Hypnobirthing Changed My Life
When I was pregnant with my first son I entered the 3rd trimester with the greatest fear of what labor & birth were going to be like. I had already read five books about pregnancy, labor, and birth and completed a standard antenatal course at my local hospital with an add-on course discussing natural pain relief options. Even with all of this information I approached my third trimester with the fear I would not be able to handle the labor and birth process. I began to have extreme anxiety that prevented me from sleeping and started to consider asking for a planned abdominal birth to feel more in control of my current situation.
At this point I began scouring the internet to find anything that would help to relieve the stress I was experiencing surrounding birth. One night I stumbled upon The Calm Birth School website and thought it sounded interesting, but wasn’t sure if I was really into the whole hypnosis thing. Knowing the clock to my guess date was ticking I decided to give the free trial course a try. I watched all three videos in the first day and began regularly listening to the relaxation track provided. After only a week I noticed that my sleep was starting to improve and my anxiety was beginning to decrease slightly, so I said, what the heck, and signed up for the full course online (I had no local instructors in my area at the time). After completing the course and gaining access to all of the relaxation tracks and positive birth affirmations I could feel my mindset shifting. Although I knew I could not control what happened on birth day I felt calm and confident knowing I could bring myself back to the state of deep relaxation I had learned to enter from practicing with my relaxation tracks.
The course also provides the medical based information taught in standard antenatal courses in a different format which made the birth process less “medicalized”, which for me meant less on the scary side and more on the informative side even though it covered all of the same information as my hospital based antenatal course. Prior to adopting a hypnobirthing practice, I never really understand how stories from family, friends, and television could negatively impact my view on labor and birth; but afterward, I felt free from others beliefs surrounding how birth should or could be.
I spent the last 6 weeks of my pregnancy focusing on positive birth stories and giving myself 20-30 minutes before bed to relax and focus on myself. Although things did not go exactly to plan with either of my births, I never let the situation control me but instead took everything in stride and with grace. I cannot thank The Calm Birth School enough for changing the way I viewed birth and my life after, which is why I want to provide this same opportunity to you. Not only has my mindset shifted regarding the entire birth process but for the first time in my life I felt I had the ability to truly listen to the thoughts in my head and decide if they were serving me in the moment or just bringing me down, such is the case with negative self-talk. I finally felt free and like I could conquer the world (which was necessary as motherhood is known to knock you down a few pegs from time to time). If you are ready to learn more about how to have an empowered and positive birth experience please reach out.
