New Baby News and Hypnobirthing Rocks!

Well, I know its been 6.5 weeks since my last post, but I guess thats what happens when you have two kids! It was the night of the labour inducing curry incident that everything started to happen. It was about 10.30 in the evening and I didn't believe it was actually happening at first as the sensations were so mild it could have been Braxton Hicks or practice labour. So I went to bed and relaxed listening to my CD. It was about two hours later that I was pretty certain it was the real thing, so I told my partner I was in labour (I hadn't wanted to get him excited before just incase it wasn't!) and I continued to breathe and visualise through each contraction. At 4am we dicided it was time to call the midwife, so he did that while I had a shower and continued breathing and relaxing through each contraction. I made my way to the living room where we planned to have the baby and I used the birth ball to lean on and breathe until the midwife arrived at 5am. She examined me and said I was already 5cm dilated! I was really pleased and continued to relax and focus on my breathing. At sometime between 6 and 6:30am I started to feel a sensation of pressure on my back passage. It was at this point my partners mother came to pick up my other daughter, who was rousing from her sleep. Then at 7:05 my second daughter arrived. It was an immensely powerful experience which thanks to hypnobirthing techniques was not painful. I had had a tens machine on standby which I hadn't had the chance to use and I had no pain relief whatsoever, not even gas and air which the midwife hadn't even needed to unpack from the car! I had remained in an upright position all the way through labour and birth which to me at the time felt like the most natural way to do it. I was on the biggest natural high when my daughter was placed on my chest, a healthy 4.06kg (8lbs 15oz). And to this day I still feel so powerful from the experience. So to anyone reading this, whether it is yourself who is expecting or your partner, a friend or relative or you in the future plan to have children I would whole heartedly recommend looking into hypnobirthing as a way to deliver the baby. I had had a really painful long drawn out labour with my first (and much smaller) daughter that the thought of going through it all again filled me with fear. It really couldn't have been any different. It really was the perfect labour.