How Hypnobabies Worked for Me

The first post in this series

The second post in this series

I started into labor on a Thursday evening. DH and I taught a class that night together, which turned out to be really handy. First, it kept my mind occupied for a couple of hours. Second, there was a clock in the back of the classroom and that made it really easy to keep track of my contractions. By the time we left for the 40 minute drive home, they were about 5-6 minutes apart. I was kind of bummed because it was a week before my due date and I had just turned in my thesis the Monday of that week. That meant I had not yet done the other things I had wanted to do to prepare for Kiddo's birth: a haircut, an eyebrow wax, and a pedicure. So on the way home from our class we stopped for a late night haircut at a friend's house.

The contractions continued through the night and I felt in control of my body for all of that time. I use the relaxation techniques to stay on top of the contractions all through the next morning. Finally around noon, I decided to go to the hospital instead of to my pedicure appointment. I couldn't resist stopping off to have my eyebrows waxed on the way though.

I guess all that is a pretty good indication as to how well I was doing through early labor. Once at the hospital, they checked me in and decided this was it. After a bit I went ahead and used the CD track intended for labor (as opposed to preparation for labor). It was about an hour long and it really helped me to focus and shut off for a while. I got to use a spa tub and that helped as well.

Unfortunately, it was about this time that the nurse started showing concern that the baby wasn't responding like (s)he should. When she started talking about internal monitoring, I started to feel a bit of panic. I started to realize that we could end up having a C-section and I knew I would be much happier having already had the epidural in for that to happen. In addition, I was getting to a point where I felt I was barely handling the contractions and the thought of having my membranes ruptured artificially and the monitors inserted was more than I could handle. So I had the epidural put in.

Long story short, I did end up having a C-section, for which I am very grateful as it most likely saved our little boy's life.

Coming soon..."Final Reflections on a Hypnobabies birth".

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Preparing for a Hypnobabies Birth or How I took a 35 minute nap each day and counted it for practice in labor

The first post in this series

No joke -- just as finished my last post, the CD player (set to random) flipped over to a Hypnobabies CD left in there from before Kiddo's birth. In an instant, I was transported back to the weeks before Kiddo was born...

I decided rather late in my pregnancy to go the hypnobabies route, so my CDs came with the instruction to do two exercises a day. Each one lasted about 30 minutes which meant an hour of my day needed to go to the course. This was somewhat trying for me as I was working gangbusters on my thesis at the time and trying to complete it before Kiddo's birth. On the other hand, it was nice to have a planned time to relax.

So I dutifully began practice in relaxation and self-hypnosis. I did really well for the first few weeks. I was amazed at how good I got at relaxing and turning my body off. When the task turned from just relaxing to learning how to get up and walk around while in a self-hypnotized state,I kind of fell off of my practice schedule. I never really got well practiced in the later techniques, but I did get pretty good at relaxing and doing it very quickly.

I thought I had pretty good memories of the course, but when the CD came up after my last post, and I heard the voice of the guide and the start up music, I had a rush of odd emotions, not all of which were positive.

Up next..."How Hypnobabies Worked for Me"

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The Hypnobabies Choice

At our first pre-natal visit for Kiddo, the Dr. asked three questions,

"Are you planning to breastfeed?"
"Are you planning on an epidural?"
"What are you plans for birth control after the baby?"

The third question really caught me off-guard. I mean, how far was that from my mind?

I had already decided to breastfeed if I could, but I wasn't really sure about the epidural thing. I had heard so many mixed opinions and ideas about it that I just wasn't sure.

Now my Dr. was great about supporting me in anything I decided to do, but he wasn't always great at providing information unless I asked for it. And me being me, I didn't really ask him about it until I had figured it out for myself.

After much research (and a blog post I really liked), we decided to go the self-hypnosis route. I felt kind of weird about it because I am one of the most skeptical people I know. But I thought it might be worth a shot.

I selected the Hypnobabies program after a not so helpful hospital class on natural methods. I felt good about it and DH was very supportive of the choice.

So was it a good choice? After secretly hoping for a birth like this one, I was interested to see how the whole thing turned out.

Stay tuned for the next installment... "Preparing for a Hypnobabies Birth" or "How I took an 35 minute nap each day and counted it for practice in labor".

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Five Weeks to Go

This week we had our second (of four) Lamaze classes at the hospital where we expect our little girl will be born sometime in the next five weeks.

I was proud of myself. This was the class where we had to watch "the video" and I think I handled it amazingly well, thank you very much. It will be interesting to see what actually happens, but I'm thinking that this will be a good experience all the way around. At least I hope it will be. You can't prepare for every possible situation, and I frankly, there are some I'd rather not prepare for because they are too scary, but in general, I'm an optimist, so I expect that our case will be like most and everything will be okay.

Anyway, the class was good. We talked a lot about the procedure of birth and the stages and stuff. There was a lot of it that was new information for me, and I'm glad to have more of an understanding of what to expect.

I haven't said anything here yet, but a recent comment made me decide to tell you that we've decided to use a non-traditional birthing method. We are preparing to do a hypnotic birthing, following the "Hypnobabies" course. I'm really excited about it, and think ti will be a very powerful, positive experience. I have no expectation that we will fail, but it is nice to know that if something unexpected *does* occur, we are in the hospital and can have necessary intervention.

We talked to the Lamaze instructor after the class on Monday and asked her about how supportive the hospital staff will be with the decision to use hypnobirthing techniques. She was very positive about it and said the hospital would be very supportive. Even better, she knew that our doctor in particular is very supportive of women who choose alternative birthing options. That was encouraging, because we haven't talked to him about it yet. In fact, he asked on the very first appointment if we were planning on an epidural or a natural birth, and we said we didn't know. He has never brought it up again. Neither have we. (We will at our next appointment on Wednesday.) So it is nice to know that he will be on board with us. What we need to be successful is people supporting the decision, rather than a bunch of critics saying how hard it is going to be. So I'm glad he'll be on our team.

It was also nice to have the Lamaze instructor (who is also a head nurse [I forget the correct term] in the labor and delivery department) tell us that if we requested a birthing nurse who is familiar with hypnobirthing that we could get a nurse who will be supportive of us.

In the end, we started the course a little late, but BW (beautiful wife) is working on the courses at an advanced pace, and all seems to be going well. I also got a CD with scripts for the birthing partner that I get to use.

I hope you aren't bored by this whole explanation. I'm just excited about the decision and am really excited about welcoming a little baby girl into the family sometime in the next month or so. Yay!!

Now I just need to practice relaxing -- which is hard when you are as excited as I am .

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