If you do only one birth prep class, do Gemma’s hypnobirthing one. Her support, and knowledge is amazing, and hypnobirthing works even if things don’t go how you planned.

I’ve opted for augmentation of labour at week 42+1 day after being in labour for 36 hours. My contractions stopped after trips to the hospital and I just could not face going back and forth again.

My birth story could have been the classic example of how one intervention results in more interventions. After being on the oxytocin drip for hours, I had to ask for pain relief as the pain was just too intense and my body didn’t have the time to catch-up. Morphine then epidural was administered, the latter had to be adjusted as I could feel everything still on one side, then the baby couldn’t be heard with the external monitors, they placed the monitor in me and so on.

The whole night felt just people poking at me, and being on drugs, on the bed was nothing that I planned, so I went with the events without thinking… They started to mention C-section as well.

In the morning a new doctor came in and said “You should’ve dilated fully by now”. This sentence somehow woke me up, and I thought, “Wait a minute, I have not had an hour for myself without someone checking, poking something on me or the baby”. So I asked for some peace and quiet for 2 hours, because they were mentioning caesarean if nothing changes soon.

I got 1 hours 15 mins. I put my eye mask on, switched the hypnobirthing track on, the one I listened to plenty of times and pictured opening and the baby descending.

When the doc came back and examined me, with a surprise on her face said “oh wow you’re fully dilated, you just need to get ready for pushing now, I’m not needed here.”

I was so happy and actually enjoyed the pushing part and not too long after that I held my son in my arms and could enjoy the golden hour.

I truly believe that this story would have ended very differently if it hadn’t been for the prep that Gemma gave us. So grateful and her support on breastfeeding and beyond birth is amazing too.