HELP! I'M SHIT AT HYPNOBIRTHING!

[ThirtyNineWeeks]

I am 39+2 and my second baby is due on Thursday. My first baby (she is 22 months old) had to be dragged out by forceps after a 17-hour labour and an epidural (and lots of screaming and gnashing of teeth and telling the midwife - who kept calling me Zoe, which is not my name - to 'fuck off and get me someone who's over eighteen!'). I also had an episiotomy and retained placenta. Nice.

I am determined to push this baby out of my vagina by myself. In order to do this I need to avoid the epidural which (I believe) led to my forceps delivery last time. In order to avoid this I have opted for a midwife-led-unit birth with birthing pool and unicorns and kumbaya on the MP3 (I draw the line at clitoral stimulation; that's what got me into this bastard mess).

Against my deepest, primal instincts I have been practising hypnobirthing, but I simply Do Not Believe It Works. Can you help me believe? Do I really have to swallow the gumf about visualising my perinium folding outwards like a rosebud when my baby is crowning? My hypno-natal CD tells me to imagine the nicest beach I've ever lounged on but that was a needle-strewn stretch of grit at Pontins in Southport circa 1982.

I get the stuff about the breathing. I think. I understand that deep intakes of oxygen are nourishing for the cervix and that baby will benefit from my spiritual gasps. BUT.. the colossal problem I have is that I simply don't believe in my ability to squeeze a baby out of my vagina all by myself. It really upsets me that, despite having birthed before, I don't know how it feels to shout: 'It's coming! It's coming! I feel like I need a shit! My baby is COMING!!' like all those toothless fishwives on One Born Every Minute. I don't know what it feels like to have that 'bearing down' sensation. I missed all of that thanks to the epidural.

Will the midwives + birthing pool + visualising Pontins really get me through? Do you have any tips for bearing the pain at home until I'm, like...8cm? How do I stop screaming with rage each time the Mongan Method tells me that even the final stage of birthing should not be painful, but glorious? Why do midwives shout, 'Push! Bleddy push!' when the Mongan Method says the baby should surge itself if I'm wearing the correctly-coloured hessian tankini?

Please tell me I can do this. And how...

You know you're going to have to come back and let us know how it goes! This thread is really useful in that if ever contemplated a third I was weighing up paying for the actual classes (to try and stave off the embarrassing screaming hysterical banshee bit at the end) but sounds like it's not the solution!! Good luck OP!

Thanks, love, I'm going to do just that! In fact, if I could hook you all up to some kind of group webcam you could shout your affirmations at me and watch me stimulate my nipples

Hahaha nipple stimulation is no joke. I tried it expecting nothing to happen but shit got real very quickly. My son was born 4 hours after!

!!!

Ok. I'm a lawyer and deeply cynical. My DH is a dentist and against "woo" of any type that can't be quantified.

We went along to a class and he - in particular - was sold. Forget all the stuff about peteos and things unfurling of it doesn't work for you. He sees nervous and scared people every day. As a matter of fact, the people who are nervous and scared tend to have worse and more painful experiences than the patients who are relaxed and calm - even if that's just a perception.

The same thing translates to the birth experience from my experience of 3 DCs in 3 years - youngest is 10 weeks. I just picked out the bits that worked for me and concentrated on staying as calm as possible and as mobile as possible. First birth was an absolute shitter but the Hypnobirthing definitely helped. Second two were nice normal deliveries with no stitches and one stitch!

Snuffle, I've a good mind to get you banned from mumsnet for that goblin shark video!

Do I have time to learn what I need to from the Jar Jar Binks book? My baby's due on Thursday

Thanks, Gobbolin. What's your tip for staying calm when it feels like a pair of rutting warthogs are being ripped from your fanny?

I did hypnobirthing and the Morgan method. I couldn't get on board with all of it, what did help was believing that my body could do it. Yes it might hurt, yes I'd probably lose control a bit but the baby was coming out, and my body was built to give birth.

The breathing helped, staying focus helped. I believe the bit about fear and tension making pain worse so I moved around a lot and tried not to panic. My births were quite nice (including the 11lb monster born after a rush to theatre, episiotomy, forceps and a shit midwife. Maybe the spinal helped with that birth!)

If the breathing bit works for you, keep practicing that part and forget the other bits. Best of luck!

