Hypnobirthing Experience

Friday May 9^th I slept in really late (until 11 am) which was unusual for me. I relaxed at home all day, disappointed that once again I wasn’t in labor. David kept joking that I was going to go into labor that day, but by the time he came home at 6 pm I had only had a couple random contractions. After dinner we went for a walk around 8 pm. While on the walk I started having stronger contractions a few minutes apart. David’s sister, Rachel, had bought a new car that day and wanted to show it off. She came and found us on our walk and asked if we wanted to drive around. I was having contractions and really did not want to be in the back seat of the car so I said I would keep walking and they could find me later.

By the time they got back I was stopping every block or so for a contraction and David and I both needed to use the restroom. We decided it would take too long to get home at the rate I was stopping so we called Rachel and had her come back and give us a ride home. After that I wanted ice so we walked to South End Market to get ice and try and encourage my contractions to keep going. We got there and decided we were going to get some frozen yogurt for our “date.” That yogurt parlor had recently started a promotion where if you guessed the price of the yogurt you’d get it for free. David guessed it right on, down to the penny! He said it was a sign that we were going into labor. We enjoyed our free yogurt and headed home.

I decided I wanted to take a bath to help me relax and go to bed. At this point David started timing my contractions and they were coming every 1-2 minutes and lasting a minute or so. This really surprised me because I had thought they were maybe 30 seconds long and 5 minutes apart at least. However, by the time I got out of the tub around 11 pm the contractions were stronger and I couldn’t find a comfortable position to lie down in. We tried having me sit on an exercise ball next to the bed with my head on pillows, but when I had contractions all I wanted to do was rock my hips back and forth so every time one came I would stand up half way with my head still on the pillows and rock them. That was not very easy or comfortable so I went to the couch and ended up kneeling with my head on the arm of the couch and then I could rock without having to stand up. That worked much better and I slept some from midnight until 2 am.

Me getting some rest on the couch

The contractions started getting stronger again and I was hungry so I got up and ate a bowl of cereal. I couldn’t get comfortable after that so I decided to hop in the tub again and I stayed there and dozed until about 6:00 am. David was great and boiled water on the stove and kept adding it so I wouldn’t be cold. After I got out I tried to lie down again but I didn’t feel well and got up, threw up, and felt shaky. At this point I was worried I was further along than I originally thought so we went to the hospital quickly. However, I was also hungry again so in the car we debated stopping for something to eat but in the end I just wanted to get out of the car (having contractions sitting down was extremely annoying) so we went straight to the hospital.

We were sad to find that the room with the jetted tub was full so I got checked into a small room at the end of the hall with no tub.  The nurse said they needed to monitor and check me so I got in a gown and into bed to be strapped to the monitor. I was at 5.5 cm with contractions close together.  I was a little disappointed because I wanted to be at 7 cm before I came to the hospital. The contractions were more sharp and noticeable when I was confined to bed, hooked to the monitors, and unable to move. Luckily we got a new nurse who was amazing and she pushed on my knees during contractions to ease the sharpness. The first couple times it was amazing and got rid of the contraction sensation all together! However, soon after that it no longer worked and I was feeling tired after being up all night.

Me in my snazzy hospital gown

The midwife arrived and checked in on me. It was Erica, the midwife I really wanted to deliver! I was so excited. She encouraged me to rest and went to another hospital to check on her patients there. I had David play the hypnobirthing CDs and closed my eyes because I was getting tired and the midwife had encouraged me to rest. I still had to be monitored, and counter pressure on my knees was no longer taking the edge off making labor more difficult. After a long while of being monitored intermittently the nurse came and took me off and I got up to go to the bathroom. David helped me and stayed by me because I was still having contractions 1-2 minutes apart. I sat up on the edge of the bed and just buried my face in his chest every time a contraction came, then walked to the bathroom and buried my face in his chest while I sat on the toilet. It really helped take the edge off the contractions.

David was such a crucial part of the whole birth experience, which I didn’t realize until while I was in the bathroom he stepped out into the main room for a minute. A contraction came while he was gone and it was much sharper and more crampy than the other contractions had been. I called for him to come back and buried my face in his chest again for the next contraction and all the discomfort went away.

I continued laboring for a while longer and the midwife got back. An hour or hour and a half after getting to the hospital I was dilated to 6.5 cm. After about 3 hours of being at the hospital I was feeling that my contractions were stronger and I was staying in a relaxed state between contractions and was not really aware of what was going on around me. I just wanted to block everything out and be left alone in quite which David, the nurse and the midwife were all very considerate of. They didn’t bother me unless they had to and they were always sure to ask if it was a good time first and spoke softly. David had stepped out of the room for a minute to do something, and noticed that the room with the jetted tub was being cleaned. He asked the nurse and the midwife if there was anyway I could be moved to that room. They immediately went to check, got the okay for me to change rooms, started filing up the tub and gave us the good news. David gathered up all our stuff and the nurse got me a wheelchair so I didn’t have to be stopping for contractions in the hall.  

We got to the room and I immediately got in the tub. Sinking into the water up to my shoulders was the most amazing feeling. I was able to just relax and all the discomfort I had started to feel just melted away and I was no longer feeling like I was in labor, I was just a happy lady soaking in a jetted tub. It was such a wonderful, relaxing sensation. I’ve actually had dreams about getting to soak in the tub again and feeling that relaxed. It was great. David turned on the jets for me and got everything situated in the room. I had created a play list of Jim Brickman piano music and David turned it on and then stayed by my side (after taking this picture). 

