A wonderful birth story demonstrating the great strength that Laura showed and how valuable a supportive partner is – well done Chris! Her body and baby were obviously ready and getting going so when given a bit of a kick, as she said “Going from 0mph to 90mph contractions wasn’t pleasant but the hypnobirthing really helped. Think we would have tried to get to hospital much earlier if we hadn’t used the breathing and relaxation techniques.”

One note from me (Kat) – no-one should be trying to examine you during a surge, least of all a junior doctor – remember Mary Cronk’s expressions, “stop that at once!” comes to mind 😉

Here’s how Molly Edwards made her entrance!

“We took the decision to be induced as I was 41+6 days. I’d started mild contractions at 1am on the morning of our booked induction so I was hoping that was the start of natural labour but when we were checked I wasn’t even 1cm.

If you’re low risk UCH send you home for 6hrs after the first gel. They’d rather you’d be in a relaxed environment for contractions to progress (think it’s the same at Homerton too).

I reacted quickly and by the time we got home I was contracting between 4-3 mins apart. We stayed put and went back in after 6hrs, by this time I was contracting 2mins apart. When they examined me I’d gone from 1 to 5cm in 6hrs.

By this time I was knackered and asked for an epidural. Whilst waiting for the anesthetist I had the sudden urge to push so the midwife checked me again. Within 30mins I’d gone from 5cm to 10cm, with just gas and air. From there it apparently took 16mins for her to arrive.

Chatting to Chris afterwards we really think the Hypnobirthing helped when we were at home, especially with keeping us calm and not rushing back to hospital. If we hadn’t have used the breathing or been through the classes I think we would have panicked much earlier and tried to go back. The midwife was impressed we’d got to 5cm on our own and being relaxed was probably a big part of this.

Chris felt it was really useful for him too by giving him confidence on how to help me.

Also, thinking back to when we arrived at hospital I think we appeared a little bit too relaxed for someone having contractions 2mins apart, especially when the reception asked us to go for a walk as there wasn’t a room available straight away!

Overall it was really good at UCH. Our midwife was amazing and so encouraging, it was the junior doctor that tried to examine me mid-contraction that was annoying!

Hope this helps you in your classes.”