You'll honestly be fine. The goblin shark is useful because I didn't know it was supoosed to feel like that so I kind of held back a bit in fear.

The midwives made me stimulate my nipples after two hours of active pushing when it all seemed to kind of start to fizzle out a bit, it worked.

I did a hypnobirthing course and actually in he heat of the moment i forgot it all, but the useful thing I found was not to tense up and brave myself against contractions but to kind of accept them and relax into them as much as possible, it was much less painful when I was y fighting it

Thanks so much, all of you. I've loved the confirmation bias of this thread! I will devour the Birth Skills book and try not to dwell on the dog shit on Southport 'beach'.

I told myself that I had to do it and the more I could do to make it pass more quickly (or stay mobile etc) the better. If I panicked it was going to be a lot worse. I also had total faith in DH in terms of him making decisions and communicating with the HCPs on my behalf.

I also told myself at all stages (bar when it got too late) that I could always ask for pain relief if I needed it. Have you researched pain relief? I had remifentanil which you self administer and has a very short half life. It basically allows you to keep mobile but takes the edge of the pain so you still feel what is happening but it's more bearable and can stop you becoming so tired of your labour is long.

I'm going to be very honest - if you go into this in the basis that it's going to be horrific, it will be because of that mind set. If you genuinely feel that you don't want to give birth vsgunally, then I'd read up on the NICE guidelines and ask for a planned section which you're entirely entitled to do

When I read your OP, I thought that you sound like the kinda gal who would get on with the Juju Sundin. Very very practical. Doesn't pretend it will guarantee you some mystic pain free birth. Very down to earth, very sensible.

You'll definitely have to time to absorb some of it quickly - it's basically a long list of various techniques to help you cope with the pain (ie doesn't say it will eliminate the pain). Suggest you write a list of which ones appeal. And then make sure DH / DP knows them too, so he can suggest them when you have run out of ideas.

Fwiw, I liked vocalising (ie making a noise), counting during the contractions (then getting DH to count when I couldnt), and banging my fists rhythmically on anything I could find.

Good luck!

PS I know I wouldn't have got on with hyponobirthing either. Have no problem whatsoever with other people doing it, just that it wasn't for me.

I went into my first birth with the mind set that it would be the worst pain I'd known but that I was capable and would manage. The pain was not manageable and I took all the pain relief I could.

The thing I'm struggling to believe is that any kind of 'spiritual' experience can be had from the nonsense I've been reading in the Mongan Method. It is patronising and olossallg unhelpful to deny the sheer agony of labour for most women, and any bullshit hippy author with a book of lies to flog should be forced to birth the Elephant Man's head - whilst attached to his Siamese twin.

At the standalone birthing unit I will be using there will be no pain relief available except for gas and air. Perhaps pethadine. I came here to ask whether I really do need to believe in this nonsense in order to birth my boy vaginally. The overwhelming response has been 'no', so I will do as pp have said and practice the breathing. I will use the book's pages on visualisation and 'how a drug-induced birth can affect attachment for the rest of your baby's life' to wipe my arse.

Wigeon, thank you for that great advice; eminently sensible and I'm please to hear I'll be able to digest a decent chunk of the book in record time.

I hate the rhetoric that birth is spiritual or empowering or any other dreamy concept. I won't deny that some women believe that was their experience, but that was a million miles from my experience (a gold star waterbirth and all!) and I think it's wrong to give women such unrealistic expectations.

Does anyone else automatically think of Hypnotoad when they see hypnobirthing?

My two births were in no way a spiritual or incredible experience. They hurt like hell. But I did have both DC vaginally with gas and air, and TENS, and with DC2, Juju Sundin's ideas. Both in midwife led units (DC2 was even planned to be a home birth but wasn't at the last minute as the midwives said there was no one available to come out to me ).

I would have had an epidural / pethedine / anything necessary if I had wanted at the time though, so no absolute thing against them (fortunately the midwife led unit was one floor down from the nice consultant led unit...!)

So really don't think that vaginal birth = must believe hippy shit, otherwise drugs here you come. If you DO believe the hippy shit, then good on you, but it's not a prerequisite!!

Tried it, was totally useless. As was the pool. Read several books before DC2 and the ones telling me that the pain was all my fault because I wasn't relaxed enough gave me the rage.

