Lola’s positive birth story

Laura and Stephen’s Premature Birth with Hypnobirthing

Laura and Stephen came to me following a recommendation from one of her friends. They had some previous trauma to deal with from the birth of their little boy but they really took everything the learned and put it into practice for the birth of their little girl who decided to make an appearance 5 weeks early. Working with them was a real honour and I’m lucky I got to meet them.

Feeling More Prepared This Time

When we birthed our son Jack, we had felt very overwhelmed and slightly underprepared in terms of what to expect, which had led to a lot of anxiety around birthing the second time round. Our good friends had recommended Claire to us based on how positive their experiences had been and this led to us signing up to her 121 course.

At 35 weeks pregnant I started what I thought were Braxton hicks through the night, which were quite intense for a few hours on and off. However, I had been using my hypnobirthing audio files at night-time to help practice my 4-8 breathing work, my calm face and shoulders each night in preparation for giving birth in the coming weeks and I found this really helped relax me during these short periods of pain.

Calm Breathing All The Way

The night before labour began, I had been getting intense pain and what felt like the beginning of regular contractions. I felt labour more than likely was imminent and had tried to do as much as I could to keep oxytocin high and myself busy when possible.

The next morning, at 36 weeks pregnant, I woke up with strong pains and tightening’s, then suddenly felt my waters break along with my show. As I am R- we had called Triage to let them know what was happening and they advised to slowly make our way up to the Hospital to get checked over and prepare ourselves for baby possibly arriving.

Stephen reminded me to be calm, continue breathing, so I went for a nice peaceful bath with my hypnobirthing mp3s before I got some cuddles with my son and headed up to the ward to be checked over after granny arrived to help look after him.

When we slowly and calmly arrived at the ward, we were greeted by Gemma who had a room all set up for us. She gently informed us that as we were preterm, we would be birthing in the Consultant led unit.

Once we were shown to our room Gemma advised she had taken time to read the birth plan and understood we were hypnobirthing. She really took the time to understand our wants and wishes and fully supported these. The consultant also made her visit, full of positivity and laughter and was again very on board with the hypnobirthing, in the event she needed to be involved in labour.

A few checks were made, and we were left to start to manage contractions on our own. As I was not yet fully established. The midwife was keen to not rush us away given the baby was certainly on its way and keen to keep the environment positive for us all.

Getting Our HypnoVibe On

Stephen set up the room with my anchors, a picture my son had drawn, my affirmation cards, some crystals, lavender aroma, and fairy lights. I made sure these were in eye shot so I could always see them when I felt I needed them. We were then quietly left to begin our labour journey, with intermittent visits from Gemma.

Stephen and I had a giggle, had some music on and some tea and toast. Gemma intermittently checked me with the doppler during the times I was not being monitored on the machine which helped continue a sense of calm in the room. I had advised she didn’t have to ask my consent to check over me as this would help keep my focus on what I needed to do.

I started to get a bit tired, so Gemma set up the bed and peanut ball for me to lay on my side and let gravity help keep baby back in its optimal position as the baby had turned back to back and this was making me a bit uncomfortable and had caused my contractions to become irregular.

At 3pm, baby had turned back to the optimal position, and I began getting stronger contractions, followed by further waters breaking. At this point My contractions really intensified, I focused solely on my breathing and moving with the ball to help ease my contractions and move and breathe into a rhythm with them.

By 4pm Gemma examined me and confirmed I was in first stage on labour (this was the first and last time during labour she done a physical examination) and by this point my contractions were getting very intense with little to no rest between. Stephen continued to support me with light touch massage. At this point I felt I needed something extra to manage the pain and asked for gas and air and used this with my 4-8 breathing.

I had expressed in my birth plan that I wanted to be as medication free as possible and that I didn’t want to be offered and medication unless I requested it from the midwife.

When things started to ramp up towards fully established labour, I felt the urge to stand and at this point gravity fully worked in my favour and the last pocked of water broke and baby moved right down causing me the urge to push. Gemma told me to listen to my body and go with what it was telling me.

Stephen helped get me up on the bed, onto my knees and lean over the back of the bed to allow gravity to work, as this is how I had planned to birth the baby. This position really allowed me to get comfortable, rest my head and shoulders with easy access to use the gas and air.

With each contraction intensifying, Stephen continued to remind me the baby would be here soon in our arms, he helped keep me focused on breathing and when the time came (used my transitional breath-work) to help birth baby.

By 5:47pm, baby was born and placed into my arms for immediate skin to skin, which was bliss. Stephen then got the luxury of confirming baby’s sex, which to our surprise was a little girl.

I had initially hoped for optimal cord clamping; however, due to experiencing bleeding caused baby pushing on my anterior placenta throughout labour, I was informed about getting the injection to help deliver the placenta. We used our JBRAIN to agree to this so we could avoid any heavier bleeding issues as this had been a concern of mine.

After birth the room did get a bit busy with nurses and consultants, I continued to focus on baby and my anchors. The room slowly quietened down, after both the neo natal checked that Lola didn’t need any immediate care, and that my bleeding and I were okay too.

We then enjoyed some skin to skin in our golden hour before moving to high dependency to monitor baby Lola and me. They explained why I was being moved, which helped remove the worry and It was lovely nurturing experience to have additional care during what can be worrying time. I felt being fully informed as to why we were there, what support was given, and next steps really helped keep us informed and relaxed and the staff even took time to set my anchors up in the room to help keep us focused and calm whilst we recovered.

Birthing Lola was such a wonderful experience

Birthing Lola was such a wonderful experience and looking back I flood with happy thoughts about how positive and special it was during a time where if we had been unprepared, this could have felt very out of control.

I cannot thank Claire enough for her help and preparation on the run up to birthing Lola. It has been an incredible learning curve to learn to advocate for what felt right for our family, learn how to listen to my body and never stop asking “why.” She has a true gift at what she does and was such an integral part of our journey to birthing such a beautiful daughter.

- Laura & Stephen 1:1 Hypnobirthing Course