my boyOn 7th Aug , after 2 days & 13hours of waiting, my first baby finally arrived!!

Baby told me that he was coming 2 days in advance with birth show, yet he was gentle and calm. I only felt irregular surges, I knew he was preparing so I waited patiently.

After 2 days, finally there was a small sign that he is coming, very mild surges in regular pattern (30mins apart.) My husband sent me to hospital. We requested a room with attached toilet. I sat on the birth ball during early labour, waiting for baby to prepare himself.

Everything went well, until the change of shift. A rather annoying midwife came in, she did not respect our birth plan, kept on suggesting us to take injection, epidural, etc. There was one time where I felt very angry and asked her to talk with my husband outside of my room, to please give me the privacy for my birthing.

Due to long labour (only progressed from 4 to 6cm after 11 hours), we called Wai Han for support and guidance, and continued to hold on to our belief and birth plan, and kept rejecting the annoying midwife. Wai Han suggested my husband to communicate with baby since the labour process was taking a long time.

Baby really responded to my husband, finally the surges became stronger. The transition from labour to birth was a challenging, the surges were very strong that I could not bear (aftermath note: I should have noticed this was the sign for birth - my boy was travelling along the birth path!), and I was confused by the midwife who told me my dilation was only 9cm & not ready for birth yet.

So I continued practice my slow breathing for about half an hour with the stronger surges that I could not bear with, until gynae arrived and she told me I should gave birth immediately!

And the gynae suggested to release my membrane for the birth! Again, I have to decline her, and I was moved to another labor room. This was when I did not do well for my birth, I panicked and followed doctor's instructions to use push method. My stage2 birthing took less than 20mins. With 3 pushes, my baby was out!! He cried really loud before gynae did anything to him. I guessed he was impatient since I missed his ready-to-be-born sign, sorry boy.. :-(

I am rather not happy with my stage2 experience. I hope I can give a gentle breathing to birth my baby and hope to have the skin-to-skin bonding with the baby - the midwife wrapped my baby and gave it to me, in split seconds she took him away telling me that he caught cold! (This was because he was wrapped. She should just put him with me skin-to-skin!)

But then again, I am proud that I can go through labour & birth without drug/medication assistance, and grateful to my husband’s confidence with me & the HypnoBirthing technique, and thanks to Wai Han’s support & encouragement.

Time flies... my baby boy is 6 months plus now, he is a happy and active baby. We went through our first 3 months with little fuss & cries. I wish he continues to be a happy baby, and he feels good about his birthing :-)

I would like to have gentle birth (where the baby slip out to our hands) in future!! I gained more confidence after this first experience.

— Ping Chian (August 2010)