You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.

Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.

We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging, and feel privileged to continue the sharing of birth stories and knowledge that has been a fundamental part of Indigenous culture.

Hello, it's Jesse Stevens here and we have curated you a very special playlist with even more birth stories you probably haven't heard.

With unmissible episodes from the Delivery Room podcast.

Your playlist will be filled with stories of women who had so many different experiences of birth.

If you love birth stories, this playlist is for you, and if you're looking for more to listen to, we are curating your summer listening across our network.

From pop culture to beauty to interviews.

There is something for everyone.

Find a link in the show notes.

Just a heads up, this podcast retells personal experiences of birth.

Talk to your doctor to decide what birthing plan is right for you.

On the eve of Samantha Oliver's twenty ninth birthday, she was beyond excited, not for the presence she might receive or the celebrations she had planned she was excitedly awaiting the birth of her first baby.

Her jue date was two days away, and Sam knew her child could arrive at any moment.

I'd kind of killed the time in that week leading up to my magic jue date with my hair nails, and it was kind of like a bit of a joke because I in my head was preparing for a whole other week.

But Sam didn't get that extra week, or even an extra day, because later that night she would be going in to labor from MoMA Mia.

You're listening to The Delivery Room, a podcast where we speak to eight different women on what actually happened during childbirth.

And my name is Jesse Stevens.

I haven't had a baby, but one day I'd like one.

There's just one problem.

I'm absolutely bloody terrified of childbirth.

I'm scared of the pain and the unknown and not being entirely in control, and also the word forceps, which is why I'm here hosting this podcast speaking to eight women over eight weeks about eight very different types of births.

Twins are normally early.

The first C section was the only time I'd been under in any kind of way.

I went in there with the thought processes.

I wanted to have an epidural.

And today we're hearing Samantha Oliver's birth story.

When Sam fell pregnant with her first baby, she was a little bit nervous.

I didn't know what to do, who to talk to, who was going to look after me, how to make appointments.

I didn't know anything, and I think that definitely put a little bit of anxiety in what do I do now?

And on her quest to figure it all out, she came across a practice called hypno birthing.

I didn't a birth thing with Sam's already, she heard some really good things about it in relation to natural birth and something she was really interested in that she knew to have a crack at didn't Yes, I thought, I'll hay.

That's Sam's Fionce Hayden, who's going to be chiming in every now and then with his thoughts on the delivery process.

But for now, let's start with Sam's waters breaking.

It was actually not as dramatic as I would have liked it.

My partner's mum had just left from dinner and I went to the bathroom to get ready to go to bed, and I stood up from the toilet and kept well.

Thought I kept weighing myself, which at that point I wouldn't have put past myself.

Isn't that quite common with pregnancy because the baby's kind of like resting on the bladder, so a lot of people have sort of accident.

Yeah, And I was like, oh, I mustn't have been as done as I thought.

I was.

That's fine, I sit back down.

I thought, no, no, definitely done now.

And I stood up and note liquid still well and truly coming.

So I went out into the lounge room and stood on a towel in front of my partner.

I was like, this is gonna sound weird, but I'm going to stand here and try really really hard not to go to the toilet, and you're going to tell me if you can see liquid.

And yeah, he was like, yeah, definitely liquid.

So how does Hayden remember this moment?

Yeah, time, I was sitting on the lounge, I had my second can of rum to settle in, completely oblivious to the fact that I had to draw out the hospital.

And yeah, I got a little concerned voice come out of the bathroom.

That came a build of this for a second, and I walked in and saw my partner standing in there and yeah.

Went waters break, because we see it in movies and stuff.

What color is it?

Is it like clear?

Is it literally just water?

Yeah?

Yeah, it's just clear.

And is there a lot of it?

Well?

Mine was just like a leak, so it was just a trickle.

Unfortunately I didn't get the dramatic gush.

Yes.

It was like I was just winging myself constantly and I couldn't stop.

So just put a pad on and called my midwife and said, I think my waters have just broken.

And she was a bit like it was like ten o'clock at night and she's like right.

You could hear in her voice that she was a bit like, Okay, well this complicates my day.

Yeah, I was gonna go to bed, but it sounds like it's a big night.

Were you planning on having the baby at home or in hospital?

What was your birth plan?

