We had thought about doing hypno birthing when i first found out i was pregnant but then discounted it as, in spite of other mothers telling me how awful childbirth is, i was not nervous about giving birth to our baby. Hypnobirthing seemed like something for woman who were either afraid of giving birth or traumaisued by their first baby. I was wrong – it is for everyone who wants to enjoy bringing their baby into the world.

My hospital does scans at 31 weeks (as it is a university hospital) and at that scan we were told our baby had a large head. This didn’t surprise us (my bump was huge) but what did surprise us was the sonographer suggesting we come back for another scan at 35 weeks. When we asked why she mumbled “caesarean” at us. We were shocked and upset. We had been told everything was perfect with our baby so why would we need a c- section?

As it had knocked our confidence, we went away and reconsidered our options, we were determined to birth our baby naturally and we wanted to give ourselves the best chance so we called Kat and started hypno birthing at 34 weeks. We also challenged the hospital on the need for another scan and they admitted it was not necessary and sonographer should not have suggested it.

The hypno birthing sessions with Kat made us relax immediately about our birth and the daily affirmations were amazing in rebuilding my confidence about birthing my baby. In spite of the negativity that continued to bombard us (eg tv and friends), we discussed how wonderful our birth would be and relentlessly practised our belly breathing. We told our families to stop talking about the birth unless they could be positive (a real challenge for my mother!). The rainbow relaxation helped me sleep really well at a time when i needed it. Understanding that what i was going to feel when i was birthing was natural and was all happening for a reason helped me to mentally prepare for the expierence which i knew was going to be amazing rather than “awful” or “painful”. I started to feel stronger about my ability to birth the way i wanted which ironically stopped being exclusivly about a natural birth and more about a birth we were in control of and one which brought our baby into the world in a positive way; we were open and talked about when we would ask for a c-section.

When my waters broke at just over 40 weeks we were so excited that our baby was coming – not nervous or stressed about what was about to happen. We arrived at the hospital and within 30 minutes I was 4 cms and having surges 3 minutes apart. We had the hypno birthing CD on in the background and my husband was applying the pressure to my lower back during the surges, just as we had practised with Kat. I focussed on the visualisations we practised and kept relaxed. My birthing progressed very quickly which could have been stressful except I had a sense of complete calmness that my body was doing everything that it should be and that i was working with my baby (i thought of us as a team!) to bring him into the world. I climbed into the pool after 2 hours and my body told me it was time to birth my baby. I used the J birth breathing technique when each surge came, my husband held my hand and told me that i was bringing our baby into the world which relaxed me and allowed my body to do everything it needed. Withing 3 hours i had breathed our 9 lbs 4oz baby boy out and he arrived into the world with his perfect head!

Zachary was a beautiful, calm and contented baby from the minute he was born and he has stayed that way. He is now nearly 8 months old and i often tell him what an incredible job he did coming into the world!!