This is the wonderfully inspiring story from Briana and Tim. I am amazed she wrote it so soon. Clearly an experience she wanted to share with you guys. What is especially exciting is that she had the birthing suite even though 14 days overdue. Good on you Bri. Thanks so much Bri and Tim for showing us such a great example.

“Hey Jo, our baby is 9 days old today and we couldn’t be happier. Here’s our story.

My birth story is quite a long one! Bit of an arduous beginning, but a very happy ending. I was already 11 days overdue when I started having contractions about 1 every 10 mins. They would intensify in the evening, but the breathing I learned in hypnobirthing definitely helped me cope.

We had managed to convince Whipps Cross to let us go to +14 before induction. In that time, I’d had acupuncture, walked miles and tried every other natural method you can find on the Internet. My contractions continued through +12 days and +13 where unfortunately I wasn’t able to sleep too well. On the 13th day after my 3rd sweep, contractions intensified to every 3-5 mins and we went to the hospital thinking we were on our way, but we were sent back as we were 2 centimetres.

I ended up sleeping in the bathtub that night to help me relax. I was resigned to be induced the next morning, but after we arrived and they gave me an examination the midwife said I was 5 centimetres and that we were headed to labour ward. Hurrah! I was elated. They took us to a normal room and I politely asked if the one room with a birthing pool was available. They said since I was +14 days that I was high risk and couldn’t go there. I was so happy that I wasn’t being induced that I let it go. Although Tim tried to step in at this point, I was more concerned with keeping the midwives on our side.

Another midwife came to our room and said that if we were open to being monitored (me and baby) every 15 mins that we could have the birthing pool. More great news! This is when everything turned around. We went to the room. A totally different vibe. We had 3 amazing midwives looking after us, who were kind and professional. They dimmed the lights, got out electric candles, filled the pool with hot water.

Tim fed me snacks and put on the scripts in the background. It was the most relaxed I’d felt in ages. I did my breathing in the water, but the contractions picked up and a few hours later when they were on top of each other I started on the gas and air. I had to come out of the bath to be examined and sure enough I was 9 centimetres. This is when things started to escalate. I got back in the water and soon after my waters broke.

As the baby was +14, the midwives saw meconium in the water so they asked me to come out of the pool and deliver him on this big bean bag. 5 minutes later and just 3 pushes, out he came! No tears or stitches. I couldn’t be happier for the help and assistance I had in that birthing suite at Whipps. It was my dream birth. I feel very lucky x

Hypnobirthing was invaluable throughout the entire process keeping me relaxed through every twist and turn. I’m so glad I did it!

Thanks for everything!! X”