I love the complete turnaround Nicole had during her pregnancy, going from terrified to choosing to have a home pool birth. If she had not done her research and found a way to process her fear then her birth story might have been quite different. Enjoy reading her positive birth story.
“I have always been absolutely terrified of labour and from the moment I found out I was pregnant, after getting past the initial shock and not being able to think straight, I said to my partner “I’m not doing this without an epidural!”
As time went on I started looking into my options of where to give birth etc and my midwife mentioned a home birth to me which I initially thought “absolutely not”.
I then spoke to a girl I knew who had had a home birth and started asking her lots of questions and gaining more knowledge and then I decided to go for it too. She also put me in touch with Lisa and highly recommended Hypnobirthing. My partner and I went to Lisa’s free taster and just absolutely loved the session. It was so relaxing and she just made everything make sense, finding out why our bodies do what they do during labour made me feel so much better about it.
My initial due date was 1st March and was hoping for a leap year baby but my little one had other ideas. At around 02:30 on Thursday 5th March, I started having contractions but they eased off after a few hours. They then became very sporadic and it didn’t seem established labour was happening any time soon. I had a very sleepless night as I was having contractions, but no pattern to them.
Morning came and I saw a midwife who examined me and said I was 3cm dilated. Around 3 pm in the afternoon, I noticed my shorts were wet and suspected my waters had broken. The midwife came back around 4 pm and examined me again and stated I was now 5cm. I then got into my ready to go birth pool and had what felt like constant contractions. I had gas and air and the birth pool really helped. After a very long labour of 44 hours which was calm and relaxed, my little boy was born on my sofa at 22:40 weighing 7lb 15oz.
I am so incredibly lucky and happy I had such a positive and calm labour and all in my own home. I would never have envisaged a labour like this before I found out I was pregnant or even to begin with and could not have done it without the amazing homebirth midwives or the Hypnobirthing techniques taught by Lisa, I am so grateful for the knowledge and support I had and so happy I went against my fears and trusted that I could do it. ”