So I went with the Group Midwife Practice, so I got my own midwife, which you know, after I made that initial appointment with the GP and kind of was like, Okay, here are my options now that I've got a bit more information, I definitely wanted to go with midwives through the public system, So did all of that referral blah blah blah, and got my midwife and yeah, she was my midwife through the whole thing.

And I just had her number and could kind of contact her directly whenever I needed to, which was great.

So I spoke to her about, you know, my water's breaking and what do we do now, and yeah, she just was able to guide me through the whole process, which was Yeah.

It was really good to have that continuity of care.

So what was the next step, Like, did the midwife come to you?

No, I went to the hospital yep, just to confirm that it was my waters and just have a little once over.

And she said, yes, it's your waters.

But honestly, there's no rush.

Like she had the philosophy of you know, your body knows what to do and you know, just trust it, So go home, get some sleep, and we'll see what happens.

I think their hospital policy was like three days that they'll kind of just leave you to it.

I didn't know it was that long.

I thought it was waters and then a minute, lady, you're giving birth.

Well.

I think the hospital policies differ.

So some hospital policies are like twelve hours twenty four, whereas they were happy to take up to three days to monitor you for any signs of infection or keep monitoring you.

I think it was every day they would ask you to come back in for a little one sob just to double check.

And were you at that stage waiting every minute for the pain to kick in?

Is it that weird thing where you like and it's gonna it's gonna happen.

Yeah, it was really cool because I'm a bit I'm pregnant again.

I'm due at the end of next month, and thank you, and I'm a bit like I wonder how it's going to start this time, Like there's still so much uncertainty, Like whereas if your waters have broken, I think you've got that little bit more of like a definite this is happening, whereas if you just start feeling twinges, it might be a bit like is it is it not?

I don't know.

So I definitely was just patient with myself.

I just went home, went to bed, Like I knew from the hypnobirthing course that I did that I really just needed to cultivate a space of calm, relaxed.

I'm a mammal evolutionarily speaking, it makes complete sense that I would need to be in a private space secluded.

I'm about to become very very vulnerable.

My body's not going to put me in that vulnerable position unless I'm safe.

So I knew that going to bed and just getting some sleep and following a familiar routine would cultivate that.

So what was next?

What was sort of the next step in labor?

So I got to bed.

I think I had a couple of hours sleep, but I was definitely not I was too excited, yeah, you know, so I knew it was something that was happening.

So I definitely probably just dozed more than actually went to sleep.

And at about three am, I started to feel some definite period like cramping, very low but very regular, and it would definitely it wasn't like a constant sensation like a normal period cramp, you know, where it's just constant, you know, like oh, I'm so uncomfortable period cramping.

It was definitely like, oh, that's a period cramp.

And then it would just disappear completely, right, And then ten minutes later, another small little cramp would come and then disappear completely.

So they were deaf, definitely obvious.

Yeah, And at that stage, Are you still just sort of waiting it out?

Is that sort of the directive?

I think so, Yeah, to see what happens again, just keep making yourself feel calm and private and do things that make your body feel like you're in a familiar place with familiar people, and just really cultivate those hormones.

I guess, and I tried to just sleep because they weren't too bad, but that was again too excited.

I knew that these were definitely contractions.

So you're using the word excited rather than anxious.

Is that sort of purposeful because a lot of people can feel like, get that same sensation but call it anxiety.

Were you mindful even at that moment to really focus on your approach, like I'm going to be excited about this, I'm going to look forward to it.

I'm just excited to meet the baby, rather than I'm anxious I'm out of control and panicking.

Yeah, definitely, I think after doing the course itself, it's definitely from the mini you kind of say, Okay, that's done, thank you so much for doing that with me.

Your mindset had shifted.

You were feeling more excited and positive rather than anxious.

You just had the information, you had the knowledge, you had the tools, and it automatically put you in a more excited mind frame than a more anxious one.

And what was the course called that you did?

I did the hypno Birthing Australia program.

So it is a hypno birthing program, but it's a specific program.

Yeah, through Hypnobirthing Australia.

And what do they tell you to do in those early stages when there's pain but it's not completely unbearable?

Do they have some tools for you to use, whether it's in terms of breathing or focus.

For those early stages.

The advice is definitely stay at home for as long as you can to kind of cultivate that safety, private feeling and get those hormones flowing.

And so they often will say, you know, have a shower, have a bath, watch a funny movie.

