Just Reminiscing

When I got pregnant for the first time five years ago, I was terrified. Not of my stomach growing to mammoth proportions. Not of caring for a helpless infant of my very own. Not of the 18-year stretch of parenthood that lied before me.

No, labor terrified me.

As I neared my second trimester, a good friend happened to see a Dateline episode featuring women using self-hypnosis during labor and delivery. And she recorded it for me.

I had always maintained that I would enter the hospital repeating “epidural,” until I felt the needle in my back. I did not want to be one of those women who didn’t ask for it at “the right time,” making it “too late.” I always said I’d sue the doctor if I ended up delivering without being completely numb from the waist down.

But when I watched these women on Dateline, I decided to try hypnobirthing if I could find it. If my epidural got delayed, I would have hypnosis to fall back on.

We found a hypnobirthing teacher about an hour from home, but close to my workplace. She taught us about purging negative thoughts and fears about labor, rejecting our culture’s perception of it as horrifying, thinking about the women who did it over the centuries unassisted by epidurals, about how our bodies are meant to do this.

I delivered Ben surrounded by my doula, Donna; a midwife named Cricket; a female nurse; my mom and Brian. Cricket came and went, acting sufficiently awed by my hypnobirthing abilities to make me feel good.

After 8 hours of labor, mostly spent sitting on the toilet, Cricket told me I better get off the toilet or I’d give birth to the Tidy Bowl Man. I used a birthing stool. My doula told me when to cough so he didn't come out too fast, and she encouraged me to watch the crowning in the mirror. Cricket remembered to use hot compresses to soothe the “ring of fire,” for which I’m forever grateful. Brian held my shoulders as Ben came out, peeing in a wide arc.

Despite back labor, having Ben was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Yes, it hurt. But I learned a lot and felt good about trying it again someday. By the next day I did, anyway.

I used hypnosis to have John too. I woke with my first labor pain at 3:30 a.m. As I lay on the couch, occasionally crawling to the bathroom then back to the couch, Brian ran around remembering the birthing ball (which we didn’t need) and forgetting my radio (which we did).

Every movement triggered a contraction. I fell to my knees numerous times getting to labor and delivery. We got there at 6 a.m., and I told the midwife how intense it was, that I might need an epidural. She checked me right away, and when she told me I was already 10 centimeters, I yelled, “Praise the Lord Jesus Christ!” Not something I usually do.

I had gone through labor in those few hours entirely on my own. Hypnobirthing really did come in handy.