My First Hynobirthing Class

I have to admit, this choice was not an informed one. I didn't read many different techniques and decided to go with hynobirth. Rather, it was the only class available to us since we were too late to sign up for other classes (classic!). And I said, why not.

Past Friday was my first session. I wasn’t sure what it was gonna be like but I went there ready to play. Sarah (my midwife) and I started the session by imagining my birth. She asked me to tell the story of my birth to her as if it already happened. So I wrote this 2-page story about my beautiful, easy, and wonderful birth experience until the moment it started (it was an evening and I felt some discomfort) to the moment I held my little one in my arms and started to breastfeed. It was a fun exercise.

Then we started talking about women’s body during labor, how the uterine muscles worked etc. It’s surprising and sad how we, women, know so little about how our body functions. The most interesting information she gave me was on contractions, which she calls waves. Ladies, apparently, all contractions for all women in this world always last 1 minute. That's right!! Plus during that one minute half of the time your body doesn't realize the contraction. So you just feel a very intense discomfort and pain only for 10 to 20 seconds!! So, she said that during labor, in an hour, you only have 12 minutes of uterine activity, with 6 minutes of sensing something, and 2 minutes of pain!!

This was very comforting for me. This is certainly not what we see in the movies. But of course, I can hear a lot of women who gave birth go: What hurts so much then? And their answer is fear. When you are afraid, your body’s sympathetic system is activated, only your vital organs function and all other functions, like digestion, are suspended. You start releasing stress hormones. And since your uterus is not a vital organ for defense, the blood in there is directed towards more vital organs, like heart. So, oxygen and blood which are essential during birth are restrained. This causes extreme pain. Anyway, I don’t know if you would buy this but it doesn’t sound too crazy to me.

Then we finished the session with a breathing exercise, I started breathing slowly and deeply, in and out, the way you do when you meditate. She said that during my labor, they will do everything to relax my body. I might have a dimmed light in the room, there will be a nice music on the background, I might choose to be in water, there will be no legs up position.

It all sounds perfect but I don’t know if I’ll manage to stay calm when I’m in extreme pain during those 20 long seconds. At least, I know that I'm not one of those women who will insist on having a natural birth despite being in complete agony. If I want the candy man (epidural) I'll get him, and if I need a c-section, I won't be disappointed in myself. I think for me the most important part of this is to feel prepared, get informed, and know what will happen that day to my body and to my baby.

The second class will be with Claude, we’ll see how that’ll go :)