Even as one of the recommendations.

If it's just those really really early stages, you could even bake if that's something that you love to do, is to cook, you know, just anything that makes you feel like you're in your space in a relaxed environment.

And then as things kind of progress, then you can play some affirmations.

They have like a track of affirmations that you can have playing.

They have guided meditations that you could listen to.

What sort of things do the affirmation say?

What's an example of sort of a positive affirmation you might play during those hours?

Some of them are and I'll try not to mix them up, because I obviously have my own that I say to myself.

But the hypnobirthing ones are definitely things like, I am prepared to calmly meet whatever turn my birthing takes.

I am safe, my baby is safe, my body, my baby knows what to do.

Every search brings me closer to my baby.

Yeah, just like it just plays.

I think the track itself goes for about fifteen minutes.

And so the pain I imagine would start to intensify and become, you know, more like a contraction rather than sort of period pain.

What did you do when it started to become more and more intense When I was.

Still at home, I definitely just got up and moved.

I couldn't kind of lay down or sit down through a contraction, but I could definitely just walk across the room or pace or just lean on something.

Definitely wasn't anything I felt like I needed to do much with but just keep moving and keep relaxed.

I had like a yoga in between.

It was my birthday.

I actually had I opened my birthday present in between.

Like it was really just like this intense sensation and then nothing, and you were just like, okay, I'll have about yogic.

Now, Like that's a good idea to open presence while you're going through.

Later, one hundred percent, really you didn't.

I reckon they should have several presents under a little birth tree or something, and every.

Time you go into a contraction, someone delivers your presence, open up another presence.

So did you eventually, you know, make the call, Okay, this is getting serious, the baby's coming.

Yeah.

I probably could have stayed at home a little bit longer.

But I think first time, you're a little bit like, oh, I think this is getting pretty intense.

And I remember calling my mum and she said to me, oh, honey, strap in like this is nothing like and I was like no, no, no, they're getting really intense and she's like no, you're still talking to me like in between, like just.

Just wait, and how many hours had it been at that point when you sort of.

I think this was like eight am, so only okay, only a few like it all started reasonably quickly.

I watched a movie.

I did watch a movie through it, and because I didn't want to wake my partner up, and he slept, and then I think at like six am, I woke him up, and that's when we started to, you know, have some yogat open presents, had a shower, and then I think it was like eight thirty nine o'clock that I was starting to get it nancy right, and I started to feel like, I think I need to go, Like if I have to go somewhere else to birth this baby, I would like to be there so I could really get in the zone.

Like I felt like I couldn't quite get out the hypnobirthing meditations quite just yet.

I think that's just those instincts kicking in of if this isn't where you are sure that you're going to have a baby, like wherever that is, you need to get there.

And I don't think anything would have progressed.

Yes, because it's also your brain kind of using that as a que like Okay, now I'm ready, Now I'm in safe hands, let's go.

So when you arrived at the hospital, what was your plan in terms of like drugs or intervention or anything like that.

What did you want to do.

I definitely wanted to have like a physiological birth, so I definitely meaning just as little intervention as possible.

I didn't even really entertain the thought of an epidural yep.

I didn't think gas an air.

I thought it would make me sick, like I don't even like the feeling of having too many drinks, yes, you know in me, I don't like feeling like a bit wobbly.

So I definitely wanted to just avoid that if I could as well.

But I was pretty open.

I was pretty open minded to just what was going to happen, you know.

And did the contractions get so bad that you couldn't spak like your mum launching?

Yeah?

Can you describe that pain?

You have prepared for it probably more than say, you know, the average woman who hasn't done this hypno birth.

In course, what's going through your mind in terms of trying to focus and employ all your practices, but also your body is doing something it's never done before.

I kind of like to be open with people that the sensations were something that you would describe it as painful, yes, but the way that it was framed throughout the program and cultivating that mindset and the way that you frame it is really different in terms of this wasn't pain that I was experiencing due to damage or disease.

It wasn't my body signaling that something was wrong with me.

It was physiologically functional pain.

Is my body working like it was muscles working.

It was.

It was very purposeful.

You know, a sensation like my body's doing, it's moving a whole human that it grew from the inside to its outside, Like it's that's there's a reason they call it labor.

It's hard, and you know those sensations can be extremely powerful, but they're powerful for a reason.

