Ok- so I can spell. I know there is no F in Hypnobirthing but if I hear one more woman say that they feel they have FAILED at Hypnobirthing, there will be another kind of F coming out of my mouth.
This is something I keep seeing coming up on my Facebook feed…Women posting in groups after they have had their baby and wondering where and why it all went WRONG.
This is a message to ANYONE who has done Hypnobirthing and felt robbed of the birth that they prepared for.
It is a message for the woman preparing for birth with Hypnobirthing right now and not allowing herself to control what she CAN and let go of what she CAN’T.
Hypnobirthing isn’t a magic wand.
Hypnobirthing CANNOT wave away necessary intervention.
Your Hypnobirthing Instructor CANNOT predict the future and she shouldn’t behave like she can either.
So, you planned for a birth in a birth centre, with dimmed lights and music playing. You planned on having your partner by your side and that the midwife would essentially leave you to it. You designed affirmation cards or printed out mantras to put up around the room. You pledged not to have drugs or to bow to induction or any type of intervention (unless medically necessary of course). And so the big day arrived…you laboured at home for a few hours and felt pretty good…confident…self-assured even and then your labour intensified and the journey into hospital took you by surprise. You arrived at the hospital and fear had set in at this point. “Its going wrong!” “Why can’t I do this…!” … You expected to float into the Birth Centre and float out again but it suddenly didn’t seem to be as easy as you had thought.
I’m not mocking you my lovely, I know this feeling all too well. You see, when I had my first baby (my beautiful girl). I was you. I had a fear so intense when it came to childbirth that I really couldn’t even think about it. I couldn’t entertain the idea that a human being would come out of me. I was filled with horror stories and lack of confidence and lack of knowledge to boot. And Hypnobirthing changed that for me forever. I am so grateful that I found it. I am so happy that it is such a huge part of my life now and that I get to share it with women around the world. But my birth didn’t go to plan. It wasn’t anything like one of those Hypnobirthing videos you might watch in a class and it wasn’t one that you would want to visualise either.
It started off well. I was doing great!! Much better than I would have done if I hadn’t have done Hypnobirthing- I know that for sure. But somewhere along the way the fear set in, my energy drained from my body and my resolve departed. This was around the time that they told me I had 30 minutes to get my baby out or… (I don’t know what the ‘or’ was actually just that it was a time sensitive situation). 30 mins came and went and they tried a ventouse. It FAILED. So, they resorted to forceps and my darling girl was pulled into this world.
Don’t get me wrong.
I would NEVER have coped with that situation without my Hypnobirthing tools and mindset and I was as calm as I could be in that experience.
But what I felt afterwards… what I sobbed about in the Ward as I couldn’t get my exhausted body to do what I wanted it to do (feed my baby, pick up my baby, go for a wee!!) was that I HAD FAILED. Where was the birth I had planned and visualised and almost felt guaranteed to have?
I felt embarrassed to tell people that I had done Hypnobirthing because I was exhausted, stitched up, swollen and bruised.
I am lucky that the people who supported me during my birth, my Mum and my Husband, were there to remind me about all the things that did go right during my labour. How calm I was for much of it and how proud they were of me. It wasn’t long (a few days perhaps) until I started to see things differently and I realised that all the preparation I had done had not been in vain and that it had in fact had a lasting imprint on me.
Even so, it has taken me a number of years to come to a few rather pivotal realisations…
I now understand that not all Hypnobirthing is the same.
I now know that some methods will paint a perfect and painfree picture for you with their materials and their teachings (even if they profess not to do so).
I now know that some Hypnobirthing methods will impress upon you their OWN agendas and help you to design the birth that its founders/creators believe in.
I now know that we CANNOT predict how our births will unfold.
What I really wish and hope for you, lovely pregnant lady, is that you get the birth that you want. But I really want you to know and to feel deep down inside of you that Hypnobirthing isn’t something you ACHIEVE.
It isn’t the pinnacle of birth or the holy grail.
It doesn’t work or not work.
You can’t succeed or FAIL.
It is a method which you USE in whichever way you deem best, in whatever situation you find yourself in.
The Calm Birth School method of Hypnobirthing is for ALL kinds of people and for ALL kinds of birth. Do your research and find the right course for you!
You can sign up for the first 3 videos of our on-line course for free here or check out on of our instructors in the UK or Ireland.
Words & Opinions of Liz Stanford, TCBS Owner, experienced Hypnobirthing Instructor, Hypnobirthing Trainer and frazzled Mum to 3!
