Hannah prepared for her first birth by attending pregnancy yoga with me and by completing my hypnobirthing course in Dartford. She then came back to pregnancy yoga in preparation for her second birth, a planned water birth at Maidstone birth centre.
I went in to labour on the same day as my last pregnancy yoga class with Bloom and Flow in Dartford!
After a lovely bbq lunch on the Saturday afternoon I was feeling a bit uncomfortable so went upstairs to have a lie down. I slept for around an hour then woke up with some cramps at half 4. They came once every half an hour, sometimes once an hour and at this point I thought I just had some trapped wind. My first labour started with my waters breaking so there was no guess work involved there, this time I was more uncertain. I wanted to start building some oxytocin just in case it was the start of labour, so ate a chocolate cake, put Friends on the tv, and joined my little girl in the bath at bedtime, who innocently (but a bit spookily) told her little sister that she could come out now! How did my two year old know I was about to give birth and I didn’t?!
Around 9pm, I’d stopped fooling myself and started celebrating as it was obvious I was having contractions. I went to bed to try and get some sleep but by 10pm I was back downstairs on the birthing ball. The tens machine came out and to get more oxytocin flowing, Friday Night Dinner went on the tv followed by our honeymoon video. The contractions started to ramp up around midnight so my husband phoned Maidstone birth centre who said to come in whenever I was ready.
We made our way to Maidstone Birth Centre, which I had registered at as an out of area patient knowing I was far more likely to get a water birth there. We arrived at 2am. Our midwife asked us a few questions about preferences in between my contractions which were taking a lot more focused breathing to get through; I used the Freya app which coached my breathing through each one.
The midwife offered a vaginal examination which I declined. On arrival at the birth centre for my first baby, I reluctantly had a vaginal examination and was told I was 1cm. I got to 9cm within 4 hours but didn’t forget the negativity surrounding that initial examination and wanted to avoid that this time. Having a stranger’s fingers stuck up me also didn’t help me to relax 😂
Anyway, I continued to bounce on the ball and use the tens machine for a while longer. I got into the birthing pool at around 2:30, had gas and air and listened to the Bloom and Flow relaxation mp3s. By 3:30am I was well and truly in the zone, I was feeling so relaxed (but tired) that in between contractions I was actually dozing off.
However, I hit a bit of a wall around 4am when I announced that I had had enough. At this point my husband put the positive birth affirmations on which helped shift my mind back to where it needed to be. I started joining in with them and told my baby that I was ready to meet her. I felt the contractions changing and soon lost my mucus plug, then my waters broke. (I was wondering when that would happen)
I told the midwife the baby was coming and got onto all fours but I don’t think she believed me as she was very surprised when the head came out. Baby’s body followed and our beautiful daughter, Francesca Marie, arrived at 4:46am. The midwife pushed her through my legs so I could lift her out of the water myself. I told my baby how proud I was of her and what a great team we made 🥲
I’ve now had two incredible, spontaneous, intervention free labours which I know would have gone so differently if I hadn’t done your Hypnobirthing course back in 2022 and yoga this time around. Thank you for helping me have these truly empowering experiences and helping me to realise that I could and did make the choices which were right for me and my babies.
Hannah xx
