I feel incredibly blessed to have had the birthing experience of my dreams.  From the moment we did a tour at Willow Birth Center, I knew it was the place.  Being at Willow felt like being at home.  It was so comfortable, beautiful, and tranquil. For our first child, we gave birth with a midwife team and doula at a hospital which was a good experience but I was disappointed I couldn’t use the nitrous while being in the tub.  So I chose nitrous and gave birth in bed.  This time I wanted something different.  I wanted the entire birthing team to support the Hypnobabies birth philosophy. We had done Hypnobabies classes for our first and knew this was what we wanted to do again.  I also wanted dim lights, a beautiful setting and not the sterile hospital feel.  I didn’t want to be woken up by doctors and nurses every few hours to do tests and check on us.  My vision this time was to experience a water birth while having nitrous oxide.  At Willow I knew we could have all of this and more.  ​

May 21st I had my third son, second Hypnobaby and first home birth. It was absolutely amazing. ​

At 39 weeks I woke up around 6 am to a small “pop” and a gush of fluid as my water broke. I went to the bathroom, discovered bloody show and thought to myself, “I guess I’m having a baby today!”. My second hypnobaby came at 38+5 but I had it set in my head this baby was staying put for at least another week. It also happened to be the day of my oldest sons’ preschool graduation, that I would have liked to attend, but I was in transformation as he was graduating that evening (he had three grandmas that attended- very thankful for family). 

I had some pressure waves at 1:30 in the AM on Sunday, but was able to sleep through them for about 3 hours until I realized they weren’t going away. They still felt more menstrual crampy, but they were wave-like. Then I got very excited and started to get the house ready from 3:30 am-4:30 am. I went back to bed to try and rest and listened to some different tracks (don’t remember exactly which at this point, but I used the cheat sheet and the guide to pick which ones). I was able to go back to sleep for a few more hours. I reached out to my birth team in the morning to give them a heads up. For the next few hours, we just got the house ready. I tried to rest, eat, drink water,  pee, etc. I listened to tracks and worked on getting my hypnosis going. ​

My entire life I imagined my birthing time would be at a hospital using an epidural or receiving a C-section. If you would have told me that I pulled a 180 I would not have believed you. I first heard of Hypnobabies from my older sister who birthed two healthy boys using her hypnosis. For her first, I thought she was on drugs. Who in their right mind would willingly birth naturally and at a birth center nonetheless! That's not how they show it on the movies so it can't be right. For her second, I was more open to the idea of birthing naturally and was intrigued by this whole hypnosis idea. She encouraged us to look at all the options and to educate ourselves. ​

We had our baby boy, Rowan, at home on 1/7. We are thrilled to have experienced birthing at home and the combination of our midwife and Hypnobabies helped make our dream a reality.

I can’t point to one tool in particular because I used all of them! 

My water broke at 10:40 am while making bread with my daughter and we met our baby at 7:50 pm. He weighed 9lbs 4oz.

Nick and our daughter, Ella, caught Rowan as our midwife was driving to our home. They were the best support team. Ella sang to me during my waves, held the flashlight while I pushed, and helped to cut the umbilical cord. It was a very connecting experience and we could not have wished for a better birth. Our midwife arrived a few minutes after and helped with delivering the placenta, etc.