There is so much to say about Matthew's birth I could go on forever. I wanted to do Hypnobirthing because I was afraid of being in pain when I gave birth but I didn't want myself or my baby to be groggy with drugs either. My husband Greg didn't want to be at the birth at first because he was afraid of seeing me in pain and didn't want me yelling and swearing at him. He agreed to do the Hypnobirthing training with me when I told him that I would need someone to support me. After we had done the training his fears disappeared and he was determined to be at the birth!
My waters broke at 2 am five days before my due date. I was excited and disappointed all at once - Greg wasn't due to arrive in Melbourne for another two days. I had been so convinced that I would go over the due date that I hadn't arranged Hypnobirthing training for my back-up birthing partner, my friend Trish. About half an hour after my waters broke, I started having surges. All the practice I had done really paid off. I remained calm and relaxed and with each surge I focussed on my breathing. I rang Greg who was in the UK to let him know what had happened. While we were chatting I started timing my surges and realised they were three minutes apart already. I thought I'd better head to hospital right away so I said good-bye and phoned Greg's sister Julie to come and get me.
Once we were at the hospital I phoned Trish to ask her to come to the hospital. I had to give her on the spot Hypnobirthing training! She was amazing. I couldn't have done it without her. Having a partner to help with the Hypnobirthing process was essential. I taught her some of the deepening techniques and she picked up the concepts very quickly. She knew beforehand that I was going to use Hypnobirthing but she hadn't realised how effective it was. I used no pain relief at all. All I used was a hot pack to ease the feeling of pressure that I had in my pelvis. I complained about this pressure feeling to Trish. She was great - she reminded me that this meant that my cervix was dilating and that the birth was progressing normally. Trish told me that some of the midwives didn't believe I was giving birth because I was so relaxed. Trish is a GP with a diploma in obstetrics and has been at hundreds of births before. She told me that she had never seen anyone so relaxed when they were giving birth. During my surges it looked like I was asleep and it didn't look like I was in any pain at all. She said I was even more pain-free than the women she'd seen with epidurals. According to her it was like I had an epidural with a general anaesthetic on top!
I was so glad that I had spent the previous few weeks listening to the affirmations and the relaxation and doing the fear release. I had no anxiety at all during the whole birthing process. I was sceptical at first about the affirmations - I didn't see how they could work, but I persisted with them anyway. I have to say that every single one of them came true. I will definitely do them again next time. I was also glad that I'd prepared a birth plan. It meant that I was allocated a midwife who was experienced with Hypnobirthing and who was respectful of my wishes. Some things were a little bit different to what I had expected. I had planned to use lots of different positions - squatting, sitting on the fitness ball, kneeling and so on. When it came to the time I found that my surges were far too intense in these positions and the only position that worked for me was lying on my side which I ended up doing the whole time.
Once I'd reached the second stage of labour, the feeling of pressure in my pelvis disappeared. I felt fantastic! The midwife laughed because when she got me to lie on my back I said "This is so relaxing!" I have seen women in the second stage of labour abusing their husbands and even worse, cursing their babies for not coming out fast enough. I didn't want this for my family so I invented my own affirmations so that I would treat my husband and my baby with love and respect. This came true like all the other affirmations - during the transition phase I told Trish how much I loved my husband. As Matthew came closer and closer to being born I encouraged him in between each surge, telling him how close we were to seeing each other and how I was trying really hard to help him out. It was very special. I'll never forget how wonderful it was to see him for the first time and hold him against my chest and to hear his cries. It was wonderful to see him so healthy and I was really happy that I had been able to give him a drug-free birth. The only disappointment was that Greg couldn't be there to witness it first hand. I feel so sorry for him, that he missed out on such a beautiful experience.