HypnoBirthing® UK

[Scallie]

I had no idea I was going to go into labour. Looking back, the signs were there (furious nesting, lower backache, loose movements etc), but at 36 weeks I entirely discounted them. The night before the birth at 36+5 weeks pregnant, my husband and I went out for a meal to a new restaurant in town where I’d had prawn and salmon salad and a couple of incidences of backache which I put down to the restaurant chairs. Nothing unusual or untoward was happening – certainly nothing to suggest a baby might be arriving soon.

After a lovely night out, my husband and I tucked ourselves up into bed with the “Parenting” relaxation track on the Hypnobirthing CD, and I fell into the comfortable sleep I always experience when I’m listening to any of the self-hypnosis scripts. I slept on, uninterrupted, until about 4.00 am when I was drowsily aware of some period-like cramps in my lower belly. Too drowsy to think about it, I shifted about for a while to try and get comfortable and drifted in and out of sleep. The drowsiness didn’t last though; as the crampy feeling got more intense over the next half an hour, I became more and more convinced that I had an upset stomach which I immediately put down to the fact that I’d eaten dodgy seafood at the restaurant. I had a sudden, desperate urge to go to the loo (which endorsed my conviction that I’d had some kind of reaction to the food) and began a restless, unvarying cycle of trying to find a comfortable position in bed, shifting about impatiently, getting up to go to the loo yet again, before returning to find some comfort in bed. I considered just shutting myself in the bathroom and having done with it, but I was longing to curl up in the warmth of bed as well. In any case, I tried hard not to wake my husband – he had to get up for work in a few hours anyway, and it was pointless interrupting him for nothing. Besides, judging by how he was last night, he’d be grumpy with a hangover.

At 6am, my husband finally responded to my restlessness and woke up.
“My tummy feels really uncomfortable low down”, I explained “and I keep needing the loo. I’m getting so frustrated with it, I just want to go back to sleep – I wonder what’s wrong”.
“It’s probably just down to a bad prawn”, he reasoned.

Earlier, about an hour into this little episode, I’d briefly entertained the notion that I might be in labour but discounted it immediately, surmising that it was far too early (I assumed I was going to go on till at least 41 weeks), and anyway I’d had no show and no waters had broken. I was with my husband on this one - the damn restaurant had given me a bad prawn.

Ten minutes later during yet another visit to the loo, I noticed there was a tiny bit of blood when I wiped. Now I was angry. The stress of the stomach upset had made me bleed, I reasoned, so it must be affecting the baby. “I’m going to sue that bloody restaurant if anything happens” I vowed, and went to tell my husband what was going on.

“I think we ought to call someone and ask for advice”, he said. “Bleeding can’t be good. I’ll find someone to call”. I continued wandering back and forth from bedroom to bathroom, rubbing my tummy and listening to the one-way conversation on the phone:

“…crampy pains low down…yes…well no she’s not in a lot of pain at all, but she’s obviously uncomfortable…not a lot of blood, just spotting, but we’d like to get it checked out…no, no contractions…no show or waters breaking, no…ok, we can be there in twenty minutes”.

Suddenly having to get ready to go in to the hospital to be assessed took my mind of things completely, and suddenly I felt ok.
“I’ll just have a quick shower then”, I said. After all, they’d want to be looking “down there”.
He looked at me in disbelief then, while I showered, dashed round the house chucking stuff in an overnight bag in case I had to stay in. In a moment of blessed lucidity, he chucked the iPod and earphones in while I faffed around trying to find some decent clothes to wear.

In the car, things got more uncomfortable. Had I known what was happening I’d have lain on the back seat, but as it was I strapped myself into the front and regretted it for every bump we encountered on the road. We arrived at the hospital and my husband dropped me off at the entrance. “I’ll just park the car – go to Reception, they’re expecting you”.

I didn’t think to ask which Reception was expecting me. Instead of going to Delivery, I set off for the Fetal Assessment Unit. After all, I wasn’t in labour, I just needed to be checked out. Luckily, my husband found me before I disappeared into the vast corridors of the hospital, and steered me in the right direction.

The midwife who checked me in led us to a spare delivery room where I could be examined. Another midwife came and sat with us, but explained that they were very short-staffed and she couldn’t stay – there were too many women in labour to attend to. She’d sent in a student midwife when one was free, and the doctor would be with us shortly.

