'Long Overdue'

This entry on my blog hasn't actually been written by me. It has been taken (with permission from its writer) from an entry on the HypnoBirth Mums and Mums to be board of Baby Centre. The entry was written by a wonderful, inspirational woman who I wouldn't be surprised on a subconscious level has gone 'overdue' to stick two fingers up at the system and tell them that the only thing that is 'long overdue' is their policies surrounding induction. Her 'fight', and sadly this is how it can feel for women avoiding intervention, is also giving huge amounts of confidence to other women who are trying to avoid unnecessary induction just because they have gone passed their 'due (guess) dates' - despite monitoring showing that both mum and baby are fine.

In the words of Angels_Ackiz:

"Ok here goes, its a long one!

Williesmammy (ALi) posted on here for me what seems like weeks ago saying that something may be starting up labour wise. Thank you for all your brilliant posts by the way, so touching and encouraging!

It seems I have a stop start kind of body..... My last birth was an induction in hospital so this time around determined to go for it naturally, I have nothing really to go on as to how my body works under normal conditions.

Now I always imagined that I would have a show and things would happen slowly. That is exactly what I've been getting!

I have had about 4-5 little shows over the last few days, surges stopping and starting and finally my hind waters went at 12:30am last night.

Emotionally it has been the most testing time of my life. I have been a good girl and been into hospital for monitoring and tests to tick all the boxes that both I and my precious baby are well only to be told that the midwives (who actually chose their words carefully) said they strongly advise against homebirth after 42 weeks but would attend me if I still so wished. Even dressed up in nicer words has a devastating effect on one's confidence.

When I asked why since I am still healthy and strong (as per hospital check boxes) they throw at you:

The placenta is healthy now but could die under the stress of contractions during labour. Shoulder could get stuck as apparently I have a 10lb baby showing up on scan (don't believe it, and anyway even if she is 10lb+, I have good sized child bearing hips I think!) and also the classic meconium in waters. Oh and a new one I've heard is that if anything went wrong at a homebirth which they had advised against - the midwives concerned could face a conviction so they have to protect theor own backs and be seen to have clearly told me they have strongly advised against homebirth. Nice - do I give a crap? No.

In that siuation girls I would advise this: Tell them you know the risks, thank them for reminding you, smile sweetly and tell them either you'll take it day by day, or just be straight and say unless they can provide you with real hard evidence any of these things are a risk to you right now, you'll carry on being monitored and if all is well, proceed with homebirth plans as noted on the birth plan. Don't get upset, don't second guess yourself. If you genuinely feel like there is a risk - do something about it. But after carefully considering the facts, all the midwives advice just really amounts to slim 'what ifs' and own hide covering. My baby moves and grooves all the time and I really have no concerns at this time.

I truly think that my body is getting there slowly but surely. My cervix has a great Bishops score of 7/10 as of Thursday, cervix is central and soft 1-2cm dilated. WHy they want to induce me is beyond me really. However I should point out that because I am so favourable, an induction at this stage would consist of merely breaking the waters. But get this - when I asked 'what then?' she said 'if nothing happens within TWO hours, we would start you on the drip'. (WTF!!??) Two hours? NICE guidelines clearly states up to 96 hours! Talk about becoming a battery hen! I can just imagine how a two hour deadline would affect my adrenaline levels?!!

Now, my mental state has been a wee bit of a rollercoaster. Once I got past 40+14, my mood actually improved! I'd passed the deadline as it were which actually felt like a weight off my shoulders. UNTIL of course the charming visit from the 2 midwives yesterday (the ones who are on call all week now.... a pleasent thought they could be attending me? No not really)

Yesterday was a huge challenge. I was tired, grumpy and confused. Got some biiiiiig reassurances from Dany, Ali, my friends on FB and read again the lovely posts from you girls. Had a very big bawl in my filled up birth pool last night and got on with the business of a fear release session, clary sage sniffing and some fab bonding time with my man who sat in the pool with me. We practised some birthing positions, he massaged some pressure points on my ankles and was great. It was a welcome break and helped me to once again focus on and visualise giving birth in the pool we have set up, holding our baby and completing this journey we started out toegther coming up to ten months ago (crikey!) in a calm, controlled and beautiful way we have always planned.

For that I was rewarded with my hind waters breaking and a few surges (mild but then I am a HypnoBirthing girl so they would be!)

