Welcome baby Enys!

Hello Hannah, 

We just wanted to let you know that our baby boy Enys Sidney was born on Tuesday morning weighing 9lbs exactly.

He was delivered via c-section, and even though I had planned for a vaginal water birth, I wanted you know that all of your techniques helped to keep it magical and I’m really happy with the birth experience I had. I felt calm throughout, and able to advocate for myself when I felt that an induction was not the best approach for us or our baby. The hypobirthing has also come in useful in the days after with breastfeeding and lack of sleep by just helping me to relax generally. 

We honestly cannot thank you enough! 

Best wishes,

Katie, Ross and Enys xx

Baby Lucas's calm birth

Hi Hannah, we’re doing well thanks.

I ended up having a long labour of 45 hours and a natural birth with only gas and air. I was on Rushey Ward (the birth centre) but got a bit stressful towards the end as they thought he might be distressed so rushed us down to labour ward.

Everything we learned with you was so helpful and gave us a realistic idea of what to expect!

Lucas was born on 17th January, so he’s almost 5 weeks now. He’s gaining weight well, but doing lots of cluster feeding which leads to painful gas and a refusal to sleep unless someone’s holding him. It’s been exhausting, but also very joyful ☺️ x

Steph & Andy's 3rd Calm Births baby!

Here the lovely Steph & Andy share their third Calm Births baby experience! You can read their first birth story here.

Hello!

I finally got round to writing up Ruby’s story - Calm Births Baby #3!

I’d had a very uncomplicated pregnancy, and always wanted a home birth, so once I got my husband on board (after our hypno refresher with Hannah, who was the one to convince him 😂) I was absolutely thrilled and we got the ball rolling.
The local home birth team were amazing from the minute I self referred to them, despite me being technically out of guidelines due to a high BMI and previous PPH.

We had plain sailing up until I hit 38 weeks, when my midwife felt that baby was oblique, with the head in my hip rather than pelvis. I decided I wanted to take up their offer of a scan to check, and the sonographer deemed me to have polyhydramnios at that point.

That started a cascade of fussing from consultants, insisting I had to deliver on the ward with a bedside scan and continuous monitoring. I had over an hour on the phone with one scoffing at everything I brought up, and constant scare tactics about bleeding and cord prolapse, but no real facts or support for my choices. It didn’t help that my lovely midwife was on annual leave and not back until my due date, but her supervisor absolutely smashed it out of the park with stepping up to help me and in the end I got it in writing that if I went into the ward, I’d get my water birth with intermittent monitoring. The consultant from the phone call agreed to my plan as part of an MDT meeting (I think mainly because I was adamant I wouldn’t go in otherwise).

Baby was due on Thursday 10th March and I laughed with a mum on the school run that Monday that I was the most pregnant I’d ever been. Secretly though, I had a hunch baby would come on the 9th, as my boys were both born on the Wednesday before their due dates, and I do love a matching set.

I was in a foul mood all day on the 9th, I was uncomfortable and couldn’t settle to anything. I had a show first thing in the morning before dropping my eldest at school but then nothing else happened. (My husband told me later that he spent the day frantically wrapping up at work as he knew I was having the baby that night or the next day).

It got round to the evening and I was still grumpy. We bathed our boys and my husband went to get them in bed, and I realised I’d been having a few period pains that were now distinctly tightenings. I timed a few and they were 45 seconds every 3 minutes, but not painful and so I thought this was early labour if anything at all. The boys decided they wanted to go to my mums so we whizzed them out of bed and round the corner to her, then came home to eat toast. I rang labour line while my husband sorted the pool out.

Still tightening every 3 minutes but no real pain. Breathing more to make sure I didn’t get too excited, and I decided to play myself the affirmations. About 8pm (just as the liner went in the pool) I rang labour line, as once my labours establish, they go FAST. They informed me home births were suspended and they’d let the labour ward know I was coming in. I had a bit of a wobble at that point but I then decided to ring the ward to make sure my special plan was definitely in place, which it was, and moved to my yoga ball to bounce it out to my affirmations.

My husband made me a cup of tea and sat down to drink a coffee about 10pm when all of a sudden I decided we needed to go. Now. (I have form for this, poor Andy didn’t get coffee or breakfast the day we had our oldest either 🙈)

We are less than 5 mins from the hospital and I had 2 strong surges in the car, and I suddenly remembered I should be breathing properly. It took a while to get up to the ward, as I had to stop and blow all the surges away, but once there we were met by a lovely student midwife* who walked us to the exact same room I’d birthed both my boys in. We were met by another midwife and they’d both very clearly read and were on board with my birth plan. (I did hand out my laminated copies of birth plan b, The Hospital Plan, just to make sure).

