Hypnobirthing Birth Story: Baby Evie, Rena, and Joe

Hypnobirthing is a practice and much of it is patience. Our bodies and our babies know what to do when we get our brain out of the way. Some of our journeys to birth take many hours or many days. In this case Rena patiently waited many days for baby Evie to come. She and her husband utilized all their options and actively requested what they knew they needed to have their empowered Hypnobirthing experience.

Please enjoy their birth story below. If you are wanting an experience like this, where you know what to ask and advocate for, we can help you. We teach from an unbiased perspective and want our families armed with information and courage to be active in their birth and options. Rena and Joe took their class at our Sterling Heights location. All class schedules and registration are on our website.

“Our goal from the beginning was no interventions and no pain meds. Our obgyn's office suggested we take a hypnobirthing/calm birth class to prepare. We found the class extremely helpful and honest in setting our expectations. We went in with a goal but very open to changing the plan if necessary.

On Sunday night I started to have surges. We got to about 4-5 min apart and headed to the hospital. We were sent home at 3 cm dilated. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights were very similar. We got to 5 min apart every night around 5am, but didn't want to go back to the hospital unless it continued. Each morning surges would slow around 7am.

Wednesday at my doctor's appointment I was at 3cm so we had made some progress. They did a membrane sweep to help things along and we went home.

Wednesday night we had high hopes but we stalled again around 9am.

On Thursday we had the same full night of surges and got to 4 min apart and more intense around 4am. We headed to the hospital and were admitted at 5cm around 5am.

Much like previous days we stalled again around 9am at 6cm. The midwife asked to start pitocin to get things going again. Our goal going in had been to go 100% unmedicated and without intervention. After quite a bit of debate we decided to go ahead with the pitocin and get baby out.

They slowly ramped up the pitocin until about 5pm when we were at an 8. We also got to 8 cm. We focused on breathing and staying relaxed throughout. They started to dial back the pitocin when surges were about a minute apart.

Around 9cm everything got a lot more intense and we considered pain meds. The only option was and epidural so I decided to stay the course and keep going with nothing. We had an amazing midwife and labor nurse supporting us and encouraging me find a good position to both be comfortable and get baby out quickly.

Between 9 cm and pushing was hands down the hardest part. I was ready to throw in the towel and have her out by any means nessessary. I was exhausted and groggy and done. I was less successful with some of  the calm birth techniques at this point. I was able to focus and get back in the zone to get through with the help of Joe, the midwife, and our L&D nurse. Everyone was so supportive.

In the end we got to 10 cm and started pushing on hands and knees with the (amazing- seriously use it if you can) peanutball supporting me. Then delivered on my back, because I was exhausted. I ended up sleeping between most of the surges because I was using 100% of my energy to get her out. I pushed for about an hour. The last 5-10 pushes were insane and intense. But worth every moment to have her here.

I did have a 2nd degree tear. Both of us are very healthy and doing well though! For anyone that read this far i hope this is helpful and if you are expecting, best of luck! Stay open to whatever you need to do to bring your baby safely into the world!”