This morning I am soooo tired but happy and confident once again. Girls, you have to trust your body, your baby and release the fear you have about birthing and your ablility to do it and above all be patient. Laughter and love made this baby and it will be that which will bring her out into the world, I just know it.

Thanks for reading! I did say it was a long one!

42+4 and counting. :o)

Angela - Hypnobirth water baby coming this July!"

Feeling Proud

I love the work I do and I really take care to research every single element of it. This extends to the writing of my mp3s and so I was very chuffed to read a comment on Baby Centre that was written recently:

"I had a fantastic birth and cannot recommend Dany's MP3's highly enough.

Here's a link to her shop http://www.tums2mums.com/index_files/HypnotherapyProducts.htm

I think her natural calm MP3 is so beautiful as I know she researched colours and linked them to their meanings in a very clever way- sorry if I haven't explained that very well but it really is fab...."

I am editing this post to add another lovely comment following posting on Facebook about feeling proud :-)

"absolutely - they are awesome, the fear release one has been getting alot of air play recently!"

OMG I'm a mum

For those of you who know that Evan is just over 2 years old don't worry I haven't only just realised that I'm a mum.

I've decided to write this now because just lately I've been reading quite a lot of articles and blogs about how difficult it is during those first few weeks when you become a new mum. Yet I often look back and realise just how cushy it is when you have a new born compared to the chaos of looking after a toddler.

It always seems to be around this time of year that I wistfully look back and long for those wonderful days when I could just sit with my feet up watching TV or sleeping as Evan was either breastfeeding or asleep on me (well when I say always this has only been the second time as Evan is only 2). You could say it is because of Evan's birthday that I choose this time to reflect back but I'm sure it's actually to do with 'Big Brother' as it started as she was born and I got to watch the whole series for the first time since series 1. It was a good one too, not that I remember any names. For anyone who has a good knowledge of Big Brother it was the one with the really nice twins. The closest I get to Big Brother these days is to read Davina's comments on Twitter and really wish I had the time or energy to find out what she's talking about.

So why did I find it so easy? Was it because Evan was a model sleeper from the day she was born? Or that she fed at easy to manage intervals during the day? Or because I had Mary Poppins (or some other wonderful helper) looking after her whilst I bathed, brushed my teeth, washed and dried my hair and applied my make up all in my own relaxing time. NO!!!

In fact none of the above. I always joke that Evan had such an easy birth she had no idea that anything much had changed and she certainly made up her mind that nothing would. She slept on me for the first 6 weeks of her life. I used to put a shawl that my mum had knitted around me, across Evan and then tucked in on my other side so I knew she was safe. She would not let me put her down for a second even when she was fast asleep. I would attempt to put her in her moses basket and before I'd even laid her down she would start screaming. One of my friends actually experimented with holding her over the moses basket with outstretched arms, "scream", still holding her with outstretched arms but no longer over the moses basket "asleep", pattern repeated a number of times with the same results. I knew then I was going to have my hands full as she got older . I certainly didn't have Mary Poppins to help me, well only Jim, so I used to have my bath in the evenings when Jim came home (I did manage to brush my teeth and hair in the morning with one hand though). Jim also used to cook dinner every night. Oh and cut it up into bite size pieces for me so that I could eat it whilst Evan was attached to my boob.

So how did I find all that relaxing you ask yourself. Well it all comes down to state of mind - your head really does create your world. The overwhelming thought that used to creep into my head was "I knew she was going to change my world completely, I've looked forward to having her in my life and I'm damn well going to enjoy her". And so I simple let go of caring about anything other than just enjoying being a mum. In fact when you do that you can start seeing how unbelievably lazy you can be. With a little bit of organising I could plonk myself on the sofa watch tv, read a book, sleep and generally relax anytime I wanted to.

And relaxation IS the key. So many women experience the baby blues - they have had such a huge rush of hormones leading up to and having their babies they suddenly crash when their lives change so dramatically. However, a mum who is able to relax into her role works in harmony with those changes and so doesn't experience such extreme highs and lows.

So these are my tips.