Epidural was bloody amazing though. A mobile one - so avoids all that passively laying on your back not feeling anything. Was entirely mobile, walking about, gave birth standing up, no interventions. Not what you asked, but maybe check out if hospitals around your area offer mobile/walking epidurals? Because it doesn't sound like whale song and essential oils approach might be quite right for you.

Oh, and actually DC2's birth was much better than DC1's (quicker, less painful, although DC2 birth still the second most painful experience of my life), and I had read the Juju Sundin for DC2 but not DC1...Both births were textbook 'normal' deliveries and I was low risk pregnancy with no complicating factors at all. But hard to know if it was just a better 2nd birth due to the birth canal having already been stretched, or because I had better pain management techniques, or the baby was better positioned, or what. But maybe it was the Juju Sundin stuff.

Your plan is quite all or nothing. Do you have a hospital near by with a birth centre attached? You could start off there and then see how you are going re: pain relief.

I agree with you regarding the epidural. I wouldn't agree to have one although I ultimately needed a spinal block for my first birth. However, there are,things that you can have, like the remi, that can help hugely without interfering with a good, quick, natural delivery. you might not need it but it's good to have options. Personally, I've had pethidine once and I'd never have it again. It massively contributed to the issues I had with my first birth which started off in a birthing centre. Happily attached to a hosoital so all was well

I've had two natural, no pain relief, not even gas and air births. They were sort of amazing. I don't think I have a giant vadge, not even after DS, who was 8.5 pounds. I'm 5ft tall.

I had heard of hynobirthing before DC1 but hadn't got round to reading up, cos I had a career and wotnot (now there is something that bled to death as a result of pg). But what I thought was that if there is such a thing as hypnobirthing, you must be able to think your way through birth. I figured I'd enter into the birth in the spirit of discovering how to do that.

I have subsequently read up on hypnobithing - I don't think I could have done it the way they say. Their whole thing seems to be like an extended bit of mental busy-ness so you don't notice the pain or sommat. The way I did it was going in to meet the pain iyswim. I tried to let it be, not resist it. Also kept telling myself that pain is part of the process.

Now, it did fucking knack. But it wasn't as awful as when I've bee injured or anything, because with an injury, you fight it, don't you? And you know that it is a sign that something is very, very wrong. So while it did hurt more than bending my arm the wrong way, I didn't suffer nearly as much with birthing as I did with that injury. Also, I was in a completely altered state of mind, so even though it hurts loads, it's not your normal, everyday self who has to go through it. And when it the baby comes out, it's like this instantaneous snap back to reality. I found it really, really interesting.

It's not pain free. It's in fact very, very painful. But you don't die of pain, and if you can calm yourself and ride it out, it's pretty amazing. You feel fucking ecstatic if you are lucky enough for everything to be straightforward so you can, too, which is not something you really get to talk about often except on threads like this.

If your birth is straightforward, then it is totally possible to just watch the whole thing happen while you concentrate on staying sort of 'with' the pain, not letting it overwhelm you. But I found facing, rather than talking myself round or out of the pain was key to this.

I didn't remember/fear the pain between my first and second - what bothered me more was the unrelenting nature of the contractions and not being able to make the fucking things stop for a minute so I could gather myself. That I found really difficult to cope with. I think the Juju woo might help with some of that

I'm loving this - not sure why I'm reading this and giggling given that I'm not planning to give birth every again. But your views OP ring so true with me.

Maybe I could turn to hypno birthing techniques to get me through my monthly meetings with my manager ? Anything to take my mind off the mind blowing crushing feeling that I'm not in control....

bunique, I could have written your last post. When I have birth last time the contractions had no respite between and I seriously feared being left permanently deranged. The forceps-handler pulled and pulled and pulled (i imagined forceps to 've a smoother ride than that) and even then the baby wouldn't come. I felt like William Wallace in the final scene of Braveheart; I remember thinking that a body is not built for this level of pain.

So...Gobbolin, yes I'm keen to avoid the epidural but (as happened last time when I began my labour in the MLU but then meconium was found on my pad), the midwives will whisk me in an ambulance to hospital should I need it. Just like last time

I'm not after a spiritual birth. It a sexual birth. Or an amazing experience. I know there is no medal for any if us at the end of this. But to suffer what I did last time is too much to bear. Having a catheter hanging from you for two days after and waiting forever to go home from hospital is just shit.

I just want to believe I can do this better.