My daughter’s birth story could read as a traumatic birth, but that’s not how I feel about it.

When people think of hypnobirthing, they often picture home births or birth centre births, and there is usually a birth pool involved. However, not every positive birth looks like that, and my daughter’s is an example of that.

Late on during my pregnancy, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. As a result of this, I had extra scans which indicated that my daughter’s growth had slowed down. Whilst I understood that scans can be inaccurate, I agreed to an induction at 39+3.

My induction started on Thursday and Imogen didn’t make her appearance until Monday. Without going into too much detail, I had an epidural and she was a forceps delivery. So definitely not a birth pool in my front room!

I still feel good about this birth though. And why? Because I was able to make informed decisions all the way through about what I wanted to happen. Although I hadn’t done a hypnobirthing course, I had still done a lot of reading and when I elected to have an epidural, I knew the possible risks associated with that. Feeling in control is a big part of how you view your birth, and I felt in control.

What I will add though, is that a hypnobirthing course would have helped me even more. It was when I had the epidural and relaxed that I dilated enough to be able to give birth naturally (much to the surprise of the medical staff). If I had known earlier on the importance of being able to relax (something I only found out when I discovered hypnobirthing second time round), and been able to do so while I was sitting in hospital, my labour might have been shorter and required less intervention.