My SOrt-Of Hypnobirthing Story

I knew long before getting pregnant that I wanted to experience birth without an epidural for various reasons:

• Eliminating any risk of prolonging labor (there is medical controversy whether or not this is a statistically proven risk, but there is NO risk if you don't get an epidural!)
• Decreased risk of vaginal tearing
• Being able to ambulate during and immediately after labor
• Decreased risk of hypotension (low blood pressure) and headaches after the epidural
• Inherent procedural risk

Yet I did almost no mental preparation for my the birth of my first daughter, aside from going to one birthing class which was a colossal waste of time. I hoped that my physical fitness level and fairly high pain tolerance would be enough.

Then I was induced at 41 weeks. I had heard that the pharmocologic induction agent Pitocin could increase the intensity of contractions, but I still was hoping to make it without the epidural.

So I focused on my breathing and changed positions frequently, which worked for about 4 hours. And then the pain literally consumed me. Now I know that I was in the transition phase, which explains why it was so intense and why sitting for the epidural was torture in and of itself. Less than an hour after receiving the epidural, my daughter was born. I did tear, requiring about 45 minutes of suturing after delivery. But overall, it was only a 5-hour labor, which is fast for a first time mom and induced labor, and I was ok with that.

Fast forward 2 years. I'm 30 weeks pregnant with my second, and having dinner with a friend who tells me about the hypnobirthing course she's taking. I have to admit I thought she was crazy at first, but I looked up a few books on the topic and read the readers' reviews and was compelled by all of the postive experiences women reported. So I decided to read one of the books (see my Pregnancy page for more details). I started reading it at 35 weeks, and listened to the audio tracks (which were primarily relaxation guides) once or twice a week. I still didn't completely believe it would work for me, but I figured there was no harm in trying.

As I approached my due date, I had a feeling this baby would be late just like my first. Normally my doctors would have recommended I be induced at 41 weeks (41w), but it happened to fall on Thanksgiving, so they recommended I be induced the day before (40w 6d). Given my prior experience, I REALLY wanted to avoid induction, so I asked them to wait till the day after Thanksgiving (41w 1d).

Monday (40w 4d)

I began having painless contractions, sometimes regular, sometimes irregular, sometimes absent. I happened to have an appointment with my OB that day, and he confirmed I was definitely not in labor despite having contractions while at the office. He gave me the "5-1-1" rule, which dictated that I wait to call him until my contractions were less than 5 minutes apart, more than 1 minute in duration, for longer than 1 hour. So for the next two days, I'd time the contractions when they were regular, and stop when they fizzled out, and repeat.

Wednesday (40w 6d)

11:10 pm: I noticed the contractions were becoming regular again while I was reading before bed, so I started tracking them. I indeed was having them every 2-3 minutes right off the bat, but they were still only 30 seconds long and of course I was nowhere near an hour, so I wasn't sure I was truly in labor yet.

11:27 pm: I noticed I was having a hard time focusing on my book. I realize now this should have been a clue right there, but I still wasn't convinced this was labor yet, particularly because the contractions still weren't painful. So I decided to take a bath. Almost immediately upon getting into the bath, I couldn't tolerate laying flat on my back, and found myself on my knees, still reading my book. I was, of note, still not consciously practicing ANY of the breathing or relaxation techniques I had learned in the hypnobirthing course.

11:45 pm: The contractions, while still not painful, were becoming more intense, but still only 30-45 seconds in duration. I was getting a hunch that this might be it, and decided to wake up my husband to ask him if he thought we should call the doctor even though I was still only meeting one of the "5-1-1" criteria. We end up deciding to call, and put the call out to him and awaited his response.

Thursday

12 am: The doctor calls back, and after giving him a report of my progress, he was literally saying "call me back when you get to 1 hour" when my water broke, at which time he then advised me to start driving to the hospital.

So I get out of the bath, and try to get dressed. Key word being "try", because I found myself unable to stop pacing long enough to get dressed. I realize I don't think we're going to make the 45 minute drive to his hospital. So we call the doctor back and tell him we were going to try to go to a hospital closer to home. This posed a new problem of "what do we do with our toddler?" since we were going to drop her off at my parents' home, in the same town as the original hospital. So we start putting calls out to friends to see if anyone can stay at the house. A friend agrees and starts driving over.

A few minutes of pacing later, I find myself getting undressed. It was not a conscious decision at all, almost the way one starts walking to the bathroom without realizing it when they have to go. It felt pretty similar, actually, in terms of the pressure I was feeling. Of note, I still had not had ANY pain, nor had I consciously used any of the hypnobirthing breathing or relaxation techniques yet.

My husband thankfully has the wherewithal to call 9-1-1, who dispatches a paramedic to our home. I find myself kneeling against the bathtub in my bathroom, breathing calmly (at this point I believe I was using the breathing techniques I had learned, although it was still not a conscious decision to do so). I stayed that way for about 15 minutes, during which time the fire alarm went off in my older daughter's room and EMS went to the wrong house.

12:27 am: My husband is doing periodic checks, as advised by EMS, who had actually hung up because "there are many other calls coming in right now". He then sees my daughter's head and calls back. Believe it or not, the dispatcher has the nerve to advise me to get in bed and lay on my back and NOT to push. I literally just said "no" and my husband thankfully went with it and suggested I push, and two pushes later, my 8 lb daughter was born sometime between 12:27 and 12:30 am, only 1 hour and 20 minutes after starting to track contractions.

I never had any pain. I didn't tear, like I had with my first (smaller) baby. The only noises I made were that of my focused breathing, since even though I was prepared to grunt, groan, or do whatever I had to do, I never was in pain to necessitate it. It WAS hectic and slightly panicked when trying to make the decision about whether or not we should get in the car and then what to do with our older daughter, but once I decided to listen to my body, it was peaceful, instinctual, easy, and painless. I never had a chance to play any of the audio tracks or ambient music playlists I had put together, use any of the acupressure or counterpressure points I had learned, or diffuse any of the essential oils I had prepared. But my body knew how to relax and breath and listen to my body without even being consciously aware I was doing so and without any of those aids.

It was an amazing and empowering experience that I wish every mother could have. Of course, it is well known that deliveries of first babies tend to be more difficult and longer than subsequent babies, and since my first also happened to be an induction, it was no surprise that that delivery was longer and painful. That being said, I never expected a truly painless 80-minute labor for my second delivery. While I suppose there was a chance I would have had this experience even without hypnobirthing, I truly believe everything I had learned made me feel calm, capable, and confident that I could have a natural birth without an epidural, and I did, so I'm a believer.