I honestly think hypnobirthing is so much more valuable when nothing is going according to plan.
That is when you need to really work with your partner, work with your caregivers, and make those tough choices that you were hoping that you wouldn’t have to make.
It is really about understanding what is happening, being able to ask your caregivers educated questions, and making informed decisions…and Natalie and Tim definitely did that.
In fact, they did that throughout your entire pregnancy and labour!
By choosing to birth at the birth centre, by waiting for spontaneous labour, by using their tools to labour for days…they did so well!
I also want to mention that you are allowed to feel both positive about your experience and disappointed too!
Parenthood is full of conflicting emotions. And that really begins with birth.
Even if everything goes completely as we had hoped, birth (and in particular our first birth) is a massive learning curve. We learn so much about ourselves, our partners, and just the birthing process in general.
This birth story is a great example of how to feel comfortable with making decisions and giving birth in circumstances that are very different than what you anticipated…in particular feeling comfortable in a caesarean situation, ensuring that you know your birth team and speaking up for meaningful details that help to make the experience your own!
Here is Adeline’s birth story as written by her beautiful mother, Natalie.

Our birth certainly didn’t go to plan at all!
I was 41+3 weeks and I had been labouring on and off for 5 days with surges really ramping up for about 36 hours prior to birth.
We ended up having multiple types of intervention with no progression (only 3 centimetres dilated for more than 12 hours) and then I unfortunately went down hill with a fever and our baby’s heart rate was not ideal.
By that stage sheer exhaustion had kicked in and I physically, mentally, emotionally felt broken and scared (and I could tell Tim was feeling the same way).
I was offered a cesarean at this stage which I had really wanted to avoid, but because of your course, I knew what to ask and felt well informed and able to make the best decision for me.
I eventually accepted the caesarean. And I honestly believe that was the right decision.
I continued to labour for another 3 hours before I was prepped for surgery.
We met with the team – they made me feel so comfortable and my midwives stayed with me the whole time.
Once I was given the spinal, I felt completely euphoric and so ready to welcome our baby girl.
I remember the surgeon asked me if I’d like some music as they delivered our little girl and I happily said yes as we ‘birthed’ to Bon Iver, such a memorable moment as the music and cries of our Adeline reached our ears.
It was 11 September and all day we had been saying we didn’t want that as a birthday for our girl (not that it really matters, but you know) and as the labour went on for so long and as we waited so long for surgery the clocked ticked over and at 12.29am on 12 September our girl entered the world.
Although there was just about nothing that went to plan, we believe our birth was a positive one and without the knowledge we learnt from you and the hypnobirthing course we know it would have been a very different story.
We did feel a sense of ‘trauma’ afterwards but on reflection feel happy with our decision and have both said ‘we’ll try again next time’.
Anyway, we just wanted to say a big thank you for empowering and informing to-be-parents on all aspects of birth.
Knowledge is certainly power and I’m so thankful we felt well informed to make the decisions that we did.
It meant that our birth story was our own.