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Laura’s Positive Induction Story

Our little girl was due on 5th October – my husband Alex’s birthday!! I had heard wonderful things about hypnobirthing from from colleagues and being the first of my friends to have a baby, I was keen to face birth with a positive and calm outlook!

My birth, however, wasn’t the start that I imagined! My waters broke at 3.30pm on 2nd October (after a sneaky drive thru large Big Mac meal and strawberry milkshake!!) at home, which was a bit of a surprise. I called the hospital and they advised us to come in for an examination as my contractions hadn’t started, but said we would probably be coming home after. We took the bags just in case.

When we arrived both mine and baby’s heart rate were high and we were placed on a monitor for a few hours – during which they noticed several dips in baby’s heartbeat which they thought was cord compression – and advised it would be safest for baby to induce right away, but to be prepared that if her heartbeat continued to fluctuate it may be an emergency C-section.

At this point I will admit I was so frightened- this wasn’t the calm water birth with early labour at home that I had imagined. I hadn’t even brought my birthing ball!

However I knew that I was making the right decision for baby, and consented to the induction. After a brief few hours sleep and a failed pessary, they started the drip at 9.30am on 3 October. I couldn’t move off the bed, strapped onto the heart rate monitor but I listened to my affirmations and Alex kept reminding me to breath deeply and fill my abdomen! I listened to the affirmations but couldn’t relax, there was a woman next door screaming so loudly! So we put on Michael Buble, which wasn’t in the plan but did he trick.

As my contractions got more intense throughout the morning we had the television on and watched a bit of homes under the hammer and this morning until 12.30 when I reached for the gas and air!

Thea Isabelle Clarke was born just a few hours later at 15.07pm, just 1 and a half hours after I had asked for an epidural and was told I was fully dilated!

There were a few moments when the midwives wanted to allow the doctors to intervene. I used my hypnobirthing techniques to visualise her moving down – I was determined to deliver her myself and I did – all 9lbs!

I said to Liz at the start of the course that what I wanted was to feel proud of myself – and I really have never felt prouder. We didn’t have the birth we imagined, but we did it!

Thank you for everything Liz- thanks to you we knew that we could ‘calmly face whatever terms my birthing took’

Xxxxxx