Mothers Hypnobirthing Stories

My husband and I attended your Hypnobirthing course at your home in October this year.  Our baby was due on 1st December and I wanted to let you know that baby arrived 7 days early, on 24 November.  We now have a beatiful baby boy called Harry who weighed at birth 6 lb 6 oz.

I wanted to let you know that we had a wonderful birth and we all wanted to thank you as we are convinced that it was the hypnobirthing techniques that we learnt that helped us have the natural birth we really wanted.

I woke up at 6.00 am on the 24th with what I thought were surges and within an hour I was having surges every 5 minutes.  We put on your CD and I used the breathing you had taught us until about 11am when I realised things were moving pretty quickly and so I got in to the birthing pool.  Harry was born an hour later at 12.18.  All done within 6 hours!

Chris was a great support reminding me of the visulations and breathing during the second stage when things required a bit more concentration!

I can honestly say that giving birth to Harry was a fabulous experience.  He was born in a calm relaxed environment and at no stage did I feel out of control.

I admit I was a little sceptical when we decided to enroll on your course and on completing the course, whilst determined to practice the techniques and do my best to use them in labour, I had no idea that it would be so effective and make labour such a wonderful experience.

Harry is a very peaceful baby and I am sure that the way he came in to the world has contributed to that.

Thank you from us all.

Laura

Zeb was born on 13th October (3 days after his due date) at home. My surges started at 7pm on the 12th Oct and very quickly were lasting1 minute and were 5 minutes apart so we called the midwife at 10pm and she arrived by 11pm. I was 4 cm dilated when she arrived. I spent time listening to the birth affirmation CD and using all the breathing techniques and felt completely in control and calm without any pain using lot of different positions all round the house with the lighting low and everything was very relaxed.

The surges went on like this for several more hours but then about 4am in the morning things started to slow down and the surges became further apart and I began to feel very tired. I tried the different natural methods to try and speed up the surges and progress things but unfortunately they did not seem to work. At 7am the mid wife was due to go off duty and therefore called another one to come-when she arrived they checked me again and I was 6 cm dilated. The mid wives were fantsatic and so supportive of my birth plan. They also commented on how well I was coping with the surges and how calm i was.

I then asked them what they could do to possibly speed things up as I was just getting so tired having gone through the night and they said they could break my waters which I requested they did. Following this my surges became a lot more intense and I moved to the pool which was great. It was then I perhaps felt I wasn't coping as well but not through any pain as I kept thinking that each contraction was bringing me closer to my baby but just out of sheer exhaustion!Second stage labour lasted between 4-5 hours which we later found out was because Zeb had his hand over his head. I was unable to get him out in the pool so the midwives advised climbing the stairs to try and help after a few hours. It was great I was at home as I think if I had been in hospital they definitely wouldnt have let me go this long in second stage without intervening. The stairs did help and eventually Zeb was born at 1.43pm on our sofa! I was able to do the whole thing completely drug free and I really put this down to the hypnobirthing techniques I had learnt. I really felt I had to push as because of his position I dont think the birth breathing would have worked?

I felt in control of my birth and it was such a special experience to have him at home - a decision we only came to after attending your course, if you remember Piers didnt think it was a good idea before this! Unfortunately due to Zeb having his hand over his head I tore quite badly and had to go to hospital to be stitched. Originally they said they would have to give me an epidural and keep me in 2 days but after closer examination luckily I only had to have a local and was allowed home.Funnily enough when I was stitched this is the only time when I actually felt pain-apart from when I actually tore at the end. So that is it. Thanks again for all your help and your fantastic course, I will recommend it to anyone I know who is expecting!!

Best wishes,
Cressida