Jake's Birth Story: A Hypnobabies VBAC

My Hypnobabies VBAC success story

I had been having contractions almost every night while working at
the computer, but any time I laid down they would stop. On Friday,
Nov 16, it was the same thing, contractions every 5 minutes but if I
laid on the couch they would stop. So finally at 11pm I just went to
bed. I got all ready and in bed and after about 10 minutes I had a
nice contraction. I waited and it happened again. I was not very
comfortable in bed so I went and sat in the rocking chair and
listened to my 1st stage birthing scripts. When they kept coming
pretty frequently I finally woke up Dan and asked him if he thought
we should call Jen to come over to watch the girls.

We decided I should at least call her to give her a heads up. This was around
12:30am. I called Jen and was talking to her and she decided she
should come over. I was so excited that this might be the real
thing!!! She got to my house around 1:10am and we started timing my
contractions. They were less than 3 minutes apart, but this being my
first vaginal birth we figured we had time. So we made brownies for
the nurses, called my mom and sisters and finally around 2am, I woke
up Dan to get ready to go to the hospital. We were getting ready to
leave and of course the twins decided to wake up. So I tried to get
them back to bed. I was up there rocking them for about 20-30
minutes and had quite a few contractions:) I think they knew
something was up and they wouldn’t go back to sleep so they got to
come downstairs and watched a show with Aunt Jen. The contractions
were not bad at all and I just relaxed through them.

We got to the hospital around 3:30am and they checked me and I was 2cm dilated.
They hooked me up to the fetal monitor to check his heartbeat and
then I walked around. They checked me again at 4:30am and I was 3 cm
dilated. They pretty much left me alone after that. I walked, took
a nice hot shower and sat on the birthing ball. Dan was great
through it all and there for me. I still was feeling great and
breathing through each contraction.

The midwife came in at 7:30am and said that they were probably sending me home. She said it is
better to go through the early labor at home but wanted to check me
first. My contractions were still about 3 minutes apart at this
time. She was very surprised to see that I was at 7cm:) She said I
looked so relaxed and calm. Things slowed down after that but I
still was feeling great. The contractions were getting a little more
intense but nothing unmanageable. I would want Dan to be next to me
for each one and he would help with the relax cues and his hand on my
shoulder. In between he would tried to lay down and rest but as soon
as he laid down another one would come and he would have to jump
right back up:)

I also remember that I made sure to keep my whole
body relaxed during the contractions. I would face my hands palms up
and make sure my shoulders were relaxed. I continued to walk, took
another hot shower and sat on the birthing ball. I also leaned on
Dan and just went limp a few times. Through this all Dan was great
at keeping the nurses away from me during each contraction and being
there for me to use the cues and help me relax through each
contraction. He was also sending text messages to family to keep
them updated. He did this instead of calling so I would not be
distracted. The nurses and midwife kept commenting on how calm the
room was.

I was finally fully dilated at 1:30pm. I started using
the exhale breathing and was in a squatting position. This felt good
but after a while my knees started to really hurt:) They needed to
check his heartbeat so they asked me to turn around. This position
actually felt a little better. After about an hour they told me that
since it was my first vaginal birth I would probably not be able to
use the exhale pushing to get him under the pelvic bone and my bag of
water just would not break. We were trying lots of positions. So I
had to use the “blue face” pushing but I still listened to my
Hypnobabies pushing cd and was able to keep my body relaxed while
doing this.

Since my bag of water would not break, it was keeping
his head from really engaging. So I got up for a little bit and
tried to use the bathroom. Once I got back into bed I had about 3
more contractions and my bag finally broke. The midwife knew I did
not want any intervention but I think next time I might tell them to
break my water while pushing:) This was around 3:30pm. I had a few
more contractions and finally got his head under the pelvic bone. I
felt his head coming down and out and it was such a great feeling.
He was born at 4:06pm and the whole birth was amazing. It was such a
wonderful feeling to feel him come out. They put him right on my
chest and waited for the cord to stop pulsating before Dan cut it!!
He weighed 9lbs 2 ozs and was 21 inches long. His head was 38cm:):)
It was my perfect vbac Hypnobabies birth:)

Thanks to Hypnobabies, my wonderful husband, Dan, and my wonderful
Hypnobabies coach, my sister Jen:):)

Diana