A Drug and Intervention free VBAC HypnoBirth
After the birth of my first son in 2017, I knew deep down that I had held negative feelings surrounding the events of his birth. Those feelings quickly became clouded by all the love that comes with having a baby and it wasn’t until I fell pregnant again two years later that these same feelings began to surface. I remember my first appointment with the midwives at around 16 weeks, and all we spoke about was my experience with William’s birth, and it was then I realised how I felt and how I wanted things to be very different this time.
My pregnancy with William was low risk, straight forward, until my ‘due date’ (sigh) came and went. I was then, like many women, let down by the system and was bullied and coerced into having an induction with no medical indication. Being my first pregnancy, I complied with their ‘policies’ and went ahead with the induction. This intervention then lead to more intervention which (surprise) resulted in an emergency caesarean some 18 hours later.
As soon as I began to process William’s birth during my pregnancy with Harriet, I began to gather information about normal physiological birth and how to give myself the best chance of achieving this. From early on in my pregnancy I knew I wanted to have a vaginal birth, which after a previous caesarean, I met with some obstacles from the hospital system.
I was fortunate to be accepted into a model of care that was midwife lead and was allocated the same midwife for all antenatal, birth and post natal care. They were an amazing asset in advocating for my decision to have a VBAC.
I felt strongly about avoiding unnecessary interventions this time, which included preparing my body physically for birth as well as ensuring baby was in an optimal position. I continued with gym classes until around 37 weeks, pilates, prenatal yoga, saw a women’s health physio and had regular chiropractic adjustments right up until labour began. Along with all my physical preparation, my husband and I decided to enrol in a HypnoBirthing course. I had heard so many positive birthing stories where women had utilised HypnoBirthing and it’s something that really stood out to me.
I was so happy to find Corinne of Intuitive Birthing Bendigo, and we enrolled and begun our HypnoBirthing International course when I was around 30 weeks. HypnoBirthing really focuses on creating positive birthing experiences, no matter what path your birth may take. My husband and I attended our classes and practiced the relaxation techniques at home. I found the course so empowering and it gave us the tools that instilled confidence in trusting my body and my baby on our birthing journey.
My ‘due date’ came and went (again) and this time I felt confident in trusting that my baby was happy and healthy and would choose their birthday when they were ready. Corinne was a lovely support during the last few weeks of pregnancy. I utilised my hypnobirthing affirmations a lot during this time.
11 days later, on Tuesday the 5th of November 2019 I woke at 5am to my waters releasing in bed. I felt excited and proud of myself and my baby for allowing the labouring process to begin on its own, when it was ready. Josh, my husband, went to work that morning for a few hours as my surges were only very mild and irregular. I went about my morning with my little boy, and my parents came to collect him for a sleepover later that morning. My husband returned home around lunchtime and I had since been in contact with my midwife to them know my waters had released and I was in the early stages of labour. She (my midwife) knew my wishes were to stay at home and labour as long as possible before coming into birth suite.
I felt so calm and relaxed being at home, doing all the cliché nesting around the house, listening to my HypnoBirthing affirmations, and utilising my fit ball. We went for quite a long walk around our neighbourhood, stopping every so often to breath through a surge, which were still fairly irregular at this stage. I just had this feeling that my labour wouldn’t progress further until the sun went down that day. Sure enough, we returned from our second walk for the day, just on dusk, Josh ran me a bath and put on my HypnoBirthing relaxation track. At this point it was around 8pm, I could feel my surges intensifying, and becoming closer together. Still feeling so in control and relaxed, I decided to get out of the bath after about an hour in there, I felt like I needed to move around as the surges felt more intense laying down.
We put on my tens machine and I just went with my body, utilising my surge breathing and visualising expanding and opening rather than tightening and tensing with each surge. Around 9:30pm my midwife checked in to see how I was travelling. I was not able to talk during my surges at this point, so Josh spoke to her. He had been subtly keeping track of my surges and he said they were 2 minutes apart lasting for 1 minute. We decided that we would make our way into the hospital.
I remember standing in our hallway as josh put our things in the car and looking into William’s bedroom; I felt so emotional as this was the last time I would be in our home as just as his mumma, and we would be returning with our new little baby.
We arrived at the hospital and made our way up to the birth suite. Our midwife had not arrived yet from home so another midwife showed us to our room and left us be until our midwife arrived. Josh set up the room with dimmed lighting, I had my relaxation tracks playing in my headphones from the car trip and had our birthing preferences available for the hospital staff. Our midwife was on board with our preferences and just allowed me to labour with minimal interference. Not once did I feel ‘pain’, scared, or out of control. I felt so calm and was able to laugh and talk between surges with Josh and our midwife.
I had no sense of time and just went with my body and surrendered to the sensations. I utilised the shower and Josh did the light touch massage that Corinne had taught us. We had been in birth suite around an hour and I started feeling a lot of pressure in my bottom that was a type of involuntary pushing sensation. I kept wanting to sit on the toilet. Which felt the most comfortable at the time. I began to get worried as I could not control this bearing down sensation, my body was just doing it. I felt like I hadn’t been in established labour long enough the be anywhere near the ‘pushing stage’ so I asked my midwife to check my dilation. I know now that I was in the transition stage of labour at this point.
To my surprise I was 9cm dilated. Josh and my midwife easily assisted me to get my mindset back to a calm relaxed state with the help of HypnoBirthing techniques. I continued to go with the sensation and the pushing feeling began to get stronger. I decided I wanted to kneel on the bed with my head resting on the back of the bed head. Soon after, my baby’s head was visible during the surges and I began to re-focus my breathing to the birth breathing that we had learnt with Corinne. With each surge I could feel Harriet moving down.
This lasted around an hour. Shortly after, I reached down and brought my baby up to my chest, Josh and I both checked to see what we had as we had kept this a surprise. What a surprise it was, I was yelling out, “I did it, Oh my goodness, I did it, and It’s a girl !”.
Harriet was so calm and alert, it was so surreal and a truly amazing experience. She found her way up to my breast and self attached and had her first breastfeed. I had chosen to have a physiological 3rd stage of labour (birthing of the placenta) so I denied having the synthetic hormone injection. Harriet’s cord remained intact and was not clamped or cut until after I had birthed the placenta. I felt so strongly about allowing her to receive all that precious cord blood.
After her first feed I began to feel mild surges and decided to hop up with Harriet and walk to the toilet. My midwife placed a bowl in the toilet and I birthed my placenta there chatting and marvelling at my new little bundle. Harriet and I had 3 hours of skin to skin in birth suite and we had tea and toast and watched the sun come up before ringing our families to let them know she had arrived.
Her birth was magical and empowering. I felt so proud of myself and of my husband in his role in being my support. Hypnobirthing is an amazing tool to bring to any birth and I am so grateful to have found Corinne and her amazing work. Harriet’s birth was such a healing experience and I feel very fortunate to be her mum and have completed our little family.
Ash xx