1. Put your feet up and don't worry about the house work. Keep your house tidy and ask your husband to support with that (actually quite easy to do if you are just sitting with your feet up cos you don't get to make any mess) and I promise you won't notice the tiny amount of dust that will accumulate. After all it's only a few weeks and you will have done a total spring clean during your nesting period. Actually, I couldn't walk in the last few weeks of my pregnancy because Evan had got herself into a funny position so I had to nest via Jim. Bless him I phoned him at work one day in tears saying there were so many things I wanted to get ready but couldn't He told me to write a list and he would do it all when he got home. And he did! Sorry as usual I've gone off on a tangent where was I - oh yes tip number 1 - put your feet up and don't worry about the housework.

2. Put your feet up and get dad to feed you. Mum feeds the baby, dad feeds the mum. Jim as I said before cooked the dinner every night and washed up too and would also make me lunch and snacks for the day. He did this when he realised that I'd gone all day existing on a couple of biscuits because I couldn't make a sandwich with one hand (or probably couldn't be bothered to try). I never seemed to get extra hungry because I was breastfeeding I'm not sure why.

3. If some days your baby seems to want to be on your boob more than he/she's off it then use it as another excuse to put your feet up (is there a theme to my tips?). Remember it is all part of making sure you have enough milk for them (or if it is hot they may just be a bit more thirsty than usual).

4. If your little one doesn't want to sleep anywhere but on you put your feet up and sleep right along with them. I promise it doesn't last for long. I really thought I'd never get Evan to sleep in her cot but from 6 weeks she was sleeping in it from 11pm to 5am (she lost it at 5 months and started waking every hour but I blame a trip to Wales and Evan's sleeping problem is a story for another day).

5. If you have friends or family over (although keep your guests to an absolute minimum for the first two weeks unless you have an amazing best friend like me who turned up with about a weeks worth of food she'd cooked for us) get them to hold the baby for a while and put your feet up. Extra tip under this section don't run around after them, put your feet up and let them make you a cup of tea.

6. If you don't get to bath one day, wash your hair or brush your teeth or in fact do any of the things you planned for that day. Let it go. Put your feet up and relax.

So what are you going to do for those few weeks that you're getting used to being a mum. That's right 'put your feet up'. And just to make sure that you are doing that properly these are the ingredients needed for the perfect feet up experience:

• Foot stall
• Cushions for you and to place baby on whilst feeding
• TV remote
• Mobile phone
• Telephone
• Drink
• Snacks
• Book
• Magazine
• Muslin for those wonderful little (little yeah right) spit ups

All neatly placed by your side so once you are relaxed with your feet up the only thing that needs to disturb you is a dirty nappy or a trip to the loo.

Happy Babymoons everyone :-)

Natural Induction for labour

The link at the bottom of this post shows you what my husband used as a natural form of induction when I was 41 + 5 days pregnant with our daughter.

Notice how much I am laughing - it worked she was born the next day!

I always tell my HypnoBirthing and Hypnosis for Childbirth clients that if at all possible they should avoid chemical induction. We talk about lots of 'hugs before drugs' to produce the natural oxytocin that can start uterine surges but I'm also a great believer in using laughter.

During laughter the stress hormone cortisol is reduced and conversely the happiness hormone oxytocin level is enhanced. It also helps relieve the pressure that can be created due to going 'overdue' .

Laughter induction (as I laughingly call it) has also worked for a number of my clients.

Give it a go dads - be creative :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2AUCPtDObc

Fantastic new birth story I just had to share

Good Morning

I finally have a few minutes to share our wonderful BS. Firstly I would like to say that our lives have been truly blessed by one of the most unselfish, caring people I have ever met ~ Dany Hypnomummy. She has given her time energy; passion unconditionally- thank you will never be enough.

I know that Dany gives her time and energy not only to me but to everyone she is in contact with- My DH and I wanted to give something back and have Dany present at our birth- alas Dany knocked at the door seconds after baby was born.

Our birth was practically EVERYTHING that I had visualised and dreamed about and so much more. I woke up Monday morning had a few tightening’s but thought nothing more than BH. I had a chat with Dany on the phone- such a gorgeous chat... Dany saying I can't believe we are talking about your birth like this - its going to be amazing. We were laughing and joking- something which featured so much throughout the day.

I had some great quality time playing with Hannah- when Hannah went for a nap I phoned my DH to say I was having tightening’s and I would like him home.... I then went and relaxed and listened to natural calm... no more tightening’s. Darn I thought I have got him home on a false alarm.

