harrison born at sunshine coast private hospital on 9 nov 2015

The thought of labour terrified me. I came across Carrie's hypnobirthing classes online and attended her five week course at her lovely home studio in Mountain Creek.

I found the classes challenging as I'm not good at allowing myself to relax, and keeping my mind focused on the absolute present was difficult. However, with each week I felt my inner confidence and focus grow. This was essential as everyone around me was intent in doubting my ability to have a natural birth.

Three days before my due date I woke and was just about to head to the pool for an early morning swim as normal when I noticed my waters had broke. I wasn't aware of having any surges so I called the hospital and they said to stay at home and come in at 5pm for an assessment. Bryn, my husband was at work in Brisbane so I called him to come home. I skipped the swim but carried on as usual.
There was no pain, no fear, no panic, just an intense process. Believe it or not I loved every minute of my labour. 
About 11am I thought I'd start to do some baking so Bryn had some snacks to eat! Just before midday I sent Bryn out to get me a few things from the chemist - as soon as the gate latched behind him as he left I felt my surges start. They were very intense and frequent (coming every two minutes and lasting two minutes). Bryn was totally unaware of the urgency and causally went to the bank, chemist, newsagent!! Three quarters of an hour later he returned and realised we had to head to the hospital immediately! I kept my eyes closed for the journey focusing on my breathing. On arrival I had 4-5 surges in the short 50m walk to the hospital entrance. We skipped going to our room and headed straight to the birthing suite. My body was uncontrollable shaking.

I got into the birthing pool but unexpectedly I didn't find it as comfortable as I thought I would. I just couldn't get into a comfy position. I got out and almost immediately felt a baring down feeling. I just let my body do what it seemed to know to do - breathing our baby down. I didn't interfere, nobody interfered. I was in a zone and totally focused. I didn't want anybody to speak to me or do anything to disturb my focus. Bryn had his job cut out too as I wanted strong pressure on my lower back through out. We had a wonderful female obstetrician who arrived when the head was crowning.

Her empowering and supportive words were amazing and perfectly timed.  At 15.17 our precious little jewel was born. A little hello cry when he emerged and then when I placed him on my tummy he crawled up and started to feed immediately.

This was the most emotional euphoric experience ever.There was no pain, no fear, no panic, just an intense process. Believe it or not I loved every minute of my labour and for the next few days couldn't stop going over it in my head again (with a smile on my face)! 

I cant thank Carrie enough nor recommend the skill set developed through hypnobirthing enough. It's one of the most important things I did during pregnancy. 

​Anna