Without hypnobirthing I would have felt like a passenger. Instead, I felt in control.

I started getting really strong, what I thought was Braxton Hicks. From about 05:00/ 06:00 in the morning on Tuesday 18th September, I carried on the day as normal, walking the dog and getting quite strong pains throughout the day. Alex was at work and at 16:00 I had my show which is when I thought it could be hours, days, or weeks from now.

Shortly after that the Braxton Hicks definitely started to turn into contractions. I stayed at home, having gone to get my car from the garage as I thought we might need it fairly soon. I had a bath and watched some films cuddled with the dog on the sofa. I just chilled out really, trying to figure out if they were serious contractions or not.

When it reached 18:30 I called Alex and explained I really started to feel quite serious contractions which I had started timing and is there a chance that he could finish work a little bit early. He came home and Alex dropped the dog with the dog sitter, and we had a really nice chilled evening with the two of us, candles, me bouncing up and down on the ball, by 11 o’clock at night I was getting contractions that lasted just over a minute and we less than two minutes apart, so we thought okay this feels good enough to call up the hospital, so we called and they said call back again until hours unless they come even quicker. So we did that and we ended up going into the hospital about 01:00 in the morning on Wednesday 19th September.

As soon as we reached the hospital my contractions slowed down, exactly what we had learned, I think being in that environment my anxiety and adrenaline increased, I was there for four hours and then they asked to do an inspection and see how far dilated I was, because the contractions were still coming quite regular and were quite long they thought I might be nearing, so I said yes okay and then the worst thing happened, and I was only one centimetre dilated!

By this point it was early hours of Wednesday morning so then they were like don’t worry we’ll give you another few hours in the antenatal ward, and we’ll see how he get on and we’ll see if you get any further dilated so another few hours went by and I only reached 4cm by this point at mid morning Wednesday. They said now I’m 4cm centimeters we can move you down to the labour Ward. They said there wasn’t any space in the birth center but they set the room up with lights trying to make it feel as relaxed as possible.

They checked me, and again and I hadn’t really dilated any further. We discussed things and they agreed to give me a little bit longer to see if I could dilate any further. I couldn’t dilate past 7 cm, I spent a whole other day labouring and my cervix was being bruised because she was so far down and engaged her head was hitting my cervix, which wouldn’t soften so it was bruising and actually hardening and thickening, my body was working against itself, but my contractions were one after the other and strong and so my body was trying to push her out.

They kept telling me not to push but I couldn’t control the natural reflex. She started to show signs of stress, her heart rate went up, my blood pressure went up and then she did a poo in the waters so there was then meconium in the water, we discussed with the team and the pro’s and con’s and agreed to put me on the oxytocin drip to try and speed it up, aware there could be a chain of events once we did this, I still couldn’t get past that seven centimeters and the drip made it more painful, we were now in Thursday, so essentially my second day of proper labor, my third day of early labour/labour and getting quite .

This is the one part I wish I stuck to my guns but exhaustion was high and Alex was worried, they convinced me which is mad because I was dead against it, but I agreed to have pethidine and honestly I lost five hours of my life, I don’t know what happened, where I was and what went on. It was to try and help me rest because nothing was happening and I was in a lot of pain because my body was fighting against her head.

After this they suggested a c-section but we asked for more time and after some further discussions and BRAIN we agreed to an epidural. They gave me a spinal as I couldn’t sit still, and then they gave me an epidural, unfortunately the epidural failed so then they gave me a second epidural by which point they were just a bit worried as signs of stress for us both continued and at some point through all this my waters had broke.

We had a discussion with the senior obstetrician, anaesthetist and midwife as they felt that a few alarm bells were stacking and they were concerned at the length I had been in labour, highly recommending a C-section. By this time I had stretch and Sweep, I’d had oxidation drip, I’ve had pethidine, there wasn’t anything I hadn’t had, so I just said yeah fine and actually it was the best decision in the end.

It was quite scary. They took me down quite quickly, stripped me off and whisked me into theatre and then within half an hour of saying yes we met our daughter. So yeah, it wasn’t the initial home water birth I wanted or the birth centre, and it was a very good life lesson.

I can still look at it positively because I felt like we were in control, we made the decisions with the team, and also avoided any early intervention which they initially wanted to do, but yeah it wasn’t the birth I expected.

Hypnobirthing helped us navigate the unexpected, without it I would have felt like a passenger.