Harriet's birth story

Shared with permission from Ashton and Ollie, first time parents to beautiful baby Harriet who completed a private Hypnobirthing Essentials course with me.

Ashton and Ollie had planned to birth at home, however circumstances out of their control changed that at the last minute and they had to be flexible, although still were able to use everything they had learned to adapt to a change in plan and have a magical experience. This is also a great example of how the start of labour can sometimes be a little stop/start, but the best thing to do is to carry on as normal for as long as you can, stay calm and trust that your baby will come when they are ready. Well done Ashton and Ollie, you did amazingly and I'm so happy for you!

"On the Tuesday, I'd had enough of being pregnant and asked my midwife what I could do to get things moving. She suggested trying the Miles Circuit, so that evening I gave it a go.

Wednesday morning I woke up and continued to have contractions every six minutes for about 16 hours straight, but they weren't getting any closer nor were they 'taking my breath away'. I rang triage, and they told me to give the Miles Circuit another go. So I did, and went to bed thinking tonight must be the night.

But Thursday morning came and... nothing! Hardly any contractions at all, maybe three or four all day. I figured the earlier ones must have been 'practice' contractions. So instead of stressing, we went out to Leigh-on-Sea for lunch and a lovely beach walk with the dog.

Then at 3am on Friday morning, I woke up to my waters breaking. We called the homebirth team but because one of the midwives had called in sick I wasn't able to stay home. So off we went to the hospital at around 4.30am.

In triage, the midwives were lovely. My contractions were again about six minutes apart when I woke but had become much more intense and closer together during the car journey. Normally, they wouldn't do a cervical check once waters have broken due to the small risk of infection, but as my blood pressure was high and I was clearly in active labour, they decided to check me and to everyone's surprise I was already 7cm dilated! From there, things moved very quickly. I was taken straight to the labour ward and by 6.35am our little girl was in my arms.

It was honestly magical. Don't get me wrong, the contractions were intense, but my hypnobirthing practice made all the difference. I kept coming back to my breathing, 'in for 4, out for 8' and by the time I'd done that about four times, each contraction had passed. It gave me such a rhythm and kept me calm and focused.

The breathing, relaxation and trust I built through hypnobirthing carried my through with no pain relief. I never felt anxious, just completely confident that my body knew what it was doing."