This week’s birth story comes from a lovely couple Grace and Dan who attended a TCBS Hypnobirthing Course with Sarah Tuite of Before You Birth – Hypnobirthing Teaching covering Brixham, South Devon.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful, positive birth story!
“It started with mild cramps every 10 mins or so at 5pm on Wednesday, but given I’d had a week of tightening’s, I went about my business including driving to Exeter as the car had to go into the garage, hoovering out our other car and swapping car seats over. Got home about 9pm and decided to go to bed in case it was the real deal.
I woke up at 1.30am and could no longer sleep through the waves, but still wasn’t convinced it was time. I lit some candles, watched Friends and put some washing on the line at 2.30am, I woke Dan up and by 3am we knew it was real. I had an hour of about 3 contractions in 10 mins, but they were only 30 seconds long, so I delayed ringing. At 4am I rang Torbay, and they told me to come down. It took nearly an hour to leave the house as I could barely take 2 steps without having to pause for a wave. I was still in control but had reached my limit, so decided not to use the MLU as I thought I’d be more comfortable with more options of pain relief. I was disappointed to come to that decision but knew it was right.
We arrived at the ward at 5.50am, the midwife took one look at me, passed me the gas and air and said, “you’re going to have your baby in a minute”. I still didn’t believe her! I was fully expecting to be told I was about 5-6cm and was going to ask for an epidural. On examination, I was 8cm! Bless Dan, he was rushing about plugging in my diffuser and trying to get the affirmations playing. She said I could bear down on the next wave if I wanted to, which I tried and then my body completely took over. The next wave I had no choice over pushing or not and although a little panicky, I was over the moon to have that sensation! I wasn’t scared of the “ring of fire” or the feeling of transitioning and that was all down to Sarah and the preparation she gave us. Less than 5 mins later his head was out (along with an arm), then on the next wave he was born. It was so different to Robin our first, with the 2.5hrs of forced pushing where I was utterly exhausted and never fully experienced the urge to push. This time my body just did it for me and I was just amazed.
I had a midwife delivering who was amazing, and another stood by my head, who got on my nerves a little bit but again thanks to Sarah I had the confidence to ignore her (and resist the urge to tell her to go away). Because of his arm and his heart rate dropping, she told me I needed to “get him out now”, so to stop breathing on the gas and air, hold my breath and push. I completely ignored her and continued breathing into the waves. I knew he was coming any minute. I’m sure she actually tried to take the gas away at one point until I shouted! I would never have had that confidence in myself without Sarah. Unfortunately, I did tear twice, but he came so quickly I’m grateful that I didn’t listen to her, and they were only 2nd degree, which were sorted nice and quickly by the nice midwife while I did skin to skin and latched him on.
I got my delayed cord clamping and “golden hour” – probably 2 hours actually! Which I was so grateful for. I attempted a physiological delivery of the placenta, but the waves were still quite strong, so I was using the gas and air; I got stressed that I wasn’t able to focus on baby, so after 15 minutes I opted for the injection. I was disappointed but it was the best option at the time.
We were offered to be admitted for the day which I accepted and were so well looked after by the whole team. We were so impressed with the whole maternity unit. Although disappointed I wasn’t brave enough to use the MLU, it wouldn’t have changed the way things went and as it happens, they didn’t have enough staff to send someone there anyway!
I honestly can’t say enough how grateful we are for everything Sarah did that enabled us to have that amazing experience. We are honestly over the moon”.
If you want to create your own positive birth, you can start today!
Sign up for our FREE Hypnobirthing Videos here or get in touch with one of our instructors here
