Laura’s Birth Story

It feels so surreal to be writing this 😂 but having enjoyed so many birth stories during my pregnancy I really wanted to share my own.

I hadn’t really realised how much my partner took away from hypnobirthing and how it enabled him to advocate for me when I was unable to speak for myself. There’s something quite magnificent about seeing your partner make your hopes and dreams into a reality when he’s surrounded by medical professionals that are stamping their feet… especially when I was 100% convinced that he only came along to the course out of sense of duty!!

Having always thought of childbirth as an awful event that required as many drugs as possible, I started Amy’s pregnancy yoga class with the idea of making new mum friends rather than broadening my opinions, so I was quite surprised when, after a couple of weeks of positive birth chat at yoga, the Hypnobirthing course sounded like a great idea. The course was great, I found myself getting so excited and really looking forward to birth – shocker! 

Having decided that Plan A was a water birth on a midwife led unit, with as few interventions as possible (again, shocker!), I was so disappointed when my waters broke on the Friday morning and absolutely nothing else happened. Knowing from the Hypnobirthing course, and from the calm, sensible reply Amy had sent to my panicked ‘what do I do!!!’ message, I knew that I was up against the clock if I still wanted my dreamy pool birth.

As the hours ticked by I went through my options and decided that I would rather have a C Section than an induction if labour didn’t start and started to get my head around our new plan.

At 1am, 18 hrs after my waters went, I woke up with some funky feelings going on. I pottered downstairs, not wanting to wake my other half up in case it was another false alarm, bounced on my ball and cuddled the dogs. 

By 6am I knew it was time to head to the hospital. On the way there, my partner asked me what I wanted to happen and I told him I wanted to fight tooth and nail for our water birth given that we still had an hour before the 24hr ‘deadline’ was up.

My contractions were coming so close together that I was barely getting a break in between and having managed so far using the breathing techniques Amy had taught us, all I could say at this point was ‘please put me in some water’! The midwife had a word with the duty doctor and said that I’d need to go to the delivery suite, constant monitoring, hooked up to IV antibiotics etc.

My partner said absolutely not, there needed to be a renegotiation and between them all (I was totally out of it at this stage!) they agreed on the pool room in the labour ward and intermittent monitoring, on the basis that we’d accept a dose of IV antibiotics – fine!

That pool was bliss, although I didn’t get to enjoy it for long because almost as soon as I got in I needed to push. Utilising some of the yoga positions that Amy had taught me, and probably looking like a beached whale thrashing around (and sounding like one!), our little girl arrived at 11.30am, cool, calm and collected, weighing 6lb 4oz. I was so shocked that not only had we done it, but we’d managed to do it the way we wanted, albeit with a couple of modifications, and I think I will live on that high for quite some time! 

We had a stay over one night in hospital due to my blood pressure being slightly elevated on one reading, but other than that I felt amazing afterwards, no stitches, no painkillers and I booked onto Amy’s 4th Trimester class for the following week!

If it hadn’t been for Amy’s yoga and Hypnobirthing classes, as well as her continued support, I never would have got to understand what an incredible and empowering experience childbirth can be, or get to witness my partner shout ‘No, not you, you’re not needed here’ at a pair of doctors – priceless!’