Birth Stories

Andrea’s Hospital Birth Story

My little girl, Harriet, arrived a week late, on 14 July. She was 6 pounds 15 ounces and labour lasted an incredible hour. Just one!

I awoke at 2.30am to discover my waters had broken. I had mild contractions, initially 20 minutes apart for the remainder of the night. By 5.30 they were 8-10 minutes apart, but I was breathing carefully through them and they were easy.

We got to the hospital at 6am. Initially, everything slowed down, but by 6.45 the contractions were strong and the midwives were setting up the entonox in the room. At 7am I was 3cm dilated and started using gas and air. With each contraction I concentrated on making the out breath as long and calm as possible. As they intensified and I started getting the urge to push, I also visualised a small green squash ball, gradually losing its bounce – it was surprisingly effective.

When I couldn’t not push any longer, I imagined the opening petals around my baby’s head and pushed as if I were easing her through the opening. At 8.14 she was born, with an Apgar of 9/10 at one minute, and 10/10 at five minutes.

I sustained a second degree tear, which after a week had healed beautifully, and was hardly swollen or bruised (in comparison to my first child).

I had spent the entire labour kneeling up with my head leaning on my arms over the raised head of the bed. My husband gently rubbed my lower back, which helped too. I found the experience very powerful – I felt powerful and in control and felt that I was working with the baby, rather than trying to force her out.

Thank you for your help – the techniques worked for me, especially the breathing and the two visualisations I mentioned. I have a happy, healthy baby who sleeps a lot and I have healed remarkably fast.

I am passing on your number to friends of mine who are having babies in the next few months, as I have been so impressed with how well your techniques work.

Thank you again

Best regards
Andrea

A Dad’s Perspective – Paul’s 1st Baby

Hannah and I sent off the feedback form a few days ago but I wanted to contact you to offer the point of view of a birthing partner and my permission to share it…

Hannah and I had a beautiful baby girl at 23.48 last Wednesday – Hannah’s birthday!  Following our attendance on the course, Hannah achieved a drug-free delivery at home – exactly as we had hoped – and she remained calm, confident and in-control throughout her labour.  I really enjoyed the experience, finding it positive and feeling privileged to have been, as Hannah has since described, her ‘anchor.’  The sense of calm has persisted into the first week of our new-formed family and our closeness has actually been enhanced by our shared experience.  We also have a wonderfully calm and content baby.

My own concerns before the birth related to anxiety over how useful I would be.  There are many negative stereotypes associated with the role of the husband/partner in the birth-room and I wasn’t comfortable with any of them.  Even Michel Odent has expressed concern over male presence in the birth room.  I was keen neither to hinder Hannah’s labour nor to be a passive observer.

The techniques that we learnt on the course and practiced at home enabled Hannah to remain in control through her labour. They also enabled me to actively support her through it and, importantly, to remain calm and comfortable in silence when, otherwise, I may have tried to speak or act in a way that would have undermined her control.  There were times that were difficult watching Hannah going through the pain but breathing and the finger –to-thumb technique helped me to remain focused for her.

In the days after the birth, Hannah and I agreed that the Hypnosis for Childbirth course fee was probably the best money we had ever spent.

Kind Regards,
Paul

Megan’s Home Birth Story

I thought you would like to know that the entire labour went exactly as I had planned and visualised:-

• Put my daughter to bed and felt the first telltale signs, phoned my mum to warn her
• Got everything ready for a home birth and sat on my birthing ball, breathing through my contractions and visualising my baby coming down (approx. 9pm)
• Phoned the midwife and my mum (who was to be present in case my daughter woke up) and asked them to come over (approx. 9.30pm)
• Husband, midwife, mother and stepfather all sat and chatted whilst I quietly ‘got on with things’!
• At approx. 11.30pm midwife asked my husband to put some towels in the tumble dryer to warm them (this was from her listening to my breathing and monitoring how far apart the contractions were).
• At approx. 11.55 I said I thought I might want to push
• At 12 midnight I said I definitely needed to push and with the first push my waters broke
• With the 2nd Aron moved down
• With the 3rd his head came out
• 4th-his body came out at 12.11pm!!

It was calm and quiet and a truly wonderful experience, all present felt privileged to have witnessed it and my son has been contented from the moment he was born.

• The midwives then ran me a bath and made me a cup of tea and then mum, step-dad and midwives left us to go to bed.
• In the morning when my daughter woke she was amazed and thrilled to see her new baby brother sleeping peacefully by the side of our bed.

