Positive Birth Story: an instrumental hypnobirth

My name is Emma and I had a positive hypnobirth with my son 2.5 years ago despite it ending up in hospital with intervention. Here’s my story :)

I was 40+10, during the night I went downstairs to lounge on the sofa because my back was achy and I couldn’t sleep. I managed to doze off but woke at 4.45 with tightenings around my back. I left it for a while, but at 5.30am, I was leaning over the arm of the sofa needing to concentrate so I went and woke my husband.

The surges were every 4 minutes from the start, all in my lower back. I was most comfortable on my hands and knees leant over the birthing ball. My husband did light touch massage during our time at home which was lovely.

We got to the birthing unit at 7am and I was 4cm dilated. About an hour later I started using gas and air and was helped into the pool - this was wonderful. Our midwife kept all the curtains drawn, my husband set up our music and fetched me a hot water bottle to use on my lower back whilst in the water. He then sat infront of me doing light touch massage on my arms and neck whilst I swayed in the water. 

Around 10am, midwives discovered baby wasn’t happy, they asked me to get out of the water, I was 8cm now and had to be transferred to a delivery unit at the hospital. This didn’t phase me. I remained calm, breathing and mooing through the surges. 

Around 10.30 I arrived at the delivery suite. It was a very different environment and a little difficult to keep my hypno head on. The lights were bright, lots of people in the room and quite a few interventions followed. They released my membranes, I was 10cm at this point and it was discovered my baby was back to back. He was a little stuck but became more distressed when I tried birthing him in better positions. 

It resulted in a trip to theatre where I had an epidural (to prepare to a ceserean) and the doctors were able to assist my son with an episiotomy and forceps. Although this was far from my original birth plan, my husband and I both remained calm, trusting things would be ok rather than panicking. Despite being in a theatre setting, they did delayed cord clamping and I had immediate skin to skin. As soon as I was all sorted, they wheeled us to a recovery room where the midwife sat quietly in the corner allowing us to bond as a family of 3. My son fed for an hour, my husband had skin to skin and it was a wonderful 3 hours.

Although it didnt go to plan, I loved my labour and delivery and look back on it very fondly. I am excited to be doing it all over again in a matter of weeks!

I hope this story helps other new parents in their hypnobirthing journey. 

Thankyou Emma for sharing your amazing story!