Preparing for BirthHypnobirthing:what it did, and what it did not

I prepared for Ella's birth, my first, by watching birth programmes. One Born Every Minute, Call the Midwife. I learned from them that birth could be long and tiring, painful and lonely, quick and euphoric, medicated or unmedicated, and I suppose I thought that knowing the range of it was the same as being ready for any of it.

It was not. My first labour was induced. I asked for an epidural eight hours in and waited a long time for it, and its after-effects were still with me years later. What matters for this entry is the part I only saw afterwards: I had arrived at my own birth with no idea what I was going to do with myself while it happened.

When I became pregnant with Effie, here in Germany, that first labour replayed in my mind for months. I did not want the epidural again. I registered with a hospital that would let me birth as freely as possible, with fewer interventions, and I went back to hypnobirthing, which I had done a little of the first time without believing in it.

What It Actually Was: It Is Not What It Sounds Like

The word makes it sound like something is done to you, and it was the opposite of that. It was breathing, in a particular way, practised daily until it was what my body did without being asked for it. It was learning to stay with a sensation instead of bracing against it, which is harder than it sounds and is mostly a matter of repetition. And it was deciding in advance what I wanted said to me in that room, and what I did not.

The first time round I had prepared by gathering information. The second time I prepared by practising something, which is a different activity altogether. It was relaxing and exhilarating at the same time. It connected me to the baby I had not met yet, and it gave me the foundation to listen to my own body. I practised in the evenings, most days, for months.

The Day Itself: Six Hours in the Dark

My labour began at ten in the morning, on my due date. I stayed at home for six hours, in the dark, quiet, on my own. Unlike the first time I was calm and at ease, and I have thought since about how close I came to having her at home. The contractions were intense rather than painful, for me, until transition. Then I felt my body rising up onto my toes to cope with the pulling of them, and that is where I lost my nerve, right at the last. She was born twenty minutes after we arrived in the delivery suite.

Those six hours are the whole of what I would say for hypnobirthing. The first time, I had waited in a hospital to be told what was happening to me. The second time the waiting had a shape, and it happened at home.

What It Did Not Do: Nobody Breathes Their Way Out of Birth

It did not make the birth painless, and I would not want anyone to start it expecting that. There was a point where the sensations were more than I could hold onto and I panicked. It felt like a force I could no longer control and I had to dig deep to stay with it. Nobody breathes their way out of birth. It comes for you either way.

I can't promise you that hypnobirthing makes birth easier, because I don't know that it does. My two births differ in more ways than the preparation did: a different country, a different hospital, a body that had done it once already, and a baby who came quickly. I cannot separate those out and neither can anyone else. What I can tell you is what changed for me. I knew what to do with myself, and I was not waiting to be told.

And a birth that ends in an epidural, or in theatre, is not a practice that failed. I had done some hypnobirthing work in my first pregnancy as well. I did not believe in it. I had not prepared for an epidural either, and I did not have the tools to deal with what that epidural did to my body. As a first-time mother I was in a panic about delivering my baby girl safely into the world, on the doctor's time and not my own. I know now that all of my births are valid, because I carry them with me and they tell our story.

If You Are Considering It: Where to Start

Courses run in person and online, and some are taught in English. They vary a great deal in length and in price, so it is worth asking what a course actually includes before you book: how many hours, whether your partner comes, and whether you are given anything to practise with at home, because the practice is the part that does the work.

The standard birth preparation course (Geburtsvorbereitungskurs) is covered for you by public insurance. Whether your Krankenkasse pays anything towards a hypnobirthing course specifically differs from one Kasse to the next, so ask yours before you book rather than after. Some midwives teach it themselves, which is worth asking about while you are looking for a midwife anyway.

I used the same breathing when Elise was born. By then it was not a course I had done. It was just how I laboured.

The practice did not give me the birth. It gave me a way to cope with the sensations my body was making, and to know that they were not bigger than me. It gave me the capability to believe in my body.