Hypnobabies benefited me so much–not just during her birth, but also in the weeks leading up to it. With my son I’d been impatient–totally the cliche waiting for that baby to arrive…this time I went past my guess date, and even had a false alarm where we almost went to the hospital (turns out it was just early labor–she arrived the next day), but I wasn’t impatient at all. I enjoyed my pregnancy so much more in large part because of the Hypnobabies practice.
Earlier in the pregnancy I’d been diagnosed with prenatal depression, and I had desperately wanted to avoid using medication. My friend recommended that I start my scripts at that point (I was 27 or 28 weeks) instead of waiting until 32 weeks as I’d planned, and I credit Hypnobabies with helping me to get past the prenatal depression without medication!
I wasn’t a perfect Hypnobabies student (there were days when I wouldn’t practice my scripts, and towards the end I kept turning them off after about 10 minutes), but I was still able to benefit from it greatly. The birth was such a positive experience for me and my husband and was very healing because my first natural birth didn’t go as well–there was a lot of panic and crying and yelling. Not fun for either of us!
The big thing I would have done differently in my study/practice is take the fear release more seriously. I didn’t have any idea until it was too late, but I was afraid of the pushing portion of my birthing time. And of course I didn’t realize that until it was time to push–too late to do anything about it!
(BOP, but I hope you’ll keep reading because I think you can learn from my mistake!)
Once I let fear in, I was unable to keep myself into hypnosis. Even once I’d “failed” my Hypnobabies, though, the principles still helped me in the birth. I was being a giant baby about pushing and refusing to push. My midwife bossed me into doing it, but I was being wimpy about it and I kept saying out loud “I’m a bad pusher.” But then I remembered from the Hypnobabies that you create reality, and I immediately STOPPED saying “I’m a bad pusher” and switched to “I’m a GOOD pusher” and it made all the difference in the world. Suddenly my little wimpy all over the place efforts were directed and strong and it was over in minutes.
I’m so glad I used the Hypnobabies program and I hope you all have birthing times as wonderful as Ellie’s was for me!
Traci – Enjoy the Slide Show!
Ellie’s Birth from Traci on Vimeo.