At this point I was in a calm world of my own. The room had a rocking chair so I sat and rocked myself gently back and forth, nodding drowsily to anything anyone said, not really caring. I decided that it was a good time to try some 20-20 breathing in practice for the birth in a couple of weeks’ time. The breathing helped ease the crampiness, and I felt pleasantly dozy.

Suddenly, I wanted to be sick. As I was throwing up in the sink, a midwife walked in. “Ah yes!” she said cheerfully, “that’s a sure sign of labour!”. I stared at this mad woman, thinking “no, it’s a sure sign of food poisoning”, and went back to my chair to continue rocking sleepily.

A student midwife and her colleague arrived to tell me the doctor would be with me shortly, and asked me to describe how I was feeling. I tried to give some brief details, aided by my husband. As per the Hypnobirthing training, I was staring to go “into myself”, shutting out the outside world, and although I was aware of the outside world I was totally focussed on my body and I just couldn’t be bothered to speak. Between us we relayed the message that I had an upset stomach with constant cramps low down like period pain - cramps that didn’t really come and go much so probably weren’t contractions - and that I’d had a tiny bit of blood loss.

“Ok”, said the midwife, “well it could be that you’re in the very early stages of labour, but we’ll let the doctor see what the bleeding is about before we do anything else. Lets strap you to the monitor in the meantime and we’ll see what’s happening.”

“They’re all insane”, I thought. “They’ll soon realise I’ve got food poisoning and send me home once they’ve sorted out the bleeding”. Although I do have to admit that reality was slowly starting to dawn. Deep down I think the certainty was there because in the back of my mind I was thinking “you just wait and see”, and I know that if they’d tried to send me home I would have refused to move. Sure enough, the monitor showed some peaks which indicated contractions.

At about 8am the doctor arrived and asked me to get onto the bed. The cramps had got worse and I didn’t feel ready to move, so I serenely held my hand up to signal “please wait”, and continued to rock back and forth slowly, breathing calmly. After asking me twice she started to get tetchy.

“I can’t examine you in the chair, you need to get on the bed”, she snapped.
“She understands”, said my husband, “but she’s a bit uncomfortable so if you could just wait for it to pass”. He told me later that at this stage the monitor was registering quite a spike.
The doctor huffed for a bit but waited. The pressure started to ease and I did as I’d been told.

“Right, I’m just going to examine you with this”, she said, impatiently waving a speculum in front of my face.
“Uh huh”, I mumbled.
There was some fumbling briefly. Then, with quite some surprise in her voice, “oh – umm – that’s the head!”
There was rapid movement around me as the two midwives darted to the end of the bed.
“Where? Are you sure?”
“Yes of course I’m sure. Look, that’s hair”

Some more fumbling ensued as the doctor continued examining me.

“Err, I’d say she was at least seven centimetres. Actually, make that eight. Better prepare for the delivery quickly”.

Somehow I wasn’t surprised. A little smug voice in my subconscious seemed to say “I told you so”.

There was a sudden flurry of activity as people dashed in and out of the room bringing equipment, a cot, blankets. At least, that’s what my husband tells me happened. I was still sort of dozing, in a world of my own, concentrating on breathing slowly and deeply, in to 20, out to 20. The doctor, now more conciliatory, kindly asked me if I’d be more comfortable back in the chair.

I sat and rocked again. That chair was bliss. The midwives, now back in the room, were thoroughly disconcerted.
“How on earth did you do that?” one asked me. “How the hell did you get to eight centimetres just by sitting there breathing?”
I didn’t answer. Again, I just couldn’t be bothered. my husband mumbled something about Hypnobirthing and the midwife replied “ah ok. I’ll just let you get on with things then”.

Oddly enough, as soon as the doctor had confirmed I was in labour, the cramping seemed to shift more to my lower back and become more intense, although it was a long way from being seriously painful. After all, I’d had stomach upsets plenty of times before – I could deal with those - but I’d never been in labour. I stood up and rested my hands on the bed, leaning on my husband for support. I was excited but nervous. This was it. Oh my god, I was having a baby. I asked my husband to rub my back, while the midwife asked if I’d like gas and air. Overwhelmed by the experience, I nodded. I didn’t feel that I needed pain relief, but now I knew I was in labour I wanted the comfort of having something there, just in case.