I was still having plenty of surges and was needing to breathe through them but chatting fine in between. I think the midwife didn’t know what to make of me, as my body clearly said “established labour” but my attitude didn’t 😂 I asked if we could have the pool filled and asked for a VE to check where I was.
The student midwife was very clear about getting proper consent at every stage, and at one point I heard the other midwife gently correct her from saying “contractions”, to using “surge” instead as that’s what I’d written in my plan. It was lovely to feel so respected!

At 11.09pm, I was 5cm and getting in the pool. I joked to my husband that I had an hour to have this baby, and then I’d get my matching set. Surges were about every 2 minutes by now but still only lasting about 45seconds. I commented on how this wasn’t like either of my other births, and the midwife replied “well your body knows what it’s doing and it’s clearly doing it right!”

From there, things were quick. At 11.20 my waters went, and the student midwife came to check baby’s heart. There was a minute where she couldn’t find it, so the midwife came in, and I knew she’d been looking in the wrong place as I could feel baby in the birth canal but didn’t want to come out of the zone to talk to them, as I was mid ocean visualisation 😂 The midwife found it right away and clearly knew we were close.

A bit of time later, I was kneeling at the edge of the pool and breathed out the head. (My notes say this was 11.32pm, but I’d asked in my birth plan not to be told the time or how long I’d been in the second stage unless I asked, so I didn’t know that at the time). Then all my surges stopped and the midwife asked me to change position to help the shoulders out, which I did. I knew instinctively I wanted to sit down with my back to the edge, so I did, and as I was moving I felt baby turn, so I knew we were close. I felt my body bearing down, so I used my down breathing and at 11.39pm (in the same position and room I’d birthed her biggest brother), Ruby was born.

The student midwife brought her straight to my chest, where Andy checked and said we had a little girl this time. I was feeling on top of the world and had absolutely no bleeding. The midwife told me the water was probably the clearest she’d ever seen! At that point I asked when I could leave, and the midwife did say that ideally she’d like me to birth the placenta first 🙈 We had loads of skin to skin in the pool and though I had the injection for a managed third stage (part of my birth plan), there was no pressure at all to get out or cut the cord. We waited for white, then my husband cut it and I decided to get out. I got the shakes really badly so I decided to give Ruby to Andy for some snuggles and once I’d stopped shaking, the student midwife did a quick check for tears (none!) and showed us the placenta. I think that’s when Ruby was weighed as well. Although she didn’t look it, she was our biggest babe at an impressive 8lb9oz, and my fastest labour, at a clocked 1hr48mins.

Ruby had been very chilled and quiet up to that point (perfect little hypno baby), but then decided she urgently needed a snack, so we got her latched on whilst I ate some toast and drank a cup of tea. After a good long feed, I handed her back to daddy to grab a shower, then repacked our bag, dressed Ruby and told the midwives we were off.

We were at home on the sofa having another feed at 3.37 (whilst daddy built the crib 😂) and her delighted brothers joined us at about 10am. And I was back on the school run the next day, feeling like I’d bounced right back to normal.

Although it wasn’t our planned home birth, it really was the best home birth from home experience, and my hypnobirthing and just the general support from Hannah has been invaluable in all our births!

Best wishes and with many thanks,

Steph, Andy, Zach, Dom and Ruby!

*Staff names have been witheld

A healing VBAC story

Hi Hannah,

Hope you are well.

I thought I'd let you know Lewis David Cass arrived yesterday at 145pm weighing 9lb 1oz!

I have to admit I was sceptical but open minded to how much difference hypnobirthing could make but all I can say is wow. I had early labour contractions on and off since Thursday morning, ramping up to 2/3 in 10 during Saturday night, but I was able to relax/dose in between them.

We arrived at the hospital at 9am 5cm dilated, 2 hours later my waters went and very quickly after that I was 10cm and pushing. So not only did I achieve my VBAC but I felt so calm I did it all with just a tens machine and a paracetamol!

It was a complete different experience to Chloes birth and I can't thank you enough for giving me the confidence to believe in my body, I'm so proud!

Kind regards

Danielle

A positive C-Section Story

 When I became pregnant with our first baby, both my husband and I were nervous about the birth. I was worried about losing control of my body and being in a lot of pain and my husband was worried about not knowing what to do during labour and feeling like a "spare part". Calm births with Hannah was recommended by a friend to help us understand the process of labour and birth and to give us ideas to do both during pregnancy and labour. 