They need to be powerful, and sometimes that can be painful, but it's just in your mind framed very differently.

It's nothing that you're scared of.

You're almost kind of like urging them on, like, yes, you're working, you're doing what you design to do, like bring it on, where's the next one?

And bring you know, we're getting closer and closer to actually meeting exactly this baby exactly.

Was there any point where you went, Okay, just give me a drug, like where it got that bad.

I think possibly.

I think I think I was just lucky that I was just in such an internal eye inwardly focused state that I don't think I could even voice it.

I think I remember having the thought of like, I don't know if I can do this anymore, Like, but I think I was just in such a focused state, probably from the hypno birthing and then starting when I got hospital, starting the meditations.

I don't think I had it in me to come out, yeah, to then even say it, because people who don't know a lot about hypno birthing imagine that you are in a state of extreme hypnosis, like with the little clock thing whatever it is that people put and you kind of, I don't know, aren't even present.

Is that a myth it is?

Yeah, I think movies have really ruined that term hypnosis and what it actually is.

And it's just a conscious state that is measurable, So your brain waves have kind of dropped from their conscious kind of function and you're in a meditative state.

Essentially.

We do it when we drive our cars, when we drive to work, and then we think, oh, how did I get Like did I run over someone?

Like I actually couldn't tell you, Ye, was I speeding?

I don't know.

It's because you're in a state of hypnosis and you were just your subconscious and imagination had taken over and you were on autopilot.

Or it's in a state of flow.

We'll talk about it.

Yeah, like reading a really good book, and like you're aware of if someone comes into the room, you're aware of what's happening around you, but your focus is in the book, and your imagination has got the characters in front of you.

The sounds, the smells, the pictures, the visualizations, they're really at the forefront of your mind.

So you're in a state of hypnosis.

So it's just this a normal state of consciousness that you can move yourself into through things like meditation.

And is there a specific breathing practice, because people who have done yoga, a pilates will know that breathing's very critical to those sort of practices and when there's pain in exercise, they like breathe into it.

Is it similar to that, Is there a breathing practice you learned to sort of ground and focus yourself.

Yeah, there's a few techniques that they do, but breathing is definitely one of them.

So there's three types of breath that they kind of walk you through, and honestly, I think women do this instinctively during labor anyway, regardless of what course they've done.

I think they definitely go into a meditative state and use breathing instinctually.

But this definitely gives you just a little bit more of encouragement to, I guess, go there and do these things.

And so there's like relaxation breaths, which are just in between surges, just taking those three big deep breaths just to kind of relax and replenish.

And then a surge breath is a bit more of like a deep breath and visualizing and inner balloon filling up your belly, so you're really trying to just take the time to fill up your lungs, and then the breath is just that little bit more focused downwards, so you have that visualization of like Okay, send that breath down, send it down to your baby, and move the baby down.

It just gives you like that little bit of focal point to be able to move through.

They also talk about perhaps even while you're doing that breathing breathe in as you're going up the wave like that surge and waves it like a wave.

You peak and then you feel that surge or the contraction, come down the other side to rest.

And then the third one is like a bearing down breath.

So when you feel that urge to bear down and the baby's coming out, definitely breathing, you know, instinctually moving with any kind of vocalization that you want to make to try and control that, because you know you're feeling these really intense sensations.

So sometimes if you're trying to breathe out really gently through your nose, like it just disappears you because it's like, oh, this is so intense and you're like trying to breathe in.

The bird's gone, the breath's gone, you know.

So they're just using that kind of like a ooh or a hum or, a mood.

A lot of people describe mooing and feeling like their cows.

I was a cow, Okay, Sam might have felt like a cow, but from the outside, what did she sound like?

A very distinctual stand A lot out of women were giving birthrey at the same time as that's in the Eternity ward.

But yeah, same as a mooers like a sort of thing like.

Yeah, and you think about it makes complete sense.

You know that women would do this instinctually, but the program definitely tells you to lean into this because you know, you think about making a sound, you breathe in and then you're hmmm.

That breath out can just go forever when you're making noise, whereas if you're not making noise, it can just disappear from you really quickly, and you're feeling out of control, out of breath and a little bit, you know, like I can't breathe because whereas if you're kind of mooing or humming or making some of those noises, that breath feels a little bit more controlled, and people will do it instinctively.

