Positive Birth Story
Reanna, Gareth & Baby Oliver
After sharing our News to the word that I was pregnant at 22 weeks, I was keen to start attending classes for my well-being and to start making some pregnancy friends. I found out about Tessa Clemson Yoga and popped my name onto the wait list. The class was very well subscribed and I got a place at 28 weeks pregnant. Being an engineer and travelling to Manchester every day I found it the perfect way to relax, sink into my body, understand how to move whilst pregnant abs really connect with my baby.
It was at Tessa’s studio I found out about Jennie and her Hypnobirthing classes. I joined a taster session at 37 weeks pregnant and was soon booked onto the intense course due to finish on the 7th October. My baby was due on the 9th.
Gareth and I attended our first session via zoom and went through all the necessities we needed to know for the stage of pregnancy we were at. I was originally a high risk pregnancy with a lot of anxiety about the labour. Jennie was very calm, formative and more like a friend explaining things with integrity to her profession but compassion for us as a couple.
Tessa isn’t just a yoga teacher but a distant birthing partner too. The tools and techniques gained within her studio most definitely helped during my labour.
I started with contractions on the Wednesday morning at 4am. They were very mild and easily manageable with a hot water bottle. By the Thursday they had started to get stronger. Jennie was at the end of WhatsApp consoling me and reassuring me that things were happening and it wouldn’t be long. She referred me back to the podcasts and reply put my mind at ease.
I knew that in order to work through the
Contractions I needed to zone out, connect with baby and trust my body and process. Rather than go to the yoga studio on the Thursday night, I joined online via zoom. I created a warming space at home as discussed and learnt about within Hypnobirthing and fit in my yoga practice.
The practice was very calming and focused mainly on breathing and stretching, perfect for me and the stage of labour I was in to help me through.
Late Thursday night the contractions really started to ramp up. I found myself using my birthing ball to get myself into the positions learned within practice to relieve the pressure and to focus on staying calm whilst listening to the Hypnobirthing podcasts and reading my positive affirmation cards.
By Friday morning I text Jennie with an update and she advised I phone the birth centre. I phoned the birth centre at Burnley and assumed I was in very early stages but I was surprised to be told I was 5cm and wouldn’t be going home.
I laboured on gas and air focusing on breathing listening to my podcasts and working through my yoga positions. This started within the birthing pool but contractions soon stopped. I was told if The contractions hadn’t started to pick up within an hour I would be induced via the hormone drip. I got out of the pool and started to “dance the baby out” just a couple of hours later I didn’t believe he was almost here as the pain was controlled and the environment was stable.
Baby Oliver wasn’t for making things easy, he had twisted his head in the birth canal and with every contraction and push he couldn’t move and started to stress. The decision was made for me to be taken to theatre to try an assisted delivery but to be prepped for a Emg C Section. Although in my birth plan I didn’t want this, I understood that I had choices to make and that the welfare of my baby was most important.
On the way down to theatre I used the golden thread breathing to remain calm and in control letting the worries and fears fade away whilst shouting for Gareth to put my AirPods in and turn on the coping with the unexpected podcast.
Baby Oliver was born at 7:22 on the 8th October via a forceps delivery one day before his EDD weighing 7lb 13. Without the help of Tessa’s yoga and Jennie’s Hypnobirthing I don’t believe I’d have been so in control, relaxed and pain free.
“Tessa Clemson Yoga - your yoga studio in Great Harwood, serving Hyndburn, Blackburn with Darwen, Ribble Valley & Burnley”
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