Something has been bothering me a little lately (surprise, surprise) it was triggered by the use of the word ‘luck’ when it comes to birth…
To me now, I can’t really see birth as something that you wouldn’t prepare yourself for. If you’ve read my other blogs you’ll know that this wasn’t how I thought previously as a more naive first time mama. I also don’t think that if it is a subsequent birth and you just ‘got on with it’ the first time that it means that you just have to ‘get on with it’ this time because you know it’s going to be awful, or because you vaguely tried hypnobirthing and it didn’t really work and you think it is a job just to be done and be done with it. It’s not…
Birth is like a run, if like me you don’t run very often, that first 5K you do is going to be a killer. You’ll be using muscles you haven’t used in ages if at all, your lungs and heart will be pumping blood and oxygen like they haven’t done before and you’ll probably get a stitch and want to give up after 10 minutes. Maybe throw up. However, IF you have prepared your body and mind (don’t underestimate, professional athletes DO train their mind) and you have started out small, 5 minutes at a time, building up and regularly like more than twice a week, in a few weeks you will be able to run and breathe normally, you won’t be doubled up with a stitch and *GASP* you might even enjoy it!!! I know so crazy right!
I know you are thinking ‘yep clever clogs, now how do I train my Vagina to push out a human?!’. For me and many many other women we were lucky enough to find hypnobirthing to help us do this. Not just find it but fully immerse ourselves in it, practice it, believe in it (because the mind plays THAT big a role) and keep on practicing it. For those skeptics out there and I’m not going to lie I can’t believe how many there are, there are many studies on hypnotherapy proving it to be successful and not just that, SO many midwives are also training in it (normally all a skeptic needs is a medical person backing it hey?). I’m also not hiding under a rock- I know that there are some women whom though using hypnobirthing still ended up with a caesarean section or assisted delivery BUT the thing is, THAT IS NOT THE POINT. The hypnobirthing still helped keep them calm, helped them make informed decisions and afterwards feel positive about the outcome.
However it wasn’t ‘luck’ that got me an amazing birth experience. I know this because I’ve had experience of birth with and without hypnobirthing. I worked bloody hard for my calm and positive birth. I reached out and spoke to (positive) people that believe and have experience of natural physiological births. I could have sat on the sofa eating chocolate and watching crap every night (I really could have, love me some crap tv) but I dragged my ass to bed to watch my hypnobirthing videos and listen to the mp3s, light my essential oils, and forced Gigi to do the same. I ironed and listened to my positive affirmations at the same time. I forced myself to antenatal yoga which gave me that small slot of time weekly where I could think about myself, my breathing and my baby only. I googled positive hypnobirthing/ home birthing/ water birthing videos to watch and I also informed myself about the implications of the options you might be offered at hospital before or during labour (depending on your situation).
So I don’t think it’s fair to label it as luck. I’m not saying if theres a next time it will go the same way, we all know that there are certain things we cannot control with pregnancy, labour and birth. But I would think that should I practice and dedicate my hypnobirthing techniques to labour as much as I did last time that no matter the outcome it would be a calm and positive one. I would also say that yes I can say this time I had a ‘natural’ birth. I’m proud to say it and I also worked hard for that. I am under no illusions that using drugs for my first labour means that it wasn’t natural to me. It was a vaginal delivery yes, but natural no. If I have a headache and treat it naturally I don’t use medicine to do it. But that is kind of by the by, you just have to make peace with it (which you can if you have educated yourself and made informed decisions- it’s certainly NOT the be all and end all!!!) So I’m going to shout it- I didn’t get lucky. Don’t leave it up to luck as I did the first time. I worked hard and got me a POSITIVE, CALM and BEAUTIFUL labour and so should you…
*disclaimer 1* don’t tell Gigi we spoke about the thought of number 3 he’ll freak
*disclaimer 2* this is in no way means of advertising BUT I am about to qualify as a hypnobirthing teacher. Just putting it out there…