There was one stage, wasn't there where you thought you saw ahead of the baby, but it wasn't.

What was it?

Well?

I thought I felt I definitely only had started feeling an urge to bear down.

And my midwife had said, I think she could see in me.

I think I hesitated.

I think I wasn't sure what I was feeling.

And I think they're so they're so clever midwives.

She kind of saw in me my breathing had changed my movements had changed, and I perhaps was starting to bear down, and she said to me, like, if you want to have a little push, like have a little push, you know.

And I think once I had got that permission almost I was like, yes, I need to push, and so I kind of just started to go for it and just go with those urges.

And I definitely felt the sensation of something's coming like, yes, like there's something there.

Things are stretching open, something's coming out, and I was so convinced it was a head.

And then all of a sudden, I felt that, you know, familiar yes, when you do a pooh, that pop And I was, oh, is that his head?

And my midwife said, no, honey, you've just done a bit of a poop.

And my partner said, might as well have been ahead.

Do you feel any For a lot of women who have never given birth, they're like, oh, imagine if I am in labor and this happens to me, is it actually embarrassing or by that stage are you just like I don't care?

No, I didn't care.

I was like, yeah, like I said, I did care, Like I surprised myself a little bit in labor.

I am quite a polite person all the time, but even in labor, I was really polite.

And I kept apologizing for mooing loudly, and I was like, I'm so sorry.

She's like, it's fine, it's fine, Like and I literally, you know, she came up, scooped it out, heard the PLoP and the toilet behind me PLoP.

But you know, I was apologetic.

But at the end of the day, like I knew there's a head trying to come through my pelvis, like if there's a bit of poop there, it has to get out of the way, like.

And bearing down.

Everything would feel the same.

By that stage.

It really does.

People talk about like I don't know if it's like the ring of fire or something, when the head is coming through the bit.

Yep, that pain if you are not on any drugs I can imagine is where it gets most intense.

See.

We actually was just talking about this with a girlfriend the other day and a friend of ours.

She was saying that she had felt the ring of fire and it was it was She said, it was really intense, burning pain.

Didn't like it, and my friend and I were both like, we didn't feel it at all, really, but we were both in the bath giving birth, So I just don't know whether that had something to do with it, whether like I know that you know, having warm water or warm compress if you're not in the bath placed over the peroneum.

And that's something that I learned in the program as well, like you know, using a warm compress or using you know, bath or shower can help really moisten and soften the skin.

Right, so I don't feel so tight.

I don't remember feeling any burning sensation at.

All in the bath.

I always wonder as well, because as you're giving birth, once the baby comes out, I imagine there is blood, there are lots of different things were you just like, I know, there's a baby, So that's a little distructing.

But in terms of the other stuff, like what else is coming out?

Because isn't there like there's always like yellow stuff and I'm like, what is that?

I think once the baby's head comes out, they kind of sit there for maybe a couple of minutes in between contractions.

Wait what they stay submerged under the water.

Am I the only one that didn't know this?

I thought he was gonna drink the headgeing submerged underwater.

It was pretty amazing.

I can true, to be honest, very more and bloody.

Oh good.

At least Hayden and I are in this together.

You can continue, Sam.

So I think sometimes there's like a tiny bit of yeah, amniotic fluid.

If the waters have broken, mine still had a little bit of breaking to do.

I think once my baby had moved down, it essentially plugged the hole that had started leaking.

So my midwife had said that she could feel that the waters had reformed and were kind of bulging, but that's kind of all part of the process.

I think.

So my waters did break, and I did experience a bit of a gush, but obviously in the bath it didn't matter.

But it's clear like it didn't really change anything about the bath water.

And then the head sat there for a little while, and then another contraction came and his shoulders came out and he came straight up onto my chest, and yeah, it was just normal bath water, like there wasn't a whole lot of anything else for ages.

And then she emptied the bath, I think, to deliver the placenta.

Yes, how did you feel holding your baby for the first time after that?

Because I imagine you are exhausted, but is there still that feeling of elation or are you almost like now I can go to sleep.

I think it's a bit of both.

And I think hearing other people talk to like a friend of mine said that she definitely needed a minute or two did kind of recover before she could really get that kind of sense of you know, in her partner was a bit like, oh my god, what's wrong?

Yeah, are you okay?

Like don't you love her?

And she's like, you're just saying just in a minute, you know.

