HypNOT Birth! Fast & Furious!

I wanted to practice hypnobirthing with my second labor and delivery. My first was born at 36 weeks and from the time my water broke, pitocin started, epidural placed with two (almost three!) hours of pushing (46 hours start to finish!) my little dude was born! No NICU stay and we were home dealing with premie life.

Fast forward 16 months later and I was done receiving weekly progesterone IM injections in my booty, done with weekly weight checks and BP checks, done with ultrasounds every 2 weeks to check cervical length...I had practiced and listened to all of my meditations, read the books, nursery ready, bags packed...I was “in control...” HAHA YEAH RIGHT!

The morning of April 1 I went to the midwives and my BP was slightly elevated. They put me on the monitor and I was contracting every 4 minutes. I could feel some of them but I wasnt too uncomfortable. My midwife checked me and I was “a loose 2cm and 60% effaced.” For almost 39 weeks I was so happy!

I was losing my mucus plug the whole weekend prior to my Monday appt. so I thought this would be happening soon.

Well! I get home and contractions immediately pick up. I had to start timing then and they were coming consistently every 2-3 minutes and lasting 45seconds to a minute. This started at 11AM. I called the midwives back and they directed me to L&D triage. I was checked there again, put on the monitors and was told to go home and labor because I wasn’t in enough pain even though I was having frequent contractions.

I went home and labored on my yoga ball, took a walk around the block with my 16 month old...

To recap: from 11AM to 6:15PM I was contracting every 2-3 minutes with each lasting about 1 minute. At 6:15PM my water broke as I was on the phone with my sister in the baby’s nursery...my in laws were already at my house so I cried and waddled to the car. As soon as my water broke, contractions became “table grippers” - meaning I could not walk, talk, move, or breathe through them.

My husband drove like a bat 🦇 out of hell to get us to the hospital. I told him earlier in the day “it wont be like the movies, I promise” WELL LET ME TELL YOU! He drove through red lights, intersections, around people, 90mph down the highway, running more red lights to get us there.

We got to the hospital at 7PM. I went to the birthplace which is an “all natural” birthing center attached to L&D. They wheeled me in the room at 7:10. I immediately apologized and pleaded for an epidural. In the mean time, I had to be monitored for 20 mins to make sure baby was tolerating contractions. They brought in gas&air and that totally helped me. Labor went so fast I had no time to think about putting on my birthing mediations or even think about types of breathing and opening up...HYPONOT BIRTH MY FRIENDS! I went from 4cm to 10cm in 20 minutes and my little man was born within 30 minutes of getting to the birthplace

No epidural. One contraction and teo pushes. I am so proud of myself for handling the pain, and persevering through. I literally had no time to think, it all happened so so fast.

Happy to finally get this story out there!