Gemma’s Hypnobirth - Macey’s birth story

** Macey Marris - 12th December 2017 - 2 kg - 32 weeks - King Edward Memorial Hospital **

After always having an unhealthy fear of childbirth, I knew after falling pregnant I needed to do something to calm my mind and body so I would enjoy the experience rather than dread it. I had a close friend see Laura and she raved about it so my husband and I gave it a shot. It was the morning of Dec 12th, a Tuesday. My alarm went off for work like every other day and as I rolled over to snooze my alarm I felt a very strange ‘popping’ sensation in my tummy. Sometimes bub used to kick me that hard it would startle me from a deep sleep so still being half asleep, I thought that’s what it was.

I got up about 20 mins later and took my morning trip to the toilet, I finished my business and went to stand up and felt water trickling out, at this point I thought I was just busting but as it kept coming out and I knew I was unable to control it, I started panicking. I panicked because on this day I was only 32+3 weeks pregnant. I sat for a further 5 mins without it slowing down so I ran to the bedroom for a maternity pad, rang my husband and scrambled to find my booklet with the hospitals phone number. I was almost in tears as the midwife told me it sounded like my waters had gone and there was a high chance I would go in to Pre term labour. After what felt like eternity, Luke (my husband) got home and we were very quickly on our way to Midland Hospital. Waters were well and truly in full motion at this point and barely made it up to the maternity ward before my pants were soaked through. 20 minutes later I was finally being assessed and was told I would be transferred to another hospital as they didn’t take bubs born before 34 weeks. Within 90 minutes of getting to Midland we were in an Ambulance on our way to King Edward. This is where my contractions started. At the start of the hospital ride they were few and far between but once we arrived and were put in to an assessment room, they had quickly increased to every 5 mins. Contractions were painful but with my breathing techniques I was easily managing them. I was internally assessed and had not dilated at all. They gave me a shot of morphine and left me for 2 hours. Contractions were still 5 mins apart but getting more intense so was given a dose of Panadeine Fort, 2 hours later, same situation and another internal to no avail. A dose of Tramadol and another 2 hours went by. In this time I had been hooked up to monitors. For some reason my contractions weren’t getting picked up by the machine and I got the vibe from the nurses that they didn’t quite believe me. I was also only contracting and getting ‘hard’ on the right side of my tummy which was also strange. On the 8th hour I was given another dose of Panadeine Forte and another internal to see I was fully dilated and had the sensation of doing a poo. Contractions at this point we’re unbearable and after the nurses had administered tablets to try and stop my labour I knew there was no stopping this baby! I had used my breathing techniques so well and even family members who came and went commented on how well I was doing and that I was ‘in the zone’. Getting moved from the assessment room to the delivery suite I barely remember, everything we learnt with Laura seemed to have taken a back seat. For me this had everything to do with the fact I was about to deliver a premature baby and was so fearful of what we were going to be faced with. Everything happened so quickly for us, I had nothing packed and felt if I did then maybe I wouldn’t have been so scared as I would have been prepared and had time to ensure the Hypnobirthing was in full swing. After 40 minutes in the birthing suite, a body that had rejected any pain relief given and a little bit of relief from the gas in between bearing down, we welcomed our beautiful baby girl, Macey Constance. 6.57pm, 2010g and 43.5cm. She came out crying which was the biggest relief to everyone around and I got a couple minutes of skin to skin before she was whisked away to the NICU ward. After a 5 week stint in hospital we had our little girl home. 12 weeks on she’s doubled her birth weight and is reaching all the expected milestones. Even though this experience didn’t pan out the way we hoped, I am still so thankful for reaching out to Laura. I don’t look at it as ‘not working’ or ‘failing myself’ as I’m a huge believer in everything happens for a reason. I still managed to implement small bits of the course for my own benefit and Macey being such a chilled bub I believe has a lot to do with it! Yes there was trauma surrounding my experience but I no longer have an unhealthy fear of childbirth and IF there is to be a second later on down the track, I will look forward to Hypnobirthing once again.