My Hypnobirthing Experience

Practicing hyponobirthing myself showed me just how powerful this amazing concept is. 

My labour started two days after my ‘due date’ in the middle of the night. The surges started as I was waking up in the morning so Nick, my husband, put on some music, lit candles and made me breakfast. When my midwife came to the house an hour later, I was almost in active labour. She ran me a warm bath to slow things down slightly and give me more of a chance to relax and put the hypnobirthing techniques into practice, which were really helping me deal with the surges. She left, but in about an hour we called her back again. She offered me the chance to have the baby at home, but we decided to go into hospital. The taxi ride was hairy due to the advanced stage of labour, but when we got to St Thomas’ on the South Bank, I went straight into a room overlooking the Houses of Parliament — Nick joked that we could time the contractions on Big Ben! I was so focused on the intensely powerful (but definitely not painful) surges, I forgot about wanting a water birth, but luckily the midwife didn’t, and 45 minutes after getting into the water, Eva Rose was born. She was 8lbs 1oz, absolutely perfect, and apart from a retained placenta (which is another story) I had no tearing and a quick recovery.

Rachel