As soon as I knew that I was going to have relief from the intensity, I relaxed and the urge to push began

I love this positive induction birth story I received from Anna who used her hypnobirthing techniques to help her cope with the intensity of her labour and the deviation to her birth plan.

Here is her story…..

I started bouncing on my fit ball, listening to my Hypnobirthing  tracks and practicing nipple stimulation from 38 weeks.

Nine days before my estimated due date, I was out walking at night and noticed my pants were wet. Thinking that I’d just accidentally peed myself (it wasn’t a huge amount of fluid), I didn’t do anything about it.

The next day I was feeling off colour and was getting semi-regular surges, but they weren’t strong, and I didn’t have any other symptoms, so I just thought they were Braxton Hicks.

I went for a walk and listened to my hypnobirthing tracks and practiced my breathing. By the time night came, I was feeling really off colour, like I had the flu, so I called my midwife who told me to come in to the hospital for an exam.

They examined me and realised that my waters had partially broken, and I was in early labour. Because it had been over 24 hours since my membranes had released and I was GBS positive, they had to give me syntocinon to speed things up and get me into established labour.

At first, I was really upset as I had to be hooked up to an IV and wear monitors, so showering and bouncing on the fit ball weren’t a possibility.

After I had the antibiotics, we were then moved to a birthing suite, and we set up the room as planned. I dimmed the lights, set up fairy lights and put up my affirmation posters. I had my music and hypnobirthing tracks playing through my wireless headphones so I could move around.

For the first four hours, the syntocinon was being slowly increased and I felt fine, so I tried to nap while listening to the affirmation tracks and breathing through mild surges.

Once I reached the maximum dose, it was too hard to stay on the bed, so I got up and did some dancing and bent over the bed while Nick did some acupressure and light touch massage.

I was on the maximum dose of syntocinon for 8 hours total with only a bit of gas for pain relief. The majority of the time I was barely aware of what was going on around me as I was totally in the zone with my headphones on and reading my affirmation posters.

I felt totally calm and in control until about 30 mins before Max was born.

I was so shattered and started to feel claustrophobic and panicky.

My surges had been so strong and frequent for over 7 hours, and I was scared that it wouldn’t end soon or that I might not be able to get him out.

I begged my midwife for an epidural.

She knew I didn’t want one, so she dragged it out as long as possible.

Eventually, she ordered it, but there would be at least an hour before I got it because it was a busy night on the ward and there’d been a couple of emergencies admitted.

I never got it in time!

As soon as I knew that I was going to have relief from the intensity, I relaxed and the urge to push began.

I was on all fours, leaning over the back of the reclined bed trying to focus on slowing it down, but it was too strong.

I couldn’t hold myself up due to the pain, so I slid onto my side on the bed and that felt more comfortable.

Max was born very quickly with only four pushes.

The midwife was in disbelief as I had only been 6cm dilated 30 minutes beforehand, but this is something that is taught in the Hypnobirthing classes.

He was perfect.

He was brought up onto my chest straight away, with his cord left attached until it had gone completely white.

Max was born at 3:06pm on the 15th December, exactly one week before his estimated due date.

He was very chilled out throughout the whole labour, even though it was really rough on me with the induction.

Because I didn’t have analgesia and delivered naturally, he was very happy and healthy at birth, could stay on my chest for hours and even breastfed within the first hour of being born.

It was overall a really positive birth, despite needing to be induced!

I think what made the difference and got me through it were the hypnobirthing techniques I used.

They were amazing!

It saved me from further intervention for sure. I was in a trance like state for the majority of the labour, right up until transition.”

I would definitely recommend Vicki Hobbs and her classes, so you are prepared and have options when your birth plan changes.

Anna & Nick
Perth, WA