My beautiful client Amy shares her two incredible birth stories. First, Amy looks back on her first birth which was a positive induction experience - after dipping her toe into the world of hypnobirthing. For her second, she invested in a private hypnobirthing session with The Birth Base and went on to have an EPIC water birth. Amy explains how she listened to her body, pushed for exactly what she wanted during labour along with the help of her husband, Bob, who did an amazing job of advocating. I absolutely adore Amy's stories - the power of women is just incredible. So grab a cuppa, and enjoy…
‘When I was pregnant with my first baby in 2022 I had every intention of doing hypnobirthing. I read a couple of books and followed positive birth ed accounts on instagram. We did NCT rather than a hypnobirthing (apart from friends I gained VERY little from the NCT course…) and I wish I’d spent the money on a hypnobirthing course instead but I didn’t know anyone that had done that so I just went with NCT. From around 33 weeks my blood pressure spiked and I spent a lot of time in hospital being monitored. By 38 weeks I was so fed up and felt so poorly I accepted an induction despite being terrified of it. I actually had a very positive induction and felt like a superwoman after giving birth. I used the breathing I had read about in the books and used the little research I had done myself to completely go into ‘the zone’ and birthed Lois with no pain relief. I felt euphoric and knew immediately I wanted to experience giving birth again.
Fast forward to 2024 and when I found out I was pregnant with my second I decided I 100% wanted to do a hypnobirthing course this time. We booked a 1-2-1 session with Kristina and I’m so glad we did. I had done lots of research myself but having my husband listen to Kristina talk about hypnobirthing was invaluable. Kristina was able to answer both mine and my husband’s questions with understanding and compassion and we left the session feeling excited for baby number 2 to arrive. We sat afterwards and made my birth plan together.
I got to the week of my ‘due date’ and I started losing my plug. On my ‘due date’ I accepted a sweep from my midwife and although I’d had niggles for days nothing seemed to be happening. However I knew I just had to trust my body to know what it was doing. On the Friday (40+4) I had a wonderful day with my daughter - Costa date, dancing at Cha Char Chimps and then a park date in the afternoon. As I was peeling potatoes for dinner I started to feel on and off pains (had been having braxton hicks for weeks so just ignored them)… We put our daughter to bed and the pains were still happening…I decided to run a bath and get some candles on to get the oxytocin flowing - just in case it was the real thing. I got into bed at around 9pm and the pains hadn’t subsided at all. My husband phoned his mum to come and be on standby for childcare - just in case. By about 11 I was having to really focus on my breathing to get through the pains and it was this point that I realised they were actually contractions and IT WAS HAPPENING. I honestly felt so excited. I wanted to stay home for as long as possible but because I couldn’t sleep (they were coming every 5 mins ish and lasting about 50 seconds) I came downstairs and sat on my birthing ball and watched Dirty Dancing - my ultimate feel good film. I had been timing my surges on an app but actually decided that it was completely unhelpful because I just started focusing on the numbers rather than leaning into it all. By 1am I felt like the surges were coming quicker and I was having less time between them to recover so we phoned the labour ward who invited me in straight away because it was my second baby.
We went straight into the observation ward and I was examined - I was 3.5cm! I made it very clear I wanted to be in the Birth Centre rather than on the labour ward. I think I actually said it to every single member of staff I had any interaction with. I was adamant I was going up there. My blood pressure was a little high and the midwife told me it was unlikely I’d be allowed to go up with it that high but told me she’d leave me to it and come back and check it later on. I decided to stand up and sway through each contraction at this point - I was completely in my own world. I had started being sick during each contraction and they gave me cyclizine. I knew this wouldn’t work (two HG pregnancies and cyclizine never touched the sides…) I asked for an injection and once I got given that I stopped being sick. Just proof that you know your own body and you have every right to ask for what you want - Kristina had taught me this.
When the doctor came to see me she said she was happy for me to go to the Birth Centre as my blood pressure had come down! I cried because I was so relieved.
We got taken up by some lovely midwives at about 4am and I got straight into the pool. I felt instantly calm walking into the room with the soft purple lighting. Once we walked into the room my husband was actually taken aback by it and said he completely understood why I wanted to be up there. I got straight into the pool, my husband put some chilled songs on our speaker and I decided to give gas and air a go through the surges (I hadn’t got on with it the first time round) and I just allowed my body to do what my body wanted to do. The midwives completely left me to it other than observing baby on and off and it was just so quiet and peaceful in the room. I had specifically said on my birth plan I didn’t want to be examined and I wasn’t. Again something that Kristina had taught me - you are in control and I was!
At shift changeover we got a new midwife and student. I was definitely in my own world at this point but I remember hearing my husband tell her I didn’t want to be examined and just wanted to be left to it. Gold star to husband! At some point (in hindsight it was during the transition phase) I started to panic and lost control a little bit. I just felt like I couldn’t do it and was saying I didn’t want to do it anymore… typical transition phase phrases!! I knew this and my husband knew this from our 1-2-1 so he started to realise it was probably very close to happening. Baby was on their way. I decided to get out the pool to be examined. I think I needed someone to tell me at this point exactly what I felt in my body. I knew baby was close but I needed to hear someone tell me that which they did and I got straight back in the pool with my husband’s help.
I had specifically said I didn’t went coached pushing so I just allowed my body to do its thing. It is genuinely incredible feeling your body push your baby out. I focused on my breathing and used guttural sounds to focus my energy into pushing my baby out. I felt the ‘ring of fire’ and just knew my baby was crowning. I felt a pop which was my waters breaking and very soon after that my baby’s head was born! It felt so powerful to be able to tell the midwife what was happening rather than the other way round. Still just with my gas and air at 8:30am I birthed my baby. I remember the midwife telling me through this ‘trust your body… your body knows what it’s doing’ and it really did. I asked the midwife to help me with the baby’s legs and she did. Baby was placed on my chest and I just couldn’t believe I’d done it. We hadn’t found out what we were having and in the moment we both forgot to check! Baby didn’t cry immediately and was quite still so things got a little scary for a moment (felt like a complete lifetime!). I remember the midwife rubbing him and then asking if she could take him to be seen to. As he was lifted off me, me and my husband together moved the towel to find out that we had a boy. That is a moment I’ll never forget and I’m so pleased we got to find out together in that moment. Baby Parker was taken off and very quickly we heard his little screams.
My placenta took a while to come and I had to have a couple of stitches. During this time my husband had skin to skin with Parker and gave him his first feed of colostrum I’d collected. Once I was all sorted I got my baby back and we snuggled for the rest of the afternoon. Being in the Birth Centre meant we were completely left to our own devices and it was one of the nicest days of our lives together. We just sat, chatted, snuggled and rested. There was no rush for us to do anything or go anywhere and it just felt like time stood still for a moment. At some point in the afternoon someone asked me if I wanted to stay in and because we were both healthy I decided I wanted to go home and see my big baby! By 6:30pm we were home, as a family of 4 eating a Dominoes.
I’ve never felt like I’m very good at anything in my life - I was never sporty or creative. But birthing babies is something I know I’m good at. It truly makes you feel like you can do anything.’
Wow! What a birth story... Thank you so much Amy for sharing it with us.
If you'd like to find out about private hypnobirthing sessions with me, click here, or perhaps more about my Northampton group sessions, click here. Or my birth or postnatal support as a doula, click here.
I'd love to support you in pregnancy, birth and postpartum.
If you'd like to enjoy reading some more of my clients positive birth stories, click on the links below...
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