English is not Maya’s first language so we got together to talk through her experience.

What follows is a transcription of that conversation.

“The birth of my first son left me traumatised. I’d done pregnancy yoga and antenatal classes and was aiming for a natural birth at St John and Elizabeth’s in London. But the labour was long and I wasn’t prepared for that. The contractions just were not happening. Romi (my son) ended up getting distressed. They took me down to the theatre and prepared me for an emergency c-section with another kick of epidural. I was so drugged and so dazed that I didn’t know what was going on. I wasn’t there at all. I was somewhere else and in a way that was good because if i WAS there I would have freaked out completely.

When he was born we thought everything was fine. However his breathing wasn’t right and they decided he had pneumonia and transferred him in the middle of the night to another hospital. They wouldn’t let me go with him because I was drugged up to my neck. I was screaming and shouting so they had to give me sedatives to make me sleep because I was hysterical. The next day I said “I don’t care if you let me or not, I’m leaving.” I had a friend come and pick me up, i was limping and kind of crawling my way to the Homerton where they asked if I was having a baby, I had to explain that I had had him the day before. We had to stay in hospital for a few days, he didn’t have pneumonia but they gave him antibiotics just in case and we had to stay for the entire course of antibiotics. It was just a nasty experience all round.

I was physically ill for three months after that. Breastfeeding didn’t go well. I was so weak, I lost so much blood that I had to take iron pills which gave me other problems. I guess it’s understandable I was terrified of going through it all again when I became pregnant again.

I didn’t contact a HypnoBirthing teacher until I was 37 weeks pregnant. I’d tried to forget I was pregnant but couldn’t anymore because I was so heavy and the prospect of birth was looming ever closer. I’d heard about it because my friend Sarah had had her baby a year after Romi was born and she did HypnoBirthing. She gave birth naturally in water and afterwards said it was amazing, that it was very primal, that straight afterwards she had said she quite liked it! I was looking at her like ohkaaaay… good for you…. 

I was completely ready to go into hospital for birth. No homebirth, no natural stuff for me, it would be a proper medical procedure, I was ready for it. I was just scared of the first hours of pain and I didn’t want to drag it out because I was scared of distressing the baby again. So my initial approach in doing HypnoBirthing was that in the three weeks I had left I wanted it to be able to keep me calm up until I could get my epidural with the minimum amount of fear. That’s all I wanted from it. I’m not a believer and my teacher said, ‘don’t believe, just do’ that helped me.

I needed the theory and logic behind HypnoBirthing. My husband Ran is very spiritual, he’s into meditation and I respect that. I’ve tried meditating in the past but it didn’t work. I’m too “monkey mind”, too busy, it’s hard for me to relax. That’s why I found the Rainbow Relaxation difficult and it didn’t really work for me. Imagining things that are not there is not me. Imagining reality worked much much better for me and that’s why I liked the fear release session we did with the teacher and my husband did a recording for me that was personal. The physical part of focussing on specific parts of the body to relax worked very well. The thing that worked for me the best was understanding how the muscles of the uterus work and how the belly breathing can create more space. It made so much sense and during labour I saw it. I saw myself making space for my baby. 

and it didn’t hurt… it didn’t hurt…

The day before Leo was born was the only day that we had snow last year and so i was sure that I was obviously going to get stuck in the snow, I was very emotional, screaming and crying, “I’m going to get stuck in the snow, I’m never going to make it, I’m going to end up having the baby on the floor in the house!” If only I’d known…

The following morning I started with menstrual period pains which I knew were familiar, I’d had a lot of warm ups so I wasn’t sure really if this was it or not. Towards lunchtime I announced I was going to go upstairs and just be by myself for a little bit. It was a Sunday so everyone was at home, including my mum but I didn’t want anyone with me, so I went upstairs and put on a cd.

I started listening to the music first without anything, just relaxing and I tried to really be with the baby. With my first birth, when Romi was out I said to everyone “oh my god it’s a baby!” because it was too abstract and they laughed saying “what did you think it was, a melon?!”, they put him on me and he was warm and he moved and I was shocked! I didn’t believe a baby could come out of that ordeal. I just wanted to be with this baby because I knew this was my baby and he was with me already. I listened to the music, to the birthing affirmations and to my husbands meditation that he did for me, which was in hebrew – it was all about imagining the whole body, feeling what’s happening and being with it. The birthing affirmations, particularly “every surge brings my baby closer to me” that was the best one and I kept on wanting to hear it again and again.

