1st baby- Planned Caesarean birth
Angus and I just wanted to thank you so much for your wonderful Hypnobirthing course.We are so pleased to say our little girl, Helen, was born via planned C-section on 28 December at 38+1 and we could not have had a more gentle, positive, and wonderful birth and so much of that incredible experience we owe to your course and advice.
We had hoped for a spontaneous labour and did everything we possibly could to encourage it (eating dates, I had two membrane sweeps, reflexology, birth ball exercises, creating a calm, dark, cozy environment, etc), but I only ever experienced pre-labour type cramping that never progressed.Because of the course and the wonderful BRAINS framework we used to make our decision (waiting as long as we could/were comfortable with for labour to start naturally, induction vs C-section), Angus and I realised neither one of us felt comfortable with an induction in terms of safety for Helen and preferred the certainty of a planned C-section where our birth wishes could easily be honoured and upheld (we used your C-section list in the Hypnobirthing book).By chance, ourwonderful consultant who saw us through Henry’s diagnosis and then did all of our reassurance and growth scans with Helen was the one to do C-section, and she made sure we had delayed cord clamping, Angus was able to do a symbolic cutting of Helen’s cord, we could see Helen’s delivery, ensured we had immediate skin to skin, and the music we’d played Helen in the womb was played in theatre as she was born.
Helen came out crying right away (she had an APGAR score of 9), and it was one of the most magical, treasured moments of our lives. There were only a few brief times where I felt nervous, and the self doubt track gave me so much calm before going down into theatre. Angus used the 321 relax technique with me during the spinal block (the only part I had been truly worried about), and we could actually see my heart rate dropping and returning back to normal on the monitor!
Every day, I keep thinking about how wonderful Helen’s birth was — thank you for your important role in our journey!