Hi Hannah! Tom and I have had our baby. I just thought I’d quickly share our birth story with you as we feel like our experience with the hypnobirthing course helped us in the experience.
During my pregnancy I regularly listened to the tracks (honestly not as much as I could have, but at least a couple times a week and in the last few weeks a few times a week). I had a few posters and affirmations hung around the house. More than anything, going through the course with you helped Tom and I to see how normal and natural birth is and appreciating how beautiful it can be.
Around 10:30 PM on Friday the 28th, I thought my water may have broken, but wasn’t entirely sure as it was a very slow trickle and I was making it to the toilet every time I needed to release the fluid. Around 12:30am it changed to it changed to pinkish and I rang the midwife to let them know. While having surges, I found I needed to walk through them, so pacing around the house was the most useful tactic for me.
From 1:30-3:30am the surges became regular, but not too full on until about 3am. At 3:30am I asked Tom to ring the midwife to let her know we were having contractions 3-5 minutely and had been for over an hour. We assumed she’d ask us to come in, but she said it sounded like we were doing great and encouraged us to keep going at home.
At 4:15am, I told Tom we needed to go. He again rang and we planned to meet there at 5am. We had gotten everything ready to go, but at 4:40am I had gone to the toilet and quite a gush of fluids. I felt like things were happening and asked Tom to check and sure enough our little baby was crowning!
I asked Tom to call 000 and get some towels! By 5am the paramedics were here. I leaned over my exercise ball in the lounge room and birthed (and Tom caught) our perfect baby boy at 5:20am.
The paramedics were amazing and helpful. They thought I had lost a bit too much blood, so they took me to the hospital and there I birthed the placenta and we headed up to the birthing suite and had our quiet time and then were assessed.
I just wanted to thank you for your course. While I didn’t use all of the birthing techniques that I had practiced, nor was I silent during birth, I think that the education that we received was a massive reason we were so calm and collected in a time that could have been scary and traumatic. I had no tearing, only some grazing and I’m sure that that also was because I was so aware of how natural birth is meant to be. Tom was not surprised or grossed out by anything because we had covered and discussed everything he saw, making his so available to be helpful and not afraid when I really needed him to be as calm as he was! So, thank you so much for that!!
Maggie and Tom.
I absolutely love receiving emails like this! Congratulations Maggie and Tom - you absolutely embraced the hypnobirthing philosophy and should be so proud! Birth story and photos shared with permission.