My hypnobirth experience

I'm new to this community and it seems great. I have a story to share, in case there are any mums to be on here who could benefit from it! I know all births are different; this was mine.
I'm a first time mam at a late-ish age of 38. As if having a baby wasn't an adventure all by itself, me and my partner also decided to move to live in a different country! Never even having been there before I now also had to learn a new language as well as preparing for a baby! I'd heard good things about hypnobrirthing and decided to book a course prior to moving, so that I was aware about what goes on and hopefully it would help during labour in a country where I didn't speak the language. I mean birth is birth no matter where you live but different countries have a different approach to the process. And I wanted to know what I was doing basically. And I really got the tools and information in that course that were worth their weight in gold.

We had a little girl 4 months ago. She is healthy and strong and growing as fast as a cucumber!

I feel my birthing experience would have been quite different. I have to say that in France the birthing process is very medical - from not being able to get a midwife to do a home birth (as apparently it's rare and you pretty much have to hire one privately if you want a home birth) to having to have a consultation with the anesthesiologist to discuss epidural as part of the routine and having an obstetrician as well as midwife present at birth. Epidural seems to be the word on everyone's lips. I asked the anesthesiologist what other pain relief methods they could offer and she just replied, none of them are as effective as an epidural, without even listing the others. I remember the lack of confidence I had in myself before I did your course, and the whole birthing process seemed to be better left to the experts, i.e. to doctors and midwifes. After the hypnobirthing course I sat down with my partner and wrote down a birth plan detailing exactly what we wanted and what we didn't. I didn't want doctors present, just my partner and the midwife. I wanted to keep it as intimate as possible to avoid extra stress. I didn't want anyone to offer me pain relief, unless I asked for it. No examinations of any kind or medical interfearance without explanation and permission. I did not want to give birth laying down and be told to push but instead have the freedom to move around and follow what my body tells me. And so on. I would have never done this without the course! To my surprise the midwife was totally fine with all the points I had made, and scanned the birthing plan to make it available for the person on duty to see when the time came.

I think the longest stage during my labour was the maybe stage! I was in maybe stage for like a day and a half. Then I woke up one morning thinking maybe my waters had broke but wasn't sure neither, so just as a precaution my partner drove me to the hospital to get checked. This was around 10am. They confirmed it was amniotic fluid (not sweat, like I thought haha) and told me i should stay in now because of the risk of infection after the waters break. They said it could be days still. I agreed to stay. I am glad I did. All day there wasn't much happening, in fact my partner ended up going home in the evening and was still considering going to work the next day. The last message I sent him was at 10pm and it said basically that nothing apart from a few slightly stronger surges than earlier is happening and see you tomorrow. At 10.30ish pm I started feeling more and more surges and I started timing them. One approximately every 5-7 minutes. I timed them for 1 hour before calling the midwife and telling him (yep, I had a male midwife which was so cool). He attached me to the monitor to check our heartbeats and strength/regularity of contractions and concluded that they still weren't regular enough for dilation to be taking place and there was still plenty of time.
I made a call to my partner just after 1pm to come to the hospital because things were getting very intense very quickly. I was already starting to struggle to talk to the midwife, I needed to go into the zone and for that I needed him. I knew this was it, despite the fact that all the indicators seemed to show that I still had plenty of time. I had the positive affirmation cards stuck to the wall and I remember looking at them while gripping on to the special curtains that were hanging in the room for that very purpose and muttering each positive affirmation with each surge. Until I came up with my own which was "I am a portal for my baby and I am open to her to come into this world". Shortly before my partner arrived (just before 2pm) the midwife examined me and was very surprised to see that my cervix had dilated to 3cm. I asked how long he thought I had left for it to be fully open, he said could be anything between 4-8 hours. He could see i was struggling but he had clearly read the notes and at no point offered me pain relief but suggested a hot bath and gas and air to which I happily agreed. My partner arrived and helped me to the bath tub. The rest is a bit of a blur to be honest. He was amazing- made sure I was hydrated by bringing water regularly, kept the bath warm.by topping it up with hot water, held my hand during the surges and dealt with the midwife, so I was left in peace. Meanwhile I was trying everything - doing different breathing techniques, making all kinds of sounds on exhale (one of which my partner described as a motorbike that wouldn't change gear...) and swearing alot of course. Anything that helped basically. Three things I remember thinking during that stage: whatever you do - check your not holding your breath, don't clench your jaw and let your body guide you. I also remember distinctly when my uterus muscles switched from working upwards to pushing down. This one surge felt distinctly different - it was like my muscles down below just did a push down and outwards all by themselves. It was like a jolt. I said to Damien - this felt different. Surges became more intense and often but lasted not as long as before, they peaked and then subdued and the urge to push became more and more evident. I just pushed. I didn't care that the midwife wasn't there and I didn't feel the need to ask him to check me. He came in and asked how I was doing and I said I had felt a pop, which was the second membrane rupturing. Anyway, he checked me again and said I was fully open and baby's head was engaged to come down and said it could be another couple of hours and went to prepare the birthing pool for me. I didn't tell him I'd already been pushing for some time, I felt it wasn't necessary. It takes 10 minutes to fill the birthing pool apparently. It took less than that for my girl's head to pop through. I shouted to Damien- I think she is coming and she is stuck in there, can you see anything!? He looked and concluded - yep, I can see hair. He rushed to the next room to get the midwife and as soon as they got back I was shouting - someone help me pull her out, I think she's stuck. Midwife calmed me and said she was fine, just to push as much as I can next time I felt the urge. Seconds later she was out. Baptised with essential oils. Not ideal for a newborn's skin to be touched by water mixed with essential oils but what can you do. The midwife, had clearly paid attention to what was on our birthing plan and knew we wanted to wait until the cord stopped pulsating before dad was to cut it. And that we both wanted at least an hour skin to skin contact with baby before cleaning and measuring her. They moved us to the big round bed they had in the birthing room, where I birthed the placenta while daddy was laid next to me with baby on his chest, having their first ever bonding moment. I asked to see the placenta and he showed it to us and explained what was what - the two membranes inside which the baby had lived, which bit was attached to me and which to the baby, etc. It was really cool. Then they left the three of us alone in the big bed for whole 2 hours undisturbed. It was amazing. My partner slept and so did the baby. Even though I was utterly exhausted, i couldn't sleep - i had to watch my daughter and make sure she was definitely breathing all the time.
Stayed in hospital for total of 4 days after the birth, which I didn't mind in the end, as the team were really nice and helpful and despite covid, my partner was able to visit every day.
In conclusion - everyone is different and every birth story will be different and hypnobirthing is not for everybody and that's fine. For me it helped to keep me strong because birth was one of the hardest things I've had to do in my life. Hardest but most importantly - the most magical!

The first two pictures were taken by my partner @dorgar and the last one by me.