Every now and then my husband or my mum would come upstairs but otherwise it was just me in a dark room, with the music. When Ran was there I didn’t want him to be there, I preferred my mum. I preferred a woman’s touch. I wanted my mummy! I want to kill her in a lot of moments in my life but at that moment I wanted her and she was there which was brilliant. She stroked my hair a bit which was nice and gave me orange – it was the most amazing orange, it was like I was on drugs or something – that orange was SOOOO good! I had some water and I didn’t want anyone to talk to me. I just lay there and was so relaxed and was just with my baby. I was with him and talking to him in my mind, telling him he was coming out now, that I love him, we’re going to see you and then a surge would come and it was like “here we go….” and we did it together. 

Surges were probably about every 20 minutes or 30 minutes for a few hours. I didn’t want to move, I didn’t want to go anywhere. By about 6.30pm-7pm ish they started every 10 minutes or so and I said to Ran “Why don’t you put Romi to bed and then maybe we’ll go because I think the baby’s coming tonight.”

There was an hour where it started to be more intense. I was very hot, I took off all my clothes and I was just lying there breathing, in the dark, listening to the CD. Ran claims when he came to see me I wasn’t ‘there’ – but I was there, I was completely focussed, everything was very clear. He says when I spoke it was like I was somewhere else. The surges started becoming much more intense and I started making sounds to help me, like deep sounds when I breathed out and every time I felt with the surges that I had to do the balloon breathing to make bigger and bigger balloons. I realised later that this was that transition point. I remember thinking to myself, “Ok this is getting a bit too much now. When I get to the hospital I’m asking for an epidural.” Part of me had wanted to be the shouty, sweary person you hear about with transition but I just remember thinking “be calm…” The last time I had been screaming for an epidural. This time I was just calmly thinking I’d ask for one when I got to the hospital, it was completely different reaction.

I had no idea where I was at in labour by this point. I was sure I had plenty of time, the last time it had taken 24 hours to get to 2cms. So I rang the hospital and said “I’ve been doing hypnobirthing so it’s not going to sound the way you expect it to sound, but I think I’m ready to come in” she listened and I could feel powerfully intense feelings. I almost want to say pain but I almost want to say pleasure-like pain, a good pain but a strong pain but not pain! The midwife said “We’ll probably send you home but if it’s your second and you feel like you want to come then come. You don’t sound to me like you’re anywhere near but come if you want to.” That was 8o’clock. Leo was born at 9 o’clock.

I decided I needed to go to the loo and said I’ll have a wee and get dressed. I got up from the bed – after five hours of lying there comfortably – and it hit me. I couldn’t walk, in my mind I was about to get dressed, to get my shoes on, to put my eyeliner on to go to hospital (!) and I couldn’t put my knickers on! It took me half an hour to get dressed in sweat pants and trainers. Ran called a cab and slowly we started going downstairs, I had this enormous pressure, my waters hadn’t gone by this time, and I asked Ran to put pressure on my lower back as I leaned against the balustrade. Then I would go another two steps and needed him to put pressure again on my back, two steps and again. When I went for a wee, Ran took a peek and said “ok if you don’t want the baby here, let’s go!” and that scared me. I mean I hadn’t planned a home birth, there was no-one there with me. I was still in this kind of high but feeling scared because of the situation. Ran put the bags in the car and I said I needed a poo before we left. 

I didn’t realise. I hadn’t felt that pressure before, I’d had an epidural first time so this wasn’t a familiar pressure. I told my mum that I wouldn’t be able to hold it in the cab so I went to the small bathroom near where our office was and I sat on the toilet just as my waters released…. I didn’t need a poo…. this was our baby! My husband tried to tell me saying it was just the waters but I knew I could feel my baby coming, I felt the head coming and he looked and saw leo crowning so ran upstairs to dial 999. My mum stayed with me and by the time the person on the other end of the phone told Ran to “go grab a towel”, Leo was out. It was a matter of seconds.  

When he was born, I heard someone scream. A scream that was exactly like my friend Sarah had described, a very primal scream. That was me. But at that point I was outside myself. I did one J breath and he was out in my hands. Everything came out of me in that sound…. It was amazing. Seriously, I would have another baby just for that! There was absolutely something cathartic about it. It’s been a year now and I don’t think I’m ever going to forget this feeling. It’s going to stay with me forever. 