When DH did get home the tightening’s were every 10mins- I spoke to Dany who said don't worry about phoning the MW they won't be concerned at this stage (I already had- and she was right!) go and enjoy your afternoon and call me later if you need to". That's exactly what we did Hannah and DH had a water fight in the garden - there was so much love and happiness it was fab!

We discussed with DH if we should call grandparents, friends to take Hannah but as I had said on so many occasions my ideal would be to put Hannah to bed and for her to wake in the morning to her new baby. This is exactly what we did - I cooked dinner, we ate as a family and put Hannah to bed (7.40pm). During dinner I was having surges and would just close my eyes and breath through them- Hannah looked concerned so Daddy said I was so tired I was sleeping which made her giggle.

I cleaned away the dishes through surges and my DH started filling the birth pool- something he wanted to do much earlier, I was in denial and hadn’t let him….


This is when surges were every 5mins- I called the MW and she said she was on her way, I called Dany about 10-15mins later and said I was struggling. Looking back I wasn’t struggling, as such I just didn’t realise how advanced in my birthing I was. I was struggling filling my balloon but my DH told me to stop trying and just to breath through it- Dany had spoken to me that morning about humming- which I started to do (well more moaning and groaning!)- It was brilliant.

I will forever have this image of my DH running back and forward with a yellow bowl frantically filling the birth pool whilst me stop him every surge so he could give my light touch massage and then telling him to get back to filling the pool up.

The MW arrived and I do feel sorry she arrived in to our little mayhem- she started talking about contractions- DH said please call them surges. Whilst she was feeling my tummy I had an urge to be sick- DH had to step in and ask her to give me some space. She was quite insistent on wanting to listen to the baby’s heartbeat, which I was happy to do but just not right now. After being sick (that’ll teach me for gorging myself at dinner!) I felt a bit better. The mw was writing her notes so I asked her to exam me- to my absolute joy I was told that I was 9cm.

9cm- it still makes me cry with happiness now! I have read so many wonderful BS where the birthing mother arrived at 9cm without knowing- this is something I had also visualised so many times I wanted to happen to me. I was elated and remember saying to my DH "Quick get the video camera film this we are having our baby we are really having our baby"

I hopped into the birth pool (it wasn’t full or up to temp something we didn’t realise) it was however bliss. I was listening to Dany’s natural calm again- the bit about "you maybe aware of sounds around you"- I was joking with DH saying "that’ll be running water then" – he then went on to tease my moaning and groaning which made me laugh. I then had the urge to bear down… the mw told me not to and to breath through it- I wasn’t ready apparently….

She went and sat down in the other room. I was in all four’s bearing down, when I shouted I can feel my babies head (it was crowning). The mw came back and said no that’s just your waters breaking- she walked away and sat down at which point Senna (with two small surges) quite literally shot out with just me and my lovely DH present. She shot out the wrong way through my legs so I couldn’t catch her- a little bit of commotion followed getting Senna out of the water – poor thing was placed on my back whilst the cord was cut- during which I heard a knock at the door- I knew it was Dany who missed the birth quite literally by seconds. The second mw never made it either.

A few minutes later we were cuddling on the sofa with our gorgeous baby girl Senna Alexandra weighing 7lb 5 ½ at 9.35pm. We think I was in established labour for just over 2 hours. The mw didn’t even catch the time she was born so my DH had to play back the video tape to get the time! I had visualised my DH and Dany laughing throughout our birth- as Dany said it was after the birth that we got this lovely time and not during.

Millions of thanks to Dany for helping to clear up and it was so special having you thereish! and something I will never forget.

Sorry this is so long but thanks for reading! My advice would be live, breath, be hypnobirthing, practice, practice, practice and visualise the birth that you want- this was all key in our wonderful birth. Oh and let your birthing partner get organised as soon as – don’t interfere like me- things would have been slightly easier had this been done earlier and if you are so lucky to have someone like Dany attending your birth- call them sooner than later!!

Love

Clare Mummy to two gorgeous girls Hannah (2 1/2) and Senna (5 days old) Perfect home hypno water birth.

