HypnoBirthing Stories

Hi Megan!

Our new baby girl Anaia arrived a week and a half early yesterday morning at 6:34 a.m. What an incredible hypnobirthing success!

Coleen's water broke at 2 a.m. Prepared for a long labor, we started the rainbow relaxation CD and went back to bed. At 4:00 things seemed to be progressing quite well, surges were 7-9 minutes apart so we continued to do affirmations and light touch massage. Well, by 5:30 Coleen started to feel like she needed to push. In somewhat of a panic we jumped into the car and raced to Mercy; at this point Coleen was very anxious that we wouldn't make it on time. When we arrived at the hospital at 6:00 she was in quite a bit of pain, screaming during surges.

Here's the miracle: as soon as the nurses got her into her bed she instantly felt safe again and went right back into her zone. She lay in the bed, breathing and even humming through the remaining surges. She was in complete relaxation and almost silent as she breathed down the baby. Anaia arrived by 6:34, and although it was a whirlwind for a moment we both think everything was just perfectly amazing.

Coleen is doing really well. We are still at Mercy until either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. I'm sure Coleen will want to tell your her side of the story but we wanted to say hello and thank you for preparing us for such an incredible experience.

Take Care,

—Andy

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Hi Megan,

I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you. It's been quite an interesting couple of weeks! We ended up going into the hospital on Sunday 6/22 for the blood pressure check that Leah wanted me to have and ended up getting admitted to the hospital right then. My lower blood pressure number was in the 100's (110 on Sunday morning) and didn't come down again until I finally had to go on a blood pressure medication last Thursday. Anyway, we started the induction on Monday morning (Jen was my midwife and she was the one I felt most comfortable with so I know that wasn't an accident!). She inserted a pill up by my cervix so help get things moving and for four hours nothing happened. At noon she came back by the hospital and tried a second pill and was returning at 5:30 to break my water if that hadn't happened yet but luckily my water broke on its own at 5:21 pm. I had the most wonderful nurse all day on Monday, she had to sit with us for 4 hours to monitor the baby and the contractions because of the pills we were using and she was just great. She was so excited to find out that my water had broken sort of on its own so no other measures needed to be taken to help labor along, it started right away.

I was amazed at how quickly the contractions got stronger and started coming faster. I wasn't ready for that at all. For the past two weeks I had had contractions on and off and was thinking that this wasn't going to be so bad, but once it really started, I paniced at first. Trevor actually was amazing and knew just what to do to help me calm down. I started telling him that I needed my sister there right away and that I wasn't going to be able to do this and he responded with "I knew this was going to be difficult but I didn't think you'd fall apart this quickly!" That of course snapped me out of my panic and I said, Ok, you're right, I can do this. I remember what to do and from there on out I closed my eyes and I don't think they opened for more than 5 minutes total over the next 10.5 hours. I used the breathing techniques we learned and Trevor used the light touch massage along with our nurse, Nicole, who was also great (she knew about hypnobirthing and made a real effort to use the terminology we used in class along with keeping the music soft, lights off and not a lot of loud talking). I could go on and on about the rest of the labor experience, it was the most amazing, miraculous thing I have ever experienced. It was true that as long as I remember what was happening and visualized my body opening up for my baby (I ran the afffirmation I trust my baby and my body to know what to do over and over in my head a thousand times) there was no pain involved, only pressure. Once I forgot that and opened my eyes or focused on someone in the room talking, I would tense up and the pain would become unbearable so I really tried to put all of my energy into this total relaxation out of body experience I was having.

Anyway, I did have to start pushing eventually and this was where the hypno-birthing broke down just a little. Our nurse did get really excited about the pushing and that process took 2 hours to finally get the baby out. We tried different positions and it took a long time to get the baby's head to stay out (Jen said she kept rocking back and forth over my pubic bone so I would push her out a bit and she would pop right back in over and over!). Trevor this whole time was incredibly patient and wonderful, always making suggestions and telling me I was doing a great job and was almost there. There was merconium in my fluid so because of that we had to have some other people in the room to help when she was born. That actually helped me a bit since I knew that once I heard Jen say Nicole could call them up into the room, we must be almost there!

