{"id":1622,"date":"2026-04-02T13:36:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T12:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1622"},"modified":"2026-04-14T16:44:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:44:26","slug":"polly-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/polly-thomas\/","title":{"rendered":"Polly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I felt in control the whole time \u2014 even through a very long pushing stage<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I was out for a coffee in Marlow with a friend and I had just ordered some food and when ordering a smoothie joked to the cafe owner whether she had any smoothies that might induce labour (seriously I actually did!). After finishing my BLT panini, and downing two fruit smoothies, my waters broke! And boy did I know it! That was at 3pm and things happened pretty speedily from then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I called the hospital from the cafe and I was to go in for assessment. Rich started making his way home from work at this point too. The friend I was with drove me home and I’m so glad she did because I started having surges in the car! I used my Up Breathing at this point and visualised ‘opening’ which ensured I relaxed and made these initial surges fine to cope with. I was able to chat to my friend in between them but was quiet whilst they were happening. I’d say they were probably 5-6 minutes apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At home the surges had increased in intensity and I started feeling uncomfortable. I spent a while trying different positions on the bathroom floor but nothing was really working. When Rich got home I transferred into the backseat of the car and lay on my side. Rich started our hypnobirthing visualisations and took me off to my ‘safe place’. This was just what I needed and I was able to get back to a relaxed state and felt much more focused. Rich timed the surges and by the time we were approaching the hospital they were about 3 minutes apart. I felt focused, in control and went ‘within myself’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At hospital I used my breathing through the surges and just wanted to be left alone laying on my side on the bed. I was very quiet and felt calm and in control. The student midwife explained she would assess me and expect to find me 2cm dilated and then send me home. I thought, “Yeah, right! There’s no way you’ll be sending me home buddy!” I could already feel things had progressed. Low and behold the midwife said I was 4cms dilated, which increased to 5cm during a surge so she said I would need to stay in the birthing centre (I didn’t say ‘I told you so!’). From there I took some gas and air, and by 8pm I started doing those crazy bearing down noises when you start feeling the need to push! The midwife told me it was too soon to push but when she examined me I was fully dilated!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So then we got into the pushing stage. This went on for a while but I kept giving it all I had. Rich was plying me with glucose tablets and energy drinks as this stage went on for a while. My surges had become weaker for some reason and they took the gas and air away from me probably to try and make me feel them more I assume? There was a change over of staff and they started to wonder what needed to be done. Baby was ok but was not coming out! They transferred me to the labour ward in a wheelchair (which was not comfortable!). At this point I had been pushing for 2 1\/2 hours but I still felt I could keep going using my Down Breathing techniques with the support of my husband. At this point the doctor asked whether I ‘wanted some help’ and with an episiotomy and ventouse little Thomas was born at 10.23pm. The total time from waters breaking was 7 1\/2 hours!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt in control the whole time, even through the lengthy pushing stage. Using the hypnobirthing techniques during the labour itself ensured I kept relaxed and worked with my body rather than against it. Possibly, more importantly to me, hypnobirthing allowed me to feel confident that I would be able to give birth to my little boy safely and calmly during the build up to the big event. As a result, I can say (and did say straight afterwards too\u2026 my husband will vouch for that) that it was an amazing life experience!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I felt in control the whole time \u2014 even through a very long pushing stage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,18,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-calm-hospital-birth","category-first-time-mums","category-when-things-didnt-go-to-plan-and-why-thats-okay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1622"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1776,"href":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622\/revisions\/1776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birthright-hypnobirthing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}