Hallie was born on 27th Feb, 2 weeks early.
In January myself and my partner Nick attended the 1-1 hypnobirthing classes with Leanne. It was without a doubt the best thing I did to prepare myself for birth. Once the classes were complete, I saw my midwife and booked in for a home birth. I was so excited to give birth to my baby at home — however, baby girl had other ideas!
4am Tuesday morning I had a very strange feeling. The night before, a homebirth midwife came to see me as I was feeling very strange, she confirmed I’d had ‘the show’ and to keep an eye on things. So like I said, 4am I felt very strange and went to the loo and thought that my waters had broken. I called the homebirth team again and they came out around 8am and confirmed that yes, my waters had broken! We were so excited, I didn’t feel scared at all, I was ready for our little girl.
The homebirth midwife explained about being induced if things hadn’t progressed because of the risks of infection as my waters had broken, so we basically had 24 hours to get baby moving so I could give birth at home. I did everything to make me feel relaxed and to get the oxytocin flowing. Bubble bath, eating pancakes (it was pancake day), doing the relaxation techniques we had learnt with Leanne. I sent Nick out to get some clary sage oil to put in the diffuser and lots of other last-minute bits.
Even though I didn’t necessarily get the birth I had hoped for, I still gave birth to a happy and healthy baby girl.
24 hours came and went and still no sign of baby. We called the LRI and were told to make our way into maternity.
Even though our birth plans had changed we were still feeling positive and felt completely in control. I had a nice hot shower, did my hair and make up and got ready to meet our baby. We were calm and felt in control whilst on the maternity ward, the midwives were lovely and we went for little walks around the hospital whilst waiting for things to ‘get moving’.
As the evening came so did my surges, we remembered the breathing techniques and Nick helped me through them. At around midnight that night we were moved into our own room and talked through the induction process.
We expressed that we had practised hypnobirthing, our midwife was well on board with this. Our midwife was absolutely amazing! She answered all of our questions and also talked us through the different types of pain relief. I expressed I only wanted gas and air, however I did listen and took on board all the other options.
I’m not going to lie, being induced was extremely painful. Your body is basically being forced to have contractions, there were a few times when I did lose it a bit and thought that I couldn’t do it. Nick was by my side the whole time talking me through the breathing and reminding me that soon we will meet our baby girl.
After a really long time of being induced we decided that it was best to try some other form of pain relief. As I remembered from Leanne, I needed to relax, and I wasn’t. Nick kept reminding me of our favourite phrase from Leanne — floppy face, floppy fanny. :)
I just couldn’t do it anymore. Nick and the midwife talked me through the benefits of an epidural, one of the biggest benefits was to help me relax so that my body would do the work. I agreed to the epidural and it was hands down the BEST decision I made that day.
I was so relaxed I even fell asleep a little bit, I could hear my playlist in the background, had conversations with people and even watched a few episodes of Friends!
After a few hours the epidural had worked and my body got on with what it had to do. I had dilated 4cm then 8cm and then 10cm. I was so excited and was getting ready to push.
Now this is all a bit of a blur. I remember being able to push and then with each push I had this wave of pain across the bottom of my back, where the epidural had gone in. I was in so much pain I literally couldn’t do anything, there wasn’t a position I could get in that didn’t hurt. I remember screaming that something was wrong to Nick and the midwife, I just knew something wasn’t right.
I was still being induced at the highest level. I had to rely on Nick to explain that I couldn’t do it, that I needed help. The midwife got a doctor who examined me and within minutes we were taken to theatre.
I had a spinal epidural this time, which was amazing. The pain just vanished. I felt calmer and knew that even though this certainly wasn’t what I had in mind for my birth, that everything was going to be OK.
Hallie was born at 5:50pm on 27th Feb weighing 6lb 14oz. She was delivered by forceps, with me still being able to push when the midwife told me I was having a contraction and with Nick right by my side. She was put straight on my chest and was so calm, I don’t think she cried till they weighed her!
We were taken into recovery where the midwife relayed to the team that we wanted the golden hour. It was perfect.
So, even though I didn’t necessarily get the birth I had hoped for, I still gave birth to a happy and healthy baby girl. Hypnobirthing gave us knowledge and tools to help us through and I would highly recommend Leanne’s courses. Thank you.