My mum caught him. I was there with my trousers round my ankles, shoes still on, holding a baby with the umbilical cord in my hand, looking at my mum, my mum looking at me. It’s like something you read in the newspapers! Seriously these things don’t happen to people like me!

Three minutes later the paramedic on a motorbike arrived, it was brilliant they were really quick but he started talking to me too much. I didn’t like that. Asking me this, that and the other and I think I said to him, can you not talk to me so much… He cut the cord, we wrapped Leo up and I kind of made my way up the stairs. Other paramedics came, the midwife came and all the neighbours were outside wondering what was going on.

The midwife offered me the injection to birth the placenta and I looked at her saying “are you serious?! do you realise what i’ve just been through?” and she said “oh alright then we’ll wait.” It was about half an hour before the placenta came.

I swear by HypnoBirthing to anyone and everyone. Kat had told me “don’t believe, do”.  I was putting CDs on when I went to bed, I wasn’t even really listening to it, it was just on repeat, sometimes I used to wake in the middle of the night and it was still on and on the day of the birth it was amazing. I was completely conditioned. You wouldn’t believe as an intelligent human being that you could be so easily conditioned but I heard it, it clicked, it worked. It was the music, the breathing was fantastic. 

It’s breaking away from fear, breaking the cycle and letting this happen, just not interfering, just observe your body, this is you having the baby, this is you just watching it happen. Embrace every surge, each one brings your baby closer to you and so I was waiting for them and looking forward to them so when they come I can do what I’m supposed to do with them.

And it wasn’t just the birth; the first days and weeks afterwards I felt an absolute difference. I was so fresh and full of energy! I’m not talking about that initial high after the first two days, I’m talking a week later when the tiredness can start to kick in but I was fresh! There was nothing to recover from, with Leo I didn’t tear, not at all, just a little graze which with some arnica was gone. With Romi I’d had a proper episiotomy.

I think that so many women are having babies without knowing that this is the most cherished moment in a woman’s life. The most incredible moment. There are no other moments like that. It’s like everything together, like the best day in your life emotionally, the best orgasm, all of the best emotional things that have happened to you all your life all in one moment together.  Romi’s birth is sadly something that I’m not going to forget the story around it; but the actual birth? I have no idea what happened. The minute that my baby came out of me, is gone. Leo’s will never go. I say it and I still feel it. Because it was like the essence of being, in one sound. The essence of creating a human being in one moment. Everything distills to one push – it wasn’t a push – it was one… I don’t have words, there are no words… It’s everything that we are about. I think that’s probably the reason to be a woman.”

and Ran, Maya’s husband agrees…

“She was a bit like in a trance. She was very relaxed. You couldn’t get her to do things. But the timing was perfect because any later it would have been in the taxi!

She didn’t really want me, she wanted me to be with Romi, because we didn’t think it was labour and so i would be with Romi and maya’s mum and arrange things and get ready. I didn’t really think it was happening. When she called the midwife she sounded fine and  I was completely with the midwife. I was worried that we wanted it to be completely relaxed and after the first time and how long it was and so was like yeah sure, it’s good, let’s wait! The gaps between surges were still 10 minutes apart or so. The moment I flipped was the moment I could see the head starting to emerge!

I rang the ambulance when she said the babys coming and they said ‘don’t worry get a towel’ and then i heard a baby crying and it was too late… I came downstairs and saw the baby and they were all sitting there, Maya, her mum, the baby. I put him on the boob because she was kind of in shock, big eyes all round, and said “let him start drinking.”

I remember so well, as they were helping Maya upstairs, I was sitting on the stairs holding him and he was not crying, he was super relaxed and it seems like he didn’t notice anything had happened, perhaps was not sure he was out already he was very relaxed. I remember when Romi came out he was screaming… I really remember these differences.

Without HypnoBirthing, it wouldn’t have happened this way, ever. I think I know what worked really. Part of the imagination and part of the letting the mind go is not working very well for Maya, it is hard for her. So the logic, the description of what’s happening for the baby during the surges and that it’s progressing if you don’t stop. If you release and let go it’s helping him to come out. The graphic and logical explanation flicked a kind of switch in the head that it’s not about stopping it or holding it or even bearing it, it’s about letting it be and that’s amazing. So the turning point is when the surges started, instead of tightening up with it she breathed with it and let it go and released the muscles and the brain as much as possible. It was like a snowball effect because once it started, it continued and I was surprised to see her going through the whole thing in the same way. If you believe it, you feel it.

It’s amazing.”