Here is Beccy and Tom’s inspiring story. There seems to be a theme of quick births in triage at the moment! I love the way Tom took charge and didn’t give up. Hypnohero.

“On Tuesday 14th I had an acupuncture session – I was 40+3days and wanted to try and get things moving. After the acupuncture I went along to Hypnomums where Jo did a “Hurry Up Baby” alongside the usual scripts and breathing.
I came home feeling pretty relaxed, Tom and I had dinner (curry!) and then I started to feel a bit uncomfortable. Having already had one false alarm I pretty much dismissed the discomfort as nothing, but decided to have a nice bath and listen to some more scripts!

So I was feeling relaxed and comfortable when somewhere around 9.45pm my waters broke.
I was pretty surprised – I hadn’t expected the acupuncture to be so efficient! Tom and I had a bit of a ‘what should we do moment’ then Tom called Homerton and they told us to come directly in.

Contractions started quite suddenly and were pretty much 2 minutes apart from the outset. We called a cab, got the bags together and made our way to Homerton.  I put my headphones on for the cab journey and did Surge breathing through the contractions, I had scripts and music on my headphones and a contraction timing app in my other hand! Contractions were pretty strong and regular but the music and breathing really helped.

When we got to Triage I continued with the headphones and also put on some sunglasses…I probably looked ridiculous indoors late at night in shades but it really helped as the lighting in triage was pretty bright!

When we were seen by the first midwife she told me I was only 3cm dilated and so couldn’t be admitted to the Birth centre yet…she offered me a sweep to move things along…which I accepted (all the while headphones still in) she then advised us to walk up and down the corridor a little or return home for a few hours as it was probably going to take a while!!

Tom mentioned we were Hypnobirthing and that perhaps things might go quite quickly but the midwife seemed quite sure we were better off at home. My contractions felt too strong and close together for me to contemplate getting back in a cab…even leaving that first assessment room was a challenge.

Unsure what to do for the best we moved out into the corridor where it was darker, I was mostly leaning against a window ledge and getting onto all fours to try and breathe though the contractions. Tom kept prompting and encouraging me and also hooked me up to the TENS machine…which was a real help.
I was feeling quite anxious – dealing with contractions in the middle of a hospital corridor was not how I’d pictured things going.

Tom took charge and went back to the midwife, leaving me with my scripts and TENS machine for a few minutes…he made it clear we couldn’t leave and insisted I was seen again.

Next thing I was seated in a different room and being put onto a monitor so they could assess contractions and baby’s heartbeat to determine whether I could be admitted to the Birth centre as opposed to the labour ward.

This was possibly the most uncomfortable time of the labour, I was leant back in an arm chair, but every time I had a contraction my instinct was to lean forward…this meant one of the monitors kept slipping and made getting the continuous reading they needed tricky.

All the while Tom was calmly prompting me to breathe and doing some light touch massage on the back of my neck and arms.

I’m not sure what made the team realise I was very much in established labour, but despite the lack of continuous reading they decided to move me!

I was put in a chair and wheeled to a delivery room….By now I was feeling like I needed to use the bathroom and wanting to push. Another midwife came and took over, she introduced herself and told us we would first be assessed in the labour ward, and then she would try and move me to the birth suite so I could deliver in a pool. (She had clearly read our birth plan).

Once we were in the delivery room they examined me and I was 9cm dilated, but with an anterior lip, they tried to put a clip on the baby’s head to check the heart rate but for some reason or other it didn’t work, and I was getting very insistent at needing the bathroom. After finally going to the bathroom, they checked again, the lip was gone and I was fully dilated – by this time I wasn’t really wanting to move rooms again..I told the midwife this and said I just didn’t want to be on my back!

Tom put Comfort Zone on the Ipad so I could lose the headphones and I spent some time knelt up leaning over the back of the bed with Tom next to me doing light touch massage and giving me encouragement, then the midwife suggested I move so I turned sideways on the bed and knelt up with Tom stood in front of me, I had my arms hugged around his neck and he had his arms around me.….this was the best position as I felt supported both physically and emotionally.

It wasn’t long then before our baby was crowning…and I could do nothing but push! At 2.15am on the 15th October our little girl came into the world….

She was immediately handed to me for skin to skin contact and left with me for a long time, to have a feed and for us all to get acquainted. They waited for the cord to stop pulsing, then Tom was allowed to cut it.

We named our daughter Laurie.

From waters breaking to Laurie’s arrival was no more than four and a half hours. Aside from the TENS I had no pain relief and afterwards I needed no stiches or anything. Everything happened a lot more quickly than we were expecting and we didn’t quite have the birth experience we’d ‘planned’ but none of this matters as we have a beautiful daughter who is (for the moment at least) very calm and contented.

I’m quite sure that without Hypnobirthing things would have been much more stressful and traumatic and I wouldn’t have coped as well as I did. Tom was fantastic and the most calm and supportive birth partner I could have wished for!
A huge thank you to Jo for all her guidance and help in preparing for Laurie’s birth.”