also repeated in my mind that my surges can only be as strong as me. I smiled my way through them. I did however loose it right at the end and declared I couldn’t continue! It was too late. 3 minutes later Matilda was born at 1.48am 25th November. Life was amazing! I had done it in 5 hours! I had re written my birth story. Matilda was healthy and snuggled into me…..
Until …. I began to bleed! I was very calm and so in love with Matilda it didn’t matter that the room filled with doctors. Lots of examinations and fingers poking where I rather they wouldn’t, found I had a 3rd (b) degree tear as the umbilical cord had come out before Matilda and she shot out too quickly! I was wheeled to theatre, leaving Alan and Matilda for 2 hours, epidural and stitched up. None of this affected me. I breathed through everything I felt anxious about and was so happy when I was reunited with them in recovery! It was now 5am and was wheeled on to the ward. Matilda was still naked, I had no top on and just covered in a blanket and parallelised from the waist down. We spent a beautiful 4 hours together skin to skin and bonding. I knew this birth was so calm and it was just unfortunate that I ended up in theatre. It took me 2.5 years to come to terms with my first birth and felt very guilty about April being pulled out but I believe the skills I have learnt from the CBS enabled me to deal with the aftermath of this one instantly. My toddler April met Matilda 8 hours after she had been born and my heart swells knowing our family is now complete!
These two truly are miracle babies as we have had a 7 year journey, IVF / PGD (my hubby and I carry cystic fibrosis) at Guys in London and with only a 20% chance of success we have beaten all the odds and now have a complete family!
To see how you can create your own calm birth please sign up here: www.thecalmbirthschool.com/freehypnobirthing-2016
