HypnoBirthing and Parenting

I have recently been thinking more and more about doing the training to become a HypnoBirthing educator.  The woman who taught the class I attended changed my entire pregnancy, she changed my life.  HypnoBirthing, I can say with complete confidence, changed my life.

When I was about 18 weeks pregnant, I was reading one of those pregnancy books that follows your weekly progress and tells what might be going on with you.  Well, one week there wasn't a lot of new information about baby, so the book had a not about appendicitis.  It explained that at that particular part in my pregnancy, if I had to have an appendectomy, it would be a major surgery instead of the laproscopic procedure that is common now.  I was up for nights, restless, worried about having major surgery.  Of course, there's nothing you can do to prevent appendicitis.  The worry worry worry was spreading to all aspects of my pregnancy.  I got into a fear cycle, and I felt trapped.  The pinacle of this fear was that I was going to deliver my baby in a hospital, which terrified me.

Luckily, I had a great midwife (who has since become a HypnoBirthing educator) who recommended I look into HypnoBirthing.  She said it might help a bit.  Understatement.  After my first class of HypnoBirthing, I felt confident and fearless.  I knew what I had always known- that my body was designed to make and birth this child.  My confidence was wonderful, and highlighted by the confidence my husband had in me as a result of the class.  He then knew that I was going to birth our child gently and calmly.  In addition, I knew that he was going to support me and be my partner in this birth.  It brought us closer, reduced our stress, and brought joy and calm to our home.

I have shared my birth story with many friends and family because I feel like positive stories like mine need to be out there and spoken about.  We hear the horror stories, but so often the gentle birthing mothers gently keep to themselves about their stories.  There are many reasons for this, not the least of which being the envy from others that leads them to treat a gentle birthing mother like she is either a liar or a trickster.  My father-in-law said that when he hears women talk about their birthing experiences, it unites them like soldiers who have been through the same war.  The "horror" of it seems to be what they feel makes them closer.  He says that although his wife had two children, he was in the other room and totally detached from the experience, so he can't relate in any way.  I reminded him that his son was who "caught" his granddaughter and was there for every aspect of the birth.  There is a whole generation of men who are experiencing the birth with their partners and have their own stories to share.  Let's share our positive stories.  Let's not scare pregnant women.  They are too busy peeing to be scared.

So now I am seriously considering taking this course so that I can teach HypnoBirthing to other moms and share this gift of calm and gentle birthing.  The only thing that is holding me back is that it is a 4 day course in another state.  I would have to be away from my daughter for 6 days including travel time.  Last night was the first time I was away from her for more than two hours.  The other option would be for my husband and daughter to come with me so that I would just be away from them during the day.  This is my preference, but might not work out monetarily.  We'll see.

I'm trying to take the calm and gentle birthing skills into the rest of my life, into my parenting.  I remind myself of what we are capable of as a family and as individuals, and not be fearful of those things that we can do.  My daughter will be 1 year old at the time of the class, and she can handle 6 days with just dad.  I can do this to give her a better life.  I can do this to help other mothers.  My husband can care for her with love and joy.  It will just be hard.