My birth was more than I could ever have hoped for and is my favourite life event to date!

I am so proud of myself and beyond grateful for everything I learnt at hypnobirthing!!

I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes and my Obstetrician wanted to induce me and had even set a date for the 4^th December, which would’ve made me 41 weeks. Originally he’d spoken about inducing at 38/39 weeks and thanks to all the information you sent me and the confidence you gave me I was able to stand my ground.

The whole gestational diabetes situation really stressed me out and I left in tears after most of my appointments with my obstetrician and would cry the rest of the day because of all the things I was told that could’ve happened to me and my baby, like not being able to birth him naturally, him being “too big” for me, him having blood sugar problems, him possibly having “fits” etc.

With the extra resources you provided me with I was determined to have my natural birth!

And that’s exactly what I got…

My warm up labour went for about two days. It started off with very mild “period cramps”. I was still able to go about doing things with my mom who came over from South Africa to be with me. Then the next night my mucous plug came out and I thought my waters might have broken so I went in to hospital to check but it wasn’t so I went home and happily continued my labour.

I used my hypnobirthing breathing and relaxation techniques and had a beautiful calm labour – my mom couldn’t believe her eyes. Then during the next night my surges suddenly intensified and were very close together. I held out as long as possible but in the early hours of the morning decided to go in to the hospital. This is when I should’ve really focused and concentrated on my hypnobirthing but all I wanted was to be alone with my body and didn’t want to listen to anyone or anything (totally the opposite of what I thought I would be like in labour!!)

Not too long after getting to hospital my surges changed and my body instinctively started bearing down on each surge. The midwife was shocked and said I can’t be pushing yet (haha!)

By this stage my membranes had not yet ruptured and I decided to let the obstetrician do so. About an hour after that our beautiful baby boy popped out without any further intervention or medication.

My body had no trouble naturally birthing our perfectly healthy boy, who was only 3.75kg (!!!) and 52cm long. His blood sugar is perfect and he is incredibly healthy. He had no problems latching – his first feed was perfect. And since then he’s fed and latched without any issues, putting on weight nicely.

Feeling him slip out of me was the most incredible experience of my life. I feel so empowered to have done this naturally and I am already looking forward to the next one!

At the same time I am annoyed with all the drama caused surrounding my gestational diabetes – it brought me a lot of stress and I feel it was all for nothing. I am just so grateful for you and the course – without the tools and knowledge I would definitely have ended up with interventions and I am sure that it would’ve turned into a caesarean.

Recovery has been a bit long – although I only had minor internal tearing the stitches gave me some issues. But after a course of antibiotics I am feeling much better. It’s incredible how the body immediately bounces back. The girl sharing the ward with me had an epidural and she was struggling so much. What a difference to my experience – after spending a good two hours alone bonding with Mati and Juan I was up, moving around and in the shower with no pain whatsoever!

I must also add that the course gave Juan direction and made him invaluable to me as a support person during all stages – before, during and after birth.

My birth was more than I could ever have hoped for and is my favourite life event to date!

On a side note, the Obstetrician told me a week before my birth that I was “4 weeks behind where I should be” and would “never go into labour naturally.” Can you believe it? I went straight to the chiropractor for a couple of sessions and listened to my “Baby Come Out” hypnobirthing track, and a couple of days later started labour.

Who knows if that helped or not?

But what I did know was that Matías and I could do it.

And the whole way through my positive affirmations kept coming into my mind – which helped me immensely.

We are so proud of Matías’ birth – Juan calls me a “guerrera” which means “warrior”.

We’ll definitely be coming to the refresher course for the next one!

Thanks again for everything and we would love to share our birth story in the hope that it will inspire others.

Kelly & Juan
Perth, December 2016