Sophia's Birth

I had a good birth experience - a successful Hypnobirth!

I woke on Wednesday, February 13th at 5:00 a.m. with a tightening and slight cramping in my belly. I closed my eyes and tried to get back to sleep - our estimated date of arrival wasn’t for another 3-6 days. It did occur to me that it could be practice labour but I did not experience that with our first child, so just in case I poked Jason and whispered, “How important is your conference call at work today?”

We left the house to take Arianna to preschool and continued on through the snow and wind on the blizzard-y day to make it to my weekly prenatal doctor’s appointment. Surges were happening quite frequently and increasing in intensity. Dr. McMeekin-Down said, “Congratulations! You are 3 cm dilated and fully effaced! No need to rush to the hospital, stay home for an hour or so...” An hour?! I had better finish packing and get relaxing! Back at home I collected the rest of the things that I might need at the hospital and tried to lie in bed with my relaxation scripts - in between preparing my mom who would be spending some quality time with Arianna while we were at the hospital. I knew that I should eat a good meal but I did not have much of an appetite. Surges continued to wave over my lower abdomen every 2-4 minutes.

At the hospital I was assessed at Labour and Birth triage to be 5 cm by 12:30 p.m., thus I was admitted and I was anxious to get settle d in a birthing room. We shared a copy of our birth plans upon arrival. Birth show was present through out this stage of labour. We reminded our L&B nurse, Jolene, that we were practicing Hypnobirthing to which she replied something like, “So I shouldn’t offer you an epidural?” Jolene was very interested, asked questions, was extremely supportive and respectful or our plans.

Slow breathing through each wave, closer now at 1-2 minutes apart, I would quietly excuse myself, close my eyes and focus on my abdominal lifting breath. Jason was a permanent fixture by my side, providing light touch massage up and down my arm. I tried a couple of different positions during labour - walking, birth ball, and even the very familiar side lying but he surges were close and intense and I found it difficult to relax and focus on my breath in another position other than semi- reclined in bed. At this point my membranes had not yet released. There was a time when things started to feel a bit different- it was challenging to slow breathe through the wave. Jolene encouraged me to do what I needed to do - start breathing baby down if that was what my body was telling me to do. I was 9 cm dilated and baby was still high in birth path and we were waiting for my “bulging” membranes to release. I did feel this happen, “something happened down there, I felt a trickle!” Jolene confirmed this and also was very surprised to see the head - panic - “whatever you are doing it is working, just don’t do anything more right now, Dr. McMeekin-Down is on her way!”

As the medical staff were in a position to receive the baby I continued with the birth breathing to breathe the baby down. I was never “coached” or urged to push harder but was provided with only suggestions to help with my relaxation as well as positive encouragement that I was doing awesome, to keep up the good work and respond to my body. The student nurse, Stephanie, stood by my other side to gently massage my arm as Jason had been doing since we arrived. This support made me feel special, empowered and in control of my response to the surges. I was confident in trusting my body as my body knew how to do this. I did have an urge to push or bear down at the end of a birth breath. I worked hard to focus on the breath, relaxation scripts and music and not tensing up against the intense “tightening”. These surges can also be described as the healthy, productive feeling (not necessarily pain-free as I was working up a a sweat to breathe through them) that leads to the birth of a long-awaited baby. I did tear on my previous scar from my first child but healed without any discomfort.

Sofia Pearl was born at 4:31 p.m. from that moment we were Four! The day she was born will be with me forever.

by Lisa Lord-Edmiston, written Feb

I used my daughter, Arianna’s Rainbow Flower as a visualization focal point.