Monday, January 12, 2015

Hypnobirthing- thoughts?

With the birth of Penelope coming soon, I am trying to figure out what kind of birth I would like to have. I have had two very good births, all things considering.

Olivia, being my first, I was expected to have a really long labor. I thought for sure I'd be in agony for hours. What actually happened is that it was really textbook. We walked all day (it was Labor Day) and around dinner time I felt kind of blah. By 9 p.m. contractions started, I was 39 weeks. Nothing too bad. By 11 p.m., my water broke at home. I was at the hospital by midnight. I had an epidural at 3 a.m., and Olivia made her triumphant entrance into the world at 8:58 a.m. The really nice thing was that I slept through pretty much all of my labor. That epidural was so good I felt nothing. I had no idea how I was supposed to push, and wasn't sure if I was even pushing.

Then with Jackson, I ended up being induced with him right on my due date. Again, my labor was far faster than I expected. I mean, I knew being induced meant it could be faster, but I wasn't totally sure. He wasn't moving as much as he should have been, which is why I was induced. But they started me at 8 a.m. with Pitocin. I got my epidural at 9 a.m. because wow- Pitocin contractions are no damn joke. I got a little bit of sleep but by noon, my epidural was wearing off. I called for the nurse and she very nicely told me that I had it as high as it would go. It was that moment that I realized that I was grossly unprepared for the amount of pain I was about to be in. Let us just say, that when I started pushing at 12:30 p.m., I quickly understood why women scream that it burns. Jackson was born at 12:58 p.m.

This time I really want to try to do this drug free.

I know, you're all laughing. I'm also laughing, but it sounds more like a manic laughter. Like I fully recognize that I am crazy pants.

Yes, thousands of women do this all of the time. I have lots of friends who have and say it's really not that bad. But that's all bull shit because I don't care how great I'll feel afterwards, or how accomplished I'll feel, or how much better for the baby it is. I get all of that, I'm sure it's glorious, and maybe if I can accomplish it, I'll totally be on that hippie band wagon telling you all about it.

Right now, my main concern is pain. I find that as I get older, my pain tolerance is less. I am trying to figure out different things I can do to prepare myself. One thing I've heard a lot about is hypnobirthing. Basically it's self hypnosis during labor. Which... sounds hokey, I know. But at this point, I do know that the labor breathing techniques I learned before Olivia were absolutely useless. So right now, the plan is to look up and purchase a book so I can read a little more about it. I want to give it a try, at least. There are classes locally but they are EXPENSIVE, like around $300 expensive.

But have any of you done hypnobirthing? If yes, do you have any advice or good resources? If you haven't done that, and have had a natural birth, what helped you?

5 comments:

Ellen said...

Coming out of lurkerdom to say while I didn't "do" hypnobirthing, but I did use a range of meditation and visualisation and dare I say breathing to get me through. Things that I knew worked for me in general, like muscle isolation relaxation and imagining I was in my warm happy place and repeating mantras. Sounds really hippy dippy but I'm not particularly like that, and it totally worked for me. I was away in the zone and didn't notice the time passing. I spent nearly 2 hours under the shower (no bath) but it felt like 15 minutes.
Boo was 10lb7, active labour was 10 hours and I had gas for the last hour. My plan was to hold off on it for as long as possible so it made a difference when I really needed it. You really need supportive people around too, who won't undermine your will power by repeatedly offering drugs or telling you youre crazy for trying or that things are going too slow so they'll just intervene. But maybe I've just watched too much American OneBornEveryMinute!

Unknown said...

I had a natural birth and I wish I had something wonderful and earth shattering to say that would make you feel so much better, but the truth is my natural birth wasn't planned. I didn't want an epidural, but I certainly wanted whatever drug it is (the name currently escapes me) to take the edge off. Well, my labor progressed far too fast and I will say that honestly the worst part was the contractions. If you can make it through the contractions the pushing really isn't that bad. I only pushed for about twenty minutes, but I had a few hours of brutal contractions and I found that to be the worst part! I'll be really interested to hear about what you find out about hynobirthing!

Steff said...

I'm doing the HypnoBabies home study course and LOVE it! I have a few friends and aunts that have recommended it to me and they all say it helped tremendously. I researched the difference between HypnoBabies and Hypnobirthing and the HypnoBabies sounds far better and more suited to my style. Plus it's only $150 for the kit and I don't have to go to class and interact with other people haha

Lynsey said...

Read Ina May's Guide to childbirth by Ina May Gaskin. It's really hippy-dippy, but good stuff. I had an awesome natural birth with my 3rd baby. Just go into it with the mindset that you're doing it. No drugs allowed. My mantra was, "you can do anything for 30 seconds." Which was how long the bad part of contractions were. You got this!

Lynsey said...

Read Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. It's really hippy-dippy, but good stuff.