We never gave up our positive thinking to birth naturally and in the end we got too!
We signed up for Shari’s Hypnobirthing course when we were 26 weeks pregnant. I’d heard such wonderful, positive things about her courses and really wanted to give it a try ! So off my partner and I went to her weekend course to learn all about hypnobirthing.
We were amazed with the amount of knowledge Shari had in regards to the female body during pregnancy, labour and birth. We learnt so many wonderful things from the hormones released, the breathing techniques, the stages of labour, really everything we didn’t know, we learnt about in her course.
As our estimated date drew closer we tried absolutely everything to get baby to make her way down and I mean everything ! Clary sage, acupressure, acupuncture, spicy food, sex, walking, relaxing, warm baths, exercises on the Fitball.. Everything !
As we had now gone well over our estimated due date we unfortunately had to be induced but we also saw it as a blessing as we knew we were closer to meeting our baby.
So off we went to the hospital, excited knowing we were going to be holding our precious little girl in the next couple of days.
We took our diffuser with our clary sage up to the hospital and set it up in our room while we laboured. We had an exercise ball and our speaker in the room as well.
Unfortunately after our induction my body didn’t progress as much as we’d hoped for and we experienced some involuntary pushing which caused my cervix to swell and made it hard for baby to make her way down. We never gave up our positive thinking though and we laboured on.
We got to the point where our ob wanted to get baby out for her safety as our labour had going on for quite some time..
Due to my cervix being swollen and not allowing baby into a good birthing position we had 2 options.. An epidural to relax my cervix in order to dilate naturally or caesarean. In our birthing preferences our 2 main goals were to, if possible birth naturally and do whatever necessary to get baby out safely into the world.
We are so so thankful that we were able to birth our little girl naturally. (The epidural relaxed my muscles which helped me dilate well however it felt like it had ‘worn off’ after only a little bit and I could actually feel each tightening.. I told the Midwife I felt like I needed to push with them as the pain relief wasn’t working, so off she went to get our ob and sure enough it was time to push.)
Nick and my mum were there the entire time and were the most amazing support and encouragement.
We still used everything we learned in our course which I believe did help. Light touch, positive words, silence when I needed to concentrate, the breathing techniques ! We never gave up our positive thinking to birth naturally and in the end we got too !
We now have our beautiful girl Mackenzie Lyn Peterson, born the 22nd December at 9.46pm, weighing 8lb 13oz and 52.5cm long. We are so in love !
Thank you for everything Shari ! Even though we did have to have medical intervention our main preference was to birth her naturally whilst having the most amazing support by my side.
Shannon & Nick
