“Four weeks ago, on 11 October, I gave birth to my wonderful baby girl. She took her time to arrive as I was already 41+6 weeks pregnant. We started talking with the birth centre in our area about an induction and your advice to question any invasive procedures was very useful. I did not want to have an induction as this meant that I could not give birth in the birth centre, and that labour would likely be longer and harder. I was willing to have a conversation with the labour ward in hospital though to have clarity about the pros and cons. It is very hard to get any transparency and the words: “If you decide against an induction you would go against our recommendation” is still sounding in my ears as it scared me a little. Thankfully our baby saved us from this tough decision and arrived a day before we had scheduled the talk about induction. To be honest with you, labour was not pain-free, but in hindsight I really believe that the hypnobirthing techniques helped me a lot. Not sure how I would’ve felt without them keeping me calm.The correct breathing techniques were a life saver for sure. I started off having surges at 5 o’clock in the morning. I finally decided to wake up Rodolfo at six. We phoned the birth centre to inform them, but obviously it was a little early to come in. I had a bath and tried to relax as much as I could. At 11:30 we finally went into the M.O.U. At this point I was still not convinced that I was ready, but it turned out that I was already 7cm dilated! I entered the birth pool, which was a great relief! I had a really big urge to push, but the midwife advised that baby was not ready yet. It was very hard not to push! I am wondering what would have happened if I had not held back and followed my body’s lead. Clearly our instinct is always telling us something! My water broke after a few hours and it turned out that it was full of Meconium. Out of this reason I was quickly transferred to the labour ward on hospital. After what felt like four or so surges, Anna Isabel was born! She is thriving and a really happy baby, and we feel very blessed! The midwives told me how impressed they were with my pain threshold! How could I otherwise have stayed at home until I was 7cm dilated? The magic of Hypnobirthing! But most of all, I think Hypnobirthing took away my fears before birth. Whilst I know that some friends from our antenatal group were almost in a panic of what was going to await them, I always knew that I was going to be fine! Forever grateful.”