We both loved the course and over the weeks we felt more in control and positive of giving birth to our baby. I enjoyed listening to positive affirmations every morning when I got up and listening to the ocean relaxation before going to bed. We also regularly started using the breathing phrase "I breathe in calm and my body and mind relax down" whenever we started to become anxious. 

At 37 weeks, our obstetrician discussed with us that a natural labour may no longer be the best option for both me and the baby and that we needed to consider an elective c section. This was due to a blood pressure issue that I had developed later on in pregnancy and there was a concern that my heart would be unable to cope with labour.

Following this, I met again with Hannah to discuss how I could adapt what we have learnt in her sessions to support me during the c section. We also discussed options I could ask for during the c section to help me to feel more relaxed. After speaking with Hannah, I started listening more to the shooting stars relaxation as the part around worries about giving birth was really powerful and it allowed me to let go of the worries I had. My husband and I made a visualisation board which had pictures of happy memories, pictures of the beach to help with ocean relaxation (this was still a favourite), pictures of our baby scan and of the nursery. We made a playlist together of music to listen to whilst we were waiting and music to listen to during the section. We thought classical music would be helpful but wanted a fun twist so we included the jurassic Park and Harry Potter theme tune. We also started to think about the activities we could do together whilst we were waiting as we had found out a few days before that we would be the third in the order assuming there were no emergency sections. 

 On the day of the c section, we went in to hospital feeling excited as we knew we were meeting our baby that day. We were taken to our room to wait in until it was our turn. Maria, our midwife for the section, came to meet us and go through pre op information. We explained to her that we had been doing hypnobirthing and wanted to have as much of a calm birth as possible. She was very supportive of this and discussed with us our different options. She also explained that our obstetrician and anaesthetist were also advocates for hypnobirthing and so would be supportive. She offered to put some lavender essential oils on some cotton wool on my wrists and place them in a way that wouldn't hinder the anaethetist which I agreed to. We also agreed that she would give us a 20 minute warning before I was due to go in to theatre so I could listen to the ocean relaxation prior to going in. The midwife went on to tell everyone that would be present in the theatre that we were doing hypnobirthing and how we would like them to support us during the c section. 

 The midwife also offered to put the catheter in before going in to theatre. This would mean that it would be in the calming atmosphere of the room rather than in the busy theatre and it would allow me to feel more at ease as I would not be in a vulnerable position in front of other people. I agreed. I found it really helpful to use breathing phrases whilst it went in with my husband stroking my hand. It was uncomfortable but not painful and I was grateful that it was done in our own room. 

Following this the anaesthetist came in to put the cannula into my hand. She was a lovely and nurturing woman, who was reassuring and asked if there was anything she could do to support the birth of our baby. She answered our last minute questions. I was due to have a spinal block rather than an epidural due to my blood pressure. The anaesthetist explained that this would mean I would not feel any pain but I would still have some of the sensations of touch on my skin and not to worry that it was not working. The theatre nurse also came in to check my details and explained that I would be asked to answer the same questions a number of times (name, dob, why I was there).

 The obstetrician next came in to check if we had any last minute questions and to explain some last minute details. She offered to give me some drugs that would help with blood clotting and would mean that I would have less bleeding following the section.

 With 20 minutes to go, the midwife ensured no one would disturb us. We listened to the shooting stars track together and then looked at our visualisation board. By the end of the 20 minutes, we were excited to meet our baby. 

 We walked round to the theatre with the midwife and my husband and I laughed about needing to carry my "pee bag". My husband put on a theatre gown, cap and shoes. 

 Although I had seen pictures of a theatre, the actual theatre I walked in to still surprised me and the sudden clinical feel to the situation raised my anxiety levels. The theatre nurse provided reassurance and helped me to get on to the bed. This required me to climb up a few steps in order to get on to the bed. The anaesthetist came over to explain that she would now do the spinal block and I would need to lean over a pillow in order to curve my spine. She warned me that I would feel a sudden pain. My husband came over and took my hand and started talking to me about our agreed visualisation about being on a beach in Barcelona. I did not feel the needle go in or the spinal block drugs and was surprised when I was told I could lie down. My husband then moved to sit down next to my head and a screen was placed up so I could no longer see from my neck down. The anaesthetist explained there would now be a slight delay as I already had the catheter in which is what usually happens during this time whilst they are waiting for the spinal block to take affect. Pumps were then attached to my legs so that my legs would have the stimulation of walking and this would ensure no blood clots were formed. As the spinal block was starting to take affect, I started to feel over heated and incredibly dizzy. My husband noticed that I wasn't looking well and asked the anaesthetist if everything was OK. She noticed that my blood pressure had significantly dropped and started to give me various medications to help counter act it. This did start to raise my anxiety levels so the anaesthetist offered to start playing our music and my husband prompted me to use our breathing techniques. To check the spinal block had worked, the anaesthetist sprayed a cold spray on my arm so I would know how cold it should be. It was then sprayed on my leg and although I could feel the spray, I couldn't feel the temperature of it.