At no point did I feel scared or in need of pain relief which is a true testament to the power of hypnotherapy in childbirth.

This was my second time of using the course-the 1st time was also wonderful & panic-free & chemical-free.

Thankyou!

Cindy’s Hospital Birth Story

The birth of Charlotte Olivia was all rather short and sweet (so I’m told by friends who have endured 36+ hour labours!). Mine was all done and dusted in 14 hours from the first contraction to holding my little angel. If you could have told me in the morning that by the evening I’d be a mummy I’d have said you were mad! My contractions started at around 6 am (a rather civilised time I thought-allowing for a full nights sleep to give me some energy) and I ignored them at first in preference to a little lie in!

My contractions were never more than about 10 to 15 minutes apart all day, more often than not between 3 and 7 minutes and I employed the ‘self hypnosis’ techniques I’d learnt on the Hypnosis for Childbirth course I’d been doing with Sharon Mustard in Salisbury, in preparation for a more relaxed birth. Typically Charlotte decided to make an early appearance, so I’d only done three out of the five sessions and so as the contractions got more intense I rang Sharon, who reassured me I could manage with what I knew already and talked me through a contraction. She said my breathing and visualisation were spot on! The techniques I’d learnt for relaxation and positive visualisation were undoubtedly how I lasted at home so long and ended up with no pain relief.

I used a variety of slow and deep breathing methods, anchoring where I repeatedly stated to myself that I was calm, confident and in control, visualising my escapist beach scene where I took in all the surroundings with my senses and dispelled any fears, picturing Matt and I on our wedding day, breathing in the colour of calm (blue) and out the colour of tension (red), imagining a flower blooming as Charlotte was born and inwardly talking to her and welcoming her to the world and our family.

My contractions didn’t settle into a regular ‘5 minutes apart’ until about 4pm, giving Matt time to work out how to fit the car seat, at which point I’d been taking paracetamol four hourly and using my TENS machine to boost through them. I’d had arnica in preparation for bruising, Bachs Rescue Remedy and glucose energy tablets. When we rang the hospital they listened to one of my contractions and stated that it sounded like I should stay at home for a while longer and that if I came in now they would probably send me away again. (I think the relaxation and breathing techniques allowed me to control my contractions, thereby hiding the strength and length of them, as I had been warned by Sharon they might, so they thought I was simply earlier on in labour than I was!).

We grabbed our stuff and hopped in the car-me straddling the back seat, only to get halfway down the road to find that Tilly the cat had snuck into the car and was sitting on my bent legs! One emergency stop and a flying cat later, we continued on our way. When we got to hospital the contractions were every two minutes and lasting over a minute each.

When I was examined my water sac was visible, so the midwife ‘popped’ it and announced that she could see Charlotte’s head. At this point Matt put my relaxation for birth CD on (which when we hear it now brings back such special memories) and this played for the remainder of the birth. ‘This baby is coming now’ the midwife stated, to which I replied ‘Oh-only I’ve had two paracetamol four hours ago and my TENS machine isn’t doing much anymore. Is it worth having some sort of pain relief?’ I asked. ‘Not really!’ came the reply-‘You seem to be managing without it and it’s a bit late!’ Fair enough I thought!

And she was right-27 minutes and a few ‘good’ pushes later, Charlotte was born. It was the most surreal and wonderful experience of my life. She landed on my chest as a little blue lump weighing 5lbs and 4ozs and within minutes was a fantastic pink bundle, scoring 9 out of 10 on the APGAR score and feeding like a trooper while Matt cut her cord. We brought her home the following day and now can’t imagine what it was like before she made us a family.

I would thoroughly recommend the Hypnosis course and in fact did so to mums-to-be at the time and those who undertook a course were exceptionally positive about it too. Personally, I felt calm throughout each stage of labour, believed my body knew what it was doing and was amazed by the entire process. Having enrolled on the course because the thought of giving birth and the associated pain scared me witless, I think this was quite a turn around and I would certainly do it again! Thank you Sharon!

Kelly’s Hospital birth story

I knew when I saw the advert for your course that it was just the thing for me. I was never scared of childbirth, but rather scared of myself. I knew that without the proper preparation and training my mind is one that can have me hysterical in seconds. My biggest fear was ‘losing the plot and becoming despondent’.  Your course enabled my inner strength to develop and become stronger. Throughout my labour I was completely in control, never once falteringfrom the task in hand. I was convinced that strength is what gave me the birth I wanted. You allowed me to believe what I already knew-my mind can affect the outcome of my labour.

