Right then, my birth story - a testament to the power of hypnobirthing if ever there was one!!
On Good Friday morning I woke up with grumbly period type pains and an odd sense that Wilf would arrive that day. I lay in bed having occasional, mild contractions and decided to listen to my hypnobirthing CD twice on the trot, as it has subliminal messages that are meant to make things happen really quickly. By 10am nothing was happening and the contractions had stopped, much to my dismay - I was really disappointed! So I got up, stripped all the beds, changed them, did 3 loads of washing and tidied the cupboards instead!!
By 4pm I was really confused - nothing doing at all, and I'd been so sure (the old Snowtiger Sixth Sense is usually right!) that something was going to happen that day. By 5:45pm though, I started having mild contractions again. By 7:45pm I was bouncing on my birthing ball, on MN reading the thread about "What do Contractions actually feel like?" thinking to myself 'are these proper contractions? Maybe they're not...' because I'd spoken to my mum who'd said "oh pains like that can come and go for days and you're still 9 days off your due date."
Like I said, that was 7:45pm. By 8:15pm (mid-Masterchef!) I had to call my mum to come over to look after DS and called the hospital as contractions were 5 mins apart! Mum and Dad arrived at 9:15 by which time I was in transition with contractions every 3 mins - curled over the birthing ball, howling. We got to the hospital in record time, how I managed that journey in teh car having contractions every 2 mins is beyond me but it wasn't much fun. The Midwife didn't believe how far along I was until I got there, went for a wee and said I had the urge to push. That was at 9:50pm. She didn't even have time to take my blood pressure or do anything other than examine me and see that I was 6 or 7cm dilated already. It was too late for pethidine or epidurals and there wasn't even time really for the gas & air to kick in (despite me gulping it down for dear life) so instead I just screamed and shouted and breathed my way through it!
40 minutes later, after just 2 mins of pushing, Wilf arrived, kicking and screaming and beautiful, with a full head of hair (which accounts for the 12 empty bottles of Gaviscon in our recycling box!).
So in all the labour was about 3 / 4 hours, and in effect I did it all without pain relief! So to answer the question does hypnobirthing work, I'd say yes - I can't imagine it would have been that quick, or that I'd have been able to cope with the pain with no pain relief at all, otherwise.
10 days on and we're settling down nicely - Wilf's feeding for Britain (sometimes all night so I'm pretty tired but doing OK) and still has his days and nights mixed up. Anyone got any good tips for sorting that out?! Midwife coming this morning to weigh him so hopefully he'll have gone back up to his birthweight - his legs aren't quite so twig-like anymore so I'm pretty sure he's put some on.
How are you other ladies doing? I really sympathise with those of you who are overdue, I was so fed up towards the end. Now though, despite the tiredness etc. I still get a kick out of being able to eat a full portion of food without having horrendous heartburn and even being able to bend over to put my shoes on makes me excited!! It's wonderful!!
Best of luck to all of you still waiting, can't wait to hear your good news soon. And once again huge congrats to the other new mums, I hope you're all getting lots of sleep and feeling well!
Oooh it's so lovely catching up with you all, I've had MN withdrawal symptoms!!