"My First HypnoBirth, My Third Baby. So many favorite parts to this birth!..."

 

This birth story is about our 3rd child – Christian Luke Robinson. My due date was 10/8. At 11:30 pm of that night I was complaining that nothing exciting happens to put me into labor, my surges usually just start. On 10/9 at 12:30 am as I was headed to the bathroom my water actually released! I was really excited even as my surges started strong – 5 minutes apart 15 minutes after my water broke. I really wanted to trim the labor time down to my wish time of 6 hours.

 

Initially I struggled to establish control, focus and relaxation. The strength with which the surges started was quite a surprise. I usually have plenty of time to build up to this point in the birthing. My husband put on soothing music that we had previously picked out and started with Light Touch Massage.

 

We labored for approximately the first 1.5 by ourselves before calling my mom, who is a midwife, to come over. I used my birthing ball and sat on the toilet for most of this period of time. My attending midwife arrived about 3 am. At this point I moved to the tub, my husband read scripts and we listened to both of the HypnoBirthing disks that were provided in our class over and over.

 

I knew that this was going to be a 6 hour labor because this is what I wanted from my experience, the goal that I was focused on. There was such a difference with this birth versus the previous two that I’d experienced. Even though I’d done this two times already, I was more educated about the entire birthing process. I embraced my surges and truly welcomed them; knowing that they really were bringing my baby closer to me. In comparison to my other births I could actually feel my body doing the work for me and quickly too. I had my midwife check me a couple of times to see if I was ready to breathe the baby down because I felt strange sensations that I wasn’t familiar with. This was just the baby moving lower into the birthing position.

 

I remember asking Phil several times what time it was because I knew that I only had until 6:30 and then my baby would be in my arms. My midwife had me leave the tub and labor kneeling next to the bed, to further move the baby down about 5:30 or so. During this time I started using birth breathing to accelerate the journey. I’m not sure how long this lasted, it wasn’t long. Time truly does cease to exist in the miracle of birth. On one hand it seems as though it was taken so long to get to a particular point, but overall the experience passes so rapidly and hours fly by unexpectedly.

 

I was nervous to push because of my prior experience of just launching the baby across the bed with one or two huge pushes. I wanted to avoid this in order to heal quicker and enjoy my afterbirth recovery. When I had the urge to push I was actually able to do it slowly and controlled, pausing when my midwife asked, thereby eliminating unnecessary tearing. I attribute this to visualizing this portion of the birth over and over.

 

Our beautiful baby boy was born at 6:46 am, he was received by his father and welcomed with all the love our hearts are able to contain. He was immediately placed in my arms, while we awaited the placenta delivery. The blood from the placenta was delivered back to him before Phil cut the cord. Our baby boy didn’t cry, was the most remarkable pink and didn’t even require suctioning of his nose. I was able to immediately nurse him, a remarkable experience that early even though I feel as though I haven’t stopped since then.

 

The baby was able to remain at my breast, with his father’s hand on his back until we were ready to relinquish him to the midwife about an hour later. He weighed in at 8 lb and 1 oz and was 21 inches long.

 

I don’t have just a favorite part of the birth but many favorite parts. It was by far my favorite birth, the ease with which I birthed, the speed and the recovery has been amazing. I’ve felt fantastic and haven’t experienced pain other than typical afterbirth pains.

 

There is so much to be said for delivering in the comfort of one’s own home and room, surrounded by familiarity. It was incredible to welcome a new child into our hearts while our other children slept down the hall. I will never forget the looks of stunned astonishment on my daughters’ faces when they entered our room about 45 minutes after the baby was born. We were immediately able to bond as an entire family.

 

The thing that probably sticks out the most in my mind was being able to feel my body do its job the way nature intended. The difference was marked, I could indeed feel the birth happening, our baby was extremely calm upon being born and unlike my other two children there were no markings or bruises on the baby or his face from a laborious intensive birth experience.

 

The only thing that I would change is the amount of time that I had to practice and incorporate the HypnoBirthing techniques and belief system. We started our class at 35 weeks pregnant and finished just one week before the baby was actually born. However, even with the small amount of time that we had to practice HypnoBirthing the amount of change in the birth was very substantial.

 

– Kristen Robinson