I knew that relaxation was the key. I’d been extremely successful so far – the Hypnobirthing was working – and I knew I just needed to maintain my relaxation. I asked my husband to plug me into the iPod, and I switched to the Rainbow Relaxation script. It had been sending me to sleep nightly for the past two months, so instinctively I associated it with deep relaxation. Sure enough, I started to relax again immediately and the pain subsided to be replaced once again by the crampy pressure.

The rest of the labour seemed to whiz by, with me almost entirely shutting out the outside world and just focussing on the birth. I was fully aware of what was going on around me, I just didn’t want to participate, and my husband now tells me that he had to answer most of the questions the midwives asked me because I just didn’t hear them. Luckily the course had prepared him for this, so he was fully in tune with what I wanted. The time whizzed by while the cramps became more intense then eased, on and off but with no rhythm and no discernable pattern. In a way it’s just as well the monitor was there. They certainly couldn’t tell when I was having the surges by my reactions, as I was calm and quiet throughout.

Although I didn’t really feel the surges, I did feel an intense ache in my lower back that came and subsided without a pattern. I thought that if I could just get in a comfortable position, my back would feel better, but the wires on the monitors were impeding my movement, and I felt frustrated. In my birthplan I’d requested no continuous monitoring, but I realised that as this was a slightly premature birth the rules might have to be different. Besides which, making the request would entail stringing a sentence together and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

At this point, I’d been in the hospital for about two hours. The midwives were buzzing round behind and underneath me with a torch. They were taking to my husband but with the iPOD on I couldn’t make out what was being said and although I was curious, I didn’t really care. He told me later that they were telling him a blue line had appeared on my lower back which indicated I’d reached 10 centimetres. I was beginning to want to bear down and in response I started to make small, gentle pushes.

”Do you feel a little bit pushy?” asked the student midwife
“A little” I mumbled.
“That’s fine, just go with what your body tells you”.

I continued making teeny little pushes. Disconcerted by the sensation, I took my first suck on the gas and air, partly to distract myself and help with the breathing, partly just to see what it was like. As pain relief it was useless and made no difference whatsoever to my back ache, but that was ok. I wasn’t really in pain as such; it was just intense and uncomfortable. I kept hold of the tube anyway. For some reason I found it’s presence comforting.

Eventually the spasms in my back became more uncomfortable. “I want to kneel on the bed and stretch out”, I said. They helped me up, but the position didn’t ease things.

“We’d just like to examine you again”, said the student midwife. “Sometimes you can want to push before the cervix is totally dilated and it can cause swelling, so we’d just like to check”.
“I’d rather not actually”, I replied with the typical Hypnobirthing sentiment: “I’ll just go with what my body is doing – it’s worked so far”. My husband took the time to explain politely that I wanted to be left alone.

The urge to push was getting stronger, I turned over – half on my back and half on my side (I couldn’t stand having all the weight on my back) and I started to bear down. The midwives obviously had a good view and were encouraging me along. One of them started rubbing my back. It was bliss.

My notes say that this stage of the labour lasted 53 minutes, but it felt more like quarter of an hour. Every so often I’d want to bear down, so I did. In between I rested and listened to the script on the iPod, continuing the 20-20 breathing.

The feeling got more and more intense and I could feel that the baby was making her way down. The midwives became more encouraging. “That’s it! That’s a really nice push! Keep going!” At one point I asked what was happening – I wanted to know where she was. “We can just start to see the head coming – it won’t be long now, keep going. Use the pain. Every time you feel the pain use it to push, don’t waste it”. I glanced at my husband. I wasn’t feeling any pain, I was just feeling very full, like an intense pressure, and an irresistible need to push. I ignored the suggestion of pain and just carried on.

The intensity peaked as she started to crown. I took more sucks on the gas and air, in an attempt to keep my breathing nice and deep and regulated, but I noticed my breaths were very shaky. “How much can I stretch?” I thought. I’d turned off the Rainbow Relaxation (I’d had it on loop three times) and was just listening to the hypno music. I reminded myself of one of my Birth Affirmations - that my body was built to do this, and that it would open for my baby just as it should.

“This is amazing” I heard one of the midwives say. “What on earth is it she’s listening to?”