My labour lasted 11 hours; establishedlabour was 8 hours long! Matthew weighed 8lbs8oz and was happy and healthy from the very beginning. I had him at home in the water pool as planned. My husband was happy and my dogs were near me. I never worried about anything; I just focused on me.

I was up as soon as my waters broke, so, thinking it would be ages I settled down to some TV and breakfast, but within minutes the contractions had begun and had settled into a twelve minute pattern. Kevin and I took the dogs out for a walk in the forest. It was wonderful. When I got home my contractions were every 6 minutes!

We called the midwife and she said they should be stronger, but did I want anyone? The truth was actually I didn’t. That’s the reason why I did it at home, I needed to do this on my own as much as possible. The contractions got stronger and I put on my tens machine. I coped fine for a few hours watching Porridge on UK Gold (God bless TV). Eventually we called the midwives. I had two from the beginning as one was a trainee, who turned out to be amazing! When they arrived the contractions slowed right down, very annoying! They were about to leave when suddenly, unbeknownst to me (I hadn’t realised as I was under hypnosis and not really in tune with what was around me) they started to come every 1-2mins lasting 1-2mins. All I heard was the midwife say “we’re not going anywhere”.

I got into the pool, which was bliss. I must stress that throughout all of this I had been using your techniques in a very subliminal way. I rarely spoke, followed instructions from midwives without opening my eyes and stayed completely within myself. Kevin was surprised that I was never rude to him. The only thing I couldn’t abide was to be touched. I think it broke my concentration. I didn’t hear any of the conversation that went on around the room.

I used gas and air for the pain during the most difficult part, I couldn’t use TENS in the pool. Our discussion about it making me feel sick had also helped. It didn’t even make me queasy-I was fine! I loved it, great stuff!                 Things were getting harder and the most useful technique by this stage was breathing in the colour of calm-blue, and breathing out the colour of tension, red. I cannot stress how amazing that felt, I couldn’t blow that tension out fast enough. I was visualising all the red air pass through my lips and out into the room.

When the midwife asked to examine I had to get out of the pool-she said that part of my cervix hadn’t softened. To aid this I had to lie down and not push. This was hard, as I knew my body was doing what it needed to do. I summoned all my courage and found a spot to focus upon on the ceiling, a technique we had done in class. Now, I had never really got the hang of anchoring, I just couldn’t find the right image the classes. Suddenly I saw Kevin and me walking the dogs that morning and it was perfect, I pictured the dogs running around and took in everything I could. All the while I was breathing in calm and breathing out tension. When it got tough I repeated to myself, “I can do this, I can do this” to which my three manned entourage would reply “yes you can”.

Eventually, the tiny rim of cervix that had been hard softened and I got back in the pool. I really feel that that was my ‘fight or flight’ moment-it could have all gone wrong! I had to leave the comfort of the pool and face a fear that my labour wasn’t quite right at that moment. But boy did I get strong, my husband was so proud of me. That period lasted 20 minutes, I was fighting all my natural urges to push to avoid my cervix becoming sore and not opening at all. I did not allow my fear to surface and kept walking those dogs in my mind.

I got back in the pool and I knew he was coming, I was a bit frightened of touching myself, but I did and I felt his head. I look back on that moment now and know it was very special-the first time I touched my son. The gas and air ran out, but I wasn’t bothered, he was nearly out and I had become very focused on what I was doing. I began to imagine I was breathing my baby down, this really helped. He was coming and I hadn’t even pushed. The midwife encouraged me to push, so I did, a little, but I knew I didn’t need to push very hard.

He was born, underwater; I reached down and pulled up my baby. We cuddled for some time, until Kevin cut his cord and took him for a first cuddle. I birthed the placenta naturally using the visualisation of it detaching from my uterus and coming down the birth canal. I had a very small tear, which needed no stitches.

The midwives suggested I tried feeding. He latched on and began to feed without any problems. I am convinced this was because I was so relaxed and content. I visualised the mountaintop and even now that technique works to help my let down happen quicker when he is hungry. He has gained a healthy amount of weight every week, and breast feeding is one of the most wonderful things I have ever experienced.

An amazing experience Sharon, thank you. I could have done it without you-but it wouldn’t have been like that! If only you could visualise sleeping and feeding routines and have them happen just like that! All the best to every mother to be under your expert tutelage!