GUEST BLOG: A Dad's eye view of hypnobirthing
- helenseward1
- May 28, 2014
- 6 min read
My expectations of childbirth had been informed by television; Raquel screaming in agony and exasperation with Del, who was on the receiving end of her rage for putting her in the situation, monopolising the gas and air oblivious to her suffering. The picture painted was one of extreme distress and discomfort for the woman and conflict between her and her hapless partner.
This was my blueprint for the birth of our first child, albeit without a laughter-track. That was until Helen was made aware of hypnobirthing by a friend. I was initially curious and maybe a little skeptical about the promise of a drug-free birth.
Curiosity got the better of us and decided that as Hypnobirthing would also provide us with the opportunity to meet other first-timers, we signed up.
The classes were an eye opener for a number of reasons. It was here that I think I really began to appreciate my role in the labour and delivery of the baby. We had attended local ante-natal classes where the role of the father was pretty much cast as more of a hindrance than an active member of the process.
The fathers participate in all the hypnosis scripts with the mothers so it was an also an opportunity to relieve all the stresses from a day in the office and unwind.
At first, like the other fathers in the class, I felt hesitancy when informed that I would also be required to partake in this, but it was necessary in aiding my understanding of the feelings my wife was experiencing. Aside from a couple of scripts to relax the uterus, the hypnosis experience was equally relevant for me and I still use breathing techniques to calm myself.
Helen and I practised the scripts daily. After overcoming some intial awkwardness in reading aloud whilst trying to sound convincing we immersed ourselves in it. Occasionally Helen would read the scripts to me so I could fully understand how powerful they were in making her feel totally relaxed and empowered. One particular script was the ‘glove’. In the hypnosis, my hand became numb and I was able to transfer this numbness to my cheek by pressing against it with my desensitized hand.
With the exception of one script about a woodland walk that included the innocuous but rude sounding phrase "lady slippers" at which we would both stumble to conceal laughter, the scripts worked wonderfully and had the desired affect.
The classes enabled us to radically change our perception of childbirth through listening to experiences and watching videos of births. One video I remember most showed mothers giving birth in the warm rock pools of the Black Sea before mother and father take their new creation into the water and gently push their floating baby to each other.
Four weeks before Imogen was born we had a weekend away. Although we only went to the less than glamorous location of Ipswich, it allowed us to practice the hypnobirthing away from our usual distractions. It was an ideal opportunity to reconcile everything we had learnt and prepare ourselves for the impending change to our lives.
Imogen's birth may didn’t go as well as we had hoped. Gestational Diabetes had meant that our first-born would be induced. Despite Helen's amazing efforts to postpone the induction by two weeks through a radical diet and in spite of burning clary sage oil constantly for weeks in our flat Imogen was born after three days of induction. However, we were able to equip ourselves in the best manner possible, utilising everything we had learnt whilst we passed the time in hospital.
As Helen was kept in overnight during the induction process, I wasn’t able to be with her at beyond the evening and was sent home. It was frustrating to be away from my wife at such a special time.
I was called back to the hospital at 2.30am the night Imogen was born. I remember rushing into the delivery suite and seeing Helen strapped up to various wires, but looking happy. Although we were unable to put into practice all of the techniques we had learnt, we made the best of the situation.
The birth happened very quickly, we were told that Imogen had to be got out now so was delivered with forceps. I neither saw the birth nor cut the cord but I was able to be with Helen, hold her hand and reassure here. Although she wasn’t in a trance, she was calm throughout.
Imogen may not have been born as a 100% hypnobirthed baby, but we were delighted we had decided to attend the classes. So much so that when Helen fell pregnant with our second child there was no question that we would dig out the hypnobirthing CD and scripts.
It was easy to get back into the process and with no medical complications this time we were determined for it to work.
We attended one refresher course where we saw a video of a successful hypnobirth that strengthened our determination to have both a hypnobirth and a water birth.
When Helen went into labour and we requested the birthing pool there was a feeling that we were inconveniencing the hospital. We were determined everything was going to go as we wanted this time though. One of the key outcomes of hypnobirthing is empowering the mother to know exactly what type of birth she wants (as long as there are no medical reasons that would prevent this) and it is the father's role to support and ensure the mother gets what she wants.
We arrived in the hospital around 10.30am (the second time that day after a false alarm at 6 that morning). Helen got herself ready and into the birthpool whilst I set up the CD player. I applied some light touch massage and Helen relaxed herself into a trance-like state. Our midwife was fully supportive and soon left us to ourselves. I will always remember Helen leaning over the side of the pool, her head cradled on her folded arms murmuring gently as she prepared herself for the birth.
About half an hour after getting into the pool, Helen calmly asked me to get the midwife. "Err.. I think something's happening." I sheepishly told the midwife. She followed me into the birthing room fully expecting, I sensed, to tell us we were again being premature. But we weren't. Elliott was minutes away from being born.
I continued to apply the massage and reassure Helen as she continued to murmur as she breathed Elliott down, breathing, murmuring and breathing him down slowly at ease and in the most natural way. She was pretty chatty, as usual, throughout her whole labour and even during the delivery itself...especially so when we realised she was still wearing her bikini bottoms as our boy was about to emerge. We all had quite a laugh about that.
This time I was able to see the birth, as his head appeared for the first time under the water as Helen’s surges continued, still focused and unfazed. At 11.18 Elliott entered the world, completely free from drugs in a calm and wonderful way. I was so proud of Helen.
I was also able to cut the cord this time, though not until the natural third stage of labour was complete and all of the blood had drained.
The night before Elliott was born, my father-in-law gave me a whiskey to calm my nerves. It made me ponder. It would have been unthinkable for him to have offered the same to Helen, yet women in labour are given much harder drugs moments before the birth of their baby. Still, that's easy for me to say as a man who never has to have a baby. But for Helen and for me both labours were a wonderful experience and not an endurance. And because of this I have become an advocate of hypnobirthing. Long before Helen decided to teach it I would always try to convince couples in pregnancy to research the process. Just recently I surprised myself at how passionately and extensively I regaled a colleague whose work leads him to work with new mothers, with our experiences of hypnobirthing.
A baby is the most wonderful gift a couple can receive, that is obvious, you don't need hypnobirthing to be told that. However, what it did for us was to give us the opportunity to take the time, through reading scripts or the two of us falling asleep to the affirmations to appreciate exactly how wonderfully our lives were to be changed by the arrival of our beautiful gift.
The ten weeks prior to the birth of Imogen are probably the happiest and most connected we have felt as a couple. Through hypnobirthing it was reinforced how aware the baby was in the latter days of pregnancy and how important it was for us to provide a calm, united and loving environment for the arrival.
A while before Imogen was born, I had downloaded a Johnny Cash album and listened to it every day on my commute to and from work. After a while the familiarity of repetition helped me remain calm in those final weeks. Now whenever my IPod randomly arrives on the album within minutes memories begin to flood back of a time of such joyful anticipation.
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