Soon after announcing that I was pregnant, my neighbor Rinzen started talking to me about taking her Hypnobirthing class. Every time she brought it up, I pictured this large hippopotamus giving birth and thought she might be a little off of her rocker with this idea.
Being that she had given birth to both of her children at home; one of them in the backyard in a large birthing pool, I kind of wrote her class off as another hippy class that was unnecessary to my birthing experience. However, I am easily pressured into things, and I finally gave in.
Armed with a book on hypnobirthing as well as a notebook full of "scripts" we had received, my husband and I walked into the six week class on a warm Sunday in November. Still a little skeptical, and upset that I would be possibly missing six weeks of Seahawks games for this, I tried to take that first class with a grain of salt. However I soon found myself paying attention.
I learned that the "hippo" I was picturing was actually "hypno" as in hypnotizing and that hynobirthing actually teaches you to go so deep inside of yourself during labor that the experience is virtually pain free. Now picturing myself as a high school senior trying to be hypnotized at our graduation all nighter, I once again wrote it off as not for me. But luckily there was more to it than that. Week after week and while reading the book, I found myself starting to really understand the process that the body goes through while in labor, and piecing together parts of Bella's birth that had gone wrong. I learned that the scripts and visualizations I had already written off as crazy, were actually there to help me relax instead of focusing on the pain.
The class taught me that if I worked with my body during labor, instead of fearing the pain that was ahead, then my body would actually release it's own hormones to help the process along. The more I let fear and negativity get in the way, the less help the hormones would be. I also found out the effects that inducing labor and pain medications have on the whole process possibly making labor harder than it was meant to be. I learned to think positively about the birth experience and to shut out all negative stories and images told or placed in front of me. We watched birth after birth video, and over and over I saw women
giving birth, not in the screaming "I'm going to kill you," way that I had seen on television, but in a beautiful loving manner that truly seemed to welcome this new little life into the world. Still I was skeptical that this would happen in MY situation.
And then at 40 weeks + 4 days, the time came. After a week of contractions leading to nothing after falling asleep, it seemed a little chicken curry, pineapple and a small fight with my husband was all that it took. I felt the first strong contraction or surge as it's referred to in hypno, sometime around midnight, but decided to try to sleep since that usually took care of it. At 1:45am, after not being able to sleep and contractions being around 6-7 minutes apart, I decided to shower and put some makeup on. God forbid I go to the hospital without makeup (seriously, what was I thinking?)!!
At 2:30am, I decided to eat something so I came downstairs and sat on my birthing ball eating greek yogurt and blueberries while I watched Kathy Lee and Koda frolic around the Bahamas and decided that being in labor was better than watching those loons. Back upstairs I went, still convinced the contractions would stop. I finished packing my bag, just in case..picked up some laundry around the room, anything to avoid actually thinking I could be in labor. I finally woke Seth up around 4am but told him I was going to try to sleep some more to make them stop. After ending up on all 4's and breathing through the contractions, Seth FINALLY convinced me to call the midwife. She told me it sounded like I was in early labor and to relax and spend some more time at home until the contractions got to the point that I had to breathe through them. I got off the phone and a contraction hit "in 2-3-4, out-2-3-4-5-6-7-8" I breathed. Seth said, "let's go." I still wasn't convinced I was in labor.
We took our time getting there. Seth was hungry, so he stopped for Carl's Jr, a decision he would later regret. We sat in the parking lot of the hospital and he ate. They're going to send me home I thought. But, in we went. The nurse was more than accommodating and hooked me up to the monitors while she asked me questions. I remember thinking how annoying this would be answering all of these questions if I had actually been in labor...then a contraction hit. "oh, that was a good one wasn't it?" said the nurse. Ummm...maybe I am in labor. She checked me before sending me off to the Jacuzzi tub. 3cm dilated. I had been 1cm three days before, so once again I thought, "SEE this isn't it!" I took a short bath, but soon became too hot to stay in there. The heat was overwhelming. I got out and laid on the bed for awhile then stood up to "dance" with Seth. Leaning on him with my arms around his neck was the most comfortable position to be in. I asked him to go get me something, but a contraction would hit so I told him to stay. Poor guy had to pee for the next 2 hours, but I wouldn't let him leave. About that time my midwife came in.
