This week’s birth story comes from a lovely couple, who attended a TCBS with Sarah Sayer from Sarah Sayer Birth Geek in Bournemouth. Thank you for sharing this wonderful story with us.
“My latent labour stage started on a Monday with period like back ache. These carried on until Thursday when I began to get contractions in the night. Trying to stay calm and relaxed knowing this could go on a while I stayed up with my husband and watched Mr. Bean and Fawlty Towers. The contractions became regular but stopped in the early hours. We went back to bed and slept as much as we could. The contractions were coming and going for two more days, which mentally was a huge challenge for me as each night I prepared myself for giving birth, only to find it wasn’t going to happen again. We had an appointment with the midwife who discovered baby was back to back and were told this often means long latent labour as baby tries to get into the correct position.
Finally, on the Sunday morning strong, regular contractions stayed and became every 3 minutes from 1 pm. We spent half the day watching funny videos and relaxing, and with each surge I got onto all fours and put all my focus into breathing and visualisations. My favourite part of the labour was late afternoon when I felt so high, my head filled with a glorious fuzzy, tingly feeling and getting lost in each surge. I bathed, listened to soothing music whilst my husband stayed by my side and stroked me, and read relaxations. Every surge I happily welcomed, knowing it was doing a purpose and making me closer to meeting our baby. I imagined a beautiful rose opening, a sunrise rising and my breath blowing bubbles, rising and getting bigger.
At 7 pm we arrived at the hospital, after a bumpy car journey where I shut my eyes and zoned out listening to music. My contractions slowed down after getting into the hospital, where I was told there was no room with a pool available at that moment. The midwife was very reluctant to examine me as she believed I was still in latent labour due to how I was coming across and insinuated we would be sent home. She was very surprised to find I was 5 cm dilated!
After a challenging hour or so trying to go back to my zen, trippy state of mind we were moved to a lovely room with a pool. I was able to get back in the zone once in the warm water which eased the discomfort beautifully. Things got a bit blurry from here, the intensity ramped up and I had to work hard to stay focused on visualisations and breath, but ultimately I feel this is what got me through without needing pain relief other than gas and air when I was 8 cm dilated.
I was amazed at my body when I felt the urge to push – a surge of intense power working to expel baby out. However, after pushing for an hour the midwife wanted to get me out the pool to try something else. She advised to do an episiotomy as baby was in an awkward position and my perineum muscles were overly tight (from training in the gym 6 days a week). I happily agreed as I was getting tired and just wanted baby out! With a couple more pushes baby came shooting out and was placed on my chest – the most magical and surreal moment of my life. How did a real, miniature human just come out of me?! Within a couple minutes after the injection my placenta came shooting out. The midwife was urgently called to an emergency, so I had to wait a while to be stitched up, but with my baby lying on my chest I was in heaven and the time passed quickly.
Overall, I felt that the experience was an empowering, positive one which I am very grateful for. I am so happy I decided to do hypnobirthing as I believe it allowed my mind and body to work in sync, and without it I feel things would have been very different. My husband also massively benefited from hypnobirthing as it made him feel a huge part of the birth, rather than just watching me experience it”.
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