Mama J – “I’m so glad I had my birth partner there. I couldn’t have done it without him. Practicing the hypnobirthing scripts together every night definitely helped – his voice became my source of calm.”

I know my partner has sent his birthing experience so I thought I would send you mine now that I have a moment to spare!

So, it all began in the very early morning of 27th August. I woke up just before 3am with discomfort in my stomach and initially thought it was just the usual pregnancy pain or braxton hicks. I tried to get back to sleep but noticed they were happening more frequently, roughly 7-10 minutes apart and lasting roughly 20-30 seconds. This was when I thought “OMG, they are real contractions, I am going into labour!” and woke my partner up. I told him to ring the labour ward and initially they said I needed to wait until the contractions were 2 minutes apart and lasting 45seconds at least. So we waited.
During this time, I used the Hypnobirthing techniques and breathed through the sensations, which worked well. My partner also started reading some of the scripts and the sound of his voice really helped calm me down.

During this time my contractions were getting closer together and also lasting longer, but the labour ward kept telling us to stay at home. They said as it was my first pregnancy it could take ages for me to go into active labour. So we stayed home.
Not long later, around 5:30am I suddenly started getting these really intense contractions and felt a huge pressure around my southern area – I was making loads of noise and thought I was going to give birth then and there! I even asked my partner to have a look to see if he could see the baby come out!! – baby wasn’t coming… it was just my water breaking! So, after phoning labour ward and them hearing me shouting, they finally said I could come in! Trying to get to the car was fun with water trickling down my leg and contractions! My water finally broke in my partner’s car – of all places!

We got to the hospital around 6am and I was taken straight into the delivery room. At this point I kind of forgot all the hypnobirthing stuff as the contractions were so intense! I even asked for an epidural but couldn’t have one as I was already fully dilated! The Hypnobirthing down breathing obviously worked!!

My partner was great at this point as he made me focus on him and his voice to help me breath and calm down. At this point the sensations became more bearable. I even rocked with each contraction, which helped as well.

By 7:34am I had finally given birth to our little girl!

It was a very intense experience but looking back I am glad I couldn’t get the epidural as Hypnobirthing really does work. I am so glad I had my partner to calm me down as I don’t think I could have done it without him. Practicing the scripts at night definitely helped in our situation as his voice became my source of calm and down breathing, for me, was a great pain relief!

Hypnobirthing is definitely something I would recommend to everyone! Thank you for being a great teacher!