As she crowned I could feel myself stretching more and more. For the first time, I started to make a noise. It wasn’t down to pain although it WAS uncomfortable and my back was hurting – it was down to determination; I was nervous of the crowning, but I knew I had to keep pushing and I was longing for her to be born. I used my own version of J-breathing to gently move the baby downwards and out. It seemed to work and the deep breaths continued to relax me.

”That’s it – she’s crowning now so it’ll feel a bit stingy” said the midwife in response to my shouts and growls. “Use the pain – don’t waste it – when the pain comes, use it to push”. Again I looked at my husband and rolled my eyes at him in an attempt to communicate that there wasn’t any pain, hoping for some reassurance that this was ok. In fact I still wasn’t feeling contractions, I was just feeling the need to push, coming in waves. Driven on by the encouragement the midwives were giving me (“just a couple more big pushes!”), I gave it everything I had and her head was out. The midwife told me excitedly that I’d done the hard bit now. I smiled at my husband, elated and excited.

“Ok, now just rest till you feel the next contraction and then give me a couple of little pushes to get her shoulders out”.

Well ok, I thought, although I still wasn’t feeling contractions and the urge to push had passed, so I rested and waited. Nothing happened.

“Do you want to reach down and feel the head?” someone asked me.
“No thanks, that’d freak me out” I said and giggled. “I’d rather just concentrate on doing this”.

They laughed nervously, disconcerted by my sudden communicativeness perhaps. Or maybe by the giggle.

“What IS she listening to?” the midwives asked my husband for the umpteenth time.
“It’s a Hypnobirthing relaxation thing” he tried to explain again.
“We’ll have to find out more about this”, came the reply.

I’d still had no urge to push and I could feel a slight impatience emanating from the opposite end of the bed. “Ah well” I thought, “I’d better just get on and do it”. Without waiting for the surges I gave a couple of little pushes, and felt my baby’s body slither out. She was plopped down on my chest. Finally I got to say my first hello to my daughter.

“Oh wow, we’ve got a girl” said my husband through a sudden burst of tears.
I looked at her and cried. I was totally elated.

“A bad prawn indeed”, I said to him. “She’s not a bad prawn, she’s a lovely prawn”.
Pink and wrinkly, she was beautiful.

After the third stage had been completed (a managed delivery – again not on my birthplan which was a disappointment, but again something I wasn’t “together” enough to communicate) the midwives turned their attention to getting me to talk.

“How the hell did you do that? What were you listening to, what was it all about?”

In my drowsy state I cuddled my baby and tried to briefly explain the Hypnobirthing theory. They looked slightly bemused.

“We’ll have to find out more about this”, they said. “In any case, that was a brilliant birth to start the day with – we’ve never seen anything like it. You can come again. When you have your second one next year, can you ask for us?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that my husband and I had only ever planned to have one. Although who knows - after such a positive, profound experience I might be dying to do it again.

It was 10.45. From the start of my “upset stomach” to delivery, labour had taken six and a half hours - exactly the time I’d thought of when we’d done the birth visualisation exercise during the Hypnobirthing classes.

As for the stats, the baby was 6lb 12oz, my pulse had never gone above 70 throughout the entire labour, and my blood pressure and the baby’s heartbeat had stayed relaxed and constant throughout. I had a small, labial graze that didn't need any attention.

Downstairs I was the talk of the ward for a short while, and my husband filled me in on the details that I’d missed while I’d been in my own head-space. Apparently I’d not made a sound until the crowning stage, when I’d given a few mild shouts. A couple of midwives on the ward popped their heads round the curtain. “We’ve heard about you!” they said.

Before the birth everyone had told about the “amazing and wonderful way” the mind has of forgetting childbirth, and I having now done it myself I can only conclude that this theory is slightly off the mark. You don’t forget childbirth, you forget a traumatic experience. I might have been in my own zone during labour, and I might not have noticed what everyone else in the room was saying or doing, but I can certainly remember every feeling and every sensation I had when I was birthing my daughter. And I can say with all honestly that my experience is one I’ll want to remember forever.

So huge thanks to Sarah at BirthFriendly in Saffron Walden for a fantastic course - I'm recommending it to anyone who'll listen.

[Frannie]

I really enjoyed reading your birth story - fascinating! Hypnobirthing rocks, doesn't it?!

[gordon_mullan]

Hi Scallie

Fabulous story, and brilliantly written - thanks and congratulations!

best regards
Gordon