A healing experience
This mama was amazing! It's so easy to tell mums that they just need to trust their bodies, but it can be hard to do - especially if you've had a previous birth that wasn't so good. But it CAN be done! Here's the proof. Congratulations on your extended family!
Good Morning Nicki Hope all is well, just wanting to give some feedback and tell you about my experience giving birth.
My daughter is almost 2 months old now but I remember my birth as if it was yesterday.
Baby was born on exactly 40 weeks. The day before I was with all my family as they had all traveled back to Hawkes Bay for a funeral. I was feeling little niggles since early morning but thought nothing of them as they weren't really bothering me. Throughout the day I had to just take little breaks and do my breathing exercises. People kept asking me if I was okay and I'd tell them I thought I was having contractions and they all replied with, "No, you would definitely know if you were having contractions because they're painful and you'd be loud", so I just continued on with my day.
These niggles started becoming regular so I started timing them just in case. Did the whole funeral, came home, had a sleep and took myself to hospital as I was booked in that night to be induced due to baby no longer growing. Turns out I was having contractions but they weren't painful at all!
I was so confused as my last birth all my contractions were really intense, but this time, since I had replaced the word pain with uncomfortable and told myself constantly that this is a natural process and I was designed to give birth to this baby (thanks to my hypnobirthing recordings), I was able to breathe through all my contractions and didn't struggle with any up until my last two, which became quite intense.
I did make some noise while pushing but only once, the rest I was able to breathe my baby down, and being so much in control I was able to slow down my pushing when my midwife asked me to, to reduce tearing (had the smallest tear).
I gave birth to my baby naturally with no gas or epidural. My actual labour was only roughly 2 hours long with 7 minutes of pushing. I gave birth to a healthy little girl at 1.50am the next morning.
This experience was amazing and I was so proud of myself. I am able to remember this entire birth this time and it was the complete opposite of my first, which was horrible and patchy as I was drugged up. It was a huge healing experience for me and I was able to do all the normal things I was unable to do during my first birth, like skin to skin, breastfeeding my baby and have her in my room with me straight away. I didn't feel too tired to give birth or to enjoy her after (like last time) as I had saved my energy by relaxing myself throughout the entire process, which was amazing. I am also able to solely breastfeed her due to having that connection straight away, which I was unable to do with my first baby.
I recommend hypnobirthing to everyone because I want them to experience the type of birth I did. I was really skeptical about hypnobirthing working as I was so scared of giving birth due to my first experience, thinking I was going to struggle to get past what was already set in my mind, but I was able to change my frame of mind into believing I could do this, everything that was happening was meant to happen and that my body was doing what it needed to do to bring my baby safely into this world.
So I want to say a huge THANK YOU!!! I appreciate everything I have learnt both from you and the audios. I feel so much at ease and this experience has helped me cope postpartum.
I am enjoying being a mother of two though very demanding, but my breathing exercises help me nearly everyday :) Sorry for the long story but thank you so much Nicki!
