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The Most Magical Experience: From Surges to Scooping My Baby into My Arms

This week’s birth story comes from the lovely couple who attended a TCBS Hypnobirthing Course with Charlotte Robson of Hello World Hypnobirthing, North and West Yorkshire and East Lancashire.
Thank you for sharing such a positive birth story with us!


I closed the lid on my laptop on the Friday, two weeks before my “guess” date and cried. I was lost. What on earth was I going to do? I’d had a job since I was 12 and never had more than two weeks off in my professional career. What was I going to do for a whole year without work?


The answer arrived one week later.
At 1.30am the following Saturday, I woke up and thought “ooo, I think I’m having surges”.
My partner had got home at 5pm on the Friday, had 4 hours sleep and then gone back to cover a night shift. I rang him to tell him and then immediately rang the labour ward. We were hoping for a home birth but due to it being August and holiday time, there weren’t enough staff so I was told to go take two paracetamol and have a bath. I went back upstairs, thinking I’d have two paracetamol, a lie down and run a bath.


I took the two paracetamol and immediately started vomiting and needing the loo. The surges began to ramp up in strength and frequency and the vomiting and pooing continued. I was pacing round the house, concentrating on doing my wave breathing when my partner got home, roughly an hour after I had phoned. I asked him to time my surges as I felt they were become longer and more frequent. He started to fill the birthing pool which we had got in preparation for a home birth. We wanted to stay at home as long as possible, as advised by Charlotte, our wonderful Hypnobirthing tutor. By the time the pool was filled, I was ready to get in. After about 30 minutes, I said to my partner, “we need to go”.


I couldn’t even think about sitting down in the car so I knelt on the back seat. We arrived at hospital at 5.30am. My waters still hadn’t broken. The midwives were shocked to see us so soon after I had first phoned and from the questions they were asking, I was convinced they were going to send us home. At which point I turned to my partner and said “I thought I could do this, but I don’t think I can”.


I’d said in my birth preferences that I didn’t want to be examined, however at this point, I wanted to know how far on I was as I felt like we needed to start considering other options if I was still in early labour. What this was, was transition!
The midwife seemed very shocked and said “oh, you’re 8 centimetres, I’m not sure we are going to get the birthing pool filled for you in time”.
I turned to my partner and said “I can do this”.


The pool got filled and I got in as soon as it was ready. The amazing midwife passed me the gas and air which I used a bit, mainly to clench hold of when the surges came!
The surges seemed to come in waves of 4 – I concentrated on my breathing as much as I could and just went into the “zone”. My partner was fantastic throughout – instinctively knowing what I wanted (which he told me after, wasn’t much at all apart from the odd sip of lucozade!)


Our daughter arrived, in her waters, via water birth at 9.44am – just 8 hours after I’d started having labour pains.
It was the most magical experience scooping her out of the water and into my arms and I would do it all again tomorrow. It wasn’t until the midwife asked if we’d got a boy or a girl that I moved the towel to look – I didn’t care – baby was here safely by the noise she was making!


I was so grateful to have done the Hypnobirthing course, which a couple of my good friends had raved about. I felt it made me calmer throughout the different stages of labour and also reassured my partner as to what to expect and what was going on as the labour progressed.


If you want to create your own positive birth you can start today!

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