Does a Hypnobabies birth have to be totally comfortable to be wonderful?

No!   Each birth is a different experience and Moms can use their Hypnobabies tools while preparing for birth and during and after.  Here is a great birth story of a mom who used and loved Hypnobabies.  She did have discomfort AND a wonderful birth!

Mine is not a typical “inspirational” hypnobabies story, but the thing is, I LOVED Hypnobabies, and I love to remember my birth, even if it did not go 100% as expected. The thing is, I would like to encourage any mums out there to believe in what Hypnobabies can do for them.

The main message I tried to pass on to other mums out there, is “if you can’t get hold of one tool, don’t abandon the rest”. If you think this message is clearly understandable in my birhting story, you are welcome to add it to the blog. As I firmly believe that Hypnobabies gave me my wonderful birthing experience, and pain was just a small and unsignificant part of it.

here is my birth story for those of you who want to read it.
********BOP WARNING************
my birth had discomfort
but still a GREAT experience
*******************************

This was my second pregnancy. My first birhting was VERY long, and I was not prepared for it in any way – I thought birth was a natural process and will just happen. Little did I know… After birthing my first daughter for 28 hours, and having LOADS of interventions (many of which I did not even want and some was really forced into), I ended up having a C-section (which I still firmly believe was totaly avoidable).

So this time around I was going to be more prepared. My friend told me about Hypnobabies, and I was very sceptical about it at first. However, I am very grateful that she made me to listen to some scripts. The minute I listened to CD1, I fell in love with the idea. The more I got involved with hypnobabies, the more I loved it. I started quite late, at about 32 weeks, but the rest of my pregnancy was wonderful and relaxed. I got rid of my fears (being forced into decicions by hospital staff, mainly 🙂  ) and was really trully confident that this time around I will have my perfect birhting time.

Both of my daughters were what doctors consider to be “late”. First one was born at 42 weeks and 3 days. I had no signs of birthing at all (not dilated or effaced at all, until it all started). The birthing started spontaneously, pressure waves were coming every 4-5 minutes and lasted at least a minute from the first one. However, they were unefective, and lasted for what felt like forever :).

This time around, my pressure waves started at some time on Saturday night, but were only lasting about 10 seconds. They were painful, but I could easily go back to sleep after they ended. They lasted like that (2 or 3 every hour, lasting about 10-20 seconds) for most of the day. I went to the park with my elder daughter, made lunch etc. In the afternoon they picked up in intensity a bit, but not in lenght. I have tried my best to relax, to create anestesia, listened to birhting day affirmations, deepening, hypnotic childbirth, etc. etc trying to feel them as pressure only, and not pain. I have made a very concios effort to breath deeply through them, basically, have done EVERYTHING I could think of.

Nope, as pain they felt, and at some point I just accepted that this is what they are going to feel like. (I was soooo deep in hypnosis listening to my scripts, that I lost the feel of time etc, but would be “woken up” suddenly by a pressure wave). So every time I had a pressure wave, I just accepted it they way it was, and was telling myself stuff like relax, deep breath now, peace, and open open open. Saying open open open during a few pressure waves, I could actually FEEL my cervix openning, and that was an amazing and brilliant experience, that gave me strenght to carry on.

So from about 3pm till about 8pm my waves were short and spaced out. At about 8pm I still thought I have HOURS left till the real birthing time started, but asked my husband to time the waves anyway, more from curiosity than anything. They were about 50 seconds long, and came every 5-7 minutes. OK, another script, and I did not know it then, but I was entering transition. Some waves were really difficult to breath through, and it was a hard job to keep reminding myself to relax. I did my best however, and suddenly, at 10pm, it hit me that we had to go to the hospital NOW. My husband asked if we should call the hospital (which we should have, we live in UK and they expect us to), but I could not imagine talking on the phone, as I was aaaaaaaaggggghhhh breathing through the waves, which were on top of one another, so I just said NO, let’s go!!!

I have to admit, I lost it couple of times in the car. Forget the relaxation, I shouted through a few of them (I think a couple, but could have been more?). I then started to say PEACE (I thought so, my hubby said I actualy shouted peace as if I was very angry at someone…), but that helped me a lot to get hold of myself and to start relaxing through pressure waves. So one wave at a time, we went to the 3rd floor, and were given a room. I think I had 2 pressure waves there, and during the second one, my waters exploded :). This was the point that I realised that I was pushing! So we called the midwife, and she confirmed that I was fully dilated and could go ahead and push! I was SOOO happy, as birthing in hospital was one of my biggest fears (or the thing I wanted to avoid most of all!!!!!!!).

I have tried the relaxed aaaggghhhh pushing, but it was not working. As my pressure waves were so painful, it was increasingly more difficult to just relax through them, so I made a decision to do the purple pushing. My little one was back to back and she got stuck at some point, pour thing… So after about one and a half hours of pushing, loads of staff came into our room and started making a fuss about the heartrate of Olivija going down. So they told me that she needs to come out NOW one way or the other and started preparing me for a C-section… I refused to believe that this is how it’s going to end for a second… So I just ignored all of them and continued pushing as hard as I could. And then the midwife said “I can see the head” – and that was music to our ears. The doctor said she needed to come out quickly, so I pushed as if there was no tomorrow.
And in three pressure waves, she was out!!! I finally held my little angel in my arms 🙂

LOOKING BACK – I loved Hypnobabies during my pregnancy and my birhting time. And although I did not have a pain free birth (which I firmly believed I would all the time), the rest of it was just perfect! And I still truly believe that I possibly missed something whilst learning about creating anaesthesia and if I am going to have any more children, Hypnobabies is the way to go!!! So thanks Kerry for putting all the program together, Sheridan for creating this group, Susan for your wonderful posts and all you mums for sharing your thoughs and experience.
Kindest regards, and good luck to you all,

Inga

Congratulations on your VBAC!  It sounds like you did a GREAT job and really worked with your body.  I think it was brilliant that even though you felt p***, (Which my guess may have been caused by her positioning)  after trying different tools, you decided to

at some point I just accepted that this is what they are going to feel like.

I think that was so great.  Instead of fighting it, you went with it and still used your tools to stay relaxed as possible and let your body do what it needed to do.  Good job!

You did all you needed to do to have your VBAC!  I am so very happy for you.

Sheridan