I had changed from my OBGYN to a midwife early on in my pregnancy because I felt I would get more personalized care and someone who would support my desire to have a natural birth. I chose the Deaconess Midwives after hearing great reviews of them. There were three of them, and they made sure that I had each appointment with a different one so I would get to know all three and would know whoever was on call when the time came. However 3 weeks before my due date, they announced that they were joining Rockwood Clinic, moving offices and gaining 2 more midwives. As luck would have it, one of the new midwives was on call that night. So I was introduced to Leanne for the first time as she was about to deliver my baby. Not an ideal situation, but she ended up being so fantastic that I didn't care. She said a brief hello, said she thought still had plenty of time, so she went to go check on another patient and left me to progress.
Within minutes of that the "real" labor hit. Contractions were coming and going faster than I could take a breath between them. I could no longer keep my eyes open, but soon found myself instinctually using all of those hypnobirthing techniques I had learned. I began to picture the flower representing what my body needed to do to get this baby out, the blue ribbon image which is a visual description of what the uterine muscles do during contractions, I was breathing using the techniques described in the book. The guided script about following the fawn through a forest into a meadow that I had laughed at the ridiculousness of a day before, helped me to relax through several long hard contractions. I visualized the rainbow of mist around me which changed from red to orange to yellow and so on. I pictured my husband and thought of how much I loved him, the image of my daughter just days before as I had watched her sleeping and thinking of how much she had grown. I visualized this baby that was going to join our world soon and how excited I was to meet him. I was truly going to love this baby out. All of this while my eyes were lightly shut, my head was doing this weird circling motion and Seth was putting ice chips on my forehead. I cannot say enough how supportive Seth was during this whole time.
Not too long after that my water broke, and then the midwife came back in and checked me and said it was time to push. I was convinced at that moment that I was going to have this baby on the toilet and there was nothing that would change my mind. Leanne was gracious enough to say this wouldn't be the first baby she delivered on the toilet, but somehow, THANKFULLY convinced me to get back to bed. Then came the pushing.
I cannot describe the difference between pushing with an epidural which I had had with Bella, and pushing drug free. This time, my body knew exactly what to do and when to do it without a doctor having to guess when I needed to push. Did my hpynobirthing techniques work to the point that it was pain free? Nope. But was it tolerable? Yes! I began using the last breathing technique taught in hypno where you picture a J or a circle where the breath enters through your nose and you literally push it out. I let out low groans while pushing while listening to a woman in the room next to me literally scream bloody murder. Anytime my groaning would get too high pitched, Seth would remind me to go low and pushing would be easier. And then it happened.
3 hours after getting to the hospital, and after 20 minutes of pushing, Archer was born. Fully alert, not drugged, eyes wide open, barely screaming. They immediately placed him on my chest and I cried "it's ok, mama's here..." then immediately cried, "Bella should be here," sad that she was at her Dad's for the weekend. Seth and I looked at each other and looked at this beautiful baby boy we had just worked together on bringing into the world and cried. It was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever experienced. We waited for the cord to drain and then Seth cut it. I thought back on the last 3 hours and couldn't believe that I had actually done it. Although there was a brief millisecond where I had thought I was going to need an epidural, I had actually made it through without it. At that moment, I felt like I could conquer the world.
Needless to say, I am no longer skeptical of hynobirthing. Had I gone into that birth unarmed with the tools and knowledge of what my body needed to do and how to help it, I am convinced that I would have given in again and had an epidural. Would that have been the worst thing in the world? No, but now that I have had one natural birth, I can say that I would rather go that route any day. It's truly a miracle.
