Welcome Hypnobub Cian

I recently received a beautiful birth story from Emma, what a star hypnomumma! Gave me goosebumps, see what you think :)

All day on the Sunday I kept feeling like I needed to wee but most times only a trickle came out. I phoned delivery suite as I thought I may have a UTI which I have a history of. They asked me to come in and the dipstick was negative. I was 40+3 so they decided to do a trace which showed I was actually in early labour and having regular tightenings every 10 mins! I could feel and see them but they were just mildly uncomfortable. We were sent home to rest. The tightenings continued on Monday but I just ignored them.. until about 5pm when I felt some period like cramping with the tightenings. I decided to go to bed at 8.30pm and woke at 10.30pm feeling pretty uncomfortable with the period like pain. I tried to rest but couldn't fall back asleep. At midnight i realised there was a pattern forming so started timing the surges. They were roughly 5 mins apart lasting 60-90 seconds. I phoned our midwife to give them a heads up and continued to labour at home as the surges got stronger until 6am when I felt it was time to go to the birth centre. By the time we got there surges were coming every 3 minutes and they were a lot more intense. I had to stop and really breath through them. Once settled into our room I used different positions, the shower, birth ball and tens machine for pain relief. I had a show and a while later my waters broke. Once I was over 5cm dilated I was allowed in the pool and ohhh it was amazing! After a few more hours I started feeling the need to bear down during surges so just went with my body. It's almost like my body just did it anyway. This continued for a while when the midwife suggested she double check I was completely dilated. I agreed. A small cervical lip was present which she managed to move with her finger and get bubs head past it. After 2 hours of pushing / bearing down, the head still only barely visible so it was decided I should be transferred upstairs to delivery suite and have a doctors assessment, which is standard procedure. The doctor tried to help me with more focussed pushing by using her fingers to guide me but unfortunately bub wasn't moving down the birth canal. After 30mins I was offered an episiotomy and suction. We were fully consulted and I was happy with my decision to go ahead with it as I was starting to run out of steam. Our beautiful baby boy finally arrived at 3.41pm on Tuesday 20 June 2017! His cord was wrapped around his neck twice and he had shoulder dystocia which was luckily dealt with very quickly and he had no complications. I had a temperature and some heavier than normal bleeding so I needed monitoring afterwards. Bub also needed 4 hourly obs for 24 hours as I was fully dilated for so long and it was an assisted delivery. So we stayed overnight and left the hospital when bub was 24 hours old. All in all it was a very intense, empowering experience. I feel good about it when I think back to it. Practising hypnobirthing techniques during pregnancy really made a difference to how I coped with the surges and also remaining calm when things didn't go to plan towards the end. We are settling in great at home as a new family. Breastfeeding is going well and he's a very content, relaxed little baby. We are in a complete bubble of love and I am one very proud mumma 😍💙😊