Rowan Tonissen ~ born 15/7/07, weighing in at 3.805 kg (8 lb 6 oz.).
Rowan started his final journey into the world sometime Friday, and after getting stuck in a moment he couldn't get out of, he just wanted to tear down the walls that held him inside. Sometimes when there is no way forward and no turning back, you can see only one way out, and the only way is up, and so Rowan was safely delivered by caesarian section almost 2 days after the journey began.
We wanted to pass on a bit more about our thoughts on how important hypnobirthing was to us. We received a number of replies to the email saying how calm/serene/peaceful/tranquil we all looked after our “ordeal” ~ we don’t think it was an ordeal, but that is the word others used! We believe this was only possible because of hypnobirthing ~ and the relaxing environment that Andy created and her openness to share hypnobirthing/birth experiences to encourage us in a safe, peaceful, calm birth. Unfortunately Rowan had 3 things against him – he was posterior position, Mum has a slightly small pelvic opening, and Dad has a big head! The reality is that not even hypnobirthing or all the power of positive visualization in the world can bring about the impossible, but there is no question that hypnobirthing was absolutely critical to our capacity to get through it all and end up with the photo you now have. Michelle was having surges around 5 minutes or less from mid Friday to 4 am Sunday – about 40 hours, along with an oxytocin drip for about 5 of those hours bringing the rate up to 5 per 10 minutes (1 minute on, 1 minute relax) and increase the intensity to help things along (it didn’t!). In all of those hours her only relief was a hot water bottle, my hand on her back and my other hand on her shoulder. Apparently the sensations were fairly intense, but she breathed beautifully through them all. On only a few occasions did she almost lose control, and that was usually when a midwife was trying to talk to her or me during a surge (one of them wasn’t really sensitive to the fact that I was an essential part of the process and she couldn’t talk to either of us during a surge), or I wasn’t quick enough with the hand on the shoulder/back.
Unfortunately P.J, our obstetrician was heading off for conference leave, but P.E filled in and did a magnificent job. Totally appreciative of our desire for as natural birth as possible, he gave Michelle every chance to achieve that, but it just wasn’t going to happen. The last phase prior to the caesar was to use an epidural to see if that would help relax everything and increase the dilation beyond the 2 cm it had been for more than 12 hours. At the end she was almost fully dilated but Rowan was still too high to safely bring down. During the caeser it became apparent that he was totally stuck, with a bit of a conehead from trying to force his way through.
Rowan is definitely a hypnobub! He came out shouting (as you would!), but soon settled when he was wrapped and was wide awake taking in his new surrounds, making eye contact and generally being adorable. Because Michelle was in recovery for about 20-30 minutes, it meant I got to hold him for the first 30 minutes of his life, and we could stare into each others eyes. All this time he was looking at me, but looking for Mum for a feed, which happened soon after Michelle came to the room.
We are expecting our second child in October and intend to use hypnobirth again. Our experience is a bit different to what everyone is hoping for, but shows that if things go a little bit crazy, hypnobirthing is still incredibly valuable. Rowan LOVES rainbows!