But I definitely was ecstatic, and I definitely just went straight into oh.

My god, my baby's here, look at him, Look.

God, we did, you know, complete excitement mode.

Yeah, just really really really excited.

In terms of your muscles that had been working hard.

How many hours were you in labor in the end.

The active labor part, So once I got to a hospital at around ten.

Tennish, yeah, and that's in the morning.

That was in the morning.

He came at three point thirty that afternoon.

So I think on my paperwork it says I was in active labor before only four and a half hours, wow, which is pretty quick.

Yeah, and still your muscles have been working in sort of overdrive.

Does it feel like you've run a marathon?

Does your whole body have that incredible fatigueer you saw in the aftermath, or are you sort of just focused on this new baby.

Yeah, it's literally it was the most bizarre thing to go from complete outer body experience of how powerful these sensations are to just nothing, nothing, like you felt completely fine.

You know, they just stopped the minute the baby came out, that everything just stopped.

Your body just knew, okay, baby's out, job is done.

And you know, those few little surges afterwards when the placenta comes out are barely even detectable, so it's not like you then have to do you know, a few more.

But yeah, I remember feeling maybe the next day when I was breastfeeding, definitely felt a few cramp as the years clamped back down over time, but even then they were just like period cramping.

Yeah, you know, they weren't too.

Bad, so nothing like the day before.

Yeah.

Yeah, so you were a bit like, oh, you know, but that was about it, and everything just felt normal, like a bit empty, a bit skin squishy, bit wishy, washy.

And it was really strange because my midwife was like, okay, let's stand up, We'll go to the bed.

I was like, what do you mean, just stand up?

She's like, yeah, yeah, just stand up.

And I was like, but I'm in a bath tub, Like I can't just I just gave birth, like won't things fall out?

But she's like, no, no, no, just stand up, and yeah, sure enough, I could just stand up.

And I stepped myself out of the bath tub and I wandered over to the bed like nothing had just occurred.

And so you're doing hypno birthing again.

Now, how many classes do you do?

What's the preparation like?

So it was a twelve hour program delive it over two days, so two sundays I did it.

It depends on the practitioner that you go with, because obviously there are independent practitioners all over Australia in the world now.

So you just go on their website and you know, type in your postcode and or say hear your practitioners in the area, and you choose the one that looks like they align best with you, and they might set it up so it's over two days over two weeks, or they might do four three hour sessions, so it kind of varies.

But Essentially, it's overall twelve hours of course delivery and then you practice essentially at home.

So once you've done the course, you go and you practice the meditations, you listen to the affirmations, you do the visualizations, and you just kind of whenever you get a second, yeah, like you can put the affirmations on in the car, you can listen to a meditation as you fall asleep.

You know, there's just you just practice.

You just condition your body over the coming couple of months to automatically kind of feel this sense of relaxation when it hears those sounds, when it smells, you know, you put on some aromatherapy.

So essentially you create a birth space that is transferable so that no matter where you go create it, you can take it with you.

So and that was probably the most measurable outcome for me because when I got to hospit in my first berth, the contraction stopped.

They went from four minutes apart, super intense.

I put on a meditation for the car ride.

They didn't skip a beat through the car ride.

But once I got to hospital and I was like talking to my midwife and I was in a new space, was in a new room.

I didn't get one for like fifteen minutes.

They literally just stopped.

Wow.

And so that you know, the program had said that this is a real likely possibility because hormonally, my body's saying, hang on a minute, where are we are we still safe?

Do we just need to take a break for a minute so we don't put ourselves in the most vulnerable position we'll ever be in our life and we're not somewhere that we're safe.

You know, these feedback loops are very primal and very sensitive, So to then be able to recreate that calm environment.

It's going to take a few minutes just for you to get your head around it.

Yeah, and it worked a treat because my midwife said, close the blinds, I'll leave you alone, put on a meditation, and just take minute to get settled in.

And then within the hour that she came back, the surgeons came roaring back just as regular and even more powerful than when I arrived.

So that definitely was a measurable outcome on what that conditioning, that work that I'd put in in the months leading up to birth, what it did for my birth, you know, because if I didn't have that conditioning.

And I didn't have those meditations and those tools, then perhaps my labor might not have kind of come back, you know exactly.

My body might have gotten real shy and kind of said, no, we don't know where we are.