Understanding how the body is designed to work during labour and birth

Every time I start a HypnoBirthing or Hypnosis for Childbirth course I actually feel a little sad. If we hadn’t been so brainwashed into believing that our bodies were flawed in some way I would not need to be teaching these courses at all. Unfortunately, as each generation tells stories of how awful birth is and as individual women give birth and share their own horror stories amongst friends and relatives, this all adds to the negative conditioning that leads women to believing that they have to endure horrific pain during childbirth unless they opt for the pain relieving drugs that are available. Marie Mongan, the founder of HypnoBirthing calls this 'Universal Conditioning'.

But why is it do you suppose that the uterus is the only set of muscles that do not function properly? Without special circumstances (complications) all of our other muscles work without discomfort as long as we are using them for the purpose that they were design.

The good news is that the muscles of the uterus are actually designed in the same way as all of our other muscles. There are three sets of muscles within the uterus and the two that we are concerned with for birthing are the inner circular muscles found mainly at the lower part of the uterus and the outer longitudinal (vertical) muscles. The circular muscles need to thin and open what we know as dilation and this happens by the outer longitudinal muscles drawing them up. The vertical muscles also shorten and flex in a wave like motion to push the baby down. These two sets of muscles are designed to work in harmony, however, when a woman goes into labour with any fear, is stressed or anxious, or circumstances arise during her labour that create these emotional responses, stressor hormones called catecholamines are triggered setting off the ‘fight or flight’ response. This causes oxygen to move to those muscles that are required to give energy to enable an individual to either stand and fight or to run away, but when this is not appropriate as in a labouring woman, they instead act as constrictors. We see this in animals and know it to be a part of survival, enabling them to stop their babies coming until they reach a place of safety where they can then relax and allow their bodies to return to normal and birth their babies comfortably. But if the danger is perceived as is more likely the case of a labouring woman how does she ever reach that place of safety? Her subconscious believes she is in danger her circular muscles become tense and tighten but the vertical muscles continue to pull up, quite simply it is this that causes the great discomfort you hear about during labour. Unfortunately, oxygen is moving away from the uterus and therefore the baby and the baby’s head is also being forced against a taught muscle, both of which can lead to foetal distress. Because the cervix is resistant this can also lead to what is medically known as ‘failure to progress’ both of which can cause midwives and/or doctors to want to use intervention to move things along.

There is good news though, when you are fully relaxed and without fear as you go into labour the stressor hormones cannot be present and instead it enhances the ability of the bodies natural pain killer, your endorphins which are 200 times the effect of morphine. When your endorphins are fully stimulated during labour and birth they will actually help prevent your nerve cells from releasing pain signals, and will also provide you with a feeling of power and control as your progress through your birthing, creating a wonderful amnesiac effect and a fantastic sense of well being

Apart from the universal conditioning there are other factors that can affect the uterus always functioning as it should by creating fear, stress and anxiety in a labouring woman?

• Caregivers may not accommodate and encourage a mother’s wish for a natural birth

• Early and on-going programme of horrors

• Vocabulary – you don’t want anyone asking you if you are in any pain

• Birthing atmosphere

The hypnosis techniques learnt, either by attending a HypnoBirthing or Hypnosis for Childbirth course with me or following my downloadable mp3 programme, will help you remain calm and relaxed and therefore enable your body to function as it is designed to do during labour and birth. This combined with making sure that you have supportive people around you, a relaxing environment and that you have carried out a fear release exercise will all give you the best opportunity to have a comfortable birth experience.

To find out more have a look at my site www.tums2mums.com

IT geeks make good husbands

I want to shout out a huge big thank you to my wonderful husband. From a technical perspective I don't know what I would do without him. We have recently changed our internet provider and with that Jim chose to also change how he hosts my website. He did this for a number of reasons but one of them was so that I would be able to place my downloadable mp3s on my own site rather than skydrive where they are currently. This way the pages that they sit on will be Tums 2 Mums branded and in my opinion will all look a lot more professional.

Now because this now meant the server that my website is hosted on is no longer in our house I have to publish it in a different way. Unfortunately, something got lost in translation and all my spaces, pound signs and other symbols turned into little question marks. There were loads scattered over every page. My darling husband however wasn't phased and as usual found a solution. Problem solved.

Jim really does put so much work into making sure everything works when it comes to my email (including access on my phone), my website and any other technical problem that rears its ugly head. Stuff that would be so tiresome for me if not impossible in many cases should I have to deal with them myself.

Thanks darling.