"Well looked after from hypnobirthing to birth"

We attended the hypnobirthing program run by Kate at Broome Hospital back in January.

This program is so well done, my partner and I benefitted hugely from it.

I was attempting a VBAC this time around as my first pregnancy was 5 weeks early with preeclampsia and a breech baby ending in an emergency c-section. My partner Ben missed the birth of our first son as it all happened so quickly so I really wanted him to be closely involved this time around.

The program was amazing it gave Ben a role other than a spectator in the birth suite and gave us both the knowledge to understand and navigate the interesting turns my birth ended up taking.

On the day of the birth, we ended up needing to be induced at 38 weeks as my preeclampsia levels were rising. This isn't something we ideally wanted to happen but after attending the Hypnobirthing program we had the knowledge to help make an informed decision regarding our induction.

My midwife broke my waters early in the morning, I asked to be left for an hour after to see if my body started labouring on its own. Unfortunately, it didn't so I was hooked up to the drip an hour later.

Shortly after, my body rocketed into labour. My midwife ended up turning the drip off as my labour became very intense very quickly.

I laboured for just over 6 hours and managed to get to 10cm without any drugs. By this time my contractions were very consistent, some overlapping each other not giving me time to rest. When I did get a break I still had severe abdominal pain which I believe my Dr wasn't happy about.

We ended up being rushed to theatre as I had been pushing for a while now with no progression. We were hoping that once we arrived in theatre the baby would have started descending and maybe just need a little help out but he was still up in my uterus.

At this stage, it was time to call it and lay down for our caesarean.

Not once throughout our whole experience did we feel like we weren't in control or didn't understand what was going on.

I thank the amazing team at Broome Hospital for this. My midwife Jo is amazing at what she does. I also had Yvonne and some of the core midwives in helping me when everything started to go a little "off track". They were all so lovely and just beautiful to deal with. Thank you!

Based on my experience, Ruth & Pallace are brilliant Drs and absolutely beautiful people to deal with. Not once did I feel like they were talking at me, they both always took the time to sit down and explain what was happening and made me feel safe and calm.

Even when we arrived in theatre, the team in there were so brilliant they all looked after us so well.

I love you all! What could have been an extremely traumatic time in our life was made so beautiful with the help of all you lovely people.

Keep doing what you do because you are amazing at it x