My birthing experience was without a doubt nothing less than amazing!
During my pregnancy, I didn’t really think much about my birth plan. It wasn’t until a friend of mine showed me a birth story posted to Belly2Birth on Instagram that I started to give it thought. By this time I was already 36 weeks and unfortunately didn’t get the chance to join a Hypnobirthing course, but this made me start to think about my upcoming labour and what I wanted to get out of the experience.
I was thinking about my birth plan and realised I wanted to have the best possible experience that I could have. I began doing my research and reading all the amazing birth stories that other mums had shared on the Hypnobirthing website. I was listening to Hypnobirthing podcasts and practising breathing techniques.
I wanted to experience one of these amazing birth stories that other mums and dads had been talking about.
I had my first child 10 years ago and his birth was so overwhelming and I felt completely out of control. My son was in a posterior position and I had no control over my surges - this caused me a lot of anxiety, therefore I ended up having a lot of interventions and examinations. I was determined to have a different experience this time around.
At 38 weeks I finished up work and really started to focus on my positive birthing journey. Every day I was practising my birthing techniques and my birthing affirmations. I talked to my partner about my birth plan and told him my affirmation for birth. I asked him to tell me “you’ve got this” to keep me focused when I needed it.
At 41 weeks we went to my midwife appointment to discuss induction with the Doctor. I had already been having pre-labour surges for 2-3 days. When we saw the Dr she did an examination and told us that I was already 4cm dilated and the baby was engaged. As we live 30 minutes from the hospital, she asked us to stay in town for the next hour, go for a walk and get some lunch to see if labour would begin. After walking up and down the hospital hall and around the shops I didn’t feel any different so we decided to go home to see if labour would start in our own environment. The Dr did tell us she was concerned that if my waters broke at home things would happen very quickly. So with this in mind, we prepared ourselves for a quick return to the hospital.

We arrived home around 3 pm and by this stage, my surges had progressed quite a bit. The surges were coming more regularly around 2-3minutes apart and lasting 40-50 seconds. I called the hospital and the midwife advised me to come back in. I had planned on staying at home as long as I could, but given what the Dr had said to us we decided to head straight in. So we packed the car and dropped my son off to my dads and drove back to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital around 4:45 and headed straight into the birthing suite. My surges were still coming strong. We met with our midwifery team; one student midwife and one senior midwife. We spoke about my birthing plan and got ourselves comfortable.
We dimmed the lights, got the oil diffuser started and I started my birthing affirmations playlist. I got myself into a comfortable place and started to really focus on my surges and breathing through them. It wasn’t until after birth that I realised I never watched the clock, looked at the time or counted my surges, which I truly believe helped me to stay focused on staying in the moment.
The student midwife came in to check on me often, encouraging me and reminding me that I was doing so well with my breathing. This was really empowering to hear. My surges were strong, the midwife was counting my surges and at this point asked if I wanted to be examined to see how far along I was. I said no, I knew my was body was progressing at it’s own pace and I didn’t want to feel disheartened if I hadn’t progressed as much as I’d hoped. This was one thing that I really took away from the birthing stories I had been reading, I had no idea you could say no to this kind of intervention.
During labour, I felt completely in control and was empowered through every surge. I felt my body doing what it knew best to do. My surges were coming strong and fast, my partner was rubbing my back as I leaned over the bed. He was breathing with me and saying “you’ve got this”.
The senior midwife came and asked if I wanted anything, it was at this point I asked for the gas. As she prepared the gas I sat up on the bed and my waters broke. I went to the bathroom to get out of my clothes and that’s when my body really took over, my baby was coming. I called out for my partner and while he helped me back to the bed, the midwives started getting prepared for the arrival of our baby.
The midwives helped me to get in a comfortable birthing position. This position was not the one I had envisioned on birthing in but I trusted the guidance of my body and midwives. As I was on my knees leaning over the head of the bed, with my partner by my side, I let my body and baby guide me as my surges did the rest. With each surge we came closer to meeting our baby.
As my final surge helped birth our baby boy, the midwives guided him to the bed. There he was, looking up at me wide eyed. I reached down to pick him up and welcome him to our world. The midwives were so hands-off which added to my no intervention birth experience, which I loved. Emmett Max Rhodes was born at 9:17pmweighing 8 pounds and 50cm long He was absolutely perfect. I did it; I birthed my baby with no interventions.
My birthing experience was without a doubt nothing less than amazing, I felt completely in control and empowered the whole time. I trusted my body and baby and because of all the help of the Hypnobirthing community, I was able to have my dream birthing experience. I cannot recommend Hypnobirthing highly enough and I will definitely be doing it again with my next birth from the start.
I wanted to share my story because I hope it can help empower other mums to experience their very own dream birth too.
Sarah
To book into a Belly2Birth Hypnobirthing Course with Shari on the Gold Coast CLICK HERE
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