At 9:30pm on Tuesday December 4th we went to visit friends who had their baby on the first. 1:30am on Wednesday December 5th I woke up feeling anxious and so I listened to my fear clearing track. This relieved my anxiety, but I still could not sleep. At 3pm, I went to the bathroom and had the bloody show and knew that today was going to be the day. At 6am Elliot woke up to his alarm and I told him, “we are going to have a baby today”. At 7am, I turned off TV and music. Elliot lit candles and I started the lavender in the diffuser. We closed all the blinds and we started the hypnobabies tracks following the order. I lounged on the couch for a few hours, moving pillows to support in different ways.
At 11am I got up and started pacing. The tracks were going on a loop in the background. I felt pressure in my lower abdomen and pelvic region. Elliot gave me a heating pad on an extension cord. Elliot filled the bath tub and I sat in it and got right back out. I felt so uncomfortable and had to keep moving. It felt more comfortable to keep moving. At times I would lie down on the bed and then I would get up and continue pacing with the heating pad. Elliot took our dog over to our neighbors so he could have a peaceful experience as well. We called the doula and the doula informed us we were experiencing pressure waves. It wasn’t until later that we realized we had been for quite a while. It was around this time that sitting on the toilet became comfortable with the cool tiles beneath my feet. Elliot got a damp dish towel and added lavender essential oil to it. We kept it on my forehead and around my neck. I continuously drank water with electrolyte tables to stay hydrated and energized. At 4pm, I sat down on the toilet and felt a push. The pushes continued. The doula came at 5:15 and was in disbelief that I was pushing due to my calm demeanor. We put our bags in the car and headed to the hospital. As we were driving, I continued to listen to hypnobabies, and I was very aware of where we were and wondered if I should help husband get to the hospital with directions! We arrived at the ER entrance at 6:30. I walked slowly to the check in desk and had my hands around my husbands’ neck as he walked backward through the hallways. As they checked us in, I was making the most hilarious (I thought) dad jokes. We carried the speaker with us to keep the hypnobabies going. Triage was apparently chaotic, but I didn’t notice. I continued to look for the right time for a joke. I measured at 10 centimeters plus 2 and they quickly moved us to a birthing room. In the birthing room I could continue mother directed pushing. The hospital allowed us to dim the lights. All the nurses were respectful and responsive to the hypnobabies tracks. They said that listening kept them in a calm space as well. At around 11 the doula said it seems like you are getting tired. The baby is safe, would you like to try another position that the doctor suggests. I was so tired at this point that the supine position the doctor suggested sounded like heaven. I napped in between pushes. I felt our babies head crowning. With a few strong pushes Penelope graced us with her presence at 11: 19pm. Thanks to hypnobabies my husband and I got to fully enjoy and experience the entire day of our daughters’ birth. Every time we reflect on that day we are amazed by the confidence and composure that hypnobabies offered us.
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Leonidas Quinton Hakan Cooper was born on March 1st at 8:48 am! Guess date was March 13. My mom had told me recently I was born at 38 weeks. I was thinking March 20 would be a cool birth date but remembered babies “know when to be born” so luckily I had the essentials ready to go! He was born at 38 weeks, 2 days.
I had two softer stools and started feeling stuff out of nowhere (back pressure, waves) 11:57 PM Thursday, Feb 28th. Ironically I said often “hope he’ll wait until at least March”. He literally started the process right as March began. Pretty much right away I was having pressure waves consistently and closer and closer from midnight to 6 AM. Then we got ready to go to Beginnings Birth Center. We got there 7 am - midwife Jen confirmed I was already fully dilated when we arrived! (For the 1 hr car ride, I definitely needed my hypnosis as it was uncomfortable!) While tub filled up, experienced waves in the shower with help of my husband Clinton and doula Jeanie. I got into tub and pushed 52 mins he was born 8:48 AM! I just had minor 2nd degree tears. I had option of laughing gas but chose not to use it since the hypnosis was effective at keeping me focused ! I used the birthing affirmations track when things started at midnight while I experienced waves in the tub at home and then the hypnosis music the whole rest of the time along with cues from my husband and doula . PEAAACCEE was my go to :) As I approached 40 weeks little man had made NO SIGN of being ready. He was still high up jamming into my ribs and I had not lost my mucus plug. I didn’t worry too much and was grateful my midwives don’t like to do cervical checks so I didn’t have any numbers in my head to discourage me (or give me a false sense of security!) Jolene encouraged me at my final checkup at 39 weeks to plan a fun date on our guess date so I didn’t think about the fact I was still pregnant! The hubs and I PLANNED to go to dinner and a movie and it never actually happened!
