Cookies on the Rock Your Birth website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on the Rock Your Birth website.

07843 627518
Home / Birth Stories / Birth Stories

Categories

02 Sep 2020

Our unplanned caesarean birth

My husband and I had talked about having children for years but I was always terrified of the actual giving birth part so when I got pregnant we started looking straight away for a hypnobirthing course to help us to prepare.

I was 14 weeks pregnant when I attended a reusable nappy workshop at Anna’s house. I instantly felt at ease and comfortable around Anna and booked onto her hypnobirthing taster session the following week.

Fast forward a few months and we had completed our hypnobirthing course via zoom. Even from the very first session my husband and I already felt at ease and more relaxed about the birth, watching programmes such as one born every minute no longer filled us with fear as we felt empowered discussing how we would have navigated each of the situations presented in the programmes.

My surges began at 40+3 and lasted 6 days increasing in intensity each day. The hypnobirthing tools helped me to stay calm and focused. Once my resilience started to slip I sent a text to Anna who quickly responded with a long list of tips and advice to help keep me going. We did everything to help labour progress and get the right hormones flowing - bouncing on the birth ball, warm baths, bowling, crazy golf, 7km walks with our dogs etc.

At 41+1 we made our third trip to triage since the surges began with intense back pain, expecting to get some pain relief and then go home to rest. Whilst my labour didn’t take the water birthing route I had planned the hypnobirthing and breathing techniques helped me to stay calm as we navigated the challenges we were presented with.

Shortly after midnight we arrived at triage were rushed to delivery as baby was distressed. I was told I wouldn’t be having a water birth as he was distressed but the midwife tried to accommodate everything else in our birth plan, she allowed me to remain semi mobile despite being hooked up to monitors and a drip, the lights were turned down low and we played our own music.

Unfortunately after a few hours the discomfort in my back became unbearable (my husband fainted just from watching on) on investigation the midwife discovered baby had ended up back to back, transverse and even more distressed, I then had a haemorrhage and my contractions had to be medically stopped.

BUT, I still felt in control using the BRAIN acronym as we discussed the next steps before I agreed to an emergency Caesarean birth (the very last thing I had wanted). Conan was born at 9.58 am on September 2nd 2020, weighing 7lbs 13 oz.

Post birth, the hypnobirthing techniques have also helped me to mentally cope with being alone in hospital for a week whilst our baby ended up in the NICU. Without this course and Anna’s support I absolutely would have found this all to be a completely overwhelming experience.