Jenni Länsisyrjä Testimonial about Isis Hypnobirthing

Eevi Aili Esselina van Leijen joined our tiny family on Saturday August 1st 6.32pm. Overjoyed to finally meet her face to face!:)

She was born perfectly healthy, feisty and strong but a little bit smaller than what had been expected, 2998g.

The birth process itself started already Friday afternoon with regular contractions. The discomfort however was very little as I had good time between each surge and kept on focusing on “business as usual” without any stress. Berry also came home from work early to help me & joke around to keep things extra positive:). During each more intense surge he used the light touch massage or lower back pressing as both really worked well for me.

We stayed home with no sense of urgency and were even able to sleep a little over the night. With contractions becoming stronger, but still remaining some time apart (5-8min cycles the whole labour) I could apply deep breathing through each one remaining relaxed and then falling back to sleep/semisleep.

We finally decided to leave for hospital at 13.30 on Saturday. Mainly to check if the birth was proceeding good since the contractions were there for so long without chance in frequency. Arrived in joking, laughing and completely relaxed:). We were taken in to an examination room and the nurse felt that as I was “coping with the pain so well” it was unlikely that I was yet in labour. However, they promised to send a doctor to do the check up as soon as someone was available.
“As soon as” turned out to be after 4pm & even at this hour I was still able to keep my good flow. The surprised doctor however told us I was already 8cm and had to be moved to the delivery room right away.

Unfortunately, the rapid procedure of moving things ahead caught me off guard and I started to have more difficulty in keeping relaxed. There were also 5 different people to deal with and speaking English didn’t come without saying…After my water had been broke I asked to take a shower & Berry joined me to help calm me down but at this point surges had became very hard for me to manage.

After the shower I decided to go ahead with remifentanil. I struggled with making the decision but doing so gave me a much needed opportunity to calm down a bit. Having the iv on for no longer than 25min, the doctor walked in to check my dilatation & without further discussion sat me down on a stool got the medication off and told me I needed to push. Apparently I was fully dilated and Eevi was ready to come. However, I didn’t yet feel urge to push and tried to tell this also to the doctor without success. The pushing against my own intuition was most difficult and this caused a lot of pain.

I believe being in the birth stool was good for me but for visibility the doctor, midwife & intern present at the delivery wanted me to lean backwards towards Berry. Leaning back for me felt wrong and at this point I also became very angry, finally voicing that I didn’t want anyone to be pulling my legs, touching and telling me what rythm to breave in.

After my outburst, Berry took over helping me to lean more forward & being the only one to direct me. Unbelievably this changed things a lot and I could feel Eevi move down with my pushes & felt a relief in pain. In total the pushing only took 30min and of that time the last 15min felt effective as well as quite comfortable.

Eevi was born controlled and with out too much stress and directly put on my chest♡ I had also suffered no rips or tears at all & was able to stand up straight away. We were and are doing perfect needing no recovery!♡ In my opinion thanks to having prepared as a couple. I may not have had trust in the unfamiliar people in the quickly changing situation & felt out of control but there was still one person in the room I trusted and he was able to step up when needed. I was also able to utilize the techniques learned in hypnobirthing until the last 2,5h feeling in fact so comfortable that the hospital staff missed me being in delivery at all…heh:)

From here on we will focus on after birth relaxation & getting to know our pretty girl who is a total feeding professional!♡Thank you for getting us prepared for anything as a unit Inbal, the end result despite hospital challenges is complete perfection!

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