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Natural Birth
JFH2010
member
Kai Raines' Hypnobabies Birth - LONG! & PIP
JFH2010
member
Sorry this is so long! I hope it might be helpful to others studying HB. Feel free to skip all those pesky words and go straight to the baby pics :-)
At my 36 week appointment, I was 1cm dilated. I had had some mild cramping, but no other signs that labor was close. But at 36 weeks 3 days, at 9:30am on March 10th, my water broke! I wasn?t feeling serious contractions yet, so I went in for an evaluation, but I assumed they would send me home to labor. But since I was less than 37 weeks, they admitted me. Sure wish I had packed that hospital bag!
We got to the hospital around 10:30, and within an hour or so the contractions picked up. Some of them lasted three minutes! The nurse thought we must have miscounted, but the monitors verified it. They were also closely spaced. It was getting quite painful, and my blood pressure reading was high. They ran tests for pre-e, which came back fine.
At that point I decided to use hypnobabies. I had only gotten through Week 4, and I wasn?t really sure how to use it during labor, which is why I hadn?t started already. I picked a track ? I think it was ?Creating Anesthesia 1? ? and sat on the birth ball with my head on the bed. I can now say that I?m a HB believer! My husband was worried about me, because I had been vocal and reacting to each contraction, but once on the ball I was completely silent and still. After the track finished the nurse checked my BP again and it was totally normal.
I continued listening to tracks, picking ones I had already listened to. I found it most effective when I was in the exact same position I had practiced in ? inclined on my back with my knees over a pillow. I remember thinking that it probably wasn?t the most productive birthing position, but my body ?remembered? that position and the HB worked best that way. In fact, the best indication that it was working was that anytime I got ?caught? by a contraction when I wasn?t self-hypnotized (e.g. while walking to the bathroom), it was excruciating. I hadn?t practiced center switch enough to keep the pain at bay while moving around. When I neared the end of a track, I had to call to my husband to stop it before she counted me up ? I desperately did not want to be counted up! As the contractions got stronger I did an ?aaaaah? moan through them. I kept repeating a few phrases to myself, mostly, ?the stronger my pressure waves become, the more deeply I relax,? and focusing on the fact that the stronger waves were bringing my baby to me. I also told myself that the only way through the contraction was to go deeper, because if I let myself float toward the surface I felt the pain acutely (don?t know if that makes sense).
The midwives/nurses gave the impression that I was still pretty early, and the pain was getting harder to manage. Around 6 or 7pm, I remember thinking, I cannot do this for 10 more hours or however long it will be. I told them I wanted a cervical check to see if I was progressing (they hadn?t done any because my water had broken). I said that if I wasn?t progressing, I wanted to try the tub first, but I might need pain meds. They suggested I get in the tub for awhile and then they would do the check. Little did I (or they) know that I was in transition!
I got up to walk to the tub and felt the urge to poop. I knew that could be baby, but since I didn?t think I was that far along, I was just confused! I got in the tub and it felt AMAZING. Oh, how I wish I had gotten in sooner! I didn?t want to get in too early because I didn?t want to slow down labor. I had a contraction in the tub, and I said, ?I really think he?s right there!? One of the midwives ran in to do the check in the tub, and yep, I was fully dilated and ready to push! The tub was just for laboring, not for waterbirth, so they got me out right away and I went to the bed.
Pushing was the hardest part, because I hadn?t gotten to any of that in my HB study. I didn?t quite know how to manage it. Luckily I was surrounded by nurses and midwives who helped me through. It was a shift change at the hospital, so the women who had been attending me stayed on for the birth, and the new shift came in as well. So I had about 7 women encouraging me through the pushing phase! I wouldn?t have thought I would like having so many people, but it was wonderful. Along with my husband, they really got me through it.
I don?t know how long I pushed, but my husband thinks maybe half an hour. Kai joined us at 7:39pm, alert and ready for dinner! They placed him directly on my chest and we snuggled for a long time before they weighed him and checked him out. He was 5 pounds 6 ounces and 19 1/4 inches long.
I was really amazed by how well HB worked. I?m sure it would have been even more effective if I had been able to finish the program! Truthfully, I was not 100% committed to a natural birth, and I had my doubts that I could do it. But his birth was so amazing, and my recovery so quick (what recovery??) that I will definitely opt for it again next time.
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Re: Kai Raines' Hypnobabies Birth - LONG! & PIP
I was really looking forward to reading your birth story. I think of you so often and I'm kind of jealous you have your LO already
So would you recommend listening to hb in multiple positions? Any other advice for hb mamas?
Your pics are tear jerking! Congrats mama.
Keegan Patrick - Bilateral Clubfeet found at Anatomy Scan.
www.facebook.com/portraitave
Wow! Thank you so much for taking time to share.
I'll definitely be getting a Hypnobabies course to start working with this summer!
Thanks for sharing!
I recently started the Hypnobabies home study, so this was really helpful to read.
I'm curious -- were you doing the HB "homework" (i.e. listening to the tracks, doing the readings) every day up until you went into delivery, or had your practice sessions been spaced out more? Did you also listen to the affirmations CD daily, or more/less frequently?
Mama's Clone - 07/18/12
Congrats and thanx so much for sharing. I'm 36 weeks and won't be done with HB classes til I'm 38 weeks- good to know it works since I haven't practiced outside of class yet and also in case I go early, too! ( And I also don't have that hospital bag packed yet lol)
So glad Mom, baby and DH are all healthy and happy and shared this wonderful birth story!
Thank you, ladies! I'm so glad I was able to share a positive story. Good luck with your births, I hope they're all that you want them to be.
Yes, I was thinking that at the time. I think it's good to start with one position, so if push comes to shove you can count on your body remembering it. But as you get better I think it would be helpful to practice in different positions.
I guess the only other advice would be to pay attention to which phrases resonate with you as you listen to the tracks. It was so helpful for me to have a "mantra" to repeat to myself, especially when it got intense and I couldn't focus on the tracks as well. Also, make sure your partner knows that you may have to be 100% focused. We thought that DH would be really involved in the labor, rubbing my back and whatnot, but in the end I couldn't have any distractions. I pretty much barked terse orders at him for ten hours (Stop the track! Apple juice! Hair clippie! lol). So just make sure your partner is flexible and will adapt to whatever works for you on game day.
I wasn't religious about it, but I was pretty regular. I managed the affirmations almost every day, and I did the tracks more days than not. The track that worked the best was the one I listened to the most (Deepening). I do think that the more you can do it, the better. I did NOT do the homework of practicing the finger drop technique five times per day. That may have helped me with the center switch, so I wish I had done it more. I wasn't a big fan of the readings - it's really the actual hypnosis tracks that did the trick for me. Good luck!