Juliet's head finally came out and we had a difficult time getting her shoulders out. The cord was around her neck too so Jen fixed that since I don't think she was breathing when she first was born. Finally her shoulders came out and then the rest of her just slid down and she was born. They took her over to the warming table right away because of the meconium and since she wasn't breathing very well, Trevor didn't get a chance to cut the cord, but once she started crying they brought her over to me and she started to nurse right away. Trevor also let me know she was a girl the minute she came out. Juliet Susan finally became a reality!

She was 9.5 pounds and 22 inches long. I made it through labor and delivery with no interventions (except for the induction pills) and had no tears or cuts and no need for stitches at all. Jen walked me through the whole thing at the end to make sure by body stayed intact and we just moved her out a little at a time, although that process burned pretty bad at the very end!! Trevor and I did it on our own without any other people there and that was a huge boost of confidence for our relationship. My sister came in right away after she was born and was Juliet's first visitor.

Since then, I've been on best rest due to my blood pressure and finally the midwives put me on medication to help get it to come down. The baby, however, is amazing and is up to 10.4 pounds already. She is a breast-feeding champ and continues to teach me better techniques everyday! The medication has helped my blood pressure stablize so I am out of the risk of seizures and am looking forward to getting off of that starting next Tuesday.

I wanted to thank you for all your help in getting ready to have this baby. The hypno-birthing technique really worked for me and I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks so much for taking the time to help new moms like me prepare for childbirth, I wish there was a way for me to explain how valuable the information that we learned from your class really was. It made the experience incredibly special and magical instead of painful and scary.

Thanks again so much and I will talk to you soon,

—Emily

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Hello Megan!

Ava has been sleeping through the night since she was about 2 months old and is such an easygoing baby. We have been co-sleeping until just recently. Mark works third shift and I love having her in bed with me. But lately she has been liking her crib better, so we now put her in the crib. She just sleeps better in there, it is almost like she knows that it is her special place. I will still take naps with her in my bed ever so often, probably more for my benefit than hers. I just love having her close to me.

The labor and delivery went just as I had hoped. I started feeling surges around 10-11 P.m. the night of March 28th. The were pretty mild so I just took a shower to relax me and then went to bed. They started waking me up around 2 in the morning, but I was able to go to sleep after. That lasted until about 5:30 in the morning. They were coming on quicker and stronger at that time so I wasn't able to sleep anymore, so I got up, hopped into the shower again and then packed a small bag for the hospital. I woke Mark up around 7:00 and told him that it was time to go. Then I woke up Tia (she had a jazz choir concert up North that day) and told her to get ready to go. I was so calm that it was starting to drive Mark crazy. He kept saying, let's go, hurry up, we have to get there. I had to calm him down and tell him that it was fine, we had time. I was even picking up the house a bit--boy, did he just want about die at that.

So after everyone was good to go, we dropped Tia off at the school where she was catching her bus to the concert and then we headed to the hospital. We got there around 9:00 a.m. I was checked and I was about 4 cm dilated. They told me that they were going to watch the machines for about an hour and see what was happening. They were all pretty excited that I was practicing Hypnobirthing because the nurse had never seen anyone do it before. After an hour they checked me again, and I was 7 cm dilated. So, around 10:30 they came in with all my paperwork and I was admitted. I knew she was coming that day! The surges kept coming and working. They asked me if I needed anything for pain, and I happily declined. I think they asked me because as the surges got stronger I became very vocal. Not screaming, but grunting. It just felt better. It was helping me to focus everything to the baby and not on to what I was feeling. I believe it was around noon that I was fully 10 cm dilated and ready to push. Boy did that feel good! I can't remember how many times I had to push but it was a very small amount and it was only 30 minutes later that she was here.

She was born on March 29th at 12:30 p.m. The nurse and the doctor were amazed on how little work they had to do, they said my body was just made to have babies. I had absolutely no tears and I was up and about within an hour. They wanted to know if I needed any pain meds at that time too and I said no, I feel great. They acted like I was crazy! So, I was at the hospital all of 3 and a half hours before Ava was born. Staying at home for as long as I could before I left was the best thing I could have ever done. There wasn't enough time to get nervous, or tired, or frustrated. It made it all that much easier to deliver Ava the way I wanted, without any unneeded interventions. Hypnobirthing helped so much! It even helped me get through all the routine blood-work they needed to do during my pregnancy, since I hate needles so much.

I hope to bring Ava to a class sometime to share my story and to have you meet her. Now that I am only working a couple days a week, it opens my time up much more. I hope everything is well with you and your family.

Talk to you soon!

