Birth Story by Georgia, Hypnobirthing Mum
“If it wasn’t for the education and empowerment we received from Kate through her hypnobirthing course, being lucky enough to be in the MGP program and having an amazing, supportive midwife who was a huge believer in hypnobirthing and natural birth, plus the support of Matt and the way he believed in me and supported me I don’t know if our birth would have turned out the way it did.“
On Tuesday the 10th of August at 40+1 weeks I woke up feeling different, I couldn’t exactly pin point what was different I just didn’t feel myself. I had a couple of appointments that I had to go to. I got my eyebrows done at 9am and on my way home I started to have some pains in my lower back that were coming and going. I sat with this feeling for a while until I had a thought that maybe this was some sort of a surge. I sent a text to my partner Matt saying I thought I was having surges. He was very excited and offered to come home from work. I said no not yet as it was very manageable and knew that it could go on for at least a day or so.
I had an appointment at the Midwife clinic as I was in the MGP program and I needed to attend a meet and greet with other midwives and expectant mums. I arrived at this appointment at 12pm and spoke to my midwife. I explained the feelings I had been experiencing. My midwife gave me a very big reassuring smile and said it could be the beginning of early labour but let’s not get too excited. During the meet and greet session the surges were getting a little uncomfortable and I needed to stand each time one came. Afterwards my midwife checked my blood pressure, felt baby and listened to baby’s heart rate. Everything was perfect. She gave me a big hug and said well this could be the beginning so go home and rest, eat and ring me if you need me. I got home at 3pm and Matt was home. We had been walking every afternoon to help baby move down but I didn’t feel like going today. We stayed home and relaxed. I had the tens machine on, which at this point felt amazing. I had it on for a couple of hours. We had dinner and had a nice night together. My midwife rung me about 5:30pm and I told her I was doing fine and I was sure nothing was going to happen but told her I’d call if I needed to.
Matt and I went to bed at 9:30, I had two heat packs one on my tummy and one on my lower back. We listened to a hypnobirthing meditation and both drifted off to sleep.
At 11:30pm I woke up to my surges being quite strong and consistent. I didn’t wake Matt up, I thought I could continue breathing through them and try and go back to sleep. I was unable to go back to sleep, I turned around and I held onto our bed head and used my surge breathing. By 12:30am being on my knees was not comfortable anymore so I had a hot shower, this is when Matt woke up. He offered me food, water and encouraged my breathing and helped me remain calm by doing some light touch massage between surges. He put the tens machine back on my back but I didn’t like the feeling at this point so we took it off. I wanted to walk around and then lean over the couch or kitchen bench during each surge. All of a sudden I had a strong urge to go to the toilet, every surge that came had me on the toilet. By 1am Matt called our midwife to let her know things were progressing quickly. Our midwife asked Matt to put the phone on speaker so she could hear me during my surges. I was groaning through each surge and she said that it sounded like they were a minute or so apart and it was a good idea to come in.
Matt was packing the car whilst supporting me through each surge. I was in the shower by this time and my body had started pushing. I had no control over the pushing, each surge that came I was pushing. Matt continued to support me by saying breath our baby down and saying the hypnobirthing quotes that we had been using throughout the pregnancy. We really needed to get in the car but I was not able to. I had entered the transition phase and began to say I couldn’t and didn’t want to do this anymore and wanted pain relief.
By 2am I was trying to get into the car and by 2:15am I was in the car and we were on our way to the hospital. As we got into the car my phone connected to the Bluetooth and our hypnobirthing meditation track we were listening to before bed automatically started playing. This could not have been more perfect. I continued having surges during the drive and pushing with each surge, I felt calm in the car because of the birthing affirmation track that was playing. Our midwife met us in the loading zone with a wheelchair and we went straight up to the birth suite, no time to park the car. It was 2:30am when we arrived at the hospital. My midwife was so encouraging to me when we arrived making me feel safe, supported and it was so reassuring that she knew exactly what birth we were hoping for, no discussions were needed around what we wanted, perks of being in MGP. She did an examination once we got into the room and told me I was fully dilated and ready to have our baby. I asked to go to the toilet one last time and I remember feeling and saying I can feel the head. Sure enough my midwife came in and said yes there’s the head. I got into the bath, by this time it was 3:10am.
The feeling I got when I got into the bath was an instant feeling of relief. Matt sat outside the bath holding me up and did not stop encouraging me, loving me and telling me how proud he was. At 3:43am our baby boy Sunny was born. I’ll never forget the feeling of holding him in my arms for the first time. We didn’t know what we were having so the surprise of finding out was indescribable.
I felt so proud of Myself and Matt for bringing our baby into the world in the way we did. My whole pregnancy I was determined to have a completely natural birth and avoid interventions if it was possible. I knew whatever needed to happen to ensure the safety of my baby and I would happen but I felt very strongly about my birth preferences and put in a lot of work to achieve them. I got an amazing 3 hours of uninterrupted skin on skin time with my baby and let Mother Nature work it’s magic allowing Sunny to initiate the first breastfeed, those first moments were so beautiful. We weighed him about 3.5 hours after birth and to our surprise he was a big boy, weighing 4.297kg and 54cm long. I was never told by anyone our baby was big, I measured exactly how I was supposed to be measuring each week. I’m so grateful for this, as I had no fear around having a big baby. My labour was intense, empowering and exactly what we imagined and more.
If it wasn’t for the education and empowerment we received from Kate through her hypnobirthing course, being lucky enough to be in the MGP program and having an amazing, supportive midwife who was a huge believer in hypnobirthing and natural birth, plus the support of Matt and the way he believed in me and supported me I don’t know if our birth would have turned out the way it did. Mindset was everything to us.
I remember Kate saying if you were to run a full marathon you wouldn’t just expect to run it without any preparation and training. Birth is the same, and we believe we achieved our birth because of how invested we were in having the birth we had. We did spinning babies exercises most nights and Matt was the rebozo king. We used our hypnobirthing meditation tracks most nights and constantly spoke about and manifested the birth we were dreaming of. Because of this, I can’t wait to experience birth again. The most breath taking, mind blowing and magical experience ever! Every time I look at my beautiful baby boy I think about the way I birthed him and think so positively about the whole experience.
Kate’s Hypnobirthing Australia™ course “Positively Hypnobirthing” gave us the education, facts, research, support, encouragement and empowerment to continue our positive mindset throughout our entire pregnancy. We never felt anything but excited about how we would bring our baby into the world.
“We absolutely loved Kate’s hypnobirthing course. Kate is so knowledgable about birth and provides so much insight. I feel excited and empowered to give birth after doing this course. Thank you Kate.”
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