Early Contractions and Hypnobirthing

Our baby wasn’t due until the 30th of November so I was a little surprised when I started to have contractions more than 2 weeks early. At this point, I was quite excited that it was happening, and I would meet my baby girl soon. Straight away, I reminded myself of what I had learned on the hypnobirthing course and worked on breathing through and listening to the mp3s from the course to help me stay calm and in the right head space. I stayed at home for a few hours and once the contractions got quite close together,

Danny and I decided it was time to go into hospital. I had an examination when we arrived, and I was already 4cm so was absolutely delighted that I was progressing well. I had on my birth plan that I wanted to use the birthing pool if it was available and luckily it was.

Hypnobirthing in Action

As soon as we got into our room and I got into the pool, Danny set up our room the way we wanted by having the lights dimmed, playing our music, and spraying our room spray. He was encouraging me the whole time, telling me I could do it, and making sure I stayed cool and hydrated. I knew Danny would do great, but he really blew me away with how much he had taken on board from the course and put into action to support me on the day.

I had been managing well in the pool using breathing techniques and gas and air for quite a few hours, but I did become exhausted as I had been up for almost a 24 hours by this point (should have made the most of those daytime naps in pregnancy!). I got out of the pool as I had requested some additional pain relief to help me to rest in between contractions.

I started to push when my body was telling me it was time and tried all the different positions from the hypnobirthing course to help her to come out, but she just wasn’t coming (we found out later that she had turned during labour and was back to back). The midwives suggested that the doctor come and see us to figure out what was happening which we agreed to. I was really hoping I could carry on pushing and she would eventually make an appearance, but the doctor did an examination and advised that the best course of action would be a forceps delivery. Danny really stepped in at this point as he could see I was getting upset as having to have an intervention was what I had been most worried about. He asked the doctor lots of questions and asked about other alternatives and when we were being pushed to give the go ahead, he asked for us to be left alone to discuss it between ourselves and come to an informed decision.