—Heather

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Andy Emily Heather Contact Megan	HypnoBirthing Stories Hi Megan! Our new baby girl Anaia arrived a week and a half early yesterday morning at 6:34 a.m. What an incredible hypnobirthing success! Coleen's water broke at 2 a.m. Prepared for a long labor, we started the rainbow relaxation CD and went back to bed. At 4:00 things seemed to be progressing quite well, surges were 7-9 minutes apart so we continued to do affirmations and light touch massage. Well, by 5:30 Coleen started to feel like she needed to push. In somewhat of a panic we jumped into the car and raced to Mercy; at this point Coleen was very anxious that we wouldn't make it on time. When we arrived at the hospital at 6:00 she was in quite a bit of pain, screaming during surges. Here's the miracle: as soon as the nurses got her into her bed she instantly felt safe again and went right back into her zone. She lay in the bed, breathing and even humming through the remaining surges. She was in complete relaxation and almost silent as she breathed down the baby. Anaia arrived by 6:34, and although it was a whirlwind for a moment we both think everything was just perfectly amazing. Coleen is doing really well. We are still at Mercy until either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. I'm sure Coleen will want to tell your her side of the story but we wanted to say hello and thank you for preparing us for such an incredible experience. Take Care, —Andy (top) Hi Megan, I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you. It's been quite an interesting couple of weeks! We ended up going into the hospital on Sunday 6/22 for the blood pressure check that Leah wanted me to have and ended up getting admitted to the hospital right then. My lower blood pressure number was in the 100's (110 on Sunday morning) and didn't come down again until I finally had to go on a blood pressure medication last Thursday. Anyway, we started the induction on Monday morning (Jen was my midwife and she was the one I felt most comfortable with so I know that wasn't an accident!). She inserted a pill up by my cervix so help get things moving and for four hours nothing happened. At noon she came back by the hospital and tried a second pill and was returning at 5:30 to break my water if that hadn't happened yet but luckily my water broke on its own at 5:21 pm. I had the most wonderful nurse all day on Monday, she had to sit with us for 4 hours to monitor the baby and the contractions because of the pills we were using and she was just great. She was so excited to find out that my water had broken sort of on its own so no other measures needed to be taken to help labor along, it started right away. I was amazed at how quickly the contractions got stronger and started coming faster. I wasn't ready for that at all. For the past two weeks I had had contractions on and off and was thinking that this wasn't going to be so bad, but once it really started, I paniced at first. Trevor actually was amazing and knew just what to do to help me calm down. I started telling him that I needed my sister there right away and that I wasn't going to be able to do this and he responded with "I knew this was going to be difficult but I didn't think you'd fall apart this quickly!" That of course snapped me out of my panic and I said, Ok, you're right, I can do this. I remember what to do and from there on out I closed my eyes and I don't think they opened for more than 5 minutes total over the next 10.5 hours. I used the breathing techniques we learned and Trevor used the light touch massage along with our nurse, Nicole, who was also great (she knew about hypnobirthing and made a real effort to use the terminology we used in class along with keeping the music soft, lights off and not a lot of loud talking). I could go on and on about the rest of the labor experience, it was the most amazing, miraculous thing I have ever experienced. It was true that as long as I remember what was happening and visualized my body opening up for my baby (I ran the afffirmation I trust my baby and my body to know what to do over and over in my head a thousand times) there was no pain involved, only pressure. Once I forgot that and opened my eyes or focused on someone in the room talking, I would tense up and the pain would become unbearable so I really tried to put all of my energy into this total relaxation out of body experience I was having. Anyway, I did have to start pushing eventually and this was where the hypno-birthing broke down just a little. Our nurse did get really excited about the pushing and that process took 2 hours to finally get the baby out. We tried different positions and it took a long time to get the baby's head to stay out (Jen said she kept rocking back and forth over my pubic bone so I would push her out a bit and she would pop right back in over and over!). Trevor this whole time was incredibly patient and wonderful, always making suggestions and telling me I was doing a great job and was almost there. There was merconium in my fluid so because of that we had to have some other people in the room to help when she was born. That actually helped me a bit since I knew that once I heard Jen say Nicole could call them up into the room, we must be almost there! Juliet's head finally came out and we had a difficult time getting her shoulders out. The cord was around her neck too so Jen fixed that since I don't think she was breathing when she first was born. Finally her shoulders came out and then the rest of her just slid down and