Caroline and Matthew, a beautiful couple that always stay in my mind. They’re both teachers, they both wanted to know everything they could to prepare for both birth and their baby. Caroline was a positive soul and believed that birth could be amazing. Matthew was a supportive husband and wanted to not just sit on the sidelines, he wanted to be involved to know what was best for his wife and their baby and what he could do to not just “help” but do things that would benefit his own relationship with his baby.

They booked onto antenatal classes and hypnobirthing. At 37 weeks Caroline was diagnosed with Obstetric Choleostasis. A pregnancy condition where the advice is to have an induction of labour. She left her appointment with her consultant, went home and then obviously started thinking over lots of scenarios in her head. Now instead of waiting to see her community midwife for a chat and instead of the usual googling, she was able to message me in the evening and chat over some things. We’ve all been there in the evening or lying in bed, your thoughts go wild and panic/fear can set in.

So we chatted about the induction process and what she could do to make the experience amazing and she instantly felt reassured.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I was on shift for her induction. After a couple of days getting labour to start, her baby wasn’t hanging around and she dilated extremely quickly, getting from 4cm-10cms in 45minutes. Baby got distressed from this and theatre and forceps were advised. Dramatic you might think? Caroline said she was so calm throughout all of this and so was Matthew. They had a toolbox of techniques to keep them calm from hypnobirthing and had learnt all about what to expect from theatre from antenatal class. They felt safe, calm and in control throughout the whole situation and described the birth as AMAZING!!

A couple of things to take from this story...

Firstly, that a great birth isn’t only the elective cesareans and the water births. It’s about how you feel about what happened. You can get this from preparing for keeping calm in all scenarios.

Secondly, that to have someone to message in the evening when your panicking provides so much more reassurance than getting lost in google searches. This can be me, for those booked onto TBTBC or to your class squad through what’s app.

Xxxx

This was shared with permission, with this reply....

“And also, you need to big yourself up more about how you reassured me! And not only me, our whole families, they were all so worried and as soon as I sent your message they were so much more relieved and informed 🙌🏼😘😘😘 xxxxxxx”

www.thebumptobabychapter.co.uk