 The c section started and we had our music playing and my husband sat talking through our visualisation to help me to focus. The obstetrician popped her head round the curtain at one point to praise our music choice and asked for it to be turned up as she was enjoying it. I was warned when there would be some pressure to help maneuver baby out. It felt like incredibly hard pressure on my chest, apparently baby was comfy and had wedged their feet up into my ribs. We were told when the waters were about to break and we heard the rushing sound of water and then our baby crying. We had asked staff not to tell us the gender of the baby as we wanted to see for ourselves. The curtain was dropped and our baby lifted for us to see. We had a beautiful baby girl and she was born to Jupiter by Holst. Although my husband quickly changed it to the circle of life from the Lion King. We waited briefly whilst they did delayed cord  clamping and pushing remaining blood to baby.  The midwife then brought our baby girl over and put her skin to skin. Prior to lying down my gown had been loosened so the baby could be easily placed on my chest with the gown over the top of her.

The next 30 minutes flew so quickly. My husband and I were left alone to be with our baby girl whilst they completed the stitches they needed. My baby girl was briefly taken away whilst I was moved from the theatre bed to a ward bed via a slide (great fun). Whilst this happened my husband looked after our baby, took her to be weighed and cut her cord. She was then brought back to me for more skin to skin we moved up to the ward.

 The c section was a lovely experience for both me and my husband and I look back on it with fond memories. What we learnt from Calm Births really helped us to prepare for the birth of our baby and helped us to feel empowered for the birth that we wanted. What we learnt has also continued with us into parenthood. We use the phrase "I breathe in calm and my body and mind relaxes down" all the time, especially on days when parenting feels hard. I've also continued to use the relaxation tasks to help me to get to sleep at night.

A gorgeous home birth story

Stephanie & Jon birthed their first baby after their Calm Births course, and came to me for a refresher session when pregnant with baby number 2. This was the birth they experienced with baby number 2, their gorgeous girl.

Hi Hannah

Hope you’re well!

Little Milla arrived this weekend, and it was the most wonderful calm birth. Just wanted to say thank you so much for helping make that possible! 💕

I didn’t feel like I needed any pain relief other then my breathing and the pool and it was amazing to just listen and trust my body. It just did it’s thing while I focused on staying calm!

Had a wobble right as her head was trying to come down as the contractions felt like they were about 2 seconds apart and I didn’t feel i could get a breath in to breath down but Jon and the midwives were amazing at helping me find my centre again and I could help my body with me breath and she arrived in no time! 8lb 11oz 💕

Included is a picture of how we used your affirmations, they were great to have in the room as a reminder during the birth.

So thank you!

Stef x

A positive C-Section story

Hi Hannah, how are you? I hope you had a good summer? Piers and I had a baby boy last month – the 4th August! I was in hospital for 5 nights to be induced, but ended up having a c section. It was the complete opposite to what I wanted but I don’t feel it was a negative experience.

We had a growth scan at the end of July which showed there was little growth in 2 weeks and the dopplers had dropped out of normal range. Charlie was still fine at this point but our consultant and midwife both advised bringing the pregnancy to an end as there was now greater risk of Charlie becoming in danger and we wouldn’t necessary have enough time to act on it before anything fatal would happen.

So at 38 weeks I decided to try to be induced as I could still have a vaginal birth. I had the balloon, 1 application of the hormone gel (then Charlie decided to move position…thankfully Charlie moved back into position!) and then had my waters broken.

I got into early labour and it was all very positive – I was enjoying the experience. Within a few hours Charlie was showing signs of distress – movement reduced and heart rate dropped. The doctor advised to stop and have a c section before it becomes an emergency. At this point I was only 3 cms dilated and the doctor said that Charlie wasn’t going to cope if we continued as he was already showing signs that he wasn’t.

I’m glad I decided to have a c section at this point as it was still a calm environment and we were given the time and space to make the decision. We listened to our affirmations during surgery and it was a lovely moment when the surgeon lifted Charlie up to us and no one said anything – we could just have a quiet and emotional moment.