Relaxing in the magical jetted tub

I labored in the tub for a couple hours, completely relaxed and in my own world. Then I started feeling like I was majorly constipated. I had already gone to the bathroom a couple times during labor and my first thought was that I needed to go number two yet again, but I didn’t want to get out of the tub! I started stressing that I wouldn’t be able to hold it in, that I would poop in the tub, and they would make me get out. I think it was at this point I started tensing up a little bit and David would remind me to relax by saying things like “Love, let go of the tub. You can’t be relaxed if you have a death grip on the tub” or putting his hand on my shoulder and saying “You are tensing up right here, relax.” Eventually I remembered my birth instructor, Launi, saying that that feeling like you need to go to the bathroom is the baby coming down and pushing on those same nerve endings and that if you got on all fours it would help ease the sensation. I turned over in the tub so I was on all fours and continued to labor. It really did help to relieve the constipated sensation. David stayed right by me and continued to remind me to relax which was great because being on all fours made my hands and arms go numb from the elbows down which for some reason frustrated me to no end.

The contractions were starting to be more intense and I was wondering how much longer I could be on all fours when I felt a huge gush. At that point I remembered my mom saying “When it starts to get uncomfortable and your water breaks know you’ve only got 10-15 minutes left.” I didn’t tell David or the midwife that I thought my water had broken because I did not want to get out of the tub. However, the midwife came in and could tell my breathing had changed and told me I had to get out. Darn, she caught me, or I would have given birth in the tub. David helped me out of the tub which was quite the process (they really should have put steps leading up to that thing if they expected laboring women to be able to get out). Once I was out I needed help from both David and the midwife to get to the bed because my legs just did not want to go. I got into the bed and was on my side, which is the position I wanted to birth in, but when they monitored the baby’s heart rate it had dropped significantly and as soon as I rolled over onto my back it shot back up.  More amniotic fluid gushed out onto the bed, and when the midwife checked it she found that it had meconium in it. She quickly had someone get a respiratory team to be standing by for the baby if she had breathed any of it in, and she told them to hurry because it looked like the baby would be here any minute.

The midwife encouraged me to push with my instinct and not to fight the urge to push. However, I didn’t really have a strong urge to push. I had been J breathing in the tub, and continued doing modified J breathing on the bed, with slight grunting sounds coming occasionally during contractions. My pushing was more like pausing or grunting in the middle of my breathing out. At this point my contractions also began spreading out again to 3-5 minutes apart. Between contractions I started to come out of my relaxed state and became aware of my surroundings again.  Jim Brickman music was playing in the background still. I looked at my feet and found that my nail polish had bubbled and started coming away from soaking in the tub and commented how I was so sad about it to David. After the next contraction we asked the midwife some non labor/baby related medical questions. After the next contraction we commented on the baby’s hair and how she was wiggling in the birth canal (such a neat feeling that completely surprised me. I had no idea babies wiggled in the birth canal!). At this point the computer died which killed the music. I remembered thinking we needed awkward elevator music or something because it totally would have fit. The respiratory team (which included a male student who was looking very awkward) was still standing against the back wall. The nurse was politely trying to keep my naked top half covered while I lay there with my feet held up by David and the nurse.

The midwife told me they needed me to push harder so I did. Then they told me that I needed to push even harder than that so I pushed harder and the baby shot out onto the bed. I looked down at her and saw her staring up with a look that clearly said “What just happened?” She was crying a little so they gave her to me (rather than the respiratory team) and I was able to hold her warm, wiggly body which was such a great feeling. She stopped crying and looked into my eyes and I couldn’t believe this was the little baby I had carried for nine months. Because she stopped crying and sounded like she may have breathed in some meconium they cut the cord and gave her to the respiratory team which ended up being a good thing because I required some medical attention immediately following delivery due to tearing and hemorrhaging. The baby was checked out and determined to be a totally healthy, but very calm baby and handed off to David while I was being taken care of. I couldn’t believe labor was over and that I had been up all night and didn’t deliver until 1 pm. It felt like everything had gone by so fast.

Hypnobirthing really delivered what it promised: A comfortable, calm birth. I felt like my labor was long, but leisurely. There was cramping that got a little stronger than bad menstrual cramps, there was some discomfort/annoyance when being confined or restricted, there was a stretching that burned a little when the baby started crowning and most bothersome of all was the constipated feeling, but nothing I experienced was painful. I actually kind of enjoyed labor and have even had dreams about being in labor and floating in a giant tub (can you tell I really liked the jetted tub?).

The things I found most helpful were:

Practice. David and I had practiced relaxing using the hypnobirthing techniques for 3 months and that practice was so effective that David became the most effective trigger for going into a relaxed state. All I needed was him close by or touching me and I could let myself go into a deep relaxed state.

Watching other births. Anytime I got nervous I would watch hypnobirths on YouTube (it is amazing the things people will share on the internet). It may sound strange, but it really helped.

Getting information from positive sources.  Taking a birthing class and talking to my mom and friends or family members who had done natural birth helped me during labor because things they said would come to my mind and help me feel calm because there were no surprises during labor. Things they said were like a road map through labor.

Having a midwife I could trust. Being in labor does leave you in a vulnerable state. Having my husband there to advocate for me was great, but because I knew and trusted the midwife I could just relax and be taken care of without worrying about her undermining my wishes. 

Ella Kristine giving a big yawn