I wanted to drop you a line to introduce you to Cecilia who arrived in the world safe and well four weeks ago today at UCLH. Now that we’ve got (a bit!) into the swing of things as new parents I wanted to update you on our birth story. We had a brilliant birth experience and credit that entirely to you and to your wonderful hypnobirthing course. We are hugely grateful to you for showing us that birth can be a positive experience and for empowering us to have the birth we wanted. We can’t thank you enough.

Even before Cece was born I’d benefitted hugely from practicing what I learned on your course. I was using the breathing techniques to get through stressful moments at work, and the guided meditations really helped during moments of worry or sleeplessness throughout the pregnancy. I never had any anxiety about the birth and instead just felt excited to experience that life changing event and, of course, excited to meet our baby. That was definitely down to how you helped reframe our expectations of what birth could be, something to be experienced rather than endured.

Cece was born at exactly 39 weeks and I went into spontaneous labour the evening beforehand. At about 10pm I started feeling stomach cramps and so went to bed with a hot water bottle and waited to see if anything developed. I haven’t had any Braxton Hicks (or practice surges I should say!) so I didn’t know if it was the beginning of labour, but thought we should get some rest just in case. Your course gave us both the confidence to wait and see how things progressed and to feel relaxed about staying in our own home during early labour.

We felt so well informed and prepared that we didn’t rush immediately to the hospital, which otherwise I think we would have wanted to do. At around 3am it became apparent that this was the early stages of labour so I took some paracetamol and started using the Tens machine, which was hugely helpful. The rest the night passed in a haze of trying to rest and doze and at 6am we called my community midwife to let her know the baby was on her way. The midwife asked if we had felt the baby move recently and I couldn’t honestly say I had, but I’d also had my mind on other things! She suggested we continue to stay at home as we were happy to do and to call her back if we hadn’t felt the baby move by 9am. G set up the yoga mat, the birthing ball, my playlist and my affirmations so I had all the things that I wanted around me and we had a few hours at home while the surges slowly began to build. One of my affirmations was ‘Every surge brings our baby closer’ and I found that hugely helpful as a way of reframing those surges as a step along the journey of birth.

By 9am we still hadn’t felt the baby move and we called the midwife back. She suggested we try all the usual tricks that normally got her kicking but that we if we didn’t feel anything within 30 minutes we would need to go into the maternal fetal assessment unit to check things were OK. She also said that this would mean I wouldn’t be able to then give birth in UCLH’s Birthing Center because this would count as a period of reduced fetal movement and I would require continuous monitoring, which is only available on the labour ward.
I was really disappointed to hear that because I was keen to have a non-medicalized birth and was concerned that being on the labour ward would prevent that. But she reassured me that we still had a good chance of having the same midwife lead delivery in the labor ward, and of course by that point I was more concerned about the welfare of the baby, even if deep down I felt instinctively that she was fine.

Half an hour later, we were in a taxi on the way to UCLH. We’d remembered what you said about birth being a crescendo that needs momentum to build so I had my eye mask on and noise canceling headphones to try to stay in the relaxed state we had created at home. During the journey to the hospital I felt the baby kick and the relief was overwhelming.

At the assessment center they ran some tests and a trace and luckily all was well with the baby. In hindsight I’m not even sure if the baby’s movements were truly reduced as she didn’t usually kick that much at that time of the morning anyway. The midwife who assessed us told me that because there had been a period of reduced fetal movements she would book me in for an induction the next day if the baby hadn’t arrived. I was a bit taken aback because I felt that my labour was progressing. I knew deep down that I wasn’t going to need the induction so tried to put it out of my mind, and she agreed that I should go home because the contractions were about two in ten minutes. I was offered a cervical check which I declined (again, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do this without your course) because I knew the baby was still a little while off and I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the labour.

Back at home things started to ramp up and my waters broke. G was an incredible support throughout every surge and made me eat, drink and keep up my strength. After about two and a half hours my contractions were four in ten and G insisted we go back to the hospital. I probably would’ve stayed at home a bit longer but I’m glad now he was so adamant about going in! At the maternal fetal assessment unit a very shocked young midwife did a cervical check and to my delight told me I was fully dilated and ready to push. No one could quite believe it, including me. I fully expected to be two or four cm dilated so it was a huge surprise and gave me a real boost. I hadn’t wanted to use drugs for pain relief or to have an epidural so I was so grateful to have reached the second stage of labour without them. The belly breathing I’d practiced with your recordings and the idea of breathing into the areas of discomfort had really helped me get through the surges.

On the labour ward I was assigned a room and spent about 90 minutes pushing with the guidance of the midwife. Unfortunately there were no mobile heart rate monitors available so I had to stay on the bed to be monitored and had my feet in the stirrups. The exact opposite of what we were hoping for, but by that stage I wasn’t in my thinking mind so didn’t care as much. When the midwife had checked my cervix she found a small amount of meconium, and so we had extra observation from the doctors. The room got quite busy with a lot of people coming in and out, but with the gas and air and G’s brilliant support I managed to stay focused. After 90 minutes of pushing she still wasn’t coming, and was stuck behind my pubic bone. The doctors wanted to intervene and said the baby’s heart rate was fluctuating so we agreed. They placed a Kiwi Cup on Cece’s head and told me to push, but as I did the cup became dislodged and flew into the poor registrar’s face. They did a quick episiotomy and I pushed her out myself on the next push, which I was glad to have done because I know now that I birthed her myself. I was told afterwards that she had one hand up by her face which is why she’s got stuck behind the bone. In a way knowing this gave me a bit of comfort, that additional factors were at play which meant I was struggling to birth her.

Seeing Cece for the first time was an incredibly emotional moment for both of us. I did skin to skin and we had a bit of delayed cord clamping. The doctors were keen to establish that she hasn’t swallowed any meconium and fortunately that wasn’t the case, so after birthing the placenta they stitched me up as I held her. My community midwife had come on shift early so she could help deliver the baby, and it was noticeable how strongly she advocated for us and our birth preferences, going toe to toe on the doctors on a number of issues. I was grateful that your course had shown us how to put together a comprehensive birth plan. The birth plan form that UCLH had given us was very light on detail, but we’d basically written our own version and had a lengthy conversation with the midwife about it beforehand. That meant that on the day she was a brilliant advocate for us at a time when we were too caught up in everything to really advocate for ourselves.

Cece has been a very tranquil and quietly alert baby from the first day we met her. We are sure that has a lot to do with how she was born, that she didn’t get into distress and didn’t have any drugs in her system. So not only has your course given us a more calm and confident pregnancy and birth, but a pretty calm baby too!