This was nearly 5 weeks ago now and I’m recovering well. Charlie is very calm and contented so far. I do feel very lucky!

Holly x

A positive induction birth

On Saturday 12th June, Carl and I arrived at Frimley Park Hospital at 10.00 where I was booked for induction. We arrived at the Antenatal Ward, where I was seen to a bed. We made ourselves at home and also prepared ourselves for a wait until the pessary was inserted as we knew they were really busy! They scanned me to double check baby was in the right position and they also hooked me onto the monitor to check on baby’s heartrate for a while.

Just before the pessary was inserted, she examined my cervix, she informed me the cervix was already slightly open and she could touch the baby’s head with her finger! They inserted the pessary at 1.30pm. By 2.30, I had severe lower back ache and could already feel my body was on its way. I decided to listen to some of the relaxing MP3s to keep myself calm ready for the surges. As soon as the surges started, Carl hooked me up to the TENS machine which along with the MP3s, helped a great deal. We took a walk round the Hospital, to ease my back ache and to stretch my legs. Once the surges started to become more frequent, I started my easy breathing whilst listening to the relaxing music through earphones. However, the surges suddenly became more and more frequent, up to the point where I was having around 2 surges a minute without a break in between and when they examined me, I was only 1cm dilated at around 6pm.

They decided to give me an injection to slow down my surges, and they also removed the pessary because of the way my body had reacted to it. The injection did help, but the surges were still very frequent. I continued to use my breathing techniques, using the mountain breathing during each surge and Carl laid next to me, reminding me of the positive affirmations and did the light touch massage, he also played with my hair which apparently I requested this the most but I don’t remember as I was too much in the zone!

At around 9.30pm, the surges were still very frequent and I was starting to feel tired, we spoke to the midwife and she examined me, she informed me I was now 3cm dilated and they would transfer me to the labour ward shortly. Due to the number of surges I’d had, I requested some pain relief as I hadn’t yet had any, they weren’t able to give me gas and air on the antenatal, but offered me Pethidine which although doesn’t help a great deal with the pain, it allowed my body to relax more and feel more at ease. I fell asleep not long after the pethidine injection was given, and although we are not 100% sure on the time frames now (it all happened so fast!) I woke up around midnight with really strong surges, still using my TENS machine. I think I had around 4 or 5 until suddenly I felt my body take over and felt the need to push. Carl called the midwife and they examined me to say I was now 8cm dilated! They couldn’t believe how quickly I had progressed from 3cm to 8 in such a short time.

Just before they transferred me to the Labour Ward, my waters broke on the bed. They pushed me on a wheelchair onto the labour ward where during each surge I was now pushing using my Goddess breathing. The staff commented on how relaxed I was and how well I was doing, especially as I had used only the TENS machine and pethidine. Once on the labour ward, they examined me again and I was now fully dilated at 10cm, and I now had access to some gas and air (hooray!) although, Carl had to keep reminding me to use it.

The midwives then informed me the baby was “facing the wall” and they were concerned about the baby’s heartrate. They spoke about taking me to theatre which I thought they would want to perform a C-section, however, they informed me it would still be a vaginal delivery, but an assisted one, using ventouse. They quickly got me to theatre where they helped deliver our baby girl. After being given the spinal, they told me when to push, in which I continued to use my goddess breathing.

At 1.07am, she was born! As we didn’t know the gender of our baby until this moment, it made it even more special. Carl blurted: “We have a daughter!” and then burst into tears! She was placed onto my chest for some skin to skin and it was a magical moment. She weighed 5lbs 5oz of perfection. Carl cut the umbilical cord and saw the placenta be delivered too which apparently happened very quickly after her arrival. I had a small tear and they performed an episiotomy to help her out. But it’s all worth it!

Given that, when we first started the hypnobirthing course, this is not how I pictured our baby’s birth, it was still for us, an overall positive birth. The labour from start to finish was 11.5 hours long, and we took each stage of the labour at a time, concentrating on the breathing techniques we had practised and listening to the mp3s to keep myself in the zone. The ward staff commented on how calm I remained throughout the birth and I know it is credit to everything we learned during the hypnobirthing course. I am so proud of myself that I managed to get to 10cm with very little pain relief and I’m also so proud of Carl who was amazing at reminding me I can do this when I had my moment of “Carl, I can’t do this, I need an epidural” moment!

A huge thank you to you Hannah, whose voice was in my head throughout my labour! We learned so much as was able to stay in control for as long as possible until the medical staff intervened.

We now have a happy, content little girl and we couldn’t be happier!

Love, Lucy, Carl & Scarlett xxx