Positive Unmedicated Hypnobirthing Hospital Birth

Just a few weeks ago, we welcomed our third baby boy into our family. I finally got around to recording his birth story in my personal journal so I thought I would go ahead and share it here as well!

My pregnancy

This pregnancy was so different from my first two! I experienced significantly less nausea in my first trimester and felt nauseous in the evenings instead of the mornings this time around. I also didn’t experience pelvic pain until about the last week of my pregnancy and I didn’t have any prodromal labor like I did with my last two pregnancies. This pregnancy was so different that we really wondered if we were having a girl this time but we were thrilled to find out we were having our third boy. I think one reason this pregnancy was so smooth was because I was teaching fitness classes going into this pregnancy. This pregnancy was the most active and healthy I’d ever been and it definitely made a difference for me!

Hypnobirthing

I had an epidural with my first birth and did my second birth unmedicated. Even though my unmedicated birth was very hard, I knew I wanted to do it again because my recovery afterward was so much better than my epidural birth. In my unmedicated birth, I panicked when I hit transition because it was so intense and I didn’t realize I was so close to the end. This time, I wanted to be more prepared for that stage of labor so I took Built to Birth’s hypnobirthing course (linked here – not sponsored at all, just if you are curious!). In the last weeks of my pregnancy, I listened to the hypnobirthing meditation tracks every night before bed and practiced breathing and relaxing.

Last weeks of pregnancy

My second baby came at 37 weeks + 4 days and I was pretty unprepared for that. This time, I made sure I had everything ready to go by 36 weeks. However, that made the next couple of weeks feel very long and mentally challenging because I was just waiting and waiting. Around 37 weeks all of our summer activities came to an end so our days went from very busy and full to empty and slow. It was hard to wake up every day still pregnant. The day before my due date, I was very discouraged that there was no baby yet and no signs of labor. I also knew my doctor was heading out of town for the weekend so I felt sad there was a possibility he wouldn’t be there to deliver my baby.

Early labor

The night before my due date, we went to bed early. Around 9 pm, I started having contractions that were about 10 minutes apart. After about an hour, I couldn’t get comfortable in my bed so I went out and labored on the couch by myself so my husband could sleep. I knew if this was truly early labor I would need rest so I listened to my hypnobirthing tracks and got about two or three 30 minute stretches of sleep. That early labor period was really such a special and sacred time because I was focusing on my hypnobirthing meditations, breathing, relaxing, and even welcoming each contraction. When midnight hit and it was officially my due date, I had a feeling that this was it! This was the day our baby was going to come! My contractions were pretty irregular and mild until about 3 am. That’s when I suddenly felt a shift in the intensity of my contractions so I went and got in the shower. In the shower, my contractions started coming two minutes apart.

To the hospital!

At 3:30 am, I woke my husband up thinking we’d better head to the hospital. He went to bed having no idea I was having contractions so when I told him “Hey I’ve been having contractions two minutes apart for about thirty minutes”, he jumped out of bed and went “What the heck?!”. We quickly loaded up the car and got to the hospital at 3:45 am. I was very annoyed with the nurses asking me so many questions and putting the monitor on my belly (I know they were doing their job and I appreciate it now, but at that time I was in the labor zone). They filled up the tub for me but I felt like I couldn’t change positions. I felt most comfortable standing and holding onto the bar by the toilet, so I was just hanging out in the bathroom. They even brought someone from the lab into the bathroom with their cart of supplies to draw my blood (this was because I refused an IV during labor unless necessary).

At around 4:30 am, I started feeling a lot of the things I remembered right before my second was born: I wasn’t getting a break in between contractions, I felt like my pelvis was breaking, and I was feeling a lot of pressure (iykyk). The nurses were saying they would check me again around 5 am and I was thinking they didn’t realize how fast this was going to go!

Soon after, I told the nurses I was feeling pushy, they checked me and I was indeed completely dilated and +1 station! They called my doctor to hurry and get here. I was trying to push but the only thing keeping the baby in was the fact that my water hadn’t broken yet. When my doctor arrived, he broke my water and baby came two pushes later at 4:58 am!

There was meconium in my water and baby had some trouble getting some fluid out of his lungs after birth. I didn’t get to hold him for about 20 minutes but he wanted to latch and breastfeed immediately once I did! He was 7 lbs, 1 oz and 18-3/4 inches long, my smallest baby so far but just by a few ounces. We named him after my late grandfather. He is also my second baby that came right on his due date which is apparently a 0.25% chance of happening twice!

After the birth

After my first unmedicated birth, I remember feeling a little traumatized but this time I just felt like “I did it!” My goal for this birth was “calm & peaceful”. I didn’t want to scream through pushing like I did last time but honestly everything happened so fast and was so intense, I totally screamed through pushing again. But I don’t care! I’m proud of myself for doing it. I’m proud of how I used all of my coping skills I practiced to get through not only my early labor but the intensity of transition too. I’m really happy with how my birth went and grateful to my medical team who respected my desire for a low intervention birth as well.

My advice

If your goal is to have an unmedicated birth, my #1 advice would be to prepare! Take a birth course if you can but there is so much free information out on the Internet as well. Watch and listen to positive birth stories to get yourself in a good headspace and mindset. Some of my other tips are:

Decide WHY you want an unmedicated birth. Make a list, write the reasons down, and focus on them.
Create a list of affirmations you can use throughout labor. Some of my favorites this time around were: “My body knows what it is doing for me and my baby”, “I am strong physically and mentally”, and “My body is doing all the work for me, my only job is to relax”.
Research and practice coping strategies. I made a list for my husband to refer to throughout labor as well.
Choose a supportive provider and a supportive birth partner (I loved having my husband as my support person in birth but if your spouse doesn’t feel like he can do it, a doula is a great option).

If you are interested in more birth stories, you can check out the story of my first birth here or my second (and first unmedicated) birth here!