Lise was born Saturday, April 25 at 10:47am. It was not a P@ !n-free experience, but Hypnobabies really helped me relax through the pressure waves and allow myself to ‘give in’ to them and open so much more quickly than I did with my first daughter’s days-long labor. My husband also said he could barely tell when I was having pressure waves because I was handling them so well.
At my appointment on Tuesday I was 2 cm, without having felt anything up to that point besides BH. Friday – I was having pressure waves that evening, lasting close to a minute and about 5 min apart for a few hours. They weren’t painful at all though, (but they weren’t BH either – I can’t really explain it, but you’ll know when it happens.) I also knew though, that they weren’t strong enough to mean that I was having the baby soon, and since my first experience lasted days, I didn’t get too excited and both my husband and I slept pretty well that night.
Saturday morning ~6:30am my water broke. Over the next 45 min the pressure waves (which might have continued all night or might have stopped, I don’t know because I was asleep!) picked up in intensity very, very quickly. I don’t think that I was ever really able to switch off or go into hypnosis, but I was listening to easy first stage the whole time and it was definitely helping me.
We arrived at the hospital at 8:30am, mostly because I really, really wanted to get into the whirlpool tub there. I was 4cm upon check-in. (this was disappointing to me because things were so intense I thought I was farther along. Plus, with my first labor, I arrived at the hospital at 6cm and it took another 12 hours…) After checking the baby on the monitor for a while (she was fine) I got in the tub (cordless headphones were well-worth the cost here, I don’t think I could have done it had I not been able to listen to the script anymore). Pretty quickly I felt like I needed to push, I ended up pushing for only ~20-30 min and Lise was born. I listened to the “pushing baby out” track, but didn’t breathe her out – I wanted her out NOW! Still, the words in my ears were really nice.
Lise was 8lb 3oz and I had absolutely no tears or anything (I did NOT do the perineal massage, btw). She was born less than 2.5 hours after arrival at the hospital and only a little more than 4 hours after my water broke.
Bottom line: I was surprised at how quick everything went and I think that contributed to my not being able to really ‘turn off’ or get into hypnosis very well, since I had always pictured a much more gradual entry into labor. On the other hand, the Hypnobabies was still very, VERY helpful and I think helped me go quickly, as well as be able to handle everything very calmly. (so, maybe I was in hypnosis I just couldn’t turn off the p@ !n like I would have liked???)
The doctor (on call one, not my normal midwife) asked the nurse what I was listening to and she told him “Hypnosis – it’s really helping her.” Several nurses later asked me about it too, and my husband claims he couldn’t even tell when I was having a pressure wave (unlike my first natural (non-hypnobabies) labor.) So even though I think I could have done better at using the tools, I’d say it was a success. The intervention-free, no-drug labor, with a super-fast recovery is awesome!
And it was also probably Hypnobabies that let me relax enough to sleep Friday night so that I could go into labor well-rested, which makes things so much easier! Oh yeah, and not to mention that I got a beautiful, amazing little baby girl out of the deal, too. Definitely a success.