This is not necessarily safe, Like let's just pause and we'll wait till we get back home or something, you know what I mean.

Like, So would you say to women who feel as though there crap at meditation?

They've always struggled with it, They can't they feel like they can't do the visualization thing.

If they try and meditate, they lose focus after five minutes.

What would you say to them about hypno birthing?

I think the two guided meditations that you can listen to recorded are very visual.

So they're very You're walking down a staircase, so imagine what their staircase looks like.

Let's walk step by step down that staircase.

Now, let's imagine that we're here and in this environment, and you smell this smell and it's very busy.

Yes, so it's not just you and your own head.

Yeah, it's not just breathing.

It's like, you know, you're walking down the steps.

What are the steps look like there's a handrail there, Like it's very like you'd really cultivate these vivid images.

And then it's like now you're on a beach, and the beach and it's you know, now you're going up over the wave and down on the other side, and you know some of them are the rainbow mist.

One of the meditations is all about colors, so it's you know, surround yourself with the orange color and imagine that orange color.

It's very busy, like it keeps you very, very busy.

So I'm not a great meditator.

My mind's quite busy, and so really having something too like it had a job to do.

Yeah, essentially, my mind, you know, my body was just doing what it was designed to do, it was instinctively built to do.

It was just about keeping my mind busy essentially, so it didn't get in the way.

To get through those hours.

And finally I wanted to ask, what advice would you give to someone who hasn't given birth, or maybe has given birth and didn't have a great experience and he's going to do it again.

What is your biggest takeaway, biggest piece of advice that you give to sort of expecting people are expecting a baby.

I think it's definitely cultivating a positive mindset for yourself and doing a bit of work in terms of get educated, do some learning, do a course if you hadn't done one, and definitely just learn about what your body is doing physiologically and the hormones that are flowing, and then how do you naturally kind of just cultivate those hormonal processes.

Just learn a little bit about your physiology, and then also make sure that you have a care team and a support team around you that you really really trust and that you think align with what you want.

So take the time.

You know, if you're looking for an obstetrician, if you know you want an obstrician, you know, don't just go with the you know, yeah, he seems nice.

You know, you're essentially interviewing them.

You know, you want to ask the questions, So what are your what are your cesarean rates like, you know, what are your thoughts on this intervention?

How often do you have to do a fosip's delivery and really go and find out their statistics and if they're going to support you in your decisions and if you don't feel like they're going to you know, take the time to find someone that will and if things are you know, medical things are happening that you know that you're going to need this, this and this, you know, even looking into a dueler, you know, having someone with you that you know you can, you know will be your advocate and that you know will really trust your instincts and support you.

Just have a really good support team around you, and just prepare.

Take time to prepare, even if it's not hypno birthing meditations, but just you know, doing other forms of meditation and imagine your birth and really take the time to just dream about it and imagine it and you know, manifest it a little bit.

So yeah, definitely knowledge, find a care provider that really aligns with you and what you want, and then take some time to prepare.

Wonderful, Thank you so much for your time.

That's okay, and good luck by how exciting?

Yeah, I hope, I hope I've got a dueler this time.

I decided to try out having a dueler, so, you know, because you just don't know, every baby is different, every you know, my first birth was amazing.

I'm so grateful for having my midwife and I've got another amazing midwife, but I'm excited to do it again.

Yeah, exactly right.

I am really excited to do it again.

Actually, so I know what I'm in for, but I'm I'm still excited.

There's a baby at the other end.

There is there is.

Next time.

On the delivery room.

I went in there with the thought processes.

I wanted to have an epidural.

I felt three contractions, and boy, oh boy, I have.

So much respect in it that my sisters had no pain relief needed to my mom my.

Sisters were like, you can do this, fee, You've got this, don't need it.

And I was like, boy oh boy, I needed it.

I go on the third contraction, I think I crabbed ailan.

I'm like, get me the Oh my god, I felt sick.

I can tick that off my list.

Yeah.

I was like, I've felt it.

I know what I want.

I want it now.

That's the owner Forkner, who has been very candid in the past about her IVF journey, both in the media and on her social platforms.

But what most people haven't heard is her birth story, which you'll get to hear all about next week.

Don't want to miss an episode, Make sure you're following the delivery room wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode that was produced by gam Moylen and our executive producer is Eliza Ratliffe