The Birth of Lola

Written by Alice

The final hour of labour and pushing was the most challenging part for me but I am really proud of myself for getting through it and having the confidence to listen to my body and move in ways that felt right to me.

On Sunday morning at 41 + 3 weeks, I started to feel period pain like cramps about once every hour. I knew that these early labour signs could go on for days so we continued our normal Sunday. We spent the morning at the beach and the afternoon chilling at home with lots of bouncing on my pregnancy ball!

By early evening the cramps had become more frequent happening around once every 20 minutes and I found that pushing Mollie’s comb into my hand was enough to work through them. I continued my evening, had dinner and watched TV etc. By 9pm I knew I was definitely heading towards active labour and I now realised these cramps were surges happening around every 5 minutes so I started tracking them on the Freya app and spent my time breathing through the surges, using the comb and moving around on the ball. By 10pm the surges were getting more intense so I put on my headphones and started listening to my birth playlist I had prepared and began using the tens machine to help with the pain.

At 11pm, after 2 hours of surges around every 5 minutes and with the intensity of the surges increasing, we decided to head into hospital. In the car on the way into hospital I put my eye mask on sprayed with lavender (an anchor I had been working on through my final trimester), headphones playing my birth music on and kept the tens machine on – all ideas we had discussed with Mollie to keep the transition from home to hospital smooth and to protect my oxytocin bubble.

I was monitored on arrival and when examined I was 4cm dilated. We were moved to a side room and I continued to breathe through the surges, keeping my eye mask, headphones and tens machine on to help work through the pain. At 2am I was examined again and was now 8cm. The surges had increased in length and intensity but were manageable.

At 5am I was examined again and was still 8cm so I asked to go into the birth pool as I knew I wanted to try a change of scene to see if things would keep progressing. By 6am the bath was ready so I removed the tens machine and went into the pool. I stayed in the pool for 2 hours but found the surges really intense and missed the tens machine! My husband really helped me to remember to breathe to work through the surges as I was starting to fatigue.

At 8am I got out of the pool and was examined again and the midwife said I was almost 10cm and asked if I would like her to release my waters which I agreed to. After this, I then felt the surges change and I began to push. Needing to push and work through surges at the same time really confused me at first and I remembered I needed to change breathing and try to bear down. I found myself making more noise through each surge but it felt natural and helped me work through the surges so I went with what my body needed.

I started on the bed but then walked around the room and ended up on the floor on all fours working through the surges. After 20minutes or so the midwife told us she could see the head, I naively thought this meant baby would arrive in the next few surges but this wasn’t the case. I changed position and got onto the bed on all 4s, holding on to the headboard and leaning my body weight on a birth ball. After another 20mins or so I changed position again and the midwife put the top half of the bed into a fully upright position so that I was on my knees but my upper body was upright. I had started to doubt myself as baby hadn’t arrived and I was feeling overwhelmed with the pain but I started saying positive affirmations to myself and when my husband heard me, he also started telling me the positive affirmations we had previously discussed I would find useful. I had a few surges in this position and our baby girl Lola arrived at 9.07am on Monday 2nd October.

The final hour of labour and pushing was the most challenging part for me but I am really proud of myself for getting through it and having the confidence to listen to my body and move in ways that felt right to me. I am also grateful I had spent time developing anchors and strategies to make the dilation phase really manageable and I know it wouldn’t have been as positive of an experience as it was if I hadn’t invested the time in visualising and planning how I was going to birth my baby with the help and guidance of Mollie and Hypnobirthing strategies.

Baby Lola born via spontaneous vaginal birth on 9.07am on Monday 2nd October 2023.

Here’s Alice and Xavi’s thoughts on their Hypnobirthing course…

Alice and her husband completed the Complete Hypnobirthing Course to prepare for their birth. They live in Spain so we did our sessions remotely. Afterwards they reported feeling prepared and confident for however their birth unfolded.

Here’s their review of the course: 

“Myself and my husband have just completed Mollie’s hypnobirthing course and learned so much in each of our 3 sessions. Mollie was really flexible and allowed us to complete the courses online. We learned so much not only about hypnobirthing but also about pregnancy, labour and postpartum. Our mindset towards birth completed changed from the beginning to the end of the course and we now feel confident, calm and prepared for what may happen.

Mollie is really open and educated us about the pros and cons of all of our options and never made us feel pressured that one particular type of birth choice was the ‘best’ option. She made it really clear that hypnobirthing techniques can be used for any birth and teaches them in an accessible way that can be applied to any planned or unplanned circumstance. Thank you Mollie!