she was born. They took her over to the warming table right away because of the meconium and since she wasn't breathing very well, Trevor didn't get a chance to cut the cord, but once she started crying they brought her over to me and she started to nurse right away. Trevor also let me know she was a girl the minute she came out. Juliet Susan finally became a reality! She was 9.5 pounds and 22 inches long. I made it through labor and delivery with no interventions (except for the induction pills) and had no tears or cuts and no need for stitches at all. Jen walked me through the whole thing at the end to make sure by body stayed intact and we just moved her out a little at a time, although that process burned pretty bad at the very end!! Trevor and I did it on our own without any other people there and that was a huge boost of confidence for our relationship. My sister came in right away after she was born and was Juliet's first visitor. Since then, I've been on best rest due to my blood pressure and finally the midwives put me on medication to help get it to come down. The baby, however, is amazing and is up to 10.4 pounds already. She is a breast-feeding champ and continues to teach me better techniques everyday! The medication has helped my blood pressure stablize so I am out of the risk of seizures and am looking forward to getting off of that starting next Tuesday. I wanted to thank you for all your help in getting ready to have this baby. The hypno-birthing technique really worked for me and I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks so much for taking the time to help new moms like me prepare for childbirth, I wish there was a way for me to explain how valuable the information that we learned from your class really was. It made the experience incredibly special and magical instead of painful and scary. Thanks again so much and I will talk to you soon, —Emily (top) Hello Megan! Ava has been sleeping through the night since she was about 2 months old and is such an easygoing baby. We have been co-sleeping until just recently. Mark works third shift and I love having her in bed with me. But lately she has been liking her crib better, so we now put her in the crib. She just sleeps better in there, it is almost like she knows that it is her special place. I will still take naps with her in my bed ever so often, probably more for my benefit than hers. I just love having her close to me. The labor and delivery went just as I had hoped. I started feeling surges around 10-11 P.m. the night of March 28th. The were pretty mild so I just took a shower to relax me and then went to bed. They started waking me up around 2 in the morning, but I was able to go to sleep after. That lasted until about 5:30 in the morning. They were coming on quicker and stronger at that time so I wasn't able to sleep anymore, so I got up, hopped into the shower again and then packed a small bag for the hospital. I woke Mark up around 7:00 and told him that it was time to go. Then I woke up Tia (she had a jazz choir concert up North that day) and told her to get ready to go. I was so calm that it was starting to drive Mark crazy. He kept saying, let's go, hurry up, we have to get there. I had to calm him down and tell him that it was fine, we had time. I was even picking up the house a bit--boy, did he just want about die at that. So after everyone was good to go, we dropped Tia off at the school where she was catching her bus to the concert and then we headed to the hospital. We got there around 9:00 a.m. I was checked and I was about 4 cm dilated. They told me that they were going to watch the machines for about an hour and see what was happening. They were all pretty excited that I was practicing Hypnobirthing because the nurse had never seen anyone do it before. After an hour they checked me again, and I was 7 cm dilated. So, around 10:30 they came in with all my paperwork and I was admitted. I knew she was coming that day! The surges kept coming and working. They asked me if I needed anything for pain, and I happily declined. I think they asked me because as the surges got stronger I became very vocal. Not screaming, but grunting. It just felt better. It was helping me to focus everything to the baby and not on to what I was feeling. I believe it was around noon that I was fully 10 cm dilated and ready to push. Boy did that feel good! I can't remember how many times I had to push but it was a very small amount and it was only 30 minutes later that she was here. She was born on March 29th at 12:30 p.m. The nurse and the doctor were amazed on how little work they had to do, they said my body was just made to have babies. I had absolutely no tears and I was up and about within an hour. They wanted to know if I needed any pain meds at that time too and I said no, I feel great. They acted like I was crazy! So, I was at the hospital all of 3 and a half hours before Ava was born. Staying at home for as long as I could before I left was the best thing I could have ever done. There wasn't enough time to get nervous, or tired, or frustrated. It made it all that much easier to deliver Ava the way I wanted, without any unneeded interventions. Hypnobirthing helped so much! It even helped me get through all the routine blood-work they needed to do during my pregnancy, since I hate needles so much. I hope to bring Ava to a class sometime to share my story and to have you meet her. Now that I am only working a couple days a week, it opens my time up much more. I hope everything is well with you and your family. Talk to you soon! —Heather (top)