Hi Sam!
Oh thank you very much! Yes our little one finally entered the world on Tuesday night! Her name is Halle Belle Butler, born 10:34pm, weighing 8lb 4oz and 54cm long :).
My labour didn't go to plan but all in all I was really happy with how it went and I got a baby girl! Which was a lovely surprise.
Halle didn't want to come out at all - I ended up being 41+2 days over and had to get induced. They used 2 rounds of gel but that wasn't working so I had to get the drip, my waters had to be broken for me and it just wasn't really how I pictured it going. But I hypnobirthed my way through for 7 hours and I got to 7cm dilated. With all the intervention the surges got too intense too quickly for me, the gas and air wasn't helping, I wasn't able to breath my way through them cause they were coming too quickly and I ended up getting some pain relief to help me out a little with the end. And it was the best thing for Halle and I cause then she wanted to come out! I only pushed for 15 mins and she was born!
I was chatting to the midwives afterwards as they knew I wanted a natural birth and they said they reckoned if my labour had started naturally and I was able to get the gradual build up instead of 0-100 in a matter of hours then I would have been able to have my natural birth.
But yes :) I was very happy with my efforts, Chris was amazing throughout when I was hypnobirthing (he didn't even need his cheat sheet he remembered everything!) and I was really grateful I was able to get that far through naturally :) Chris liked knowing how he could help me during labour and birth and felt more confident going into it, rather than going in blindsided, not knowing what to do and stressing us all (me, him and baby) out. He did fantastic! I was really happy with how it all went.
I'm hoping my next pregnancy my baby actually wants to come out so I can try again!
Thank you again!
Lauren