At 39+6 at 11:30pm I had a close friend text to check in and jokingly told me she’d love it if he came this weekend because she was in town. I told her not to get her hopes up because things hadn’t even come close to starting yet (what I didn’t know at the time was she felt the Lord tell her to be praying for me that night, and that’s what encouraged her to check in!) Right at midnight I felt a tiny voice tell me that I needed to put down my phone and go to sleep, so being 9 months pregnant and always tired I did just that. As I curled down to sleep I felt a fairly strong practice wave and when it finished little buddy danced a jig as if he knew today was his birthday! I had a few more practice waves and thought it was encouraging, but decided to go to sleep figuring if it was really the day my body would let me know! I slept two hours and just after 2 am woke up to a much stronger wave. I used the bathroom and timed a few and saw they were coming every 3 to 4 minutes so I let my husband Jon know I thought this could be it. I started listening to my tracks and tried getting a little more rest. At 2:30 my waters broke and things picked up quickly in speed and intensity. Unfortunately since I was already in my active birthing time from almost the get go I wasn’t able to access my hypnosis quite the way I was hoping to, so the waves were pretty uncomfortable the whole time. Hubby started timing waves for me since I was already vocalizing through each wave and found them to be 2 minutes apart lasting almost a minute a piece! We called the midwife who said to keep timing them for twenty or thirty more minutes and to call her back. Our doula, Ariel, arrived about fifteen minutes later and saw that I was very close to transformation and called Jolene who agreed it was time to go. At this point I was in the shower on hands and knees and as they got me out to get me dressed I remember saying “are you sure we aren’t going too early? We have HOURS to go!” And they both assured me it was better to be there too early than too late. We left for the birth center around 4:30. When we got to the birth center Jolene was still filling the tub so she took my vitals where I had collapsed on the floor (I couldn’t stay standing during the waves anymore no matter how hard I tried) and after a few waves on the ground they got me into the still-filling tub. I found a position that helped and stayed there for about an hour vocalizing through each wave. Between waves Jon pushed fluids into me and read me the partner scripts and every ten to fifteen minutes Jolene checked the baby’s heartbeat and assured me he was very happy and doing well. Finally Ariel suggested a change in position (which I wasn’t excited about) and I ended up laying in a semi reclined position in the tub holding onto hubby with one hand and Ariel with the other. The change in position was just what we needed for my body to be ready to push! I pushed for close to an hour (baby was average weight but had a BIG head). Jolene told me she was going to check baby’s progress with the next wave and found him about half an inch away from crowning. I was so shocked he was that close that I felt his head myself and couldn’t believe he was already almost here! It took a couple very uncomfortable waves to birth his head (95th percentile!). I had one more small gentle push and the rest of him was born at 7:53am, on his guess date which is both St Patty’s day as well as my Grandfather’s birthday who we named him after. I did have a couple second degree tears (which I’m convinced with how big his head was would have been third degree if I had used an epidural), but they healed quickly and well. While hypnobabies certainly didn’t make my birth pain free (I think it would have done a much better job on that front if my birth time had started slower!) it kept me relaxed between each wave (and according to Jolene and Ariel during each wave as well, but I definitely didn’t FEEL relaxed during the waves, ha!). I NEVER ONCE felt panicked, scared, or unsafe. From beginning to end all I felt was support and love from those around me and confidence that my body knew what it was doing, even though it had never done this before. I didn’t even remember nitrous oxide was available until five minutes after he was born! I had such a peaceful birth and such a positive experience that I get to treasure the rest of my life, and I do credit a lot of my mental state throughout the birth to my hypnobabies training, even if I never achieved hypnosis during the birth. Even right after he was born I thought to myself that I